In a world preoccupied with material wealth and convenience, the gift of life is often minimized and sometimes forgotten altogether. Modernity encourages us to view “unwanted” life as a burden that will hold us back.  For Muslims, however, just as for many in other faith traditions, life must be acknowledged, always and everywhere, as a true blessing.

In the pre-Islamic period, the practice of female infanticide was widespread in much of Arabia, but it was immediately forbidden through Islamic injunctions. Several verses of the Quran were revealed that prohibited this practice to protect the rights of the unborn and of the newborn child: “When the female infant, buried alive, is questioned for what crime was she killed; when the scrolls are laid open; when the World on High is unveiled; when the Blazing Fire is kindled to fierce heat; and when the Garden is brought near; Then shall each soul know what it has put forward.  So verily I call” (81: 8-15). Indeed, there are many verses in the Quran that remind us of the sanctity of life.  We are told that “Wealth and children are an adornment of this life” (18:46), and we are commanded to “Kill not your children for fear of want: We shall provide sustenance for them as well as for you.  Verily the killing of them is a great sin” (17:31).

While the religious injunctions reverberate through faith on a spiritual level, the blessings of life touch us daily on a worldly level, as well.  As the mother of three beautiful children, I can truly attest to and appreciate the gift of life. But I also understand how heartbreaking it is to lose it.

I want to share with you the story of how I came to realize life’s fragility and the importance of making the most of our spiritual journeys here on earth. Over thirteen years ago, my husband and I were eager to start our family. We were ecstatic when, a few months shy of our first anniversary, we found out that we were expecting.  Very early on, we began playing the “new parent” planning game, picking out names and nursery colors even before our first doctor’s appointment.

A few months into the pregnancy, the doctor scheduled a routine ultrasound. Giddy with excitement, we entered the darkened room and waited in great anticipation to see our child.  There on the screen—fuzzy, yet discernible—we could see our baby’s outline.  We imagined the features and jokingly guessed who the baby might look like.  But the ultrasound technician did not laugh with us.  As she solemnly stared at the screen, we followed her gaze. As inexperienced as we were, we could tell that something was not right: our baby had no heartbeat.

After losing my first child, I truly began to understand the meaning of life. When the heartbeat we’d heard so clearly on the Doppler suddenly ceased, our baby’s life ended in the womb, before he or she even had a chance to begin in the outside world.

But strong faith and an unshakeable belief in a just God is a great formula for filling any emotional void.  As the Quran states in Verse 156 of Surat Al-Baqara, there are great blessings for those “who, when a misfortune overtakes them, say: ‘Surely we belong to God and to Him shall we return.’” Losing our first baby led to a deeper appreciation of God’s magnificence and the miracle of His creation.

Several months later, we found out we were expecting again.  This time, the excitement was tempered with worry.  Our first ultrasound came much earlier in the pregnancy, and we eagerly scanned the screen for the telltale beating before glancing at fingers and toes or eyes and nose.  And there it was, strong and steady!  We breathed a sigh of relief. Our baby was alive.

As the months of this second pregnancy progressed and the baby bump grew larger, we began to hope.  Each ultrasound revealed a little more of our child and each kick confirmed that this time we were really going to begin our family.  As the due date quickly approached, we felt more confident in choosing baby items and room colors.  We even chose the name for our baby girl.  Her name would be Jennah, which means Heaven in Arabic.

With just a few weeks left before my scheduled delivery date, I went into labor.  As we sped to the hospital and I was wheeled into the darkened ultrasound room, out of habit, my eyes went directly to the heart area on the screen that I knew all too well by now.  That tiny heart, which I had sought out so many times in the previous ultrasounds, had stopped beating.

That day, so many years ago, I delivered Jennah, my stillborn daughter; and that day we buried Jennah.  We hadn’t known how fitting her name would really be.  As the infection that had ended the pregnancy sped through my blood in the days that followed, I recognized just how delicate life really is. Nothing can bring life into perspective as much as loss. And nothing can affirm faith as much as life.

This article continues tomorrow.

Suzy Ismail is a Visiting Professor at DeVry University in North Brunswick, New Jersey and is the author of When Muslim Marriage Fails: Divorce Chronicles and Commentaries. This article is adapted from remarks made in the Princeton University Chapel for Respect Life Sunday.  It originally appeared in Public Discourse: Ethics, Law, and the Common Good, the online journal of the Witherspoon Institute ofPrinceton,NJ, which generously gave permission for this reprint. 

Getting to the Next Scene or

Why Won’t He Ask to Marry Me? 

(send this link to a young woman

 who is stuck in love)

It’s wedding season and, what, you are not getting married?  Again.  Another year and still no ring, no wedding gown, no battle with your mother over who to – and not to – invite.  You’re stuck in Adele’s world – your heart and brain suffering with a longing and love you can’t seen to do anything about.

Wait, do you see my heart on my sleeve?
It’s been there for days on end and
It’s been waiting for you to open up
Yours too baby, come on now
I’m trying to tell you just how
I’d like to hear the words roll out of your mouth finally
Say that it’s always been me

This made you feel a way you’ve never felt before
And I’m all you need and that you never want more
Then you’d say all of the right things without a clue
But you’d save the best for last
Like I’m the one for you

You don’t know what you are doing wrong.  Perhaps it’s time to Non Conform and try a New Feminist approach to your love life.

Maybe you’ve already tried the conformity route?  There’s one guy you’ve adored – maybe more.  You detected a possible match made in heaven because he is a good guy.  You can imagine happy ever after with him –you’ve waited for him to think about you the way you think about him. 

He hasn’t though.  Not yet.  And you are getting frustrated.

You did the diet, the workout, the sculpting and shaping class.    You’ve loved him, forgiven him, broken up with him and taken him back into your arms one more time because . . . you just had to.  You took the birth control pill, the morning after pill and perhaps something for those STDs he doesn’t know how he got.

You’ve worn cute skimpy stuff, killer heels, designer blue jeans and nothing at all.  You drank, danced and drugged it up until the wee hours of the morning and he said, “I love you party girl.”  Then, you went to the gym with him, jogged with him, played soccer, tennis and anything he wanted with him and he said, “I love an athletic girl.” 

Meanwhile, you’ve been going to classes, pursuing your degree and talking about your future as a journalist, interior designer or Capitol Hill lobbyist.  You’ve done internships, summer jobs and talked about going to grad school one day.  You’ve taken him to the office parties and introduced him to your boss, colleagues and clients and he said, “I love a professional gal.” 

Never once, not once, have you mentioned how much you want him to give you a ring and tell you “you are the one for me” and “I will honor and adore you all the days of my life.”  You have never mentioned, not once, how much you want to have a baby – HIS baby to be precise.  You’ve kept to yourself how confused you become trying to figure out how all this is going to work out and how you are going to be remain his party girl, his athlete, and his professional sidekick, while also having that baby and taking care of that home no one is talking about.  You haven’t mentioned words like “moderation,” “compromise,” or “balance” – because these seem like spoilers which can ruin the movie you are trying to make.

But, now, do you find yourself stuck in that movie?  -with a really great guy, an enviable set of skills and possibilities and no way to get to the next scene? –wondering if you are starting to sound more like Adele everyday?

Perhaps it is time for you to Non Conform and say “no more” to what you’ve been doing – and what you know with growing certainty is NOT working.  Here are three things you can do toward taking charge of your life and your worth and refusing to conform to a culture that has failed to deliver.  In the process, you may discover some great ways to get to the next scene – the one with the happy ending.

 1.  Talk to whoever sent this link to you.  Tell them, “I will take you out for a glass of wine if you will tell me honestly what the heck I am doing wrong.”

 2.  Pick up Carrie Lukas’ “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex and Feminism.”  If reading a Non Conformist challenge to the culture that is failing you is too much, start with the comments at Amazon and go from there.

3.  If you are ready for a truly radical leap into Non Conformity, try Jennifer Roback Morse’s “Smart Sex:  Finding Life-long Love in a Hook-Up World” (for sale at Amazon where you will notice that the reader who hates, hates, hates this book the most is an elderly guy named “Arnold” whose real concerned about “Maslow’s heirarchy of human needs.”)

So, get going … you, too, can have a good, long life with the man of your dreams! 

Too many women know the heartbreak of infertility.  Too many women don’t know that their infertility relates to menopause, not disease.

Last week was National Infertility Awareness Week.  From the organization’s website:

National Infertility Awareness Week (NIAW) is a movement that began in 1989.  The goal of NIAW is to raise awareness about the disease of infertility and encourage the public to understand their reproductive health.  RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association founded this movement and continues to work with the professional family building community, corporate partners and the media to:

1. Ensure that people trying to conceive know the guidelines for seeing a specialist when they are trying to conceive.

2. Enhance public understanding that infertility is a disease that needs and deserves attention.

3. Educate legislators about the disease of infertility and how it impacts people in their state.

In 2010 National Infertility Awareness Week became a federally recognized health observance by the Department of Health and Human Services.

While I am quite sympathetic to diseases which cause infertility, and the need for proper medical intervention to attempt to cure or treat the underlying cause of the infertility, in reality, many consumers of reproductive services have no disease whatsoever.

Take for example, a same-sex couple who uses these technologies to have a baby.  No disease.  No infertility.  Or consider the “single-mother-by-choice”.  No disease.  No infertility.

Or what about the growing number of women who have just waited too long to have their children?  These women are certainly not infertile; they are in (or entering) the period of menopause.  Menopause is a natural and normal event which occurs in a woman’s life, it is not a disease which needs to be treated. The biological clock is real and as women, we must re-educate ourselves to this fact and educate our daughters to this fact.  While women are living longer and healthier lives, this has no bearing on our fertility.  Women still experience a dramatic decline of their fertility in their early 30s.  If we want to have children, we need to have them when we are young.  We risk closing the door on natural childbirth if we postpone pregnancy.

The Mayo Clinic  reported that a woman’s fertility peaks between age 20 and age 24. The fertility rate remains relatively constant (at about 15–20% below maximum) through age 35. From 40 to 45, though, the decrease is a dramatic 50–95%. This translates as follows: a healthy 30-year-old woman has about a 20% chance per month to get pregnant. By age 40, however, her chance is only about 5% per month.

The following graph comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – the only government body which gathers data (incomplete in my assessment) on the use of assisted reproductive technologies in the United States.    

Note the dramatic “percentage” rise in the use of “donor” eggs as maternal “age” increases.  The use of eggs from another woman reflects the simple biological reality that, as an older woman’s fertility declines, she must turn to younger women to provide her eggs in order to conceive, bear and birth a baby.

The older birth mother is, in fact, having the younger woman’s baby – and exposing the younger woman to the detrimental health and fertility risks associated with egg harvesting procedures.

But conception is only part of an older woman’s challenge to bearing children as her fertility wanes.  Advanced maternal age also heightens the risk of “fetal loss” – meaning the older mother’s age alone increases the likelihood that she simply cannot carry a baby to term.  One important study noted this stark conclusion:

There is an increasing risk of fetal loss with increasing maternal age in women aged more than 30 years. Fetal loss is high in women in their late 30s or older, irrespective of reproductive history.  This should be taken into consideration in pregnancy planning and counseling.

I do understand and acknowledge the heartbreak when that strong desire of women have to bear children is frustrated by age and declining fertility.  But I do think National Infertility Awareness Week should focus its resources on the diseases which affect our fertility and develop a model that recognizes biological realties and practical things we can do to promote fertility.

In my next post, I will share some steps and precautions you can take in practice to safeguard and protect the gift of female fertility.

Wikipedia describes Pinterest as: “a pinboard-style social photo sharing website that allows users to create and manage theme-based image collections such as events, interests, hobbies and more.” You may visit the website here: www.pinterest.com.

But Pinterest is more than that. Like any social media, Pinterest is a place where people can feel a little more comfortable and safe expressing things they might not already express in person. Whether it’s online dating or blogging or chatting—it’s easier to expose the piece of yourself you’re embarrassed about, or the piece of yourself you’re scared might get rejected, if you have the screen to hide behind. And we kneel behind that screen to confess what we’re most scared to confess.

In the case of Pinterest the confession is most frequently:

I want to be a woman.

Let me explain. First of all, the overwhelming majority of Pinterest users are female.

Secondly, these female users “pin” about things that are very much in line with the “traditional” woman, not the modern progressive woman who wants to be seen as no different from a man.

You see, on Pinterest, the women who would generally speak all about their BS degree are pinning as if they’re getting their MRS degree (you might as well assume that every woman on Pinterest is engaged.) The women who swear that they will never be housewives are filling their pages with recipes and cleaning tips. The women who hate the idea of settling down have boards devoted to their dream home, picket fence included. The women who say they want to put off having children can’t seem to resist the cute little girl’s room ideas or the viral pin of the sweet suggestion for how to tell your children the truth about Santa. We say we’re liberated from the sweeping, the cooking, the diaper changing, and the marrying. But Pinterest clearly says otherwise. So what’s the deal? Why the discrepancy?

The problem is, as much as we talk about being liberated from these things, most of us can’t help but want them deep down. We’re just scared that nobody will listen to us if we do. Or that we won’t be accepted. Or we won’t be supported.

Because in the post-feminism era, women are encouraged to go out into the world and do big things to change it—but they are rarely encouraged to stay where they are and do little things to change their world in a big way. We look down on the twenty two year old who doesn’t want to get her masters or doesn’t want to get a corporate job. We look down on the newly married couple who would like to start a family. We look down on the woman who may not travel the world to feed the hungry, but feeds her friends and family with love-infused cookies. Women, nowadays, are supposed to be independent, rich, intellectual, ambitious, and restless. If they don’t happen to be these things, we act like something is wrong with them. And what do they do? Well, they either have to take the heat of being treated like an airhead, or they go on to something that doesn’t fulfill them, and we’re short another wonderful wife and mother. We’re short another beautiful home. We’re short more homemade cookies.

And isn’t this the stuff that means the most to us? The stuff of Pinterest? Our mothers taught us love. They taught us how to love. Motherhood (along with fatherhood) is the only “career choice” that keeps the human race going. The things closest to our hearts, the things that truly make the world go round—they are the things of home and hearth and Christmas and babies and unconditional love—even through the diapers and the spilled milk and the broken ornaments. We don’t want to lose the stuff of Pinterest or we would be a very empty and unhappy world.

So let’s listen to the cries in that confessional.

Sometimes it’s I want to wear pretty dresses. And I like pretty dresses better than this pants suit I have to wear to work.

Sometimes it’s I’m terrified of marriage. Every marriage I’ve ever seen has failed. And every guy I’ve ever dated has failed me and wounded me. I don’t know how to pick up the pieces. But I have this fantasy deep down that I can’t seem to get rid of. So I’m going to plan my dream wedding on here.

Let’s listen to these cries and let’s let them be heard. Mothers and fathers, encourage your daughters. Brothers, encourage your sisters. Boyfriends, fiancés, husbands, encourage your women. And women, encourage each other. Don’t be afraid that you’ll lose your worth. You’ve already got your worth. By suppressing it, you’re merely hiding it from those who would be ready and willing to recognize it (and I promise there are guys out there who would.) We all know how beautiful womanhood is. So don’t be afraid. As most fashionista women know well, there are things that are trends and there are things that are timeless. And the type of womanhood we’re talking about here is one of those timeless things. It may not be popular, but it will always be beautiful and desirable. And if we learn how to let it speak up, outside of Pinterest, we will find much fulfillment.

Today I learned of a new effort to revitalize the “War on Women” rhetoric – a political strategy that sadly divides women into camps and polarizes discussion.  Now, it’s resulting in some clothing choices for babies . .  

The apparent aim is coordinated rallies throughout the US on April 28 “to demand that every person be granted equal opportunities, equal rights, and equal representation.”  The sponsor appears to be the National Organization of Women, although the effort has its own Facebook page and website, www.UniteWomen.org.  Offered for sale in support of this event is a onesie for babies, sizes newborn to 24 months, in a wide range of colors, including mint green and light pink.  The onesie has this slogan on it:

Included to sell this item is an advertising photo for the $20 onesie.

If a mom dresses her beautiful, chubby baby in a onesie that says “My Mom made a choice.  Which was her right!”, what is she trying to say to the world?  Perhaps – though I could be wrong – this is not a statement about the baby, but a statement about the mother, using the baby as her billboard.  It brings to mind onesies that read “Grandma’s Favorite” or “My Uncle Went to Maui” – slogans intended to state something about a relative of the baby. 

But, of course, this abortion slogan is not at all like such onesies put on babies which spotlight the love for the child by a wide range of competing relatives.  The pro-choice abortion slogan emphasizes that the mother – not the child – is the holder of rights when it comes to who gets to be born and who does not.  The UnitedWomen.org onesie is a statement of power, not a statement of love, but I could be wrong.

Perhaps it is a statement of love.  A mother dressing her child in a $20 onesie that says, “My Mom made a choice.  Which was her right!” might say that this is a statement of love – a statement that “I loved you so much I did not abort you” . . . which brings to mind a conversation I had with a mother who regretted not having an abortion when pregnant with her first child.  She expressed earnestly that, in retrospect – though her daughter was now grown, married and a parent herself – she should have aborted that child and pursued a career for several more years so that, when her subsequent children were born, she would have a better employment history. 

This, of course, is one problem with calling babies “choices” rather than facts or blessings or persons.  A baby birthed because the mother considered it a “good choice” when she had the baby, can just as easily conclude that she made a mistake and her child was, looking back, a “bad choice”. 

I do not think that pro-choice women love their babies any less than their pro-life sisters.  But pro-life women do not think of their babies as choices – anymore than we think of crazy Aunt Ethel or generous Grandma Sally or incarcerated brother Bob as “choices”.  I do not think that babies – if they were given a voice – would be excited about wearing a onesie that tells the world their lives are mom’s choice.  I think babies would rather wear the onesies pro-lifers designed.  It only comes in pale yellow, but costs less at $12.97.  On this point, I am pretty sure that I am right.

President Obama’s HHS Mandate Is Bad for Women’s Health and the Practice of Medicine

Dear Senators Boxer, Murray, and Shaheen:

In a Feb. 7, 2012 Wall St. Journal op-ed, you claimed that President Obama’s HHS mandate, which forces everyone, including religious institutions, to pay for abortifacients, oral contraceptives (OCPs), and sterilizations as mandatory benefits in health insurance policies, was a victory for women’s health.  As practicing physicians, we can attest that nothing is further from the truth.  President Obama’s mandate is bad for women’s health and for the profession of medicine.

First, birth control is not preventive medical care like breast exams and pap smears performed to prevent a late diagnosis of cancer or immunizations to prevent pneumonia and influenza.  A child is not a disease, nor are fertility and pregnancy.  They are physiological states of healthy individuals.

Second, OCPs contribute to significant disease and dysfunction, such as increased rates of blood clots, strokes, and heart attacks (especially in smokers); increased rates of HPV transmission; and increased incidence of cervical cancer and liver tumors. The same synthetic hormones in OCPs that make a woman’s body behave as if pregnant all the time also change her body chemistry, rendering her more susceptible to STIs.  As physicians, we frequently must care [for] women suffering from the unanticipated side effects of OCPs.

OCPs can lower the incidence of ovarian cancer.  But only 1 in 72 women will develop ovarian cancer.  Of greater concern should be the many studies showing that OCPs increase the risk of breast cancer—especially in young women who use them for more than 4 years before their first full-term pregnancy—since breast cancer rates have increased from 1 in 12 (in 1960 when the pill was first introduced) to 1 in 8 fifty years later.  The International Agency for Research on Carcinogens declared estrogen and progesterone Class I carcinogens in 2005.  Why would we promote any substance which increases the risk of cancer, and describe it as preventive care?

With regard to “cost savings” in health care, the Guttmacher Institute’s own data show that increases in contraception use lead to increased demand for abortions, and that women are more likely to have unplanned pregnancies when using contraception.  There are no valid statistics demonstrating that use of contraception and abortion have improved the health of women and children.  In fact, the rates of premature and low birth weight infants have been rising precipitously since rates of abortion and OCP use have increased.  One in 8 babies is now born prematurely. NICU care now accounts for 25% of the entire maternal/newborn budget!

Finally, it is important to realize that mandating “free contraception” is not free—it will mean higher insurance premiums for everyone and/or less money for the treatment of real diseases.

A President who is willing to use the power of the federal government to violate the rights of religious freedom, conscientious objection, and free speech of thousands of religious institutions, and of many other Americans who object to this mandate on grounds of conscience, will also have no qualms about ordering physicians to participate in providing contraception, sterilization, and abortion even if it violates their ethical and professional judgment.  In gutting the conscience protection rule enacted in 2008, and in refusing to include clear protections for conscience in PPACA, the Obama administration has demonstrated its hostility to the conscience rights of health-care professionals.  Attempted coercion in this area will drive out of medical practice many physicians who take their ethical obligations and the Hippocratic Oath seriously.  If this happens, millions of women will lose access to physicians who share their beliefs, and all patients will be more at the mercy of future government dictates about what health-care services can be offered or not.

As Catholic physicians, we swear before God to serve the sick with competence, compassion, and charity, always to their benefit and never to their harm.  Abortifacients, OCPs, and sterilization do not belong in a preventive services mandate because they are not preventive medicine and not good for women’s health.  President Obama’s mandate will prove harmful to women’s health and to the practice of medicine. It must be rescinded immediately.

Maricela P. Moffitt, M.D., M.P.H., President, Catholic Medical Association
Mary Keen, M.D., M.R.M.
Rebecca Peck, M.D.
Kathleen M. Raviele, M.D., F.A.C.O.G., Past President, Catholic Medical Association
Laura G. Reilly, M.D., A.B.P.N.

Reprinted with permission form the Catholic Medical Association.  This letter also appears in full at the CMA’s blog.

What chores do you outsource?  I read a list once in Time Magazine: The “Ten Best Chores to Outsource.”  Expecting to see housecleaning, landscaping, pool cleaning, you know, actual chores, I was shocked and saddened by the “number one” best chore to outsource: pregnancy.

As the Time Magazine article put it:

Outsourcing brings to mind big factories and call centers.  But entrepreneurs around the globe now offer services—from tutoring to sculpting a bust of your grandpa—to regular folks for a fraction of the cost in the West.  Thought the world was flat before?  Well, now you can hire someone in India to carry your child.

Outsourcing “pregnancy” has become big business, transforming having a child into a “bits and pieces” brokered industry:  sperm from a handsome Scandinavian stud, eggs from a smart, beautiful Ivy League woman, a womb-for-rent from a poor woman in India trying to provide food and education for her children, and brokers in the middle helping set up the legal transactions to build a better baby the 21st century way.

Entrepreneurs like Rudy Rupak, CEO of PlanetHospital, make their living converting conception and pregnancy into a commercial business.  Rudy’s brokering business offers what his company calls the India Bundle.  This “affordable” package deal offers would-be parents an egg donor, four surrogates for four embryo transfers, room and board for the surrogate during the pregnancy, and transportation services when the parents arrive in India to pick up the baby.  Costs escalate from there depending on services rendered.  Gay couples wanting to do egg-sharing so that they can each offer sperm to fertilize the egg drives up the price.  All the various preimplantation genetic diagnostic tests also drive costs upward.

This is what a consumer model of baby-making looks like.

Twins cost more, of course, which brings me to the latest craziness: twiblings.  Parents Michael and Melanie chronicled their infertility story, which is not atypical, in the New York Times Magazine article, “Meet the Twiblings.”  After what Melanie describes as many failed relationships, she finally met Mr. Right, but maternal age had hindered her ability to get pregnant, so they were off to the fertility doctor for five failed in vitro fertilization (IVF) cycles.  Always wanting twins, they decided to hire not one, but two surrogates, enlisted the help of an egg donor, and “gave birth” to a boy and a girl five days apart.  Since the babies were from the same egg donor and they used Michael’s sperm, they are siblings.  Being that they were created in the lab at the same time, they are fraternal twins.  But, given that they were carried in separate surrogate wombs, they have been dubbed twiblings.

Meanwhile cases like those of an Australian couple who aborted their twin boys because they wanted a girl, and Olivia Pratten’s battle for the right to have access to her biological father’s identity (she was born in Canada some 20-plus years ago via anonymous egg donation), make their way through the courts.  These are uncharted global waters we are swimming in, woefully unregulated, with, at best, some ad hoc international law.  What is even more disheartening is the lack of a faithful witness (with the exception of Catholic teaching) in response to infertility.  From the New York Times Magazine “twiblings” piece, a director of a Los Angeles agency for surrogate searches stated that many of their gestational carriers were “white, working-class women, often evangelical Christians—the kind of girls you went to high school with.”  Or Sunday school perhaps?

The basics are well established within Christian orthodoxy.  Children are a blessing and a gift, not a right, and certainly not a product to be designed and manufactured.  They should be begotten, not made. Artificial reproductive technology – ART – is the manufacturing of children, often by design and often using third parties, a violation of the ethical principle of the two flesh becoming one.  In the garden, husband and wife are a complete family.  This was declared very good, without children yet being part of the story.  While infertility is a sad and difficult occurrence for those who want children, it has been made even more difficult because of a lack of Protestant thinking on the matter.  

Infertility is not a death sentence.   Children are not products to be made.  Our reproductive bodies are not to be blithely parceled and sold to someone else.  And pregnancy is not a chore to be outsourced.  It’s time for some serious corrective thinking lest our reproductive illness creates unleashed madness among us, and those who stood by silently be morally complicit in the exploitation of some lives for the commercial manufacture of another.

From our female fairy tales, we observe that young women must steer clear of the dangers of “mirrors” and “mothers” to chart their path to womanhood.  Today, we look at 3 more themes from our enduring tales of passage from youth to womanhood.

Care-giving.  One of the least subtle of themes, the giving of self – and caring for others – resounds throughout our female fables.  Whether Snow White lovingly tidies up after the 7 strange little men who took her in, or Cinderella washes yet another spotless floor upon demand by her heartless stepmother, or Belle tenderly dresses the wounds Beast incurred in her protection, we readily soften to the nurturing and tenderness and yielding these young women express in harrowing, uncertain and even abusive circumstances.  Unlike male tales, women’s stories rarely celebrate a strategic assault, killing the villain and overcoming injustice.  While history certainly offers examples of courageous women warriors, these are not the tales through which women bond to their female young.   Interestingly, our tales of care-giving do not feature babies or young children – a nurturing function that many women will pursue, but not necessarily so.  Instead, the virtue emerges from responding to difficult, puzzling and even threatening adults with a willingness to tend, take risk and even find humor. 

Beauty.  The Disney revisions and take-offs on our female fairy tales has enhanced, in my opinion, what we hold dear as female beauty.  While the more traditional versions might be read (unfairly I think) to tether achievement of female beauty upon the arrival of the prince, modern renditions seem more to reward the achievement of beauty with the prince.  Ariel, for example, must discover and recover the value of her “voice” to mature from childish notions to the understanding that what the world might find pretty bears little relationship to womanly beauty.

The magnificent tale Shrek 1, however, pulls together the themes of our female fairy tales, with the delightfully modern twist that the Princess finds her authentic beauty only when the “curse” of her physical beauty is finally lifted.  Fiona’s initial assumption – like every little girl – that beauty is the same as prettiness is dispelled by the kiss of love – a love for the true beauty within her.

Men.  I saved men for last – for our fairy tales are rich in lessons about men, and how we learn, as worthy, adult women, to distinguish the good from the naughty from those needing improvements a woman’s touch will not bestow.  These are subtle but desperately important distinctions for most women who will seek to couple, and for other women who will, nevertheless, interact with men throughout their lives. 

 Cads.  In our fairy tales, we introduce girls to cads: “an ill-bred man, especially one who behaves in a dishonorable or irresponsible way toward women.”  Who takes the Cad Award:  Gaston – a muscular, physically exaggerated, conceited bachelor (Beauty and the Beast, “Here in town there’s only she, who is beautiful as me, so I’m making plans to woo and marry Belle”)             OR            Lord Farquaad – disturbingly disproportioned, pompous and righteous (Shrek I, ‘Some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make.”) ?  

Fathers.  The fathers of Belle and Ariel well represent the range of men women collectively know make reliable, if eccentric, partners and fathers to their children.  Belle’s father is nutty; Ariel’s father, blusterous – but both are loyal and available to their children even as they are occupied with the work to which they devote themselves.  These are fathers who feel protective of their daughters, but, as their girl children leave their care, are blessedly inept to stop their course.  Fathers can remain in the fairy tale because most “good” fathers love their daughters unconditionally but do not ordinarily try, as mothers may be tempted, to micro-steer their daughters’ course to womanhood. 

Good Men.  A “prince” of a man, we learn from our female fables, might be handsome, daring or powerful, he might be a prince or a frog or an ogre, he might or might not be our “happy ever after” – but, more than anything, he is a man who loves the “sacred” within other people; a man who is just, matured and does not see or treat other people as objects in his path to pleasure or elsewhere.    He is a man whose respect – and even love – we strive to achieve because it acknowledges and rewards the sacred within us, within all people.  

I will close this fairy tale reflection with Elizabeth Hanna’s own words, for it is as true of every woman of every age as it is true of the princesses we honor in our female tales:    “And the sacred within her is the most important part of her.   She nurtures it, she adorns it, and she shares it.  The beautiful woman loves.  And when a woman loves, her angel wings take her higher than any plastic Victoria’s Secret imitation ever could.”

 Did someone mention Cinderella? 

Last week, Elizabeth Hanna observed that “we [women] want to know we are beautiful even while standing next to a Victoria’s Secret model.”  Admittedly, women often do not feel beautiful.  Even highly paid, long-legged models wearing skimpy, lacy underwear yearn to be prettier, sexier . . . more like that other, more beautiful model.  We all ache to experience ourselves as worthy, valued and – as Hanna proposes – sacred, 

How do we attain a steady, daily, reliable

feeling of worthiness?

Fairy tales – like Cinderella, Snow White and Beauty and the Beast – offer lovely guidance to girls and the women in their lives about passage from childish ways to virtuous womanhood.  We hear these tales before we can form sentences; we watch movies and sing their theme songs into adolescence; we read the tales to the children we babysit, and then to our daughters and then to our grand-daughters. 

What treasured wisdom about the feminine so captivates

the female imagination that these enduring fairy tales follow us through our lives?

In this post and tomorrow’s, I look at five themes that emerge from our fairy tale foundation as guideposts for moving from girlhood to womanhood.  I am not an expert in fables, or literature – just a reader, writer and mother who has consumed in every format a wide range of “princess” tales.  I hope you will add your thoughts and comments.

Mirrors.  Mirrors for females are a deadly temptation, a window through which the pit bull of vanity leaps, grabs hold and will not let go.  Snow White’s stepmother lacks virtue, as a woman and as a surrogate mother, because she cannot separate her “self” from her image.  “Who is the fairest of them all?”  she moans famously, as anxiety ridden as any woman watching the Victoria Secrets lingerie show Hanna so poignantly captured.  This woman becomes wicked, not because she was born evil, but because she allowed herself to know and see herself only as an image in a mirror – looking upon her visage just as anyone else might look upon her.  There she consumed herself, like an addict compelled to obtain more narcotic by any means available, until she turned herself completely into the ugliness she obsessively cultivated within her. 

Compare Belle from Beauty and the Beast.  Belle, too, becomes attached to a mirror – the small, hand held mirror given her as gift by the Beast “so that you’ll always have a way to look back and remember me.”  Belle uses this mirror not to see her own reflection but to look beyond herself – and to invite others to look beyond themselves – to see another, in their suffering and their pain.  Belle’s mirror is a mirror into another person, her father, the Beast – and their need for help and service.

Mothers.  As sure as any mirror can derail passage from girlhood to virtuous womanhood, so, too, can mothers.  Mothers typically do not intend to retard the growth of their daughters – most often, maternal opinions, needs, and advice are proffered in abundance with hope of easing daughters the direction Mom thinks is right and healthy.  But young women can become as affixed to their mother’s image and assessment of them as they are to their own mirror image.  

Consider this:  there are no mothers in the fairy tales

we women adore. 

Cinderella, Belle (Beauty and the Beast), Ariel (Little Mermaid), Snow White, Jasmine (Aladdin), Pocahontas – none of them have a mother. 

There isn’t even a mother substitute.

Other women appear in these tales either tangentially, like the warm and observing Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast; as villains, like Cinderella’s step mother and step sisters or the truly treacherous Ursula in Little Mermaid; or as magical beings bestowing favors, like the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella or the opera-singing Wardrobe in Beauty and the Beast.  By removing the often overly protective, overly controlling mother from our fairy tales, we expose our girls to the expectation that they will find their own unique passage to virtuous womanhood, not merely in imitation or satisfaction of the mother and not as a vain reflection in a mirror.  Their path must be uniquely and suitably their own.

Tomorrow, I take a look at three more themes from our female fairy tales:  care-giving, beauty and MEN!

“Everyone I know is applying for grad school, or ending their college relationships, I’m just getting drunk.” ~Kelyann Wargo, University of Michigan

Kelyann Wargo – a 20s something undergraduate – advertised a new business venture:  the “Walk of Shame Shuttle.”  According to one article in the Chicago Sun Times, the shuttle service offers “a post-hookup ride home or to the dorm for students who wake up somewhere else after a night of debauchery.”  Not only is the Walk of Shame shuttle service – at a cost of five dollars per ride – cheaper than your regular cabbie might charge, Wargo proudly explains she also offers the girls a high five, a bottle of water, and – are you ready for this – a coupon for Plan B, the hormonal abortifacient more commonly referred to as an “emergency contraceptive” or “morning after pill.”  Plan B is a drug that comes with an entire set of medical and moral issues, despite its approval for sale by the Food and Drug Administration.

I truly wish Wargo and the students she claims she is trying to help could have heard the testimony of Dr. Miriam Grossman, a Jewish mother and doctor with a specialty in child and adolescent psychiatry.  Dr. Grossman spoke recently before the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. According to the Catholic News Agency, Grossman urged the United Nations to stop supporting a culture where “sexual license is celebrated.” The doctor explained that there should be great concern for such an attitude particularly for our young women since a woman’s biology leaves them “highly vulnerable to sexually-transmitted diseases.”  In a recent interview on my radio program Dr. Grossman also spoke of her work as a counselor on a California college campus.  She witnessed first hand both the physical and the psychological fall-out of today’s hook-up or so called sexually liberated life-style, something we don’t read about in Cosmo or see on Reality TV.

I truly wish I could talk to Ms. Wargo.  I have learned the lies of the modern culture after suffering far too many serious bumps and bruises practically all of which were brought on by my own bad choices.  I would tell her that there is a better way – a way for her to become a woman of dignity and worth.  I would tell her that we serve a loving and merciful God who always allows U-turns.  Over and over again he forgives us and welcomes us back.

So how do those of us who have the scars to prove that the wacky wild of our own day offered wasn’t all that wonderful share our concerns with those women who are caught up in today’s hook-up culture which, thanks to Snooki and Kim, is portrayed as hip happiness?  That’s why I do what I do now in terms of speaking about how my return to my Catholic roots saved my marriage and turned my life around for the better.  Yes, God allows U-turns but He also provides a better way; His way or as he tells us in John 10:10 “the abundant life.”

How is the young Ms. Wargo to know she’s headed down a dead end?  Even the media conceals the truth:  whether it’s local media outlets in Michigan that have picked up the story or major dailies including the Sun Times, about the only negatives or questions that have been raised concerning the Walk of Shame Shuttle have to do with whether, thanks to higher prices at the pump, the business will actually be profitable in the long term.  Meanwhile, Ms. Wargo compromises her – and her customers – emotional, physical and spiritual health.

Maybe it’s time for another student to try a different approach.  Maybe another young, enterprising coed could offer a healthy alternative service:  a ride home before midnight, the “No Shame Shuttle” that gives a “high five” or an “at a girl” to young women for taking care of themselves in a culture determined to damage and exploit them.

Maybe then the Walk of Shame shuttle will be exposed for the real shame it is.