The Birds and the Bees

So how much do you know about the ‘birds and the bees’? If you had to have the ‘talk’ with your kids, what would you tell them ? If you already did, how much did you tell them? I would guess, it would depend on your own values and what you believe. But, really, how much do you know about the technical side of sex?

When I learned about sex in school, I didn’t learn much more than what happens at puberty in 6^th grade and what STDs were in 11^th grade. I learned a little in biology class about reproduction, but that was the extent of it. I learn some things from my parents and friends, but I really didn’t know a lot. Now, I’m not talking about ‘how’. I think most everyone can figure that out without being told, but that’s pretty much where we think we need to stop isn’t it? We seem to be under the impression that kids are going to do it anyway, so we tell them the ‘how’ when they’re a little younger trying to explain where babies come from and then when they are ‘old enough’, we either throw the ‘don’t do it till you’re married or find the ‘right’ person or are ‘in love’” speech or worse, get them birth control and tell them that if they’re not hurting anyone, anything is okay. Sex education is much like this (and I apologize if you have been forthright with your kids…): Let’s say your child has never ridden a bike before, so you take him to the top of the steepest hill, throw a helmet on his head, give him a quick ‘how to’ and push him down the hill. The thrill will be there at first, but soon that child will be going to too fast to keep under control and without enough knowledge and wisdom to know how to escape the situation without injury, will wipe out and come out on the other side hurt and broken. So we give our kids the quick, this is how you do it, it’s okay because it feels good and here’s some protection and push them off into the world. I read something recently that resonated with me. We aren’t teaching our kids anymore that sex makes babies. We’re teaching them that unprotected sex makes babies. Isn’t that true?

And sex makes babies. In fact, that is the primary function of sex. We wouldn’t be try so hard NOT to have a baby when having sex if this wasn’t true. I have had this argument with others that by saying that I am implying that people can’t have sex unless they want to conceive and that is not what I am saying at all! All I am saying is that sex makes babies, period. I say that because, whether the sex is good or not, a baby can be conceived. Babies are conceived during rape and incest. There does not have to be a good sexual experience for a baby to be conceived, so pleasure does not play a primary role in baby-making. In addition, any contraceptive method involves preventing conception - exactly what the word means. Condoms prevent sperm from entering the woman’s body and the pill does a variety of things from increasing mucus (preventing sperm form entering), preventing ovulation and thinning the lining of the uterus. If reproduction was not the primary function of sex, these would rarely be necessary. Women would probably only ovulate a few times a year. Instead, we have the chance each month to create a new human being. Secondary to procreation is the pleasure side of sex. Sex is definitely a pleasurable experience, but we have made that the primary function of sex and are surprised when our bodies actually conceive a baby when that was not our goal. That is what our kids are taught. Use a contraceptive and just enjoy sex with whomever, whenever you please and if you get pregnant, it wasn‘t supposed to happen, so we‘ll take care of the ‘problem‘.

I learned a lot while I was trying to get pregnant the first time - things I never knew before. Maybe these are things you didn’t know either and would be good if added to you ‘talk’ with your kids (older kids).

*You probably know that every woman releases one egg (sometimes more) each month. This egg only lives for 24 to 48 hours. When it is released from the ovary is different for every woman. Generally it is 14 days before the first day of the next period, but not always.
*That egg’s purpose is to be fertilized and start a new life, nothing more, nothing less. The sperms’ purpose is to fertilize an egg.
*Aside from the few days surrounding ovulation, there is a layer of thick mucus at the entrance of the cervix that allows little into the uterus. When ovulation occurs, this mucus thins to allow the sperm through. This is an indication of ovulation for those wanting to know.
*During this time, the female body releases hormones that increase sex drive for the woman. She won’t get pregnant without having sex and since that is the primary function of a woman’s reproductive system, her body will do what it takes to make that possible.
*When on the pill, most of them prevent ovulation from occurring by essentially tricking the body into thinking it is pregnant. The drive to reproduce in the human body is so strong that if the pill is taken later than the usual time, ovulation will occur. This is the reason for most pills having a secondary effect that thins the lining of the uterus so the resulting embryo will have no place to implant in the uterus
*The pill also increases cervical mucus to prevent passage of sperm into the woman’s body, but this doesn’t mean NO sperm will get through, just very few, but again the drive to reproduce is so strong, they will find a way
*So to the sperm - millions of sperm are released into the female’s body during intercourse. They travel quickly, taking 15 to 30 minutes to go the distance between the vagina and the fallopian tubes. Once there, they rest for 5 to 7 days and then die off.
*If ovulation occurs while the sperm are present in the fallopian tubes, the egg sends out a chemical signal that excites the sperm and they rush the egg
*Fertilization occurs when one sperm, in the right spot on the egg, breaks through the egg’s outer shell and then the genetic material join forming a brand new, distinct human being.

This is heady stuff isn’t it? It’s a tough thing for a woman my age to manage when TRYING to conceive much less for a teen who isn’t. Are we teaching these things to our kids? Especially the part about the increased sexual drive for a woman during ovulation? Are they responsible enough to have sex if they aren’t able to understand how it all works or to deal with the consequences? Our society tells kids, “If it feels good, do it“; to follow their feelings. Teens and college students are drinking, looking for someone to ‘hook up’ with and add to that the increased sex drive and it’s a recipe for an unplanned pregnancy. Birth control can curb those hormones for some, but not all. If a woman doesn’t take her pill at the same time every day, an egg will break through and even if sex occurred a few days before, pregnancy can happen because of those sperm waiting in the fallopian tubes.

What if kids knew this? I am not advocating sex before marriage. I will be teaching my kids abstinence, without question. It is the only 100% STD-free, pregnancy-free lifestyle choice. Sex is not a necessity and it can wait until marriage. But let’s look at a scenario. First, when I was 13, girls in my class were on the pill and having sex. Personally, I hadn’t even hit puberty yet, so it was all pretty foreign to me. But what if you had a 13 year old daughter and she wanted to have sex. You don’t want to deprive her the experience, so you get her on the pill. She’s 13. You have to remind her to do her homework and clean her room, to come home by dinner and now you expect her to take this pill faithfully, every day at the same time. She knows nothing about sex except the ’how to’ and ’safe sex’ stuff, so she takes the plunge. Being on the pill, she thinks she’s safe so they forgo a condom. 4 days later, she forgets to take her pill. Not knowing any of the information above, she doesn’t worry about it thinking it’s only a problem if you forget the day you have sex and goes about her merry way. 2 weeks later, she misses her period and now you have a pregnant 13 year old on your hands. Do you have her go through with the pregnancy and make very adult decisions and alter her future or take her to an abortion clinic to end the pregnancy thus increasing her chance of breast cancer by 800%, her chance of miscarriage and premature birth and saddle her with a guilty conscience? Hmmmm…. Yeah, I’m teaching my kids abstinence.

The Bigger Picture

As the recent news and life story of Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been broadcast on the event of his death, it has been made well-known that he was the result of an unplanned pregnancy and a beautiful adoption story. We can see the impact that the loss of an individual could have on our society. On the pro-life side, we focus on the individual lives that are lost on a daily basis through abortion, but have we contemplated the bigger picture?

Back in June of 1926, my great-grandmother and great-grandfather got married. I don’t know the exact date of their wedding, but I do know that my grandfather, their first-born son, was born on February 10, 1927. It has been a rumor in our family that, perhaps, my great-grandmother was ‘with child’ when she married. She denied the idea and took the truth to her grave. Given that I don’t know the exact date of her wedding, I did a little research. Based on a June 1^st wedding and a honeymoon baby, my grandfather would have been due February 22 - he would have been 2 weeks early. Not unheard of, but put the wedding any later in the month of June and he gets more and more premature; something that, in 1927, was probably not an event a baby usually survived. There are no records that he was a premature baby either. My point to this is that, more likely than not, my great-grandmother conceived out-of-wedlock. In this day and age, she would have had the ’right’ to abort and may have. If the conditions were as they are now back in 1926 and she had aborted, it wouldn’t have been my grandfather that would have been the only casualty. My grandfather married my grandmother on 1949 and had 3 children together. Four grandchildren followed and then seven great-grandchildren (and counting…). So, let’s do a little math: 1 (my gf), + 3 (my dad and 2 aunts), + 4 (grandchildren, including me) + 7 great-grandchildren. This is a total of 15 people who would never have existed. Sounds like a small number, but these are people who are dear to me. They are my family.

So, what is the big picture in abortion? We have not just eliminated 54.5 million children since Roe vs. Wade. We have eliminated entire families. Let’s do another math problem. We’ll use the statistic that there is a 50/50 chance of having a boy or girl in every pregnancy and assume that there were 27,250,000 girls and the same number of boys and they would have married each other to make it easier to calculate. So now we have 27,250,000 couples. The average number of children for a couple is 2.2 children. To account for more or less children per couple, we’ll assume 2 children per couple. That is 54.5 million children. Add that to the number of their parents, who were aborted and that is 109 million people that have never existed. That is just parents and children. It does not take into account successive generations. That is astounding! Out total population in the US is 312,299,000. That 30% of our population, gone.

Some of you reading this may be thinking that it’s a good thing that none of those people existed because we couldn’t sustain all those people. First of all, population control is NO reason to kill any human being. Second, we are not hurting that much in our country. I go grocery shopping every week and there is plenty on the shelves. I also live in a place with lots of open space. We have room. Third, as a Christian I believe God told us to ‘be fruitful and multiply.’ He didn’t say to ‘multiply until you don’t think the population is sustainable and then start killing off the babies and old people.’ He told Abraham his descendents would be like grains of sand or the stars in the sky. Grab a handful of sand the next time you go to the beach and start counting. Or look up at the sky on a clear, cloudless night with no moon and start counting the stars. Impossible, right?

Abortion doesn’t just allow a woman to ‘control her destiny’ by removing  an impediment to that future. It takes a life and all the lives that would have come from that person. Each baby girl and baby boy has all the ‘equipment’ to produce new life before they are born. That genetic code will never be reproduced and the individuals who would have come from that person will never exist. Who are we eliminating? A person with the cure for cancer? A gifted artist? Look at Steve Jobs and imagine what the world would be without him. No, he didn’t create a product that fundamentally changed lives, but he was gifted and added something to the world it would not have had without him. That is something to think about.

She Looked So Normal

Last night, I went to a Girls’ Night Out event at my church and the woman in front of me was holding a beautiful newborn baby girl. She was dressed in purple overalls with a flowered onsie and a feathered headband. She had ten fingers, ten toes (at least I’m assuming-she had socks on), two eyes, two ears; well you get the point. She was perfect. Angelic, sweet, slept the entire time with a few squeals and stretches to break the quiet. The surprising thing? She’s in foster care awaiting a “forever family“. She was an unplanned pregnancy. Seemingly ‘unwanted’ by her birth mother. But she looked so normal!

And she is. But Planned Parenthood and the entire pro-choice movement would have us believe that unwanted and unplanned children WILL be poor, unfit, become a drain on society and become criminals. This is an ideology started by the eugenics movement; a movement that held as its basic belief that their were ‘unfit’ (poor, disabled) people in society that would never amount to anything and their were ‘fit’ (rich) people who should be having children and would be the successful of society. They wanted to mandate mandatory sterilization through the water supply to the poorest sections and economic permission for having children. In other words, if you could prove that you could produce productive offspring and could afford to support them, they would shut off the chemicals in your water and allow you to reproduce. If you were rich however, you could have as many kids as you wanted. In Margaret Sanger’s mind, the poor produced criminals. If we could stop the poor from having children, we wouldn’t need prisons. Margaret Sanger was a proponent of eugenics and the founder of Planned Parenthood. Does the name make a little more sense?

Planned Parenthood’s motto is “Every child a Wanted Child.” In their mindset, a wanted child is the only ‘good’ child there is. An ‘unwanted’ child should not make it into this world. Apparently they want to maintain grey areas on many things, but a decision about an unwanted/unplanned child is black and white (and I’m not referring to ethnicity). A planned child will have a good life, an unplanned child will not. So let’s just be “merciful” and end it before the problems start. WHO ARE WE TO DECIDE THAT?

As I looked at that beautiful baby girl last night, I saw potential. Yes, she could make bad choices and do horrible things in her life, but more likely, she will do amazing things; big or little. She could be the very person to find the cure for cancer or balance the federal budget or she could be a mom who loves her kids and her husband and helps them reach their potential. We don’t know the plans and potential for any person’s life and we do not have the right to end their lives simply because we think we know what the future holds. And by the way, I consider her biological mom a hero. She sacrificed her body, her time and her life for this little girl. She gave her daughter life, the greatest gift anyone can give another. She acted selflessly instead of selfishly. Now that’s empowering.