I saw an article a few weeks ago that both Apple and Facebook were expanding their employee benefits programs to include the freezing of women’s eggs so that the employees can focus on their careers.
What?
I love Apple, but they really, REALLY got this one wrong. As a company, they're perpetuating the fundamentally flawed logic that children are an obstacle to life and that fertility is a disease. Not only is this the completely wrong view of the human person, it prevents people from knowing the deep joy of parenthood.
While it may seem like Facebook, Apple, and other companies are trying to “help” their employees the fact is that the only party truly benefiting in this deal is the employer. The employer essentially gains a higher rate of productivity from the employee because they won’t be out on maternity leave.
This is about the company, not the person.
Children are not an obstacle to life. They’re a paradox. The more you give, the more you get back. The more you lose yourself in love and service, the happier you are. Viewing children as an obstacle to one’s life and career is an extreme view of careerism and it’s dangerously unhealthy. Ambition in life is a good thing, but ambition to the point where one would undertake illicit means of contraception is beyond immoral: it’s wrong in every possible world.
No success at work is worth failure at home.
The decision to have children should be responsibly weighed. The providential view of pregnancy, “we’ll have as many kids as God gives us and then He’ll provide for us,” is as wrong as a contraceptive mindset in that both shirk the responsibility that the married couple possesses. While couples need to always be open to life, the decision to attempt to achieve pregnancy should be a well-formed decision. In times when there is valid moral reason to avoid pregnancy, such as being unable to materially provide for the child without being a burden to society, life-affirming natural family planning methods should be employed.
Being a working parent is hard, but it’s possible. Contraceptives, or a contraceptive mindset, is never the right answer.
Tags: Sexuality