Posted on 01/05/2014 2:25:11 PM PST by Gamecock
September 18, 2012 (Mercatornet.com) - Back in February this year, when the battle between religious leaders and the Obama administration over the latter’s contraceptive mandate reached a new pitch of intensity, the White House defended its policy by alleging that 98 per cent of Catholic women had used contraception. If that was the case, we were meant to ask, what on earth were the Catholic bishops, for one, making a song and dance about? Hadn’t their own female constituency effectively deserted them on this issue?
The claim, quoted far and wide at the time, turned out to be a political factoid rather than a real statistic. People who analysed the Guttmacher Institute study it came from pointed out that the study was selective and self-contradictory. For a start it was based on a survey restricted to women aged between 15 and 44, so it could say nothing about women between 45 and 100. And one table showed that 11 per cent of sexually active Catholic women who did not want to become pregnant were using no method of contraception at all.
Still, nobody is pretending that hordes of Catholics don’t dissent from their Church’s “thou shalt not” regarding contraception. We do not need the Guttmacher Institute or the White House to tell us that. Nor do we need them to tell us why the many Catholics who never go to church would not bother with one of its more difficult moral teachings.
What we don’t know is why practising Catholics who do go to Mass—and even, if only occasionally, to confession—also feel entitled to reject the teaching.
Why, for instance, do “Catholic moms in minivans drop their children at the parish school and head to their gynaecologists to be fitted for diaphragms or to get a new prescription for ‘the pill’ —and think nothing of it,” as the authors of a new study, What Catholic Women Think About Faith, Conscience, and Contraception, put it.
Do the parish moms have an accurate idea of the Church’s teaching on family planning? After four decades of dissent it would be surprising if they all did. And when the teaching is presented accurately to practising Catholics are they more open to it? What are their reasons for rejecting it, and what would they like to know more about?
For all the times Catholic women have been surveyed on whether they have “ever used” contraceptives, no-one has asked those who practice their faith but not its teaching on family planning, “Why?”, say the study’s authors, lawyer Mary Rice Hasson, a Fellow in the Catholic Studies Program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington, D.C, and director of the Women, Faith, and Culture project, and Michele M. Hill, a Baltimore Catholic and co-director of the project.
National survey of church-going women
To answer that question a national online survey of church-going Catholic women aged 18 to 54 was carried out in June and July of last year by the polling company inc./WomanTrend. (This is a preliminary report, say the authors, as further insights are expected from focus groups and ongoing in-depth interviews with 100 of the women.) Of the 824 women in the sample, half attended church at least weekly, while the other half attended less than weekly but at least a few times a year.
Their responses confirm that, on this issue at least, church-going Catholics have been influenced far more by popular culture than by Catholic teaching on sex and reproduction. Fully 85 percent of all the women believe they can be “good Catholics” even if they do not accept some of this teaching, including the 37 percent who completely reject it.
The picture, of course, looks decidedly better among regular Mass-goers. Among young women (18-34) who attend every week, 27 percent completely accept the Church’s teaching, and among those who both attend Mass weekly and have been to confession within the past year that figure rises to 37 percent. Just 24 percent of the women who go to Mass every week completely reject the teaching on contraception, and for those who have been to confession that figure drops to 12 percent.
Even among the dissenting majority, however, not all are closed to the Church’s message on this subject. Hasson and Hill point out that about a third of these women mistakenly believe that the Church itself gives them the right to make up their own minds about which methods of family planning are morally acceptable. Many do not reject the Church’s authority out of hand.
Top reasons for contraceptive use
Mistakenly or not, 53 per cent of all women in the study who dissent in part or completely from church teaching cite a couple’s “moral right” to decide which method of family planning they will use. This makes it the top reason given for rejecting church teaching on the matter.
Two other reasons are cited frequently among this group: 46 percent say couples have “the right to enjoy sexual pleasure without worrying about pregnancy”, and 41 percent think that natural family planning is not an effective method to space or postpone pregnancy.
The authors perceive two main dynamics shaping these views: the influence of a cultural mindset that divorces sex from procreation and promises “sexual pleasure without consequences”, and a deficit on the church side in presenting Church teaching.
The latter can be deduced from the fact that 72 per cent of women surveyed said they rely mainly on the homily at Sunday Mass for learning about the faith, and yet just 15 per cent of that group fully accept the Church’s teaching on sex and reproduction. The weekly Mass homily, the authors say, “seems to represent a lost opportunity when it comes to conscience formation on the contraception issue.”
As for cultural influences, they seem likely (although the authors don’t say so) to account for at least some of the scepticism about natural family planning given the systematic bad press NFP is give by mainstream family planners and the media.
For the pastors of the Church, all this represents a steep challenge. Yet Catholic women may be more receptive to the Church’s view of things than first appears.
Openness of the “soft middle”
Importantly, the survey shows they are more open to children than the average American, their “ideal” number of children averaging 3.5 (or 4 if money were not a factor) compared with the American ideal of two or fewer.
Also, say the study authors, “When presented with an accurate description of the Church’s teachings on family planning many Catholic women show reluctance to completely reject the Church’s teaching.”
Instead, three groups emerge: “the faithful” (who fully accept the teaching—13 percent of the sample), “the dissenters” (who completely reject it—37 percent), and the “soft middle” (who accept “parts” of the teaching). In addition, a significant number of women in the “soft middle” (about half of weekly Mass-goers) show openness to learning more about church teaching on contraception and natural family planning.
Good will shown by many women in the “middle” represents an opportunity for the Church, the authors point out—and natural family planning may be a good starting point for communicating the Church’s teaching about procreation. About one in four of those who attend Mass regularly shows an interest in learning more about the method: hearing from other couples about the health and relationship benefits of NFP, what doctors say about it, and scientific evidence about its effectiveness. Such messages may be more persuasive than spiritual or authoritative ones, the authors suggest.
But alongside their message that many Catholic women are “reachable” the authors warn that the task is becoming more complicated. While the survey shows 10 percent of church-going women have had abortions (lower than the national average), 17 percent of younger women have used emergency contraception. This means that the Church has to inform women about the potentially abortifacient nature of EC “as well as arguing more persuasively that contraception itself is wrong.”
The Catholic bishops are fighting the Obama administration’s contraceptive mandate—that is, the policy of forcing all employers, including Catholic institutions such as hospitals and schools, to provide full cover for contraceptives, sterilisation and emergency contraception in their health insurance plans—as an attack on the free exercise of religion, which it is.
But in light of the information in “What Catholic Women Think…” the mandate may be a blessing in disguise. By forcing the issue of contraception to the top of the Church’s public agenda it has created an opportunity for the Church to have an internal conversation on the subject—the kind of opportunity that perhaps has not been seen since Pope Paul VI issued Humanae Vitae in 1968.
The study from the Women Faith and Culture project shows that such a discussion is long overdue.
Because the Catholic Church is the only Church that has the gonads to forbid artificial contraception?
Lemons are natural. They’re also a natural spermicide. Women used lemons as diaphragms for centuries.
I’m not saying that this thinking is correct. I’m saying that inconsistent rationalizations start people on the road to trouble.
**NFP can be used very successfully to either avoid or achieve pregnancy,**
Avoid? How it that any different from using contraceptives?
(FYI. My wife and I use no contraceptives, and at 56, she’s still fertile.)
Its not a stupid policy -- it is a very logical continuation of Church teaching on the subject of life. Any sexual/related activity that denies life is forbidden. Masturbation, condom use, the pill, the diaphragm, abortion, ALL prevent or destroy life, interfering with God's plan.
NFP, on the other hand, doesn't deny the possibility of life.
**Contraception works against the woman’s body**
My wife and I agree. That’s why she’sd never used the pill.
I have 2 kids. My wife and I use condoms because neither of us wants more kids. But we have a great sex life together. We don’t consider it an insult to anyone. But our lives are our own.
What bothers me is that health doesn’t seem to be factored in. I could have physically had another child, but I wouldn’t have been physically able to care for the child.
Many of my fellow Catholic friends are being lied to by the church that using the pill could cause an abortion, that is not true, I checked with my Opus Dei ob/gyn.
Abortion is murder and there shouldn’t be any way that is allowed, but if a family can’t afford to take care of a child or if, like me, they have physical issues, they shouldn’t be punished by the church. Just my opinion....
I personally don’t see any difference between church approved birth control (rythm method) and any other type of contraception ... of course abortificant methods of birth control such as high dose BCP’s , IUD’s and such are a totally different subject.
I don’t pretend to be a philosopher, but as I understand and accept the teaching: contraceptives actively work against God’s plan of procreation because they inhibit the natural function of the body. NFP does not actively inhibit it, but works WITH the design of a woman’s natural system to prevent pregnancy.
Yes, but the intent is the same.Nope, not even close.
But our lives are our own.Indeed, you represent the self first philosophy well. Catholic teaching is that our lives belong to God, not to ourselves. Therein lies the rub.
Birth control within marriage is one of the very few subjects where all liberal Catholics and many conservative non-Catholic Christians will agree.
But if you search for ‘Evangelicals/Protestants/fundamentalist Christians against birth control within marriage’ you will find that they do indeed exist. The ones that don’t accept it are invariably very conservative in their political and cultural views about other things. I take it there is a growing group of non-Catholic Christians who are rejecting bc within marriage. The Amish have never accepted bc within marriage either, as well as some of the old order Mennonites, to my understanding.
On the other hand, try to find a person that is into things like abortion, ‘gay marriage,’ and female clergy that also thinks birth control within marriage shouldn’t be accepted. Seems to me there is a connection there. Try to find one Christian group that officially accepted female clergy or abortion without first accepting birth control within marriage. To be sure there are many that haven’t, but everyone of them that has did the bc thing first, at least to my understanding.
Freegards
I don’t want to get into a huge argument about this, but I don’t think people trust NFP to keep them from getting pregnant.
Then you are a rare treasure among Catholic priests, and I am honored to be associated with you in this forum.
-— I don’t think people trust NFP to keep them from getting pregnant. -—
There’s a sure-fire way to avoid pregnancy that doesn’t entail an immoral practice. It only requires sacrifice.
Good for you two!
It is not primarily related to Life. The doctrine involves the Church’s belief that to engage in sexual activity for mere pleasure is an act of lustful selfishness. The Church condemns all forms of masturbation. The clitoris serves no purpose in the act of propagation, yet the Church condemns female masturbation as being no less sinful than male masturbation. As for whether Catholic women are actually aware of the Church teaching, most parishes require either individual couple or group pre Cana conferences where the challenges of marriage within Church doctrine are presented. So any Catholic woman who was married in a sacramental setting has been made well aware of Church teaching on contraception.
I didn't even know Opus Dei had ob/gyns! /sarc
Whoever your practitioner is, he/she is either woefully ill-informed or deliberately non-informative about the pill.
But here's an interesting thing: it's not rejected by those who know the most about it, it's rejected by those who know the least about it.
In other words, the anti-contraception ethic is not a "stupid policy," it's an ethic whose acceptance varies directly by education, and particularly education in the health-allied fields. (E.g. the NFP boosters in my parish are three couples who, collectively, comprise two doctors, a professor in the State University nursing program, a RN, a pharmacist, and a public school health educator.)
Here's another interesting thing: as women, not just in the USA but around the world, become aware of the Hormonal Contraception/ breast cancer connection, they are sparking more demand for famiy planning methods which are more natural, non-damaging to the female body ecology, and acceptable to every religious philosophy.
So int's not a "stupid policy." It's a pro-women's health ethic. It's also --- and people should think about this --- the law of God.
“Avoid? How it that any different from using contraceptives?”
Thank you.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.