Do you believe in evolution or what your holy book says?

[Peg]

Wow, great thread.

I am concerned about the concept that women have pain in childbirth because of eve's 'fall'. It seems like a patriarchal oppression of women through the physiology of their bodies. The idea that god says women must feel pain seems to deny us the opportunity to experience child birth beyond pain- which I believe I did achieve. To think that birth=pain plays into medical intervention and the paternal model of care we have today.

I had a real struggle in coming to terms with the account in genesis about this 'curse'

Gen 3:16 “To the woman he said: ‘I shall greatly increase the pain of your pregnancy; in birth pangs you will bring forth children..."

When i originally read the text, like most people, I assumed it was saying that God had deliberately imposed childbirth pain as a punishment on eve.

However, the context of this passage is really focusing on the effects of 'sin' So its actually due to sin that women would find childbirth increasingly difficult and more painful. This is because our bodies have been deteriorating since the creation of Adam and Eve and with that deterioration comes more physical ailments which would cause problems for the complicated processes of pregnancy and childbirth. Just look at the number of miscarriages for example...this is pregnancy gone wrong due to genetics.

Im sure that Eve experienced some discomfort, but certainly nothing like what we experience today. If you've ever seen animals give birth im sure you'd agree that they do not appear to experience great pain like us.

In terms of evolution, if evolution is supposed to be 'improving' on nature, then surely human childbirth is an example where evolution is not really doing what its theorized to do.