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Question 2: Is it helpful?

Birth control can be beneficial under a number of circumstances. It can work well for many, from a newly married couple waiting awhile to begin their family so they can finish their education, to a marriage that is suffering from such things as illness, injury, adultery, or dire poverty.

But birth control can also be compelled by sinful motivations. These can include putting lesser priorities like career above higher priorities like family or greedily wanting to make as much income as possible to the exclusion of everything else, and not incur the costs of child raising; being selfish and not wanting to have to care for a child; or immaturely not wanting to take on the responsibility that good parenting requires.

To answer this question, every couple needs to continually and honestly examine their hearts’ motivations.

Question 3: Is it enslaving?

A couple who use birth control for too long can become so used to being without children that they never do actually seek to have children as God intends. And while using birth control for many years isn’t enslaving, it’s important to understand that waiting too long to start a family can decrease the odds of getting pregnant and having a healthy birth. Women are most fertile between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. Fertility begins a slow decline at age twenty-five and speeds up dramatically at thirty-five.61

Cosmetic Surgery

Question 1: Is it lawful?

It is legal to have cosmetic surgery. Furthermore, it is not forbidden in Scripture, because it is a more recent medical invention.

Globally, most cosmetic surgeries are performed on women. In the United States, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, the top five female cosmetic surgical procedures are: (1) breast augmentation, (2) nose reshaping, (3) liposuction, (4) eyelid surgery, and (5) tummy tuck. In the United States the top five male cosmetic surgical procedures are: (1) nose reshaping, (2) eyelid surgery, (3) liposuction, (4) breast reduction, and (5) hair transplantation.

For the last ten years, breast augmentation has been the most popular plastic surgery procedure internationally. The ISAPS Global Survey reveals a new trend, with liposuction representing 18.8 percent of all surgical procedures, followed by breast augmentation at 17 percent, and blepharoplasty (upper or lower eyelid lift) at 13.5 percent, rhinoplasty (nose reshaping) at 9.4 percent, and abdominoplasty (“tummy tuck”) at 7.3 percent.

Opinion polls conducted across Europe point to a widening acceptance of cosmetic surgery as a part of normal life—particularly among the young. And the official Web site of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons62 has as its largest segment of visitors eighteen to twenty-four-year-olds, accounting for 25 percent of Web traffic.63

Question 2: Is it helpful?

There are many reasons cosmetic surgery may be beneficial. It can make us more attractive to our spouses. And if our appearance is improved, we feel more comfortable being seen naked by our spouses, which can increase our freedom in lovemaking.

On the negative side, as with any medical procedure, there is the danger of death, injury, or disfigurement. There are also cost factors to consider, as good medical care can be expensive. If a spouse is getting the surgery to attract the attention of others, particularly sexual attention, then the motivation is sinful. And if your spouse wants you to look like another person because he or she is lusting after that person, then the motivation is sinful.

Question 3: Is it enslaving?

People who become obsessed with achieving some sort of ever-elusive perfect appearance can take cosmetic surgery too far. Actress Heidi Montag, for example, young and beautiful to begin with, underwent no fewer than ten such surgeries in one day. She has since gone on record with great regret, mourning her obsession with physical perfection and the toll it has taken on her body.64

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In extreme cases, the clinical Body Dismorphic Disorder (BDD) is used to explain