By DONALD DeMARCO
Mary, as Coventry Patmore has remarked, is “Our only Saviour from an abstract Christ.” Implied in this remark is a profound and original notion of motherhood that our present world is in danger of losing. Mary became a mother when she conceived Christ and her motherhood continues forever. She carried Christ under her heart and gave birth to Him. Through her flesh she endowed her Son with flesh. Her motherhood provided God with a human form through which He could grow and feel and suffer as other humans do. She permitted the transformation of a God that we could not see or touch into one who is palpably human and identifiably one with us.
Nathaniel Hawthorne expressed it beautifully when he said, “I have always envied Catholics their faith in that sweet, sacred, Virgin Mother who stands between them and the deity, intercepting somewhat His awful splendor, but permitting His love to stream on the worshipper more intelligibly to human comprehension through the medium of a woman’s tenderness.”
As St. Augustine has written, underscoring the importance of the Eucharist, “She gave milk to our bread.”
Mary has saved us from an abstract God, but she has also saved us from an abstract motherhood. She has saved us from motherhood that has been disintegrated by technology, ideology, and subjectivity into an array of transformations that do not resemble motherhood at all. Therefore, we are living in an Age of Mary who, we pray, will assist in restoring the sacred notion of incarnate motherhood.
Technology:
Technology is never entirely separated from nature. It extends nature as the telescope extends the eye, the hammer extends the fist, and shoes extend the feet. But technology can compartmentalize as it has done with the concept of motherhood. With new reproductive technologies, three woman can claim to be mothers. One woman can conceive a child. Then, through embryo transfer, a second woman, who acts as a surrogate, can gestate it. A third woman, who may have commissioned the child, can raise it. Which of these three women should be declared the legal mother?
This situation has been most perplexing for the courts. Andrea Stumpf, writing for the Yale Law Review, recommends redefining motherhood so that “mental conception” takes precedence over “biological conception.” In her legal opinion, the one who initially conceived the idea of having a child should be regarded as the legal mother. In this case, however, a man could have the initial conception before passing the idea on to his wife. Stumpf regards the surrogate mother as merely a “third party.”
Technology can splinter motherhood into three parts: the one who conceives, the one who gestates, and the one who raises the child. Who the legal mother is rests on the judgment of the court. Biology is no longer determinative of motherhood. Legality, however, does not always reflect reality.
Ideology:
Ideology is contrasted with philosophy. Whereas philosophy is grounded in reality (or at least should be), ideology is a mental invention that differs from reality in many ways. According to feminist ideology, a woman has a “right” to an abortion but her unborn child has no right to live. This position also displaces the father and severely undermines the integrity of the family. In this case, feminist ideology dehumanizes the unborn.
Motherhood itself loses its loving, caring aspects and becomes a matter of convenience or inconvenience. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in a 2019 Supreme Court dissent, stated forcefully: “A woman who exercises her constitutionally protected right to terminate a pregnancy is not a mother.” In this instance ideology denies nature. A woman who is pregnant with a child is not to be considered a mother because such an ascription could interfere with the so-called right to abortion.
Ideology creates a world that departs at many junctures from the world of nature. A woman is a mother for concrete biological reasons. She cannot deny the reality of her motherhood because it displeases her, nor can she affirm motherhood because it might please her.
Autonomy:
The notion of personal autonomy, of complete control of one’s body, is a myth. It represents a desperate wish that we can be whoever we might want to be and deny whoever we really are. It is a rejection of nature and also a rejection of one’s own finite, mortal reality.
In July 2019, a 32-year-old woman by the name of Freddy McConnell “identifying” as a “man,” gave birth to a baby boy. “He” is fighting to be recognized as the boy’s “father” and not the child’s mother on the birth certificate. McConnell began taking testosterone at age 25 and had breast tissue removed a year later. A hysterectomy was avoided since McConnell wanted to remain open to the possibility of having children. Pregnancy was achieved through artificial insemination. This is but one of a myriad number of cases involving transgenderism. But it does well illustrate yet another way of disintegrating the notion of mother.
The American Psychiatric Association regards gender dysphoria (confusion about one’s gender) as a mental disorder. McConnell has retained a lawyer to get his “fatherhood” stated on the child’s birth certificate. Can a father give birth to a child? Can law legally deny that it was a “mother” who gave birth? Motherhood, however, is not a matter of subjective determination.
The incarnate realism of Mary’s motherhood sends an important message to our confused society. Motherhood should not be compartmentalized by technology, dehumanized by ideology, or subjectivized by the unrealistic notion of self-autonomy.
Mary, the Mother of God, touches us with her tenderness and envelops us in her maternity. She is always the doctor of realism. And the organic wholeness she expresses through her motherhood is a healing remedy for our technological, ideological, and subjective errors.
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(Dr. Donald DeMarco is a professor emeritus of St. Jerome’s University and an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College and Seminary. He is a regular columnist for the St. Austin Review. His latest books, How to Navigate Through Life and Apostles of the Culture of Life, are posted on amazon.com.)
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