Is infertility a choice? (on topic, promise)

[_Bazooka]

Infertility primarily refers to the biological inability of a person to contribute to conception. Infertility may also refer to the state of a woman who is unable to carry a pregnancy to full term.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infertility

THE FIRST COMMANDMENT that God gave to Adam and Eve pertained to their potential for parenthood as husband and wife. We declare that God’s commandment for His children to multiply and replenish the earth remains in force. We further declare that God has commanded that the sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife.

WE DECLARE the means by which mortal life is created to be divinely appointed. We affirm the sanctity of life and of its importance in God’s eternal plan.

http://www.lds.org/topics/family-proclamation

This generates an initial question of "If God's plan is inherently that male and female come to earth to procreate, how come He sends males and females here who cannot, naturally, follow the plan?"

[_Maureen]

Good point, since a commandment is a mandate, "orders from headquarters" so to speak. With a commandment you have a choice to either follow it or not but when infertility affects a person, it's out of their direct control. Some people are fortunate to become fertile with help but others are not. Not everyone can follow this commandment.

M.

[_RockSlider]

Alvin R Dyer has the answer ... like Ethiopians they were not valant in the pre-mortal existance

[_Fence Sitter]

This generates an initial question of "If God's plan is inherently that male and female come to earth to procreate, how come He sends males and females here who cannot, naturally, follow the plan?"

It should be illegal for people like this to marry. If we allow people who can't have kids to marry pretty soon everyone who gets married won't have kids, not to mention the fact that their kids will also be more likely to not have kids. Public schools will be forced to teach kindergartners that some people who get married do not have kids. Our Church will eventually be forced to let people marry in the temple who cannot have kids. We have a constitutional right to pass laws to protect our religious right to deny marriage to people who don't have kids.

I also don't like the fact that I have to watch people who don't have kids flaunt their lifestyle every where they go. It is really offensive to watch these childless couples walk around without kids. Can't they go be childless somewhere else?

Also everyone knows that a couple without kids is much more likely to abuse other people's kids than they are their own.

/rant

[_Quasimodo]

This generates an initial question of "If God's plan is inherently that male and female come to earth to procreate, how come He sends males and females here who cannot, naturally, follow the plan?"

It should be illegal for people like this to marry. If we allow people who can't have kids to marry pretty soon everyone who gets married won't have kids, not to mention the fact that their kids will also be more likely to not have kids. Public schools will be forced to teach kindergartners that some people who get married do not have kids. Our Church will eventually be forced to let people marry in the temple who cannot have kids. We have a constitutional right to pass laws to protect our religious right to deny marriage to people who don't have kids.

I also don't like the fact that I have to watch people who don't have kids flaunt their lifestyle every where they go. It is really offensive to watch these childless couples walk around without kids. Can't they go be childless somewhere else?

Also everyone knows that a couple without kids is much more likely to abuse other people's kids than they are their own.

/rant

Yeah! Couples should be required to have at least one child out of wedlock to prove fertility before a licence is issued or a wedding service is performed.

[_bcspace]

This generates an initial question of "If God's plan is inherently that male and female come to earth to procreate, how come He sends males and females here who cannot, naturally, follow the plan?"

Trial of faith etc. Plus, who says they cannot righteously fulfill the commandment in a variety of other ways?

[_ludwigm]

Yeah! Couples should be required to have at least one child out of wedlock to prove fertility before a licence is issued or a wedding service is performed.

1.

On August 25, 2000, Dallin H. Oaks married Kristen Meredith McMain in the Salt Lake Temple. Kristen was in her early 50s and had served a mission for the LDS Church many years earlier in the Japan Sendai Mission. Kristen has bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Utah and a doctorate in curriculum and instruction from Brigham Young University.

At that time, DHO was 68 yo. Proving fertility at this age (in general) may be problematic.

2.

Kristen McMain Oaks has spent much of her life teaching. She earned a bachelor’s degree in English, a master’s degree in special education (both from the University of Utah), and a doctorate degree in curriculum and instruction from Brigham Young University.

That special education was sexology. When I read first about that marriage, it was in the record.

Please don't shout CFR!
A little after 2000 they (guess who are the they...) made all reference of her special education to disappear. Even from the BYU site.

Today, one can not find even the birth date of Kristen Meredith McMain (Kristen McMain Oaks).
"Kristen was in her early 50s" means 51 or 59 - nobody knows.
What does know a fiftysome year old virgin about sex - nobody knows.

The advantage of being the wife of a prophet seer and revelator - well, 12-15 women know...

[_Bazooka]

This generates an initial question of "If God's plan is inherently that male and female come to earth to procreate, how come He sends males and females here who cannot, naturally, follow the plan?"

Trial of faith etc. Plus, who says they cannot righteously fulfill the commandment in a variety of other ways?

How does an infertile coupe procreate naturally?

[_MsJack]

I'm not defending the LDS teachings on procreation-for-all here, but I wanted to point out that some of the reasons for rising infertility rates do have to do with personal choices. Namely:

(1) Body weight. Obesity decreases fertility.
(2) Age of conception. More women are waiting until their late 30s and early 40s to try and conceive, when the chances of successful and healthy conception have decreased dramatically. Sure, some women don't find love until that late in life, but others are just waiting until they've traveled, are well-established in their careers, etc.
(3) Some STDs (gonorrhea and chlamydia), if left untreated, can cause fertility problems for both men and women.

And while this is collective choice rather than personal, some environmentalists believe that toxins and pollution are contributing to infertility.

That said, there are and always have been people out there who are unable to conceive through no fault of their own, so I'm not suggesting that Latter-day Saints could explain this dilemma by pointing to personal choice alone.

In my view, another problem along these lines is the male-female ratio in the church. The last Pew survey showed Mormons having one of the more imbalanced sex ratios for a Christian group at 44-56 male-female, and that was in America. Anecdotal evidence from my friends in missions in other parts of the world suggests that sex ratios are even worse than that elsewhere (and there is some hard evidence of this). Point being, unless LDS men divorce and remarry other LDS women rather frequently (but divorce is frowned on), the church cannot possibly provide LDS husbands for all of the LDS women out there.

So what are these women to do? Should they continue to wait and hope for an LDS husband and remain celibate and childless? Or should they look to find a non-LDS husband so that they have a chance at fulfilling the commandment to procreate? (One Mormon woman asked this question of a member of the Seventy a few years ago and did not get a very helpful response.)

[_ludwigm]

Obesity decreases fertility.

And has other disadvantages...

Southwest Airlines reportedly embarrassed and singled out an overweight passenger by pulling him off the flight because of his size.

Matthew Harper, who weighs about 340 pounds, said he was on his way from Chicago to Denver on Sunday when a Southwest official told him the flight was overbooked and demanded he exit the plane.

After he got off, Harper said a Southwest employee asked if he knew about the airline's policy regarding overweight passengers.

(http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.1326270)