Opinion

July 23, 2013 (SecularProlife) – I saw an article a while back on Yahoo News reporting the birth of Josh and Anna Duggar’s third child. For those of you who don’t know, the Duggars are famous for their much-larger-than-average family size. Josh Duggar is one of the 19 children of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar. Josh, their oldest child, married Anna a few years ago and the couple is already on their third child, paving the way for another big family.

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I hadn’t followed the family’s show for a couple years so I was pleased to catch up with them. However, I was shocked at how many horrible comments people had written at the end of the article denouncing the Duggars’ choice to have large families. I could not believe how many hateful criticisms there were. It wasn’t just a few rogue commenters who posted their extreme opposition to the Duggars; it was very challenging to find any positive comments at all.  Here’s just a sampling of what people in the comments section of the article had to say:

  • “Disgusting on some [sic] many levels”
  • “Please stop reporting on these freaks. They need counseling and the girls need real futures instead of the slavery of reproduction.”
  • “REPULSIVE. These people are REPULSIVE. They and their REPULSIVE elders are professional f**kers, hiding under the guise of religion (which is even more REPULSIVE).”
  • “They are so saturated in their religious beliefs and think that it's normal to have that many children..idiots. They are addicted to having babies like an alcoholic addicted to alcohol…no difference.
  • “These people are despicable and should be executed for crimes against humanity.”
  • “These people need to be spayed & neutered.”
  • “the breeding like rats continues….”

I could hardly believe what I was reading. Some of the contributors thought Mrs. Duggar must have been brainwashed (or “enslaved” as one person put it) into having that many kids. 

The reality is that there are still women out there who have no desire to have careers and simply want to stay at home and raise a family. And if that’s what a woman wants to do, whether it's for religious reasons or just because she loves children, “it’s her choice” and she should be able to exercise that choice without being verbally assaulted and degraded. Based on the sentiments presented in the article’s discussion section, the “it’s my body, my choice” slogan only seems to apply when a woman wants an abortion. When a woman chooses to have more children than average, in the eyes of those who made these hateful comments, she becomes a “repulsive freak” and should stop bearing children.  

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In addition to being obviously hypocritical, do these people also not see how blatantly sexist their logic is? They’re basically saying women are animalistic and disgusting for exercising the full potential of their reproductive abilities. Anybody besides me have a problem with that?

So, what happened? Why have the Duggars and others like them been vilified so drastically to the point of being referred to as animals and having death wished upon them? My answer is simple: the proliferation of abortion. Since the 70’s, the abortion industry has drilled into our culture that it’s not only okay to limit your children by having them killed before they’re born, but expected. They’ve preached that the only way women can be truly free is if they can get abortions. They’ve touted abortion as an integral tool of family planning that should be utilized on-demand. The standard feminist philosophy (which is also shared by the abortion industry) is that women should not “become baby factories.” We’ve all been subject to this rhetoric for so long that now a lot of people feel that it is abnormal, or even criminal, to have a larger-than-average family size.

But they’re wrong. There is nothing abnormal about having babies. That’s what women’s bodies do! There is nothing freakish, disgusting, repulsive, or despicable about it. Contrary to what our culture says, it’s perfectly natural to have as many children as nature allows. If the Duggars want to have as many kids as possible, more power to them, and they shouldn’t be judged hatefully for it.

Reprinted with permission from Secular Prolife