Childbearing And Anti-Value Through Tiantai Buddhism

This is the first hint suggesting the state justifies the procedure of procreation with a biblical reference, Genesis 30:1, “Give me children, or else I die".

“The most important force in the remaking of the world is a free motherhood.” This quote from Margaret Sanger highlights many first wave feminists views about the restrictions of motherhood, marriage, and household responsibilities. Many women saw being a mother as a chore or as something out of their control. Sanger fought these restrictions through bringing birth control to the general public who suffered from poverty due to large families. Others, like Charlotte Perkins Gilman, wrote social critiques in her texts “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Herland to bring attention to how society treats women and ideally how motherhood should be. Both of these women believed motherhood was a responsibility of women and they should take it more seriously to create better future generations. This goes beyond the suffrage and equality movement because it dictated that women’s sexual emancipation was equally important as women’s legal emancipation. Being a mother was considered a woman’s most crucial task at this time, therefore the power behind female sexual education and birth control challenged society to feminist.

Most females are not respected and are heavily pressured by their parents. Many Chinese women are expected to be in arranged marriages and are not respected in their family or the work-place. Woman that aren’t even born yet suffer from infanticide. If the parents came to find that they were having a girl from ultrasound- they would abort that child and try for a boy causing pre-birth ultrasounds to be banned. “Negative social consequences, particularly sex discrimination. With boys being viewed as culturally preferable, the practice of female infanticide was resumed in some areas shortly after the one-child policy took effect.” (Document E) “I hate to say it but the one-child policy should party be blamed for some social issues in youth today.” “She wished she has a brother or sister to share all the attention.” (Document F) This evidence supports the claim that the one-child policy was a bad policy because women have always been culturally no preferable, causing unborn females to be aborted.

Often condemned as one of the primary societal problems of today, non-marital childbirth has been the subject of many sociologist’s explorations in an attempt to understand its rapid increase and growth in desirability. In their book Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage, Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas delve into the underlying reasons for the increase in non-martial child bearing, especially among women in low-socioeconomic communities. Through their two-and-a-half-year study, in which they conducted by interviewing over one hundred single mothers living in Philadelphia and Camden, Edin and Kefalas strove to understand why poor, single women were purposefully getting pregnant. Nearly eight years after Promises

Margaret Sanger’s hard work to legalize and promote contraception was rooted in her belief that those who were impoverished should not procreate. In her book My Fight for Birth Control, Sanger claims, “I associate poverty, toil, unemployment, drunkenness, cruelty, quarreling, fighting, debts, and jails with large families” (Planned Parenthood). Sanger set out to “sterilize the unfit” and make known methods to control the population (Planned Parenthood). Many of her colleagues were racist and believed contraception should be used for the purpose of maintaining

When one contemplates the concept of eugenics, few think of modern contraception and abortion when in reality they are one in the same. The American Eugenics Society, founded in 1923, proudly proclaimed that men with incurable “conditions” should be sterilized. However these conditions were often none that could be helped, such as, one’s intelligence, race, and social class (Schweikart and Allen 529-532). The purpose of the society was to create the perfect class of men; elite in all ways. Likewise, Margaret Sanger’s feminist, contraceptive movement was not originally founded with this purpose. It was marketed as a way to control the population and be merciful to those yet to be born, again determined also by race and

Abortion in many Buddhist positions appears to be justifiable when it conflicts with bodily autonomy or maintain the idea that a foetus is closer in status to a small or undeveloped animal. Although most views conflict with the first Buddhist precept of not bringing harm to sentient beings, living humans seem to be the most important when considering this and preference is given to the mother of a foetus as well as a foetus not being fully recognised as a human being by some Buddhist variants. Abortion in a Buddhists view however, is seen as a last resort by all variants.

In Margaret Sanger’s speech, “The Children Era”, the women’s writer and activist argues that there should be certain qualifications one must follow before one is claimed a “parent.” Through emotionally connecting with mothers and comparing children to a garden, Sanger persuades the rich white citizens of NYC by stating all children should be brought into a welcomed home. Also, Sanger thinks there should be a termination to forced maternity and enslaved motherhood. Though Sanger is for children’s rights, she also thinks if a woman is not financially stable to take care of a child the government should make them abort the offspring. Sanger connects with the mothers by telling them there should be “Happiness for the unborn,”and by

“Before you can cultivate a garden, you must know something about gardening.” This quote is from Margaret Sanger’s “The Children’s Era” speech given in 1925. Sanger believed that nurturing children is an art and has to be done properly in order for the children to be successful. In this illuminating speech, Margaret Sanger illustrated the lack of birth control options and overpopulation of unwanted children in order to persuade the people of New York, along with the Chairman, that it is time for a change when relating to women’s rights and children. Upon closer examination of this speech, Sanger used analogies, alliterations and focused on the children all while appealing to her knowledge along with the emotional and logical side to present her case about children being brought into the world unwanted, and that women should be in complete control of childbearing.

The current generation is quizzical of the importance that religious teachings hold in our evolving pro-choice society. In past generations, spiritualism was a method of uniting the community and nurturing the young. However, we find that faith has the adverse effect. While separate from other religions, a rise in hate fueled discrimination and separatism is observable between different communities in all corners of the globe. In this generation, it is only logical that as religion is taught, after learning from present and past events, the very essence of the teachings is skewed and put into question.

The paper, “The Immorality of Having Children”, by Stuart Rachels provides insight as to why it is wrong to raise children by supporting the Famine Relief Argument. Rachels argues that the cost of raising a child today, over two-hundred thousand, is so staggering that it would be better spent on donations towards famine relief projects. Throughout the paper, Rachels provides substantial arguments that emphasize the point that having children is the biggest decision that someone will ever make in their life rather than what to believe or whether to get married, and the decision should not be taken lightly. All the arguments presented are persuasive, but the argument is flawed overall because it never takes into account the importance of

Regardless of one’s views on the topic of contraception, Margaret Sanger’s Woman and the New Race helped to break new ground through encouraging women to take control of their bodies. Early in her writing, Sanger brings up overpopulation and how women’s primary role as mothers have contributed to this issue. “While unknowingly laying the foundations of tyrannies and providing the human tinder for racial conflagrations, woman was also unknowingly creating slums, filling asylums with insane, and institutions with other defectives. She was replenishing the ranks of the prostitutes, furnishing grist for the criminal courts and inmates for prisons. Had she planned deliberately to achieve this tragic total of human waste and misery, she could hardly have done it more effectively.” This artfully formed passage shows the passion behind Sanger’s beliefs. While on the surface it may seem that she is attacking women, the point of her idea is to frame the passive nature of women in Western Society up to this point.

It is quite clear from a variety of sources that abortion has been severely disapproved of in the Buddhist tradition. It is also equally clear that abortion has been tolerated in Buddhist Japan and accommodated under exceptional circumstances by some modern Buddhists in the U.S. The situation is similar to that of Roman Catholicism, where abortion, though disapproved of in the strongest terms by Church authorities, is still practiced by a large number of devoted Catholics and defended by at least a few.

Not only are woman subjected to society norms based on their personality characteristics, but also on their life choices and “domestic responsibilities” questions arise for woman like “who will care for you children and husband”. Montague Kern and Paige P. Edley state that women will continue to be “criticized for abandoning their traditional family roles” (1). This topic is not something that is brought up to their male counterparts. I don’t believe I have ever heard a man be questioned on who was going to assume the responsibility of raising their children. So until society genuinely accepts that raising children and other domestic issues are shared endeavors, then women will continue to face this barrier. (Robson, 208)

Societal perceptions of motherhood in North America have changed drastically over the last century and continue to change. Due to prescribed traditional gender roles, the concept of motherhood has historically been latent in the concept womanhood, in that a woman’s ability to reproduce was seen to be an inherent part of her identity. Thus there existed societal pressures not only for women to become mothers, but to fit into the impossible standard of being the “perfect mother”. However, as the feminist movement gained more ground and women were increasingly incorporated into the workforce, these traditional views of gender roles and in turn motherhood were challenged. As the family dynamics that exist today are much more diverse, what