Bondage in Liberty

Without question, the greatest advance for women in society was not the right to vote. It wasn’t even the right to own property, which attended the right to vote. Nor was it, as some would argue, the ready availability of higher education. No, the greatest advance for women in the twentieth century was The Pill.

The Pill granted sexual freedom without threat of consequences (pregnancy), but it was not fail-safe. Eventually with the right to abortion-on-demand, women could finally have what men had: the freedom to act with sexual irresponsibility. Feminism is not about protecting women; feminism destroys what is most feminine in women. Feminism gender-neutralizes humanity.

Now chemistry (Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends!) lends a hand to complete the picture. The FDA has just approved production of a new version of The Pill, called Lybrel. Lybrel prevents not only pregnancies, but also menstruation.

There is a scene in G. I. Jane where the character Demi Moore plays is with the doctor admitting she has not had her menstrual cycle for the months she has been in rigorous training to become a Navy Seal. The doctor explains that this is normal for a woman who undergoes such experiences. Act like a man and a woman’s body reacts like a man’s. The cycle of female hormone production shuts down and her cycle is interrupted.

With Lybrel any woman can experience far greater freedom than just that. No need to suffer the physical abuses of G. I. Jane in order to achieve near-manhood. Just pop a pill and let chemistry have its way. Science is doing all it can to aid the feminist ideology that sex is what is determined by birth, but gender is culturally defined. As one hip young woman says,

"Womanhood is the appreciation of the ability to give life and to nurture. Women are the primary caretakers because society has made it OK for us. That's sociological, not biological."

Hmmmm... and all along I thought women made good mommies because they were the mothers, a theo-biological thing. One line in Look Whose Talking says it all: "Lunch!"

This is not to say that every use of The Pill is wrong. It has been responsibly prescribed for hormone therapy, from which women have benefited and whose lives have been enriched. Christians live in greater freedom than to say “If it’s not in scripture, we can’t use it.” Moreover, the abuse of a thing does not negate it proper use.

The underlying issue is the Sixth Commandment. Nothing is to supplant what God instituted, yet that is what it happened with the advent of The Pill and the Sexual Revolution. If by science, the constitution, and culture women were freed from the obligations and produce of their bodies, then they were finally the equal of men. The Pill was the first step, allowing women greater sexual freedom without the threat of pregnancy than they had ever known. Legalized abortion was the next step, for then if women became pregnant, they could abandon their responsibilities to the child with finality. Men had done so for years; now women could. A Pill that ceases the menstrual cycle is the final step. Now women can live in ultimate liberty, totally free from the “negative” trappings of womanhood. Any wonder that its name so closely resembles the Latin for free, liber?

There is much to appreciate in the Levitical codes with their constant reminder of uncleanness, which is sin. God reminds both partners in the marriage that both the contents of the womb and semen are for his purposes. This is not to say marital sex is only for the sake of pregnancy. However, menstruation is unclean because of what has not happened, pregnancy leading to birth. Whatever is spilled or flows out that does not lead to pregnancy is treated as a dead thing. Things die because sin has entered the world. Dying people need a savior from sin, death, and the devil. While every pregnancy points toward the Promised One, menstruation also serves as a reminder to waiting-Israel of him, for in that woman he has not yet been conceived and salvation is still not near. Whoever is born of the womb belongs to God, to be included in his kingdom of grace through his Gifts given to that one.

This reminder of death midst life—specifically of the fact that now, post-fall, death co-exists with life in what God created to be an only life-producing situation (Ge 1:28), marriage. It is a picture of the Baptismal life of repentance. We are unclean because of what comes from within us. We are as dead things who can only produce dead things. We cannot do what God commands us to do. But in Baptism the old is drowned and resurrected in Christ. We are made alive again, walking in New Life (Ro 6:3-4). In Christ all things are made new (Rv 21:5). Even after his coming among us, every pregnancy is a reminder of Christ's incarnation in Mary's womb by the Holy Spirit. Abortion is therefore all the more precious to Satan because of this. God created the distinctions of male and female for his purposes. When God entered Mary's womb, he sanctified it and made it his home. In Christ, not just motherhood, but all that is of woman is made holy again.

With Lybrel, woman is given a different perspective on her creation entirely. What woman needs God’s view of her when science, government, and culture can define who she is and what she can be? Periods too gross to put up with for the hip woman? Let science do away with them so women can be as free as men (Ex 14:11).