Moral Pickle ...
I'm sitting in my office the other day, and my Center Director comes in to ask whether I would be willing to sit down with the boyfriend of a girl she has just counseled. The girl wants to keep the baby, but the guy wants her to abort. I agree to meet with him, but almost immediately, the problem is far more complex than I had envisioned.
The guy -- let's call him "David" -- is not a believer in Christ; he has not been raised within the Church. But he does have a very unique moral code that seperates him from many of the other guys that come through our doors. For most of the guys, morality boils down to "what is easy is right, what is difficult is wrong." Not a lot to hang your hat on, but that's how they see it.
As for "David," he is 31 and he has made some mistakes in life. For instance, back in high school and in his early 20s, he used to "mess around" a lot because "Hey, why not?" But somewhere around 25, he wakes up one morning and realizes that this behavior is tearing away at the fabric of his dream. You see, he wants to find the "right woman" and he wants to have a house full of kids. And the more he degrads sex by sleeping with anyone who will "spread 'em," the less likely it is that he will have something unique with his wife. So he decided to go celibate; and for 4 years he is successful.
But then he meets a girl; his hormones start screaming; and he gets weak. To top it off, the girl is extremely horny (by her admission as well as his) and constantly pressures him to have sex. On four different occasions, he gives in only after fending her off for hours (again, by her admission as well as his). On the last occasion, as he is losing the battle against his own moral standards, he asks her where she is at in terms of her cycle. Because he is aiming for celibacy, he doesn't have any birth control around. She tells him that she is at her "least fertile" time of the month. Six weeks later, she tells him a different story. Turns out, on the night they had sex, she was actually at her most fertile time of the month. And now she is pregnant.
To complicate matters, their relationship was already starting to disintegrate. Clearly, she didn't respect his convictions and thus he really couldn't see how she respected him. So he was openly contemplating ending the relationship, and she was desperate to hold on to it.
End game. He believes that she intentionally lied to him in the h0pes of getting pregnant so that she would have something to use as a "glue" to keep them together. He, in turn, believes
that anyone who would do such a thing is clearly unstable in terms of mental make-up; and thus he wants her to abort. Not because he does not believe that the fetus is a child, but because he knows "the system." And the system will award custody to the mother with nothing more than visitation rights to the father. If mom is mentally ill and he has no chance to parent the kid full-time, he believes that it is actually more humane to kill his own kid than it is to allow his child to grow up in a difficult home with a sick mother.
As I sat there listening to this guy, I truly didn't know what to say. On the one hand, he violated his own moral code; and he is paying the price of his own sin. And to compound one sin with the active commision of another is clearly not the answer. But what an unbelievably crappy place to be. Yes, you failed on a moral level. But because of that failure, your child is going to be raised by a woman who you personally believe to be manipulative and ill.
I'm sitting in my office the other day, and my Center Director comes in to ask whether I would be willing to sit down with the boyfriend of a girl she has just counseled. The girl wants to keep the baby, but the guy wants her to abort. I agree to meet with him, but almost immediately, the problem is far more complex than I had envisioned.
The guy -- let's call him "David" -- is not a believer in Christ; he has not been raised within the Church. But he does have a very unique moral code that seperates him from many of the other guys that come through our doors. For most of the guys, morality boils down to "what is easy is right, what is difficult is wrong." Not a lot to hang your hat on, but that's how they see it.
As for "David," he is 31 and he has made some mistakes in life. For instance, back in high school and in his early 20s, he used to "mess around" a lot because "Hey, why not?" But somewhere around 25, he wakes up one morning and realizes that this behavior is tearing away at the fabric of his dream. You see, he wants to find the "right woman" and he wants to have a house full of kids. And the more he degrads sex by sleeping with anyone who will "spread 'em," the less likely it is that he will have something unique with his wife. So he decided to go celibate; and for 4 years he is successful.
But then he meets a girl; his hormones start screaming; and he gets weak. To top it off, the girl is extremely horny (by her admission as well as his) and constantly pressures him to have sex. On four different occasions, he gives in only after fending her off for hours (again, by her admission as well as his). On the last occasion, as he is losing the battle against his own moral standards, he asks her where she is at in terms of her cycle. Because he is aiming for celibacy, he doesn't have any birth control around. She tells him that she is at her "least fertile" time of the month. Six weeks later, she tells him a different story. Turns out, on the night they had sex, she was actually at her most fertile time of the month. And now she is pregnant.
To complicate matters, their relationship was already starting to disintegrate. Clearly, she didn't respect his convictions and thus he really couldn't see how she respected him. So he was openly contemplating ending the relationship, and she was desperate to hold on to it.
End game. He believes that she intentionally lied to him in the h0pes of getting pregnant so that she would have something to use as a "glue" to keep them together. He, in turn, believes
that anyone who would do such a thing is clearly unstable in terms of mental make-up; and thus he wants her to abort. Not because he does not believe that the fetus is a child, but because he knows "the system." And the system will award custody to the mother with nothing more than visitation rights to the father. If mom is mentally ill and he has no chance to parent the kid full-time, he believes that it is actually more humane to kill his own kid than it is to allow his child to grow up in a difficult home with a sick mother.
As I sat there listening to this guy, I truly didn't know what to say. On the one hand, he violated his own moral code; and he is paying the price of his own sin. And to compound one sin with the active commision of another is clearly not the answer. But what an unbelievably crappy place to be. Yes, you failed on a moral level. But because of that failure, your child is going to be raised by a woman who you personally believe to be manipulative and ill.
posted by Just a Few Things about Scott ... | 11:51 AM
1 Comments:
Two Words: Intelligent Sin.
Tim know's what I'm talkin' about... know what I'm sayin' !
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