The Right to Family

This week's news has been all about Nadya Suleman, the mother of the Octuplets, who already had six children. I don't know enough about her to comment directly and this posting shouldn't be taken as such. But there are two issues her story brings to the fore. The one I will deal with today is the sanctity of the family. Next week I will address the sanctity of life.

First, there is nothing wrong with having fourteen children, by choice. In this era of birth control we sometimes forget that. Right and wrong is based on the Bible, and nothing else, and the Bible does not condemn large families in any way.

It does, however condemn irresponsibility.

So when is having children irresponsible? There are at least two circumstances that qualify: deliberately having a child you know you can't provide for or deliberately having a child without a complete family unit.

Let's consider the first. If you bought a corvette and couldn't afford gasoline, you couldn't drive it. You shouldn't be offended if others won't buy these things for you, they are your responsibility.

You can't equate a child with a car, of course. Children are much more important. But that's the very point. If it's irresponsible to buy a car you can't afford, how much more so to bring a child you can't support into the world. Those who did not join in making the decision to have the child with you should not normally be expected to support it. They are responsible for their own families.

That does not mean poor people should not have children! Poverty is not a sin, nor is it abuse. All of us want to do the best we can for our children. But as a society, and as Christians in this society, we've forgotten that the best we can do has little to do with money.

Many poor people have raised families without indifference or neglect. And though it usually takes different forms, many wealthy children are raised with those same two problems. Not being able to buy your children the latest high dollar sunshades, tennis shoes or jeans is not irresponsible. It's not even unfortunate. That's not the same thing as having children and then expecting others to pay their way.

Likewise, no child should be deliberately brought into the world without a family to care for it. By family I mean at the very least a mother and father. Not two mothers or two fathers. Not a person who wants a child but not a spouse. God ordained the family before any other institution. That alone shows its importance. He also defined it, and the definition is no less important than the ordination. Each parent has something important to give the child – something they can't adequately get elsewhere.

Having said all that, I add one caveat. I am talking about choice – sometimes you don't have one. Parent's die or bail. Jobs get lost. The unexpected happens.

Should a single man or woman not take in a child in need? Of course, that's an intensely personal situation, but that type of generosity can never be classed as irresponsible. Likewise, if a family loses its expected income, that doesn't mean they had, or have, no right to their children, or to temporary help in caring for them.

But Biblical responsibility dictates that you don't create subnormal family situations for personal convenience or gratification.

Genesis 1:28, 2:24, 9:1, Matthew 25:1-13, 14-30, Luke 14:25-32, I Corinthians 7:2, II Thessalonians 3:7-12