AGAINST BABY AVERSION THERAPY:

This is the second in a series of Register articles in which author and syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher explains love and marriage to her grown son.

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But I hate the way contemporary American culture confuses reasoned arguments with “pragmatic” arguments, especially about sex and babies, as if the only thing human beings care about are material deprivations and benefits to themselves. As if the way to respond to the intense mystery of sexual desire is to reduce it to calculus of health benefits. As if “if it feels good, do it” can be adequately replaced by “If it increases the risk of sexually transmitted diseases by 4.5%, don’t do it!” …

Every time you make love to a woman’s body, you could be making your first-born child. Of course, I want you to be cognizant of the practical and moral implications of this truth. But don’t forget, first to pause a moment in wonder at it.

You have within you the God-given power to co-create new life, and not just any sort of new life either. Your sexual desire is not a mere appetite, a mechanical prod for consuming an internal set of sensations called “pleasure.” It is calling you out of the confines of your own body into the (literal) act of generation.

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