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(continued)
The physical component of the new philosophy in ante-natal care has certainly been successfully accomplished. Yesterday's ante-natal care methods of the physical examinations and tests have been greatly surpassed today by more sophisticated methods and techniques to ensure a healthy mother and baby.
Ultrasound or sonar (the scanning technique) gives a visual picture of the newly conceived and unborn human being even before the normal pregnancy tests become positive. Human hormonal determination estimates the blood values of hormones in the pregnant mother and can determine her baby's potential for danger. Amniocentises (the examination of the fluid around the baby) can determine the normalcy and sex of the baby.
All these methods make pregnancy and childbirth a no-risk state of eternal blessing for the mother and also for the new life.
Why do we need a new philosophy? To answer this question, an examination of the attitudes of babies and motherhood, perhaps under the umbrella title of the "Spiritual Aspect of a New Philosophy" is necessary.
Modernity and Maternity
Women have been deeply involved in the social changes which have taken place in western society during the last two decades. The most significant transformer has been the contraceptive phenomena.
The family planning movement suggests that you are free to decide the amount of children that you want as long as it is two, one or NONE
Mature women have also been adversely affected by the loss of the feminine charisma, the fertility of motherhood and the changes in female reproductive thinking. These stresses have caused a rise in masculine behavior in women, male diseases in women as well as an increase in poisoning, suicide and the uniquely female disease of depression.
These changes have determinedly affected society in general and the family members in particular. An examination of the present reproductive picture in western civilization goes something like this:
The spirit of the young mother has been broken down by our well-planned and highly sophisticated attack on motherhood. This is unquestionably the greatest threat to our survival. "Don't tell me you're pregnant again!", or "What are you going to do with another baby, you've already got so many!" are common remarks retorted by a dear friend, a relative or even your own mother. The tragic consequences of such loose, irresponsible remarks are small, lonely, zero-growth families with very little future.
Family Planning
The family planning movement suggests that you are free to decide the amount of children that you want as long as it is two, one or NONE.
The small family is presented as attractive, sophisticated, rich, successful, prestigious, responsible and planned. The large family is depicted as miserable, hungry, dirty and unplanned.
Family planning advertisments show priorities as a reliable car, a TV set and fancy furniture and depict pregnancy as a mistake, the child as untold misery and the prospective parent as foolish. The family planning program believes that they provide the means of "protection" against the greatest "evil" of society - the child!
This movement promises to eliminate the unplanned, unwanted and untimely child from society. The result of this kind of propaganda has turned maternity homes into old-age homes, birthbeds into death beds and family planning into family unplanning.
Abortion
A second consideration of this new philosphy is abortion. Millions of babies are put to death, not by enemies or terrorists, but by their own mothers, with the medical profession as executioners.
This word "massacred" is used because the aborted child has formed its limbs and organs by the time it is taken from its mothers' womb. A person who has witnessed an abortion will never have it done on herself. If the womb was covered with a plastic [see through] dome, the concept of abortion would cease.
Babies have become almost a disease, a threat to the economic and social life of adults, a threat to the rights of women, to the environment of plants and animals. In fact, babies have become a form of pollution to the human mind. People ask: "Where does life begin?" Such a question only becomes important when one wants to terminate the existence of life. "It is not a human being" but it is a being with human potential!"
When a mouse conceives one doesn't inquire, "When is the mousification of the mouse?" becuase one doesn't want to kill the baby mouse! Suddenly, the "humanization" of a human being has become a prevalent issue. The womb has come to provide the most dangerous existence of the baby. The womb has ceased to be a safe haven for the baby - the womb, for many babies, has become a tomb.
Super rich parents of zero-growth familes provide inadequate child-rearing and are often absent from home. These children lack mother-love, have a sense of boredom, emptiness, chronic depression and a low tolerance for frustration
Unwanted Children
Children have been reduced to the mere remnants of society. They have become the pollutants of the earth, grossly disliked and rejected. The world in which the child is created considers his birth a sure tragedy. This selfsame world condones terrorism and glorifies murders. Parental mistreatment of children has reached almost epidemic proportions because the words "unplanned" and "unwanted" have become synonymous with the word "child".
This mistreatment ranges from severe physical injury giving rise to the concept of the "battered baby", to cold rejection, indifference, intolerance and impatience. Children have become exposed to deprivation because the role of the mother has become degraded. The increase in divorce rate has led to a high proportion of children being brought up in broken homes by single parents.
Children are no longer the symbol of survival they once were. They are considered a nuisance, a burden, an expense, an intrusion and even a threat to survival. Not only that, children have become a grossly neglected minority.
Super rich parents of zero-growth familes provide inadequate child-rearing and are often absent from home. These children lack mother-love, have a sense of boredom, emptiness, chronic depression and a low tolerance for frustration.
This relief from parenthood produces a growing emotional rejection of children and these negative parental attitudes have become the attitudes of teachers, authorities and adults in general. Society has paid dearly for this negativity - manifested in drug abuse, juvenile crime and incidents of runaway.
Can a world that rejects and dislikes its children survive? Does it deserve to survive? If the world's future depends on the children, then the answer to these decidedly powerful questions is NO!
This is where the new philosophy steps in. It calls for a change in attitudes which are so badly scathed by the anti-population movements.
We have to live with our babies from the moment of conception. Let it be merely a stage in their sojourn on this earth. It only needs the protection from its mother for nine months. It is not a part of the mother. It hasn't even got the same sex in many cases. It is not like a limb. Pregnancy is just the initial stage of a life of 70 years or more - every child holds in his hand the message of the future.
Every newborn child arrives on this earth with a message to be delivered to mankind. Clenched in his little fist is some particle of yet unrevealed truth, some missing clue which may solve the enigma of man's destiny. He has a limited amount of time to fulfill his mission and he may be our last hope. He must be treated as top sacred.
Menachem Begin once said, "We must work for peace. There is no mission more sacred and no profession more rewarding." Let us apply that to our new philosophy. "We must work for motherhood. There is no profession more rewarding, there is no mission more sacred than motherhood."
Every newborn child arrives on this earth with a message to be delivered to mankind. Clenched in his little fist is some particle of yet unrevealed truth, some missing clue which may solve the enigma of man's destiny
Pregnancy is a gift from G-d and the unwanted pregnancy of yesterday becomes the most beautiful baby of today and the man of the future. Maybe he is one of us.
Let us banish the words "unplanned" and "unwanted" from our minds.
Let us change our attitudes so that the present anti-life and anti-child hysteria will be transformed into an enchanting realization that babies are the builders, the teachers, the soldiers, the doctors, the musicians, the poets and the families of an even more dynamic future.
It is becoming more obvious that it is not starvation or microbes, it is not cancer or overpopulation that is mankind's greatest danger - but it is man himself. He has no adequate protection agains the psychic epidemic of the greatest international tragedy - the family.
With this new philosphy may we become worth of witnessing the verses in Tanach:1 "As a growing population is a king's glory, a dwindling nation is his doom", and Zechariah:2 "And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing" and Moshe:3 "The L-rd your G-d has multiplied you and you are on this day as the stars in heaven. May the L-rd make you a thousand times more numerous than you are and bless you as He promised you."
May we be worthy of heralding Moshiach in our days NOW!
This was adapted by Keren Leeds from a speech given at a 1979 Women's Convention, South Africa, by Dr. Van der Vaat, a prominent South African gynecologist.
We came across this article and felt that although written so long ago, it yet remains pertinent to our world today. A world where birth control and family planning are no longer promoted, but taken as a given, around the world. Where the sight of a large family raises eyebrows, and where child abuse and neglect are common place.
Reprinted with permission from www.mikvah.org.
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