|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
2-3-12 SHAMELESS: In Pursuit of Freedom
I recently received an email expressing concern for religious liberty in our country. It related to Kathleen Sebelius and the Department of Health and Human Services reaffirming the mandate for all health insurance plans to fund contraception, sterilizations and abortion-inducing drugs, emphasizing that Catholics and Catholic institutions would have one year to comply.
Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan is quoted as responding: “In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences.” At the root of this concern lies the issue of contraception. Will our children grow up in a culture which decides that contraception is not only permissible, but also mandatory? Ironically, in this battle between religious liberty and so-called sexual freedom, contraception is likely the player that can’t keep its promises.
School-based sex education, as I recall, had been prevalent in the educational milieu of my childhood in the 1970s and 80s. The classroom discussions and videos were controversial as was the use of bananas as tutorial aids. Contraception was presented by the public education system as a viable option. Parents had and still do have a choice to let their child opt out. But of course, as most young teens, you didn’t want to look ignorant when facing the social pressures of high school. There was in motion a growing malaise and hopelessness among educators and parents in concluding that nothing could be said or done to change the mind of the youth, so it was assumed that “protection” from pregnancy or disease was the lesser of two evils. After all, they reasoned, sexual impulse can’t be avoided. Virtue education was replaced with “preventative medicine.” Of course, none of this education ever gave us a foundation for the beauty, purpose, and meaning of sexuality.
Continuing down the road of “sexual freedom,” the 1990s and early part of the 21st century ushered in the age of Internet pornography as the next major player. Now, with unlimited access to pornography and its effects, young people have learned to combine the alluring attraction of sexual fantasy with the mentality of contraception (sex without consequences or commitment). To summarize this progression of thought and action using the analogy of an airplane: contraception is the jet, pornography is the jet fuel, and abortion becomes the emergency ejection button if all else fails. Theology of the Body writer and presenter Christopher West once put it this way: “What most men and women who fight for abortion want is not so much the ‘right’ to kill their offspring, but the ‘right’ to have unrestricted sex without consequences.”
This all leads to the question, what is the significance and purpose of our sexuality? Just as it is with many things in life, sex has a language of integrity, meaning that our ability to bond or attach is interconnected with the gift of children in a marriage. When we pursue one without the other, we get into trouble. Sex without this interconnection becomes ultimately recreational. But our sexual expression has a very close connection to our ability to love and bond in a committed relationship. Love runs very counter to self-centeredness. It involves commitment and a desire for the good of another without regard for our personal gain. Therefore the excitement, joy and contentment that are so commonly sought through sex are meant to be a more of a wonderful by-product of the integration, rather than the end goal. So it is this ability to sacrifice for another that contraception brings into question.
Does the need to indulge our passions make us less or more free? Many have argued that sexual morality has placed a stifling grip on the sexual freedom of the individual. I remember the story of a mother who was very intent on her teenage son achieving medical school, so much so that when he became sexually active, she provided him with contraception. She did not want an unexpected pregnancy to risk “his” dreams. He continued in this lifestyle for sometime and grew increasingly angry when things did not turn out well, and he began to use drugs to relieve the stress. What we can observe is that freedom does not come from indulgence, but from the difficult task of learning self-control. From what I have seen, internet pornography and sexual compulsion are symptoms of where we are as a culture, and compulsion does not set a person free. Compulsion is always a fearful attachment to indulging one’s desires. Freedom is the ability to desire and choose what is really good. Sex must be optional in order for it to portray the beauty of real love.
(Spadaro is licensed professional counselor and a member of the Diocese of Colorado Springs. His website is www.ImagoDeiCounseling.com,)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|