Mark…I LOVE your commentaries. But this was especially brilliant..this is a keeper.
Thankyou.

You wrote: ‘I would not, for all that, trade these pains for non-existence. Nor would you.’ Here’s the thing, though, I know of someone who absolutely would have preferred never to have been born. What would you say to him? In addition, Jesus Himself said of Judas that ‘It would have been good for that man if he had never been born.’ (Mk 14:21). Doesn’t at least the counter example of Judas falsify your existence-is-always-preferable-to-non-existence argument?

Down syndrome is genetic but almost never hereditary. There is probably a genetic component to depression, but so many other factors also play a role that it’s far too simple to think that it just passes from parents to children. I’m not dismissing the friend’s question, just saying that these examples are not well chosen.

That, or he needs to go work with the suffering Down syndrome population to see how much they love love love life and really do get in many cases, that they have limitations much of the rest of the world does not.

So true. I remember when I was pregnant, on the pregnancy message boards, there was always a lot of worry about elevated prenatal tests or whatever. So much anxiety. When you decide that you won’t abort no matter what, and then don’t take those tests, you don’t have that anxiety and stress and worry. Funny how that works.

Mark, this essay is beautiful and true.  I hope it is somehow read by as many of lost post-modern youth as possible.  Our faith, our Christian anthropology, as it were, has it right - expect suffering, but know you are loved and must love all of humanity.

@James: Your friend who “wishes he had never been born” has the ability, *by virtue of having been born* to formulate that wish. He also has the ability to change his mind later. And even those who wish it so hard, even to the point of trying to eliminate themselves from the earth, are acting for themselves. Which I disagree with as a moral choice, but I can live with it. Making that choice for *someone else* is a more complex ethical problem—I can’t see how anyone could justify making it.

” If you elevate the purpose of life to “avoid suffering” then you needn’t confine your fears to some chromosomal aberration. The fact is, the most beautiful, healthy, intelligent perfect child is no more going to be able to avoid suffering than a baby with clinical depression or Down’s.”

YES.This is the heart of it, I think. This is the truth that seems to be so obscured by the dark glass of social and medical discourses today.

Some of the most miserable people on earth are those who have not adequately suffered.

This is one of the most incredibly insightful and concise commentaries on the human condition I have ever read.  I would love to see a framed copy in every obstetrician’s office….
It seems to me that to argue against this perspective is to show that one still doesn’t quite “get it.”  Prayer would be the solution in that case.

Every child born inherits some kind of genetic programming, both for good health or bad.When or how that programming plays out is variable & some “bad” genes actually work for good in counteracting disease.
When we try to play God we end up playing eugenics.

“What is needed here is a stronger sense of life as a gift to be received with gusto and gratitude instead of a minefield to be avoided as a source of pain.” Wow, what eye-opening words right there, thank you!

Thank you for writing; I’m sending this over to my 17 year old son who has cystic fibrosis.  I’m glad to hear it from someone other than us parents who carry recessive genes.  We say these things to our children (and anyone else who would challenge us)all the time!

Great response. I would also like to add that a pervasive mentality these days is that if medicine is not advanced enough to help me and my problem now, it will NEVER be advanced enough to help my children.  Therefore I won’t have children or abort the ones with the same genetic problems I have. But that is so backward.  Medical advancements are moving faster than ever before and many problems that plague us are likely to be treatable by the time our children are having children.  I often have to remind people of this when discussing questions like the one above.  The Culture of Death has so invaded our consciousness that we often default to the “no life is better than life” approach to medicine forsaking the possibility of future treatments and cures.

I didn’t see whether he mentioned if he is married or not. If not and doesn’t feel a call to be married I don’t see a problem. It’s really only an issue if he is or wants to be married and indulge the implied and childish motto of our age: “I want sex but not children!”

Speaking as a high functioning autistic- it was the linking of autism and Trisimony 18 as an argument FOR therapeutic abortion in the case of genetic disease that led me to be pro-life, I have a message for EVERYBODY out there who thinks like this man’s friend:

A bad childhood is better than no childhood at all.

I had a *very* rough childhood.  And nobody knew why.  Heck, my specific mental diagnosis wasn’t even in the DSM until revision 4 in 1994, and by then I was 24 years old.  I didn’t receive my diagnosis until I was 30.

EVERY human being has something to contribute- even those materialists see as “disabled” because “they will spend more than they earn” over their lifetimes.

Some of my best friends have Down’s Syndrome.

It’s too late to sign up for this year, but to all readers in Oregon I strongly support the Archdiocese of Portland Office for People With Disabilities, and their retreat, Journey Together in Hope.  Please pray for me and my family later this month as we take this journey.

http://www.archdpdx.org/opd

Perhaps this goes without saying or is too simplistic but, beyond any person’s circumstances in this life, the point is still the next life, right?

@Robbo- if the only point is the next life, then I suggest that the right thing to do is to follow the advice in Ecclesiastes Chapters 3-6.  The Eugenicists would be all over that one.

But that’s only if you don’t care about where you end up in the next life.

This life *determines* where you end up in the next one.  And EVERY soul deserve that chance, regardless of what the Eugenicists think might happen.

Absolutely right, Robbo, but that may not carry a lot of weight with someone unconvinced of the existence of the next life.

Good post! I second the Chesterton recommendation.

Thank you for sharing this. I felt like I was reading a modern day GK Chesterton: where common sense doesn’t only answer the question, but transfigures the entire situation and leads us to contemplate the beauty of Christ.

To echo what so many others are saying, I have clinical depression and am quite happy to exist. (I may not have said that two years ago, but medication did wonders for my outlook on life!) If my parents had decided that, due to their family history with depression, they didn’t want to have children, they wouldn’t have spared me anything. Or rather, they would have spared me the joys of seeing a sunrise, playing on the beach, falling in love, staying up till 4 in the morning having a really great conversation with someone, and holding my own child along with all the pain.

“...people are not to be used, but loved”.  In Saturday’s WSJ, the “behavioral economist” who regularly has a column, advised a man to leave his relationship of six years because he was just “comfortable” now, the excitement of the early years were over.  He was advised to seek pleasure instead.  I couldn’t believe that this advice was given in the same terms he was telling someone else how to choose eating red peppers over eating cake.  He had no concept that there was another person involved,  this woman who had also invested six years of her life into this relationship.  Sadly, this utilitarian world view is everywhere.

@James: Regarding the person who “absolutely would have preferred never to have been born,” is that person speaking out of ignorance of what the afterlife holds?  St Paul writes, the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom 8:18).  This topic can’t be intelligently discussed unless one is aware of what Divine Revelation has to say about the matter.  Regarding the Judas reference, I think you are comparing two different things.  Mark’s comments are in reference to the exchange of non-existence for everlasting beatitude, whereas your Judas reference deals with the exchange of non-existence for everlasting damnation.  An additional thought about the Mk 14:21 reference is that it could refer to the situation of those who are baptized and then abandon the faith, which appears to be the case for Judas: “For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them” (2 Pt 2:21).

What a truly great response, Mark. All it takes is strong confidence in God.  My wife, Lori, lost our first child and almost her life through an ectopic pregnancy. God was in command. Had it not been for her doctor and surgeon being in their offices during the lunch hour, her doctor realizing that she was bleeding to death, rushing her to a hospital, where a blood transfusion was started the instant we entered the hospital door, the 63 years we were together would have been greatly shortened. Her doctors marveled that she survived. It seemed unlikely that she could have children with only one tube left, but we were fortunately later blessed with two daughters and two grandchildren.

@Dick- as someone who was once depressed enough to contemplate it, let me tell you that it is sometimes *because* of belief in the afterlife that some wish they had been stillborn or aborted- because then they would have escaped the pain of THIS life.

I read a really brief news piece on a young girl who is incapable of feeling pain.  I’m not sure if this includes emotional pain, but one of the interesting side effects her parents and doctors noted, was her inability to feel *empathy*.
. 
Great piece, I read it to three of my kids.  Thank you.
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BTW, as I write this, my nephew Mikey is back in the hospital.  He has Downs as well as a bone disease.  He will never walk, and is in a wheelchair.  It sometimes startles me how much that child has had to suffer, but he is one of the most cheerful kids I know.  Even when he’s in a bad mood, we can’t help but laugh at his sassy spunk.  Please pray for him, he almost died from an infection he caught, the last time he was in the hospital.  I get the feeling that he won’t be with us for much longer.

Just read a story at Life Site News about a family with CF that is open to life and has 6 or 7 kids.

Anna Lisa - the disease she had was strictly being unable to feel physical pain, like getting cut with a knife.  She is normal mentally.

I’m the one who cannot feel empathy, though I do a pretty damn good imitation with compassion.

I think that might be another reason why I am pro-life.  I just can’t imagine the pain of childbirth for the life of me, and can’t understand any man who thinks that suffering is not worthwhile.

I will preface by saying that all life is sacred and of inestimable worth regardless of a person’s physical or mental state.  All life is worth living.  But I will offer some sympathy to the reader’s friend.  The reader specifically wrote his friend “believes that it is his moral duty to avoid risking inflicting suffering on any offspring.”  This might be mislead but note that his friend isn’t arguing that someone’s life is meaningless or not worth living if they have a given disease but that someone should refrain from procreation so as “not to risk inflicting the misery caused by this disease on another human being.”  He’s absolutely right in the sense that we shouldn’t inflict misery or a miserable state upon someone.  That is where he is hung up.  He is focused only on this suffering to the exclusion of all else.  What he is saying is true, it is not, however, fully true.  Other people’s comments fully explain where he is lacking in fullness.  I would recommend the reader approach the topic with his friend with that in mind.

Posted by anna lisa on Monday, Aug 6, 2012 1:18 PM (EST):I read a really brief news piece on a young girl who is incapable of feeling pain.  I’m not sure if this includes emotional pain, but one of the interesting side effects her parents and doctors noted, was her inability to feel *empathy*.
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On the Wall St. Journal site there’s an article about research done in a French hospital involvng children that could not feel physical pain.When shown images of suffering they couldn’t respond in empathy through memory but only through imagination.So, they were still capable of empathy in spite of their condition.

@Kathleen, yes,it makes sense, and is interesting that empathy is something that must be fostered with special intervention in the case of these children. Thank God they can be helped. I guess that what I was trying to articulate was really that suffering has a way of refining us, and helps us to value our neighbor more, if we are taught how to approach it correctly.  It also makes me realize how the natural instinct to insulate our children from pain can actually be to their detriment.  That’s a tough one.
My sister knew from the time she was 18 wks pregnant that her child had a Trisomy, and an irregular skeleton.  The doctors were shocked that she would continue with the pregnancy.  A couple of them were actually angry.  They expected him to die at or around birth, but he has been with us for 17 years, and is a sweet love.  He has the intellect of a five year old, and is incredibly funny and naughty.  I feel honored when he calls me “Mommy” along with my Mom and my sister.

I can understand her friends comment about not wanting to pass on depression to a child.  Manic depression and its related illnesses run rampant through my mother’s family.  There’s not a one of us who doesn’t suffer from some form of it. I always think that we suffer a double-whammy because of how permissive it is- 1)we already carry some form of it in us, it’s just a matter of when and how it manifests itself 2) we grow up in unstable homes because of it and learn some really bad behaviors.  For as long as I can remember, I’ve never had a desire to have my own children and a large part of it stems from growing up surrounded by manic depression and the fall out from it.  I never wanted to run the risk of putting my children through that life.  Now would I adopt, absolutely.  But I’ve always known that if I had a child and they had depression issues I would feel responsible for them and think that their problems were my fault because I was selfish and wanted a child of my own.

The reference to the girl who cannot feel pain…this really is a good idea to bring up. Although she suffers from a physical incapacity to feel pain (and likely has the capacity for emotional angst) I think he parents are wise to be concerned that in having no idea at all what physical pain feels like, she might lack empathy. I wouldnt want a person with that disorder to me my anesthesiologist.

But that teaches a bigger lesson…isnt it our pain that we learn more of what others are feeling when they suffer. I care for they dying and the angst of those left behind is HUGE…If I knew not angst, I could not serve. I didnt get to choose my crosses just like a person born with a genetic predisposition to depression wouldnt get to pick thier cross

and I learned this lesson first hand as my husband is chronically depressed and our sons (who both excelled in school, did honors programs and were accepted into good schools) each turned into pumpkins between 20 & 21 when their inner genetic predispositions kicked in and severe depression took over. Im very blessed that neither died from it yet. I consider my grandson a ticking timebomb of depression but perhaps his mothers genes will prevail…I do pray that his mothers genes prevail.

The purpose of suffering is to help you understand that you are the cause of it.

Mr. Patton:

The sad thing about atheists is that they are so busy mocking the faith they can’t be bothered to find out what it says.  Anybody who thinks that the Church teaches Jesus was the cause of his suffering has not exactly made a close study of the Catholic theology of suffering.  This sort of dumb snark doesn’t work as satire because it only succeeds in satirizing stuff Catholics don’t believe.  Sure, *some* suffering comes from our own sins.  But there is a lot of innocent suffering out there too and the Faith does not leap to cheap “You had it coming” explanations.

“Heck!  I’ve suffered terribly at times.  So have you.  So has your friend.  And that includes not merely temporary pains but lifelong struggles, failures, debilitating psychological blows and a line drive to the groin when I was in sixth grade that I will never forget.”

I find this sort of reply standard theist fodder worthy of my earlier comment.

@Mr. Patton: Not at all.  Children suffer all the time for the sins of adults, and through no fault of their own.  The point of suffering, my friend, is to decrease our attachment to the things of this world, increase our compassion, intensify our awareness of the needs of others, and help us to grow spiritually. Children get hurt when they fall, but it would be a cruel parent who never allowed them to fall because then they would never learn to walk.  I have never grown so much in my faith, my inner strength, my compassion for others, my awareness of the needs of others, and my wisdom as during the times in my life when I have been through the worst kinds of suffering.

I find this sort of reply standard theist fodder worthy of my earlier comment.

And yet my comment has absolutely nothing to do with the supremely stupid assertion you make in that comment.  That’s why it’s such a pity that atheists so often worship instead of use their intellects.  To observe that people suffer is in no way to say that they are the cause of their suffering.  Do try using your intellect at some point.  God gave it to you for a reason.

Mr. Shea, my intellect does not allow me to equate your “line drive to the groin when I was in sixth grade that I will never forget.”  with any type of suffering.  I can understand your desire to relate to an audience that more than likely has experience suffering above the naive drivel that you wish to connect on but certainly you don’t expect a dialogue on an “issue” that only merits an opinion…:)

I understand the point of the article and agree. I am seeing a man who prior to his conversion got a vasectomy. He is considering a reversal, but one of his children from a previous relationship has autism. He doesn’t think the child shouldn’t live, but he is worried about how the child will take care of himself after he is dead. This thought is why he is reluctant to get the reversal. He is afraid of having another child who can’t care for itself after he is gone. What am I supposed to say to him? I don’t think just this argument in the article is going to convince him.

Posted by anna lisa on Monday, Aug 6, 2012 4:09 PM (EST):@Kathleen, yes,it makes sense, and is interesting that empathy is something that must be fostered with special intervention in the case of these children. Thank God they can be helped.”
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I think the article I referenced was rather asserting that we are hard-wired for empathy neurologically, but experiencing pain deepens the connections through memory.There are different types of pain beyond physical & not having the ability to feel physical pain would not keep one from experiencing the pain of loss, sorrow, etc.
To not have empathy at all is characteristic of sociopaths, not children lacking the ability to sense physical pain which is a difficult medical condition.Perhaps we were reading different articles?

Mr. Patton:

Your initial remark has nothing to do with the excuse you now offer for it.  Those of us with normal social and affective perceptual abilities will recognize that my line drive joke was a “joke”.  It’s this thing that people with normal social and affective abilities have and something New Atheists often lack, resulting in their imagining themselves to be geniuses when in fact they are simply unable to process information in ways normal people do.  The fact that I added a minor joke about suffering does not mean that I have not suffered.  No human being who has lived to his or her 50s has not faced suffering of some kind or other.  Meanwhile, your initial dumb comment about the purpose of suffering in the Christian tradition remains what it was: a stupid and ignorant snark devoid of any actual understanding of the Catholic theology of suffering.  Yet despite this, you manifestly consider yourself a Bright.  When will Brights live up their their opinion of themselves?

@Kathleeen:  To not have empathy is *also* characteristic of high functioning autism.  As many as 1:46 boys and 1:75 girls have this disorder, it really isn’t that rare anymore.  Suffering- if they let it- CAN teach the autistic compassion however.  Less so vicariously, which leads me to my next question.

@Mr. Patton, when you say your intellect can’t see “a line drive to the groin” as suffering, do you mean you imagine that getting hit in the gonads is not painful, or do you have another definition of the word “suffering” that I have not previously been aware of?  Must suffering always take a long time or lead to death in your moral calculus?  And how does the equation change *if death is the end of suffering*?

Ted Seeber ,
I think the empathy/autism connection is more of a circuitry issue than a pathology issue.

I guarantee it’s a circuitry issue.  A real sociopath has some empathy- and uses it to manipulate the overly emotional people around him to do his bidding.  A high functioning autistic has no empathy at all, and tries to simulate it by using compassion as a coping skill.

Thus the difference between an autistic wandering into the opposite gender locker room because he is curious, vs the sociopath pedophile who offers to let small girls pet his puppy so that he can get them behind a bush and rape them.

Mr. Seeber, “Must suffering always take a long time or lead to death in your moral calculus?  And how does the equation change *if death is the end of suffering*?”

It is my understanding that “suffering” is a current state of being and the equation changes once that state of being does not currently exist.

Mr. Patton- I see you missed my initial question, but your answer brings us back to the main point.  How can you tell the state of being “suffering” from not being in the state of being “suffering”, if a groin shot to the gonads (complete with implied teenage embarrassment as well as the pain) isn’t suffering worthy of humor, what is?

Note Mark is right- most humor in this world is what the feminists call “degrading humor” in that it involves some form of suffering.

I’m just trying to figure out what your parameters are for the conversation.  I am not necessarily judging those parameters at this point, but I do find that many New Atheist Bright types do NOT have a good deal of experience at testing their own hypothesis, but instead have a tendency to redefine words to fit their hypothesis.

“I am not necessarily judging those parameters at this point, but I do find that many New Atheist Bright types do NOT have a good deal of experience at testing their own hypothesis, but instead have a tendency to redefine words to fit their hypothesis.” -  Ted Seeber

Is this the direction you wish this discussion to take or do you not understand the word “suffering”?

My working assumption ( hypothesis ) , is “The purpose of suffering is to help you understand that you are the cause of it.”

This blog is about a question pertaining to having children and how suffering is a factor.  In Mark’s case, if he would have worn proper protective gear his genitalia would have not caused him a debilitating psychological blow…lol   As for the friend of the person asking this question, he would have relished my “hypothesis” as it was meant to be taken.

I find it amusing (or annoying) that all these Very Bright Thinkers are busy thinking and writing fairly mean comments, while those of us with children with genetic issues (that, yes, we pass on to them), are the ones living with smiles and understanding.  We have become wiser through pain, and live life with more gusto.  What’s that place in the Irish stories (Tir N’Og or something) where there’s no sadness but no happiness either because happiness cannot be understood without it?  Like that.  Just get married, make love, have babies.  You’ll see.

@Mr. Patton- I do not understand how YOU PERSONALLY are using the word suffering, in YOUR statement “Mr. Shea, my intellect does not allow me to equate your “line drive to the groin when I was in sixth grade that I will never forget.”  with any type of suffering.”

Despite Mark meaning it as a joke, I know for certain such an event would make me wear protective gear in the future, and thus, yes, it DOES fit “The purpose of suffering is to help you understand that you are the cause of it.”  It confirms the hypothesis you are putting forth, thus yes, your intellect DOES allow you to equate that with a type of suffering.

The absolute paradox is what I’m asking about.  What, specifically, is your definition of suffering that requires you to exclude such an event?  What is your axiom, your assumption, that rejects it?  Define your terms, and perhaps we’ll actually have something worth talking about- are your assumptions falsifiable in and of themselves?

You never know what God has in mind.  When my eldest daughter was born, we were informed that she had Turner’s Syndrome - a missing chromosome.  The doctors really had no clue what to tell us about expected development.

We took her home, and did our best.  She is a Franciscan sister, with a Master’s degree in Special Ed, an amazing woman, and the delight of our lives.

You never know.  Other parents have carefully planned their “perfect” child, only to find that accidents, chemical abuse, or other factors have led to their dear child having a less than “perfect life”.

What’s perfect?  Whatever plan we have for our lives, God is in charge.

@LindaF, that’s so true. How beautiful about your daughter.

Well said, Mark, well said.
This is why I hope to meet Beethoven in heaven.  Just a few selected episodes from his life: mother died when he was 17; father became an alcoholic and died shortly after; prevented from marrying more than once due to class differences; contemplated suicide; protracted illnesses more than once; brother died of tuberculosis; went totally deaf and could not even hear his own 9th symphony.  And yet…and yet.

I really enjoyed this post.  Such a refreshing, positive way to look at life.

I’m so tired of the utilitarian approach. Have you seen this? http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2012/04/09/120409crbo_books_kolbert?currentPage=4 Such a depressing way to look at life.

Dear Mark, thanks for your inspiring exercise of reason which is blessed with that higher wisdom!

...in this day and age of MRIs etc., medical science can discover if a baby has (eg) Downs Syndrome or be a potential carrier of MS! Why should a baby be brought into this world to suffer? In this case(and others eg rape etc), it is a woman’s right to terminate the pregnancy! I am a Roman Catholic also( perhaps a back slider and a cafeterian catholic or maybe catholic in name only but still a catholic) and if this “GOD” (and we really don’t know what God even is) cares so much about his/her/its potential market for future catholics (yes, a lot money is involved), this ENTITY (whatever it is) can intervene and stop the abortionists!
We can protest abortion laws and seem to be losing…so this means that GOD doesn’t care, impotent, ignorant etc.! Then why call him GOD? I am against abortion only because of changing demographics-in other words less and less white people in the world! If a negro girl from the housing projects would like an abortion (we wish), she can go right ahead, but I don’t think that it should be medical procedure paid for by taxpayer!

Mike From Toronto- are you sure you aren’t a member of the Toronto Eugenics commission rather than a faithful Catholic?  You seem to have some strange definition of suffering that makes it wrong.  What do you have against the children of rape, why are you bigoted against the differently abled? Not to mention your racist bigotry in the last sentence.  Such arguments are not worthy of the grand title of Katholicos- Universal, the whole world under one church and one morality.

Ted Seeber,
Ted, some comments are just posted as bait & it’s not worth biting.
:)

Kathleen- for every person posting, there are 10 people Lurking.  For the sake of the souls of the lurkers, the bait is the posts we MOST need to respond to.

Ted Seeber ,
That’s a fair approach if you feel so led.

“and something New Atheists often lack, resulting in their imagining themselves to be geniuses when in fact they are simply unable to process information in ways normal people do.”
Your link is to a very stupid analysis of a very stupid YouTube video.
Apparently “normal people” are “religious” and prone to “process information” based on their religious prejudice.  Of course that is simply irrational in every respect.