For Every One Born: A Devotional on Reproductive Justice by Leo Seyij Allen

For Every One Born: A Devotional on Reproductive Justice

Leo Seyij Allen

Day 1 of 5: The Right to Have a Child

Then God said, “Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the wild animals of the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created humans in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”
—Genesis 1:26-28 (NRSVue)

When I was a child, math was my least favorite subject. My fifth grade math teacher learned this early on and made it her mission to drill me on my weakest areas, including fractions. I struggled with adding, subtracting and dividing fractions. The only thing I seemed to understand was multiplication. I prided myself on having memorized my times tables which helped me to do cross-multiplication of fractions with ease. I found a sort of magic and mystery in the way that two numbers multiplied together could produce infinitely larger, more complex numbers.

“Be fruitful and multiply” is one of most popular scriptures used by religious leaders, politicians, and activists to articulate a “pro-life” stance, but it has been widely misused and abused. I can understand why some use Genesis 1 to encourage biological procreation—amongst other things—as the most important duty of human beings. And while it doesn’t appear anywhere else in scripture, many have assumed the phrase is a biblical mandate for biological reproduction.

One problem with literalizing scripture to justify reproduction is that it diminishes the beauty and diversity of human flourishing down to biological production. It effectively limits the imagination and possibility of God and God’s creative action. This is especially true if we are to assume that such a literal interpretation applies to those who are unable or unwilling to biologically reproduce. If God requires biological production as the first and only means of fulfilling a mandate to “be fruitful and multiply,” then the whole human project has been a failure.

In John 15, Jesus called himself the true vine and implored the disciples to “go and bear fruit.” He was not telling followers to literally go have children, but he was referring to their ability to produce and reproduce goodness and love. Jesus explains in verse 8, “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.” This was the mandate: to bear fruit through good works—even greater than his own!—and to live in such a way that would multiply the infinite love of God.

We have the right as human beings to have children, but that is not the only way to be fruitful. We have the sacred right to be participants in God’s own work in the world, of creating and recreating more love. The possibilities for how we choose to do so are infinite.

Affirmation

I am the image of God, who is love.
I am infinite love.

Day 1 of 5: The Right to Have a Child

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