The slippery slope

A few weeks ago, Matthew Hosier wrote a very succinct article, in response to a question on a survey undertaken by The Evangelical Alliance.  To the question: ‘What do you consider to be the single most important issue facing the UK?’ he wrote this:

Sexual and reproductive ethics are a big issue, and bigger than many of the items given in the EA’s list, because these are issues that strike at the very core of what it means to be human . . . Current developments in sexual and reproductive ethics are in a different category because they are so much more literally ‘flesh and blood’ to us.

Hosier goes on to remark that the battle over ‘same-sex marriage’ has been won, but now the fight is on to normalise transgenderism, using many of the same tactics applied in the SSM debate.  In a nutshell, these are: personal rights and autonomy (rather than community considerations), the plasticity of sexuality (rather than seeing sex as biologically and creationally grounded), an appeal to tolerance (in a totalitarian tone), and so on.  The climate is being created where any critique of transgenderism will come to be perceived as hostility towards people.

The whole framework for the way we perceive sexual and reproductive ethics is shifting.  I can only do Hosier’s argument justice by quoting his article:

The assumption that sex is not restricted to marriage, and is primarily for the purposes of recreation rather than reproduction renders any unwanted by-products of sex disposable rather than valuable.

The assumption of personal autonomy over a woman’s body makes abortion a right.  The ubiquity of abortion makes embryo experimentation appear less obnoxious than it might otherwise – a trend also encouraged by the number of ‘spare’ embryos created as a by-product of IVF.

IVF renders the sexual act obsolescent as a means of reproduction thus tangentially giving greater legitimacy to same-sex relationships.  The legitimizing of same-sex marriage also means that the provision of IVF or surrogacy for same-sex couples becomes a matter of rights.

The reality of same-sex marriage logically means the replacement of the terms ‘mother’ and ‘father’ with the un-gendered (and less personal) ‘parent a’ and ‘parent b’.  When the sex of the parents is removed as an item from birth certificates and other documentation, it naturally follows that the sex of the child should also be removed (rather than ‘assigned’) from such documents.

This depersonalizing of parenthood means that mitochondrial replacement technologies that create children with three biological parents becomes thinkable.  The plasticity of sexuality witnessed in same-sex relationships and embryo experimentation means transgenderism becomes something that identifies a problem with the body, which science can attempt to fix, rather than an issue of psychology, or soul.  And so on.

It is the interconnectedness of these issues that for me grants them their significance – the sum is greater than the parts, and the sum works towards a diminution of human personhood as it breaks the links between man and woman, parents and children, individuals and community.  And that is why, for me, it is sexual and reproductive ethics that are the single most important issue facing the UK today.

Hosier has correctly identified the sinister, slippery slope our society is sliding down.  The signs have been there to see.  And where will it end?  Enough is never enough: there is always more ground for the enemy to gain!  Like the Men of Issachar, take note of the signs and the strategic turning points.  Pray!  For, like them, we need to know what to do.

To read Matthew Hosier’s blog, go to www.thinktheology.co.uk 

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