THE CHILDREN OF MEN

11/5/2019
By Alex Ness

The Children of Men
P.D. James

The world of The Children of Men as presented by P.D. James is one of sorrow, and worse, approaching oblivion.  The women and men of the UK of that time are infertile, and the very few who can reproduce are considered to be valuable, if not unique.  No children for decades means getting to raise a baby into teen and thereafter adult has become impossible.  The sorrow of childless potential parents is palpable, the pain of knowing what this is a portent of, is worse.

I've mentioned this book here before, but it still stands out as a very personal chapter about how our great global society might end.  P.D. James wrote crime stories and mysteries, this was an unusual, and perhaps unique offering from her but one that was vastly better than most other works in similar tone.

It worked for me for many reasons.  I've recently, in the last 12 months encountered a number of ultra conservative Catholics who've tried to, and in fact made it clear that I should be shamed for the fact that my wife and I used invitro fertilization to find our child after two ecoptic pregnancies ended the chances we might be parents by our own physical natures. 

The story is one that some find too personal but it needs telling, because in the light of the people who seek to shame me, they reveal their own misperceptions and foolishness.  My wife and I are Christians, not Catholic, and while I am not able to say I am a good Christian, I fail far to often, I am one who practices my faith.  When we lost our two children and I almost lost my wife, we were devastated.  We had used contraception so that we'd never have had children we could not support.  And when we tried, we were crushed.  But we prayed, and I was willing to end the quest.  My wife was not.  In the time between the loss and the obvious choice to go forward, my wife was deeply troubled, crying, sorrow filled.  I was more content, as I'd had a view of God that rather accepting of the trials for reasons I am not going to discuss here.  My parents visited to show their love and support, and my father who had to this point struggled to be as good as his heart wanted to be towards me, stood up before it was time to leave and said, Shirley and I want to let you know that whatever the doctors can do to help you get pregnant, we'll be paying for that. The cost of IVF procedures at the time was twice as much as I had made in a year, at any time prior to that.  We already knew we didn't have the money, it would have to come from God or somewhere else.  My father by standing and saying that gave my wife a path to a return of happiness, gave us the joy of a child, and gave us something we didn't feel before, hope.  My father had a troubled life, overcame it, but saw me as a source of pain, usually.  But in his later life, he also came to a deeper level of faith, and it changed him. By doing this, giving us the gift of our child he was offering to do so many things, and by making my wife happy again, he was giving me life.  He died before seeing his grandson, but his grandson existed because of him.

We rejected all considerations of selected prebirth embryonic/fetal reduction, we said no, and were willing to accept all of the babies we might get.  We knew that cost.  And we were successful on that first try, and had our one son.  We tried to have more twice but lost both pregnancies and thereby had used all of the fertilized embryos. I named my son Jonathan Chaim after the Hebrew phrase, God has given Life.  And he has blessed us deeply by his presence in our life.

So when the Conservative Catholics I dealt with took issue with me it was because they believe we are taking the choice of a supreme god out of that god's hands and making ourselves god.  We were told by god, in their view, that we should never be parents, due to having the ectopic pregnancies. I used a small g there, because that is the kind of God they want.  One that is knowable, when he is mysterious, enormously powerful, willful, knowing, all wise.  They want a god that is known by how nature is responding.  Hurricane Katrina wiped out New Orleans because god was so angry at their sin?  They want a god who lets them have children at will, because the alternative is an awareness of having a God, knowing that the child is better if it has two parents who love and support it, and financial ability to support them.

Yes I am a Protestant, a Lutheran even, but I am a Christian.  Shortly after I was told that my wife and I stole God's right from making a child, they said you people of a different religion will only enter Heaven if god gives you mercy.  Well, let me tell you, I've been a Christian, but not a Catholic, and a great deal of my life while I didn't necessarily agree with Catholics, I assumed they'd be on the same track to Heaven as anyone in my faith.  But these Conservative Catholics think you are as lost as a Satanist or an Atheist if you are not one of them.  All people need God's mercy, none of us are sinless, and only forgiveness by Christ will give you any hope to enter.  ALL people.  If you are a Conservative Catholic and never told me these things, well then I obviously am not referring to you.  But if you think these things, and just never said them, well then, nuts to you.  (And just to say I never say who gets into Heaven, it isn't up to me.)

PD James's book is perfect because it considers how children and babies are gifts from God but are wrapped in the flesh of man.  We are sinful, we are short sighted and foolish.  We make bad choices.  And James is able by taking away the children, and the ability to create anew therein, show that we are infinitely wrapped up in the future of our planet by how we treat having children, being childless, or being prevented from or forced to have children. It is a religious concept having children because it speaks to our reproductive cycles and our natural inclinations we are giving life, in reflection to our God who gave us life.  By giving God all of the power religious people can make it a holy or even unholy event.  I can tell you this, I involved God in every aspect of our pregnancy, and my son is a child of God's blessing, divine providence, and hope.  No one can steal that from us.  No one.