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.
Piera, although I love you dearly, and you know how I love playing devils advocate, I dont care if you post this or not, but I disagree with this. The dictionary defines accident as thus: "1 an undesirable or unfortunate happening that occurs unintentionally and usually results in harm, injury, damage, or loss; casualty; mishap
ReplyDelete2 Law . such a happening resulting in injury that is in no way the fault of the injured person for which compensation or indemnity is legally sought.
3 any event that happens unexpectedly, without a deliberate plan or cause.
4 chance; fortune; luck
5 a fortuitous circumstance, quality, or characteristic "
Given that its legal to have kids(as far as I know) we can safely assume that definition 2 is out of question. That leaves 1,3,4,5. All of which indicate that an accident is unintentional happening, both fortuitous and unfortunate. So when someone say its an accident, do they mean that the biological act of conceiving a child is an accident that shouldn't exist? In some cases its possible more often then not though, they aren't. They merely are saying that when having sex they either thought they wrapped their junk, forgot to do so, were on the pill, or a myriad of other reasons, and yet still got a baby in the belly. So knowing this, I ask why get upset?
Nate J, although I love you dearly, and how I love playing devil's devil's advocate, and I don't care if Piera posts this (or just laughs), but I disagree with you. Using a dictionary definition is a very weak place to start a counterargument, because you demonstrate very quickly that you didn't grasp the author's use of words.
ReplyDeletePiera understands the meaning of "accident" as "unintentional happening" (def #3) or "undesirable or unfortunate happening" (def #1). It is in fact this understanding of that word, when applied to a human life, that Piera speaks out against. She argues: "because human life is important, we ought not apply the term "accident" to it."
There are, here, two different understandings of the importance of human life: a gift, or a nuisance. Piera suggests that an inappropriate use of the word "accident" when applied to a human life indicates a worldview, a worldview that calls life a nuisance.
Even careless usages of the word (such as might be the catalyst for her post) allow an anti-life worldview to slip into our subconscious. By calling a child "an accident," ones suggests that our choice is the most important thing here, rather than the value of a human being's life. Intentional usages of the word "accident" applied to a human life indicates an open acknowledgement of a "life=nuisance" sort of worldview.
Since you're attempting to be offended on behalf of word usage, I'm sure you'll understand why semantics matter.