Chaplain

[WarpGirl]

I don't see how something like that is more controversial than an interracial kiss in the 60's which BTW had this little 80's girl cheering, 20 years after the fact.

[Distracted]

Good point. People were killing each other over the race issue in the 60's. Maybe today's writers just don't possess cojones as large as Roddenberry's.

[justTripn]

What are the moral issues associated with infants on Voyager?

[Distracted]

Well, either the pregnancies were terminated or they were carried to term. If babies were born, some of the crew members would need to be pulled from their posts for creche duty and/or maternity leave. Either the crew had to adapt to fewer active duty personnel or human lives had to be ended. We don't know which, though, because it wasn't addressed. Realistically, once the stores of contraceptives ran out if the crew didn't choose to refrain from intimacies and half the crew was female the number of resultant pregnancies, if carried to term, could end up causing a staffing problem. Too many kids on board, and you're eventually dealing with a limitation of resources, but if there wasn't at least the option of carrying to term, crew morale would suffer, IMO. Especially if most of the crew believed that it was going to take decades to get home again. It's a dilemma.

[WarpGirl]

I'm not sure they would run out of birth control the replicators are programmed to make just about anything with proper authorization. So I can't see why people would accidentially pregnant. one would think 100-300 years from now there would be fool proof birth control. And obviously Tom and B'Elanna stopped taking boosters after they got married, and probably thought that it would be a long shot. Also Sam Wildman had Naomi, so it's obvious no one was going to force an abortion. Not that it would be moral to do so. But it is a sticky situation.

[Distracted]

People accidentally get pregnant all the time even with birth control available. It doesn't work unless you use it, and some methods work better than others. The "booster" you're talking about sounds like an injectable contraceptive. We have those now. Women forget to get their shots on time, or stop getting them because they're giving them side effects... you name it, I've seen it. I was referencing the earlier post about 5 pregnancies in the same department. For something like that to happen there would need to either be a mass failure of contraception or a mass mutiny of the women who refused to wait thirty years before they could have a child. Once the pregnancies were established I doubt that they would be forced to terminate them, although an argument could be made that if power and resources for the replicator were limited and they were looking at a decades-long trip, adding extra mouths to feed would be taking resources away from other crew members.

[Aquarius]

Antibiotics also weaken the effectiveness of birth control pills. And it's an easy thing to forget that, even though your package is labeled with the sticker telling you this. I read in a women's magazine some time ago that this is how many (if not most?) of the "...but I was on the pill!!" pregnancies occur.

[Distracted]

Yep. There are lots of drugs that can affect the speed at which a woman's body metabolizes the hormones in various contraceptives. If the hormones are metabolized too quickly they don't last as long as they're designed to last and breakthrough ovulation can occur. It's especially a problem for larger women taking very low-dose pills. Antibiotics can do it. So can some seizure medications. And for these women just delaying taking the next pill by 12 hours can be a problem. But if by the 25th century everybody got quarterly "boosters" while on active duty, even the guys, it would sure take some doing for 5 women in the same department all to get pregnant at once, don't you think?

Definitely a job for clergy... or at least a ship's counselor. Someone would need to sit down with them and ask the obvious question... "What were you THINKING?"

[WarpGirl]

Well remember guys take contreceptives in ST. Travis says something about it. So I'm think both parties have to be off.

[Aquarius]

I understand that they've developed a birth control pill for guys right here on Planet Earth, right now. I think it's a fabulous idea, as long as it doesn't have any weird effects like my fella needing a bigger bra than I do or anything like that.

[Elessar]

Chaplains only do one religion, too. Many services can be interdenominational, but a chaplain who's a Protestant minister or a rabbi couldn't say a Catholic mass. On the other hand, a member of the Christian or Jewish clergy couldn't perform a Wiccan ceremony without betraying his or her vows. So a chaplain wouldn't fix the problem. I think that anyone traveling aboard a starship would understand that it was impossible to carry clergy from every denomination with them and be satisfied with what they could get in emergency circumstances.

And why would it invalidate the holodoctor to call him a computer? That's what he is. A very complex self-aware computer program. It doesn't matter, though. He's still very good at what he does. It's not the same for clergy in most religions that I'm aware of. At least in my religion (I'm Catholic), an ordained priest is a representative of God Himself. Although many other religions disagree, the Catholic church even goes so far as to say that since God came to Earth as male, his representatives on Earth must also be male. Can you imagine what they'd say if some being who wasn't even technically alive wanted to be ordained? I can't imagine that happening without some major upheaval in the church as we know it. I don't know as much about ordained clergy in other religions, but I'm assuming that the religions which agree on the existence of an immortal soul would at least require that their clergy possess one, so my previous question would need to be addressed by each denomination and decided on.

I didn't know that LDS didn't believe in an immortal soul, BTW. That's interesting.

I just thought I would drop in my 2 cents about what I learned at OCS about modern military facilities for various religions...

On the first Sunday we were there, they corralled us all into the classroom where we had lectures and basically went down the list of the 5 or 6 most common religions and denominations and asked people to raise their hands for what service they would like to attend. I was surprised by how many there were.

I would say that about 1/2 said they would go to Protestant service, about a third went to Catholic (I debated and eventually decided to go to Catholic mass as it was what I was raised in and it just so happened that my two closest friends -- a South American and an Irishman, I kid you not -- in my platoon were Catholic and so would be going as well). The rest were split up between some of the less common Christian denominations... can't remember them all but...things like Methodist, Episcopalian, a few others. Sorry I can't remember. I believe many of those denominations had their own services, including Pentecostal. As we got down the list there were only 2-3 people per.

There were maybe 5-8 Jewish candidates, 1 Russian Orthodox, 1 Greek Orthodox, 1 Wiccan, 1 Muslim, and no Hindus. I believe there wear 2-3 Mormons. No Buddhists or Daoists that I recall.

Those somewhat uncommon religious groups were all put together, and they said they'd do their best to get them some prayer beads or some statues or shrine or whatever they needed to feel comfortable. I never went to one of those "combined services", nor talked to anyone who went to one of the less common, but I got the impression that the Marine Corps made a genuine effort to accommodate everyone, and nobody's beliefs were left out, discriminated, or marginalized.

To tell you the truth, I never much liked mass but church became the best part of OCS. An hour and a half or so of no DIs, no gear, no pressure. We were allowed to talk with the girls of Charlie Company (forbidden otherwise), and we got to march ourselves to mass... go to the bathroom whenever we needed, hear some news about the world from the Chaplain, and basically relax. Some weeks they even had fruit, healthy snacks, juice, etc. The church also organized off-base social parties at like a christian center for the 2nd liberty but I wasn't there that long.

All in all it was a pleasant experience... and it helped me to understand the old addage about how there are 'no atheists in foxholes'. I think in part that is true for more reasons than just fear of death. You have all this comraderie and belongness, it's important to continue to belong and to let your guard down with others. Seriously, this experience made me look at Church in a whole new way.

Speaking of Athiesm, near the end of the discussion in which Sgt. White was asking everyone what their religions were, telling them where they would go on Sunday for service based on their religion, a candidate raised his hand:

Candidate: This Candidate is an athiest, Sergeant. Where does he go?

Sgt. White: According to your beliefs, Candidate, nowhere.

[WarpGirl]

Aw Elessar going to church to talk to girls, SO CUTE! Girls take that as a sign you're a gentleman you know.

[Alelou]

Candidate: This Candidate is an athiest, Sergeant. Where does he go?

Sgt. White: According to your beliefs, Candidate, nowhere.

I met my hubby in church, WarpGirl.

It's quite possibly true that finding a respectable, washed, available young man in an Episcopal Church (assuming he isn't gay) is sort of like finding a guy with an "I'm ready to get married and have a family now" sign on him.

[WarpGirl]

Well technically I met my ex there too. Only he was my best friend's brother, and we all met there.

[Alelou]

Not to change the subject, but when did Travis refer to male contraceptives? I must have missed that.