Freedom to have children

"Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,
the fruit of the womb is a reward"
Ps 127:3

I was reading the newspapers today and was saddened by the report of couples in a certain province in China bring "forced" to undergo sterilisation surgically. Due to the 1 - 2 child policy, these couples are forbidden to have more children.

Some of these couples have moved away for work or other reasons, but the officials are resorting to perhaps illegal means to get them to come back to be sterilized. They get the relatives involved and have them detained (hostage-taking if you ask me) or threaten to remove building rights (or something like that). Whatever it is, these people are being "forced" to get the surgery done.

I'm not going to say whether I think this is right or wrong. That is not the intention of this post. But I want to celebrate the freedom of being able to procreate in a non-hostile environment here in Singapore - something we definitely cannot take for granted. We don't have laws dictating how many children we ought to have and we don't have authorities chasing up abortion or sterilization figures. We have the freedom to have as many children as we want. And the government gives us aids along the way (ie. Parenthood rebates, working mothers' subsidies etc).

I say again, let us not take that for granted. I cannot imagine a Christian woman in China reading the passage in Psalms and then having her womb barren-ed (if there's such a word). How would she bear more fruit that's supposed to be her reward and her heritage from the Lord?

We are living in perilous times and we face an enemy that's out to steal, kill and destroy. Let us continue to appreciate our right to continue having children and thank God daily for the ones we already have.