Wisdom is a Woman

Have you been struggling to make sense of the sometimes senseless world we live in? Where truth is whatever an individual decides to call truth. Are you losing faith in family, friends, employer, and government to do what is right and decent by you and others? Are you feeling all of the options for saftety and security, once the standards in life, have been trampled upon by those in power or with money? Where does a person go for comfort when life has become a struggle to navigate? Being wise can be your answer. 

From a very young age to the present, there is a verse in the Bible I have always prayed, which centers around WISDOM. Proverbs 3:16-18 "Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are pleasant ways, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her; those who hold her fast will be blessed."

The reason I pray for WISDOM is because of what this passage says in the Bible also: James 1:5-8 "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind."

This prayer is such a part of my life that I have the words tattooed on my palms. My right palm has long life in it and my left palm has riches and honor in it. The back of my right hand has Proverbs 3:16 on it. If you have ever gotten your palms tattooed, you know it has tons of nerves and is a painful tattoo to get there. But, the verse is such a part of me, until I braved the pain. Because the hands are used so much and washed often, I will need to have frequent touch ups of this tattoo. 

Wisdom is the ability to use information, truths, and/or facts you know to MAKE wise choices and decisions. To know WHEN to make those choices and decisions. Wisdom takes courage and can even be an isolating character trait. But for those who use wisdom they will, in the long run, be blessed and have peace. Wisdom also lets the person who holds to her that peace comes from within.

As a young girl I noticed wisdom was refered to as a SHE. This really fascinated me. Why is wisdom referred to as a "she?" I invite you now on an exercise of the mind. To go where many church leaders have not taken you.

Wisdom is an important concept in the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures. Wisdom is also described as more than a good quality. She is a personified heavenly female power. Most of the Wisdom books that portray her as a personified deity are only present in the canon of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox church. For Protestants they are part of the Apocrypha. These books are the Wisdom of Solomon, Ben Sirach and, to a lesser extent, Baruch, which were all written before the birth of Jesus. 

In Proverbs 8, Wisdom describes her role in the creation of the world. At one point, in verses 22-25 (all quotes from RSV), she says,“The LORD created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water.” If Wisdom is “created” or “acquired” by Yahweh “in the beginning” this might indicate her secondary rank.She tells us she was “created” “before the beginning of the earth” and “brought forth.” The word translated as “created” also means “acquire.” For example, it is used when Boaz made Ruth his wife (Ruth 10:5, 10) which gives it another profound meaning here.

A couple verses later in 29-30 she continues,“… when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master workman; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the sons of men.” Lady Wisdom was “beside” Yahweh,” and rejoicing “before him.”

In the last section of chapter 8, verses 32-36, Wisdom says about herself, "And now, my sons, listen to me: happy are those who keep my ways. Hear instruction and be wise, and do not neglect it. Happy is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors. For he who finds me finds life and obtains favor from the LORD; but he who misses me injures himself; all who hate me love death.”

Genesis 1:26-27 also confirms that at the creation of Mankind Yahweh speaks to another divine being. Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” (Many believe God was speaking to Jesus in this verse, but the earlier paragraph indicates wisdom was present at creation). So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. If it is considered heretical for Wisdom to be a divine being, we should remember that angels and cherubim are present in the Bible as heavenly entities. It does not mean they are minor gods contesting monotheism. Lady Wisdom – A divine feminine entity ignored in Christianity | Marianne Widmalm | The Blogs (timesofisrael.com)

If you have noticed, a large amount of my writing centers around the role of women in Christianity. My book, When Will Eve Be Forgiven?, looks at some teachings about women which I believe are due further research (Bible study). I am not introducing a new concept of the role of women in the Bible, but, looking at the interpretation of Scripture by many who may not have looked at the verses in its original language.

There is never a need to argue or fight about the Bible and its content. Acting out of love goes against the philosophy and teaching of the Bible. I only encourage studying the Bible for yourself. Some people feel if they question any understanding of the Bible they are being sinful. That is far from true and if anyone makes you believe that or feel that way, they are being abusive towards you. Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman who needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth, 2 Timothy 2:15.

To say Wisdom is a goddess is not a step I'm willing to take. She is just another one of God's creation given an assignment. The Bible speaks about other gods and those gods have power also. The church nails home that we are not to worship other gods and I am all for that. But there was also something I noticed as a young girl reading the Bible. God said not to have any other god BEFORE him. "Thou shall not have no other gods before me. Other gods are acknowledged as having powers also. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them; for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers unpon the children unto the THIRD and FOURTH generation of them that hate me," Exodus 20:3-5.

Personally, I have understood the word "before" here as referring to rank – that is, you may not consider any other god to be more valuable/worthy than the one true God. The preposition "before" here (עַל־ al: Strong's #5921) is a simple preposition, and simply means upon, over, above, on (e.g. Genesis 1:2; Leviticus 9:7; 18:30) toward, about (Exodus 18:13), against (Exodus 17:3) beside(s) (Genesis 15:27), before (the passage in quesiton); on account of, because of, for this reason (Genesis 2:24; Exodus 15:23; 18:9), among other synonymic meanings, being used to specify position of something, often in relation to something else (originating from a verb עָלָה alah describing movement). So no, it cannot be taken to denote a 'higer rank', and is never used to that effect in the rest of the Hebrew Bible.

Other scholars believe "before" me means in his sight, where he can see. Since God sees everything, it is not possible to have any other god secretly. 

In times when things are not going the way they should and chaos reigns, there has to be something to hold onto. Hold onto wisdom. Know truths and facts and use them to guide you to make right choices. It is so easy to say the good guy never wins and join in on doing wrong or just giving up. But wisdom offers you hope and for peace. At the end of the day, no matter what others are doing, you are left with you. Your decisions and choices are what YOU have to live with and those choices affect others. There is power in WISDOM.

I hope you found this as fascinating as I did when I was a child. I hope it sparks the studier in you to take a closer look at some of your favorite and faith held Bible verses. In this same vein of why so many things are refered to as a woman, I will be looking at why justice is a she.

Sacrifice of Motherhood

Ask a woman who has been pregnant and givien birth to describe the experience and you will receive varying accounts. Some women enjoy and have the 'glow' of pregnacy while others find it a time filled with nausea and physical discomfort. A 2015 study by Polish researchers found mothers carrying sons had higher disgust sensitivity compared to mothers carrying daughters in the first trimester. While girl-moms’ queasiness decreased during the second trimester, boy-moms actually experienced elevated stomach-turning reactions.

Deliveries can be quick or drawn out with intense pain. There are those who want to be present and experience every nuance of giving birth, while others pray to be knocked out and awakened once the baby is delivered. Joanna was forced to remain in the tilted position 24 hours a day for two and a half months. After 75 days – and what is believed to be the longest labour ever recorded – Joanna gave birth to a healthy girl, Iga, and boy, Ignacy. The two babies were delivered by caesarean at a neo-natal clinic in Wroclaw, Poland.

Even with medical books available to walk a woman through pregnancy and delivery, there is always something the literature is unable to convey and could only be learned through the experience of BEING pregnant and GIVING birth. 

It surprises me how many people view being pregnant and giving birth as no more extrodinary or involved as going to the grocery store for food. They say it has been done for years, so there must not be that much to it. Many of the adverse effects of pragnancy women faced were turned into just old wive's tales. The old wives were on to something when they warned “gain a child and lose a tooth.” Women who have had three children forfeit four chompers more than those who have had two kids or fewer. Women whose first two children are the same sex, and who then go on to have a third child, are particularly at risk. Problems with gum disease and calcium absorption in pregnancy may leave moms vulnerable 

Carrying a child and giving birth, whether vaginally or by cesarean section, can stress muscles, ligaments, and nerves responsible for sexual function and bladder and bowel control. The U.S. has one of the highest maternal mortality rates among developed countries, according to data from the Orginisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. There were 20 maternal deaths for every 100,000 live births in 2019, more than double the rate just two decades ago.

More than half of the women, 52%, died after delivery. The total numbers are likely higher thab reported, as deaths from suicide and drug overdoses among people who recently gave birth may not be listed as postpartum deaths. Black women are more than twice as likely to die as a result of chilkdbirth than White women, underscoring racial and ethnic diparities.

The most common complications women report after giving birth include pain after sex, incontinence, pain at the incision site following a cesarean section, and postpartum depression, Gunter said. Once the baby is born, a woman’s blood pressure may spike dangerously. She may hemorrhage or develop egg-sized blood clots. Her emotions may plummet or soar amid rapidly fluctuating hormones. Crippling lower back pain may sear on one side of the body, while on the other, the abdominal muscles separate after months of straining to contain a growing human. These changes happen while her newborn baby needs to eat once every two to three hours, if not more frequently.

In a first-of-its-kind, ground-breaking analysis of pre- and post-pregnancy brain scans published in 2016, researchers found mothers lose gray matter during pregnancy—and these losses endure for at least two years. 

Even with all we know about pregnany and childbirth, there are surprises. Because being pregnant and delivering a baby is much more demanding on the body, serious thought should be given whether to bnecome a mother or not and the choice should be made by the person affected the most - the potencial mother. Motherhood is a sacrificial act filled with mystery and can even be seen in the animal kingdom. Moms do and give in ways not even noticed by themselves.

One similarities moms have with an animal is how they carry their newborn. Regardless of whether they are left- or right-handed, human moms tend to cradle their babies on the left side of their bodies, especially in the early months. Observed off the coast of a Russian island, walrus moms tend to keep their babies on the left while bobbing along the waves, and their calves swam over to their mother’s left side before diving to suckle. 

We all know mother protect their children fiercely The widespread phenomenon of maternal aggression may involve oxytocin, a neurochemical also related to birth and lactation. In a 2017 lab experiment, rat moms stopped attacking a threat once oxytocin signaling in part of their brains was blocked. Some studies have found that oxytocin levels in moms increase at the onset of labor and during labor compared to 1 or 2 weeks before labor, reaching a peak just when the head of the baby is delivered. In another study, levels of oxytocin were found to increase slowly until delivery and then decrease up to 8 weeks postpartum. One group reported higher levels of oxytocin at 36 weeks of pregnancy than 1 day after delivery or later.

Mothers are willing to go to the death for their children. Here are some animals who go above and beyond for their offsprings. I ask you to picture a 'human' mom and the sacrifice she makes with her decision to become a mom. Motherhood (pregnancy and delivery included) is not for the faint of heart.

Ever the overachiever, the female octopus can lay up to hundreds of thousands of eggs in one go. Over the eggs’ development period — anywhere from 40 days to 53 months in the case of one record-breaking species, Graneledone boreopacifica, these maternal cephalopods gently blow water currents over the eggs to provide them with oxygen and keep them clean. Unwilling to leave her brood to hunt for food, the mother octopus often resorts to eating one or two of her own tentacles for sustenance while waiting for them to hatch.

Chicken moms take their duties very seriously. Creating an endless amount of calcium carbonate for eggshells is a difficult task, so if chickens don't get enough calcium in their diets, they'll actually dissolve their own bones to make baby-housing shells. 

Like bears, the mother Pacific gray whales go hungry for months while still needing to produce high-calorie milk for their babies. During this time they may lose as much as 8 tons of weight.

For many females spiders, they attach their egg cocoons to their webs and watch over them until the babies hatch. Once her children have hatched, the mother continues to eat, but regurgitates most of her meals as a nutrient soup for her offspring while the spiderlings stay in their mother's web. When the babies are around a month old, the mother spider rollover on her back allowing the spiderlings to clamber over her, kill her by injecting their venom and digestive enzymes into her body, and eat her. When the babies are around a month old, the mother spider rolls over on her back allowing the spiderlings to clamber over her, kill her by injecting their venom and digestive enzymes into her body, and eat her. 

In earwig nation, the idea of unconditional maternal love isn't a given. When earwig mothers have a clutch of babies (or nymphs), the mothers will sniff out a chemical signal from the healthier ones and proceed to provide more abundant care and feeding to those babies. The babies that are identified as hungrier and less robust will be given less attentive parenting and feeding. 

Mama Panda is a coldhearted, favorite-choosing shrew of a parent. Or a little less dramatically: Mama Panda will often give birth to two babies but almost always only raises one.  Panda moms have to expend an enormous amount of energy to even digest their own food, and providing milk or resources for little ones is extremely difficult. By concentrating their energy on one of the babies, the chance of having one healthy offspring seems better than having two weak progeny.

We have no shortage of stories about infanticide in nature. Most of us who have been in a fourth-grade classroom know that hamsters are one of the most well-known creatures to devour their young, along with mice and other rodents. But long-tailed skinks that inhabit the island of Lanyu (just off the coast of Taiwan) If they feel they're threatened by predators, the skinks immediately gobble up their own eggs.

Birth Control means Controlling Births

Whenever people talk about pregnancy it is always in a warm, loving, gushy, feelings kind of way. The thought of a new bundle of joy arriving soon delights those in proximity to the expectant mother. Everyone loves a baby. Or do they?

In early history of the family, children were not always viewed as a godsend. Oh, they were needed and necessary for various reasons, but there was not the joy and delight experienced by modern expecting parents. Male children were extremely important. They would inherit the families wealth and carry on the family name. Boy babies were desperately wanted. And if a woman failed to deliver the 'man' child, there could be consequences. 

In many early cultures, men could dissolve a marriage or take another wife if a woman was infertile. However, the early Christian church was a trailblazer in arguing that marriage was not contingent on producing offspring. The early Christian church held the position that if you can procreate you must not refuse to procreate. But they always took the position that they would annul a marriage if a man could not have sex with his wife, but not if they could not conceive. Pregnancy has always mattered to men. Pregnancy for women, or the inability of, could be a time of anxiety and fear.

In modern society, it is almost tabboo to say you don't want to have any children. People can not fathom why someone would prefer to be childless. Some research found a negative relation between these variables: parenthood was associated with decreased marriage quality, increased marital conflict, more severe symptoms of depression, and decreased marital satisfaction–especially when pregnancy was unplanned. Having children is not all fun and games. 

Children are hard on a marriage. Not only is raising children time-consuming and tiring, it is also related to a frequent exposure to stressors. With each added child there is added stress taking time and attentian away from the married couple as they manage the stressors of child rearing. The stressors may outweigh the resources the couple has at some point. Even if partners are fulfilled as parents, their relational wellbeing may be threatened due to parental distress. 

So, throughout history, ways to decrease the number of children conceived has been practiced. People knew the number of children they had affected the entire family in varous ways. How many children were people having in the days when they were not successfully able to control births?

Who gave birth to the most children in history? Between 1725-1765, Valentina Vassilyev was apparently rather busy. According to a local monestary's records, the prolific Russian mother popped out 16 pairs of twins, 7 sets of triplets, and 4 sets of quadruplets, ove 27 separate lobours. The grand total: 69 children. There are many skeptics regarding this record. But, if controlling births is not practiced, there is a probability of having a large number of children. Sixty-nine children may seem like far too many. For some, 3, are far too many. It all depends on the ability of the parents to be able to care for the children. Finances are important, but emotional and mental stability to raise a large number of children is a must.

The verified record holder for most births is a Ugandan mother named Miriam Nabatanzi, who has a rare genetic condition called hyperovulation, and gave birth to 44 children across 15 births from 1993 to 2016. She is a single mother to her 38 surviving kids.

For men, and the number of children they conceive are off the charts. While records are difficult to confirm, it probably is true that Genghis Khan has fathered the most children in history, as estimates range between 1,000 and 3,000 direct offspring from his enormous harem. A 2003 study estimated that 16 million men alive today are direct descendants of Genghis Khan. Similar studies have shown a Y-chromosome lineage linked to at least ten other extraordinarily prolific dads, including the Qing Dynasty ruler Giocangga. Why haven't science come up with an oral or injectable contraceptive for men?

More recently, a court case in the Netherlands exposed an alarming fact. A Dutch musician in his early 40’s named Jonathan Jacob Meijer, had fathered between 550 and 600 children through sperm donation. Meijer is a bit of a Dutch lion, with “a mane of curly blonde hair.” In online ads promoting his suitability as a sperm donor, Meijer has described himself as a “musical Viking donor.”

When we think about whether or not to have children, we believe it should be the sole decision of the future parents. But, that was not always the case.

In Ancient Rome the law provides too much freedom to householders whether to admit a newborn child or not. In order to make a decision, all family members including relatives and neighbors give their opinions. Because during that time unwanted and disabled children could be left to die on the streets. Law gives the father, who has whole authority on the family, the right to choose the life of his child. The accepted child would be welcomed by a ceremony in the family. There are several symbolic scenes such as the oldest man in the family putting the child to the ground and hanging a flashy crown outside of the house door to welcome a child. During the first 3-4 days, they hang a chain of amulet to the girl’s neck and bulla to the boy’s neck. Girls and boys get their names after 8 and 9 days of their birth respectively which is a day after die lustrous, a time period when it is no longer feared the infant would die. 

As we continue to travel through time, children are still not viewed as a gift. The medieval society was primarily an agrarian one (community whose economy is based on producing and maintaining crops and farmland). And the family unit made the agrarian economy work. From an economic standpoint, nothing was more valuable to a peasant family than sons to help with the plowing and daughters to help with the household. To have children was, essentially, one of the primary reason to marry. Children were valued for the labor and production they could add to a poor family. Poor people had many children and did not practice controlling births.

Among the nobility, children would perpetuate the family name and increase the family's holdings through advancement in service to their liege lords and through advantageous marriages. Some of these unions were planned while the bride and groom-to-be were still in the cradle. Children were still used to increase wealth and status of a family. They were born with a job to help their family.

In 1325 and the outbreak of the first plague epidemic (bubonic), testators (a person who has made a will or given a legacy) had on average 2.8 live children. Between 1350 and 1375, the average dropped to 1.9 and continued to decrease, reaching a low of 1.4 children per testator between 1400 and 1424. To acheive this low number of children within a marriage, before the invention of reliable birth control, there must have been abstinance. Currently, there is a turning tide against the use of contraceptives, IVF, and abortions. The 1300's proved conception can be controlled without medical intervention. You just may not like how it is accomplished though.

During the 1300's when births were more than likely controlled through abtinance, life was not easy. Life was harsh with a limited diet and little comfort. Women were subordinate to men, in both the peasant and noble classes, and were expected to ensure the smooth running of the household. Children had a 50% survival rate beyond age one, and began to contribute to family life around age twelve. In 1300-1400, the life expectancy was 45.4 years of age.

Until about a century ago, many spouses died by their mid-forties, and many babies were born out of wedlock. Many children became orphans or were abandoned due to an inability to care for them. In medieval Europe, for example, people died early from disease, malnutrition, and other problems. One consequence of early mortality was that many young children could expect to outlive at least one of their parents and thus essentially were raised in one-parent families or in stepfamilies.

During the American colonial period, different family types abounded, and the nuclear family was by no means the only type. Children in colonial families were numerous and averaged between seven to ten in each household. The number of children at home varied, however, for a variety of reasons. The most common of these being (sadly) early death of children. Roughly half of the off-spring would not reach maturity. Nomadic Native American groups had relatively small nuclear families, while nonnomadic groups had larger extended families. Because nuclear families among African Americans slaves were difficult to achieve, slaves adapted by developing extended families, adopting orphans, and taking in other people not related by blood or marriage. Many European parents of colonial children died because average life expectancy was only 45 years. The one-third to one-half of children who outlived at least one of their parents lived in stepfamilies or with just their surviving parent. Mothers were so busy working the land and doing other tasks that they devoted relatively little time to child care, which instead was entrusted to older children or servants.

In 1800, most women in the U.S. had 7 children but that number has steadily decreased over the years, with the exception of the Baby Boom (when the U.S. fertility rate jumped to 3.62). In 2018, U.S. woman had 1.7 children on average.

By the 1900s, parents began to treat children more like little people and dressed them like kids, not mini adults. It was the custom to pose in front of a photographer's backdrop for family photos. Since there were no color photographs, artists sometimes painted over the black-and-white photos. This must have been the start of the wam fuzzy feelings towards having children. They were no longer viewed as bargaining chips for lucrative marriages, or free labor. Children were just children. Now a precious gift. So no need for trying to control births. Bring on the babies!

Moving much forward in US history, an important change in American families occurred during the 1940s after World War II ended. As men came home after serving in the military in Europe and Japan, books, magazines, and newspapers exhorted women to have babies, and babies they did have. People got married at younger ages and the birth rate soared, resulting in the now famous baby boom generation. Many families during the 1950s did indeed fit the Leave It to Beaver model of the breadwinner-homemaker suburban nuclear family. Following the Depression of the 1930s and the war of the 1940s, the 1950s seemed an almost idyllic decade. Life was easy and good. Why would anyone want to control births?

The pill was first prescribed exclusively for mestrual regulation, and only to married women. The emergence of the women's rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s was significantly related to the availability of the pill and the control over fertility it enabled. This capability allowed women to make choices about other life arenas, especially work. It reduced the risk of unintended pregnancy in the context of the sexual revolution of the '60s and established family planning as the cultural norm for the U.S. and in many other countries of the world. The first pill was effective and simple to use. The theory was that the risk of pregnancy and the stigma that went along with it prevented single women from having sex and married women from having affairs. Since women on the Pill could control their fertility, single and married women could have sex anytime, anyplace, and with anyone without the risk of pregnancy.

This sounds absolutely retched doesn't it? Women having sex free willy-nilly and dodging the consequences of pregancy. THOSE WITHOUT SIN CAST THE FIRST STONE, John 8:7-11. Men have always had the ability to decide when they wanted to engage in the duties of fatherhood. Notice I said men chose when to enter fatherhood and not when to become a father. There's a difference. 

Nearly half (46%) of men ages 15 to 44 with biological children report that at least one of their children was born outside of marriage, and 31% report that all of their children were born outside of marriage. There are also 2.9 million men (2.4%) who are living with an unmarried partner and have biological children with that partner. Nearly one in ten men have children with more than one person. Of the 72.2 million fathers, 5.9 million (8.2%) have never been married. Nearly half (46 percent) of fathers with multiple-partner fertility had at least one child within a marriage and one child outside a marriage.

A new Child Trends study estimates that 15 percent of men, or more than one in seven, will father children with more than one woman by the age of 40. According to the study, Men Who Father Children with More Than One Woman: A Contemporary Portrait of Multiple-Partner Fertility, five percent of men will father children with more than one woman by age 25. This increases to eight percent at age 30, to 12 percent at age 35, and to 15 percent at age 40. Moreover, these men have more children than men who have multiple children with the same woman: More than one-third of men (36 percent) who had children with multiple women had four or more children. 

These numbers could be higher, but men have the luxury of not being tied down by an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy. They do not even have to acknowledge a pregnancy. The child being born may not ever have an impact on his life. 43% of U.S. children live without their father. 90% of homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes. 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes. maybe this is one reason women say my body, my choice. 

I hate to say this but, women want to control their number of births, and men are not so concerned about controlling births. Sadly, women who want to be in control of births are viewed as promiscuous and careless. While throughout history, men have not been labled as permiscous and carless for having unplanned and unwanted pregnancies.

By the 1900's we entered a period where children were not seen as a burden or just another mouth to feed. People welcomed a new life into their home. Sexual freedom for both men and women, led to an increase in pregnancies. To solve the problem of controlling pregnancy, it will take both the man and the woman. just as it takes two to make a child. Taking away the freedom of one, while the other has no accountability is not a balanced solution. There are so many alarming statistics about pregnancy, such as teen girls are usually impregnated by an adult male. Teen girls are unable to give consent, but the adult fathers are not prosecuted. Pregnancy is complicated in many cases.

Birth control means controlling births. It has been practiced for centuries in various ways, some in not so pretty or kind ways. The life of the child planned or unplanned, can be beautiful or the substance of what tragic movies are made of. The ability to control births aids in the health of society.