Tied Up in Our Own Preferences

How fear, not prayer, led us to choose sterilization… and regret it.

While the contemporary ability to determine one’s family size is heralded as a mark of Western progress, that freedom carries with it moral and spiritual responsibility. Some branches of Christendom (most notably, the Catholic Church) have well-documented doctrinal positions about issues of reproductive technology and artificial means of birth control, many in the evangelical world default to silence on the issue of permanent sterilization.

Hobby Lobby, the Christian-run business at the center of controversy last year when it sought exemption from the Affordable Care Act on religious grounds, does not cover birth control pills, abortion, or sterilization in its health care menu for employees. Most of the coverage and conversation focused on the first two items. Vasectomies and tubal ligations were an afterthought, if they were mentioned at all.

As an antidote to evangelicals’ silence on the issue, I am not in any way advocating that church leaders direct couples about the number and spacing of their children. Instead, I see the value in coming alongside couples in search of godly wisdom in sharing stories and being willing to explore in prayer what God may be asking of them.

As Susanne Burden suggested in the recent Her.meneutics post When We Close Our Wombs, churches should “offer safe spaces for individuals to discuss the theological and personal reasons for ending our reproductive years.” I wish my husband and I could have been a part of such a conversation when we were considering permanent sterilization decades ago.

At age 27, just hours after I gave birth to our third child, I had a tubal ligation. What most would call a wise and responsible choice on our part was actually a decision based …