Sir, - Perhaps your own newspaper may have provided two of the better examples of children being seen as a commodity rather than a gift.
1. On Monday, March 1st, Conor O'Clery wrote in his Asia Letter:
"Newspapers in China have been reporting that the best day to conceive a millennium baby is Friday, April 9th. . . . Some women are taking extraordinary measures to try to hit the target date, such as Jiang Li (27), a woman who, according to the Beijing Youth Daily, had an abortion so she could time her pregnancy better. Increased numbers of abortions have been reported from other cities for similar reasons in recent weeks."
2. Later in the same report, he writes: "So-called adoption agencies have started buying infants from couples out to make money by deliberately exceeding the government quota of one or two children."
Now, I did not attend Archbishop Connell's talk in Maynooth. The only account I have of his talk is what you report in The Irish Times of Wednesday, March 3rd. The archbishop, and most people who know me, know that I do not necessarily agree with all that he says. I cannot judge the full context of his talk, so I do not know how much empathy he may have expressed with parents and families. Like the archbishop, I cannot myself speak from any personal experience of marriage and family life, except what I experienced in my own family growing up, and what I am privileged to experience in families of others. I rarely speak of the joys of family life without at the same time acknowledging the blood, sweat and tears that are involved in the best of families, and the extra pain which is part of some families.
Your report of Archbishop Connell's talk does not indicate that he claimed every "planned" child is a problem child; he said, to quote your report, "A profound alterations in the relationship between parent and child may result". It is important to ask whether this is true; and if it is, why this may be. Your editorial on Thursday, March 4th, despite your description of the archbishop's nature as gentle and humane, is intemperate.
Thanks be to God that most children, planned or unplanned, are very much welcomed and cherished, even if the first reaction on hearing news of the pregnancy may sometimes be one of dismay. The truth is that a child is sometimes treated as a product or commodity. We do not have to go to China for evidence of this.
To call a child "wanted" or "unwanted" says nothing about the child, but about those who welcome or refuse to welcome the child. The challenge to us is to find ways to ensure that all children are wanted - not as a commodity nor a possession, but as a gift. Every child, even if planned to the fullest of our knowledge and technology, is in fact a gift, not a right or a product, nor as something simply to be disposed of at will.
Have I, who am celibate, any right to speak of these things? I am often called "Father", who have not fathered any children. This is not because I look on marriage or parenthood as second class; these, I believe, would be a great blessing and joy, as well as bringing difficulty and pain. Rather, my vocation is to be a life-giver in many different ways; to be celibate is one way of living this vocation.
"How something is said is as important as what is said," according to your correspondent Breda O'Brien (March 4th), and Archbishop Connell may not always communicate as well as he would wish. Even editorial writers may find the same. But I believe that the archbishop intended to be fully life-affirming. Many couples experience the use of artificial contraception as life-enhancing and affirming. It would, however, do a dis-service to everyone not to point out that there are alternative ways to take control of one's life, including one's sexual life. It would equally do a disservice to fail to ask whether there may be a problem with an unquestioned acceptance of artificial contraception, which is more deep-seated than any large-scale study of medical effects reveals. - Yours, etc.,
Fr. Padraig McCarthy, The Presbytery, Rathdrum, Co Wicklow.