I was recently told by a member of a previous church that the pastor and his wife had another baby. "But it was an accident," was the hurried follow-up comment, as if that made any sort of difference.
This bothers me to no end. No child—no life—is an accident. A surprise, perhaps, and maybe one that seems to cause more stress than the planned-for child, but an accident? Never.
I'm not saying this because I don't want all these poor kids to grow up feeling unwanted. I mean, obviously I don't want that, but there's more going on here than little Bobby's self-esteem. I think I actually take offense to this seemingly-harmless explanatory comment (and I am not easily offended). It falls in the same category as people who say that the world is here because some dustballs sneezed it into existence, but it's a little more personal and a sentiment found a lot more commonly among Christians (who, I would assume, believe that God spoke the world into existence, ktl). Conception isn't up to chance, it's up to God, who is the ONLY being capable of actually legitimately creating life. Sure, we have plenty of tests and procedures and fancy methods of scientifically makin the babies (not to mention the sex), but as far as I know there is still no actual way to explain how sperm + egg = living breathing baby.
And sure, sometimes married couples (or even, le gasp, non-married couples!) get pregnant at a really "inconvenient" time, and they weren't expecting it to happen (but not to me, don't everyone freak out). But in keeping with my post Born Ready, which is (more or less) about God's design, I don't believe anything happens "accidentally." Especially not when it comes to an entire life being brought into existence.
The moral of this rant is that people don't think about what they're saying. And usually I just let it go, because people will be people, and I don't have the energy to care that much. But for a Christian to say that a pregnancy is an "accident" is an affront to the love, omnipotence, and design of a God said Christian claims to believe in. And by the way it's no different for an unmarried couple, because although premarital pregnancy indicates naughtiness, we're still talking about the life of an actual person whom God specifically chose to create, regardless of the factors preceding the conception.
I'm so sorry if you didn't want the inconvenience of a child, but don't diss that which God has made, and made beautifully.
/rant.
