Posted on 08/20/2011 1:53:21 PM PDT by wagglebee
I can’t count the amount of times I’ve been asked what my stance is on contraception. It’s not breaking news that many oral contraceptives and some invasive barrier methods (IUD) have been proven to cause abortion, including the highly controversial ella and Plan B drugs, and I stand firmly against the use of anything that destroys a life created at conception. But what about contraception that prevents conception from taking place?
I’m not the only one who has gotten this question; people want to know how the pro-life movement as a whole feels about this.
In fact, the medical students we reach out to face this question on a daily basis.
This question is a hard one to answer, which is why many avoid it: What is the pro-life movement’s stance on contraception, including methods that prevent conception?
As a physician, what is the right decision to make when a woman asks for birth control? What if she is living below the poverty line, has 3 or 4 children, hasn’t obtained a high-school diploma, and is co-habiting with a man who needs to support her financially? Presumably, she’s aware of the possibility of pregnancy and could be afraid of how she will feed and clothe another child.
What do you say? What’s the pragmatic response here?
Here’s how I think that conversation should be started:
1) Birth Control, no matter what form, doesn’t prevent abortions. In fact, it provides a false sense of security.
The Guttmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood’s own research arm, released study showing that condoms fail 14% of the time. That’s enough to provide some concern, especially when coupled with the Guttmacher’s own numbers showing that over half of all abortions are on women who were using some method of birth control. This is a cry in the face of pro-abortion propaganda claiming that if women had better access to birth control, abortions would become unnecessary.
Well, clearly not.
Contraception gives women a false sense of security, and condoms and birth control clearly can’t be relied on as a fail-proof method of stopping a pregnancy from occurring.
2) Birth control comes with it’s own complications and risks. It some cases, it’s deadly for both the child and mother.
Aside from condoms, oral and invasive methods of birth control come with their own complications. In addition to blood clots and strokes, chemical contraceptives have been proven to end the life of a preborn human mere hours or days after conception by thinning the uterine lining and making implantation more difficult for the developing person. Invasive methods that are implanted into your upper arm or uterus come with the same set of risks to both the mother and child. The most common form of hormonal contraception, the pill, has been categorized by the World Health Organization as a Group I carcinogen. That’s the highest possible ranking; cigarettes are also Group I.
One only has to read the inserts that come with chemical contraception, listen to commercials for hormonal birth control that spew out a long list of side effects, or glance at Facebook ads calling for women who took Yaz birth control pills to contact a law firm to join the lawsuit (google Yaz and lawsuit!) to grasp the unbelievable amount of life-altering consequences of imbibing hormonal birth control.
3) Condoms and birth control are everywhere. You can obtain them for free, yet the abortion and STD rate hasn’t fallen.
Planned Parenthood and county health departments have been giving out free condoms and birth control for years. Yet, the unplanned pregnancy, abortion, and STD rate in America has failed to fall and, in the case of STDs, has significantly increased. Despite this evidence, the Obama Administration just issued a new ruling forcing all health insurance plans to cover birth control with no deductible.
What’s even more scary is that Planned Parenthood knows this. They actually rely on the failure of the contraception they provide to increase their abortion profits.
4) Finally, and most importantly, birth control – in any form – is a Band-Aid.
It seems like the best way to answer the question regarding the pro-life stance on contraception is to emphasize helping women as a whole instead of handing out a temporary “fix”.
Dolling out free condoms isn’t social justice. Handing over a pack of pills to an uneducated mother living in poverty with a man who doesn’t respect her enough to marry her isn’t restoring proper relationships in her life. At the end of the day, what have you accomplished? You’ve just acknowledged her tragic situation by implying, “I don’t know how to help you”, or, “I don’t have time to help you, but here, use these and hope for the best.”
Protecting women from the scarring trauma of abortion and repairing broken relationships in her life seem to be the best way the pro-life movement can restore true social justice – Christian justice – to this woman’s life.
These are my thoughts on how we can make a real impact, but the pro-life movement needs to come together and agree on one answer to this question. Unity will only help us protect more women and the pre-born from the injustice of abortion.
3) Condoms and birth control are everywhere. You can obtain them for free, yet the abortion and STD rate hasn’t fallen.
Parenthood and county health departments have been giving out free condoms and birth control for years. Yet, the unplanned pregnancy, abortion, and STD rate in America has failed to fall and, in the case of STDs, has significantly increased. Despite this evidence, the Obama Administration just issued a new ruling forcing all health insurance plans to cover birth control with no deductible.
even more scary is that Planned Parenthood knows this. They actually rely on the failure of the contraception they provide to increase their abortion profits.
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Let's not lose sight of what this discussion is about.
While I’m loathe to get into this - why don’t you ask your husband to put on a condom? It solves a hell of a lot of problems in about 15 minutes...
Oh, I agree. I was zeroing in on the definition of the word contraception and not the ramifications.
You must not be familiar with tumandogz...strait up troll ;-)
Not that I’ve seen on this thread. :)
I knew the Commie Plot Theory of Everything was true but after watching the video DJMacWoW posted a link to last night, it tied every loose end together clearly. I have a couple of tiny disagreements with it (one is the wonderfulness of nuke power...) but other than a couple of details, excellent.
(Courtesy ping to DJ.)
Do I detect some sarcasm there?
That was a great film....what did you disagree with on the nuclear energy part?
I wasn’t being sarcastic. I assumed you didn’t want to take the time to click twice.
Sheesh.
Not at all. Just a wish that two FReepers find a bit of friendship and commonality. :)
Nuclear energy is not cheap and not safe. Those who are convinced otherwise will never be convinced by me so I don’t debate it.
The other point was the claim that Communists only target Christians. In Tibet, the Chinese Communists destroyed countless Buddhist monasteries and killed large numbers - many thousands - of Buddhist monks. They torture and kill them to this day, as well as practitioners of Falun Gong which is a sort of combination of Buddhism and Taoism practice, and of course any member of any religion who doesn’t attend official Communist run churches. And we all know that Nazis- National Socialists - especially targeted Jews for extinction. In India and Nepal Communists target Hindus for various kinds of heavy punishment and discrimination.
Other than that, I thought it was excellent.
Why do you refuse to explain why you believe that killing a baby one day after conception is justified while killing a baby two or six months after conception is murder?
Hear, hear!!
:)
You must be on drugs.
Please show me where I, or anyone else for that matter has advocated what you suggest.......
Not only are you a troll, but you are seriously DEMENTED!
Prime example though, see #311
You wrote:
“Why do you think it’s up to me to prove you aren’t a liar?”
What makes you think I think that? If you want proof of what I said, look for it. You complain about me calling you names and now you’re calling me a liar when I in no way lied.
To what do you object regarding that post?
You wrote:
“Please stop this. DJ is not a liberal and your continued harassment is unacceptable.”
Nobody is harrassing anyone. You seem to be imaging quite a bit.
It’s up to you to prove what you said is true and not other posters. Otherwise you’re just blowing smoke. I ain’t your Momma. YOU provide a link. YOU prove what you stated was true. It has ALWAYS been that way on FR. It is up to individual posters to back up what they say. You are no different and do not get a “pass”.
When you accused DJ of being a lib, well, you jumped the shark as they say.
Just agree to disagree.
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