Sex During Pregnancy
Hubbard warned against sexual activity (including masturbation) during pregnancy. Hubbard wrote that engaging in sexual activity during pregnancy could negatively impact the baby's development. He believed sexual activity had an adverse and dangerous effect on the unborn child because it can hear, understand and experience everything going on, as well as recording it all as engrams which can haunt the person for the rest of his or her life. This view is disputed by some doctors, as Paulette Cooper commented in her book The Scandal of Scientology:
| “ | Hubbard's theory never makes it really clear, at least in a manner that would be accepted by most medical doctors, exactly how engrams can be planted before a foetus had developed a nervous system or the sense organs with which to register an impression, or even how a person could retain or 'remember' verbal statements before he had command of a language." | ” |
These same beliefs form the basis for Hubbard's "Silent birth" doctrine, which dictates that no words are spoken during the childbirth process in order to avoid the baby hearing negativity and receiving "psychic scars". According to a Scientology manual on raising children, in order to avoid damaging the "prenatal" memory, a couple should be silent before and after the sexual act.
Read more about this topic: Scientology And Sex
Famous quotes containing the word pregnancy:
“The frequency of personal questions grows in direct proportion to your increasing girth. . . . No one would ask a man such a personally invasive question as “Is your wife having natural childbirth or is she planning to be knocked out?” But someone might ask that of you. No matter how much you wish for privacy, your pregnancy is a public event to which everyone feels invited.”
—Jean Marzollo (20th century)