Recently I’ve lost quite a bit of weight. I still have a little bit more to lose, but I’m nearly there. I never really saw myself as fat or clinically obese – but I clearly was. Don’t get me wrong, I knew I was overweight and I knew that I should lose weight, but all the dieting, all the half-hearted attempts at doing anything about it, never resulted in much. I would eat well for a while and then go back to my old ways. Nothing would get better: if anything it got worse. Even when my sister gently reminded me that I should lose weight, or a friend sat me down and told me bluntly that I was in serious need of doing so, I didn’t pay attention.
Then, one day, as I was walking along Princes Street in Edinburgh, I caught site of this very big person. Indeed I was so stunned by how big this person was, that I felt compelled to stop and to take another look. When I looked, the big person was actually me: I was staring at my own reflection!!
My point is that many of the things we do in our lives, even the most basic of human activities which we see as pleasurable and enjoyable – such as eating – can, if used or practiced in the wrong way, be harmful and even disastrous for our health.
One of the biggest criticisms levelled against organisations like LIFE who promote saved sex as a positive solution to unplanned pregnancies is that we’re not being realistic: young people cannot be expected to control their natural sexual desires, to forego the sexual freedom to which we are all supposedly entitled. Yet the reality is that our current approach has all sorts of problems.
Let me make it clear that LIFE is not saying that sex is bad. Far from it. But what we do suggest is that if sex is viewed purely as recreation, as just a “super cuddle”, rather than as a very special meeting between two individuals, then problems follow, as we see only too well in modern Britain, with its high, and increasing, rates of sexually transmitted infections, unplanned pregnancy, abortion, and relationship breakdown.
One of the oddest things about our attitude to sex today is that we tend to dissociate the act from its consequences. A statement we often hear from people who come to LIFE for help in crisis pregnancy is “I’m not sure how it happened”. A friend of mind who is a nun (with the Glasgow-based Sisters of the Gospel of Life told me recently that “I’m a nun, and I know how it happens!”
Personally, I’ve realised that I’ve had to change my lifestyle in order to be live a healthier and happier life. Not to simply go on the occasional diet every once in a while, without addressing the basic problem that I eat too much.
Likewise if we are to ever truly address the need for abortion in our culture, we must ensure that we have a genuinely healthy attitude to sex and relationships, respecting both ourselves and our partners.