Contraception: Newest effort to defeat pro-lifers

WorldNetDaily ^ | March 2, 2005 | Jill Stanek

[St. Johann Tetzel]

Contraception: Newest effort to defeat pro-lifers

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Posted: March 2, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Jill Stanek

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© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Abortion Federation and pro-abortion politicians all make money directly or indirectly from abortion, and that is why they push it.

But abortion comprises only one-third of their financial portfolio. They make another third by selling contraceptives, pregnancy tests and sexually transmitted disease testing and treatment.

The final third comes from the government, which pays them to promote the illicit sexual behavior via "sexual education" that generates business for the aforementioned two-thirds of their operation.

Never forget that everything abortion activists do is to make money from promiscuous sex, and they have developed a clever triangular scheme toward that end. They have carved out their market niche through selling all aspects of illicit sexual behavior – first by promoting it, and then by preventing or reversing its consequences.

But their marketing strategies of the past 30 years have finally started to fail – the "pro-choice" sound bites; the rigid, vicious fights against any attempts to tamper with abortion in any way; and turning to judicial tyrants to get their way when the people try to subdue them.

The 2004 election was the last straw, forcing them in recent months to dramatically shift their strategies. They have determined to appear sensitive about abortion and to focus less on that and more on contraception.

Their two new talking points are:

1. "Can we all work together to prevent unintended pregnancies by promoting better access to contraceptives?"

2. "Pro-lifers are so fanatical they are even against contraception."

Pro-aborts have repeated those two points in the press in recent weeks like cloned parrots.

NARAL even placed an ad in the conservative Weekly Standard last month on talking point No. 1. Note NARAL goes so far as to call us the "Right-To-Life Movement," glaring evidence it has switched tactics to appear more thoughtful and less barbaric to the American people. (NARAL also came out neutral on the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act – a huge concession.)

Point No. 1 is a win-win for pro-aborts. It makes them appear rational on the topic of abortion while at the same time promoting sex ed and contraceptives – both moneymakers for them. And when contraceptives fail, they know they will still make money from abortion without having to push it so rabidly.

Pro-lifers can counter this point by demonstrating the great success of abstinence training and the upsides of chaste living.

We cannot budge on the counterfeit "abstinence plus" training the other side is hawking, which says it's great to teach abstinence, but kids should also be given "tools" if they cannot control themselves. This is ridiculous.

To correlate, I don't know one wife who would pack a condom in her husband's suitcase saying, "I expect you'll be faithful while away on business, but just in case ..." In other words, let's not advise our children any differently than we advise ourselves.

And I also don't know one teen boy who has gotten so drunk he made a pass at his own mother. In other words, we all have the wherewithal to resist sexual urges if we really want to.

Point No. 2 is smart, too. Because the American public no longer considers the pro-life view on abortion extremist, pro-aborts must figure out another way to make us appear fanatical. They have settled on the topic of contraception.

The contraceptive mentality is so engrained in American minds that to consider reverting to the day when sex was practiced solely within the confines of marriage – with each act carrying with it the potential blessing of children – is simply crazy to them.

Pro-aborts know this is a wedge issue for pro-lifers. The natural family planning mentality is foreign to most Protestants and prehistoric to many Catholics.

I am one Protestant who has come to believe that contraception is wrong, based on my analysis of Scripture. But I remember thinking what a bizarre concept this was when my Catholic pro-life friends first brought it to my attention.

Pro-lifers must get on top of these latest attempts by pro-aborts to pigeonhole and divide us and come up with counteroffensives.

Pro-life groups and churches must take greater responsibility for abstinence training and not leave that up to the pregnancy help centers. We must also continue to dialogue about the issue of contraception and make up our minds not let the other side divide us on that.

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Jill Stanek fought to stop "live-birth abortion" after witnessing one as a registered nurse at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Ill. In 2002, President Bush asked Jill to attend his signing of the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. In January 2003, World Magazine named Jill one of the 30 most prominent pro-life leaders of the past 30 years.

[steve-b]

Equating the inconvenience of perspiration with the inconvenience of bringing new life into the world displays an appalling lack of humanity.

The difference in degree is irrelevant. Only the similarity in kind (which is undeniable) is required to demonstrate the fallacy of your argument (unless and until you extend it to an unequivocal statement that it is immoral to use antipersperant).

[annalex]

"natural family planning" would alienate spouses because it prohibits sex at precisely the time that the wife is most receptive

There are two sides to that. First, abstinence from sex generally increases sexual appetite, so I don't see alienation coming as a result of short-term abstinence. However, any attempt to avoid pregnancy, licit or not, indeed leads to alienation. The catholic teaching is that any marriage should be open to procreation, so family planning cannot be a permanent arrangement, even when practiced licitly.

[steve-b]

What about Henry VIII?

What about him? What makes him any different from a faceless hypothetical example in this regard?

[Aquinasfan]

Mucous production, fever, pain, etc are all normal bodily functions. They are not in themselves disease processes

They're symptoms of disease which neither pregnancy nor fertility are. Medications act to eliminate or minimize disease, symptoms of disease, or both.

[Campion]

Under your system, the majority could ban criticism of the government as "immoral."

No, you didn't read carefully. What is objectively moral or not does not depend on the opinion of the majority. It's true (ultimately, it's true anywhere) that the majority can ban things they don't like and call them "immoral," but that doesn't make them immoral in fact, and (as I said) legislating against something that is in fact moral is itself an immoral act.

I would suggest that criticism of the government is sometimes morally necessary, therefore, to ban all criticism of the government would be itself an immoral act. (Of course, the Constitution, as interpreted by the courts at present, does in fact permit some criticism of the government to be legally punished, e.g., a call for the violent overthrow of the government is illegal.)

[eastsider]

The issue at hand rebutting the presumption that the human zygote is a living human being. Better yet, as good conservatives, let's adopt the Constitutional word, "person": The zygote is a living human person. That's the presumption that needs to be rebutted.

[Aquinasfan]

What about him?

Was his gorging and purging moral or immoral? I'm going to take an educated guess that you'd view his actions as morally neutral, since you consider self-abuse morally neutral.

So let me ask you this. Is suicide good or evil?

Or is it morally neutral? If the act of suicide is morally neutral (since it presumably doesn't harm others) then it would be incumbent upon you, under your ethical system, to remain morally neutral regarding the suicidal intentions of a mother, father, sister, brother, son or daughter.

Would this be your position? Would you remain morally neutral regarding the suicidal intentions of a mother, father, sister, brother, son or daughter? What kind of person would that make you?

[steve-b]

There may not be anything at all faulty or erroneous in making a rational determination not to get fat by over-eating. The rational way to do this is by abstaining from over-eating, not consuming non-caloric sweeteners, the manufacture, use, and sale of which are morally unacceptable.
Is it wrong to drink non-caloric water?

To map the three cases with their analogous partners for drinking and sexuality:

Drinking sugared beverages (accepting the calories as a natural consequence of enjoying the sensation of sweetness) = Engaging in sexual activity without contraception

Drinking artificially sweetened beverages (avoiding the calories while nevertheless enjoying the sensation of sweetness) = Engaging in sexual activity with contraception

Drinking water (avoiding the calories by foregoing the sensation of sweetness) = Sexual abstinence

Is the choice listed in the middle position morally wrong? (I don't bother to specify drinking or sexuality, since it is not logically possible to reach different answers for the two.)

[Modernman]

They're symptoms of disease which neither pregnancy nor fertility are. Medications act to eliminate or minimize disease, symptoms of disease, or both.

A runny nose, for example, is the body's way of expelling harmful microbes. The only reason to use cold medication, therefore, is out of convenience or vanity.

If you were at least consistent and declared that cold medicine, pain medicine, fever medication etc. were immoral, your argument might have some merit.

[Modernman]

No, you didn't read carefully. What is objectively moral or not does not depend on the opinion of the majority. It's true (ultimately, it's true anywhere) that the majority can ban things they don't like and call them "immoral," but that doesn't make them immoral in fact, and (as I said) legislating against something that is in fact moral is itself an immoral act.

Barring God himself speaking to us directly, the only way to determine what is and isn't moral requires fallible humans to make that determination. The system you've proposed would allow the majority to ban anything they consider "immoral."

[obnogs]

I think that's a false distinction. Most immoral behavior harms others or at least has the potential to harm others; that's why it's immoral. . . To claim whether it matters whether something damages others or not is intrinsically a moral claim; by involving it, you've already added a "question of what is moral or not to the criminal law arena".

I agree with you to the extent that most things that harm others are immoral. However, using "morality" rather that "harm others" as the prime determinative of whether to criminalize something takes us down the wrong path. In this thread we have seen vigorous debate over things that are claimed to be immoral, that do not harm others - to pick an example, Onanism. Should we really be criminalizing this behavior because it is immoral? - if the answer is yes, then we quickly come to absurdity I pointed out in my original post - that blind adherence to morality as the determinative of what should be criminally sanctioned, could lead to criminalizing refusal to have children or even refusal to have sex. As I said earlier, I do not think that is a place where I want to live.

[unlearner]

Wrong again. You have already stated that murder, theft and adultery are wrong. This is a process of elimination. Read on.

Again you proclaim your self-righteousness by saying "I am right." Yet you admit that self-righteousness is wrong.

When will you recognize your own guilt?

[malakhi]

The zygote is a living human person. That's the presumption that needs to be rebutted.

How can I rebut something you are unwilling to define?

[Modernman]

So let me ask you this. Is suicide good or evil?

It is morally neutral, as nobody else is harmed. However, attempts at suicide are a sign that such person is suffering from some mental disorder and are therefore not capable of making rational choices. Government has the power to prevent such people from killing themselves.

[steve-b]

Non Sequitur. I would attempt to dissuade people close to me from engaging in all sorts of foolish behavior without necessarily considering the behavior to be immoral (rather than merely foolish). That is itself a moral outcome of the fact that I wish these people well.

For example, if someone tries to dissuade a spouse from going out in public dressed like the Modern Major-General as played by Michael Jackson, is that expressing the view that poor taste in apparel rises to the level of a moral issue? After thinking it through and deciding that it isn't a moral issue, is the proper response to refrain from raising any objection whatsoever?

[Campion]

Correlation, not causation. People who practice NFP tend to be devout Catholics, who tend to divorce at a lower rate than the general population.

It's hard to tell where causation stops and correlation begins, actually. What causes what? Does NFP cause better marriages? Does orthodox Catholicism cause better marriages and NFP? Does NFP stem for a greater than average respect for the sacrament which implies a greater respect for one's spouse?

When I became an orthodox Catholic, I stopped using contraception because my faith required me to. I fought it. My wife fought harder. Both of us would agree now that we're better off without it.

I've imagined it. It's not a world I'd want to live in.

Unlike you, I haven't just imagined the other side. I've lived there. I'm not impressed with it.

[Aquinasfan]

What "malice" do you see in bulimic behavior?

It's an abuse of a bodily function against its proper ordering. In other words, it's an attempt to enjoy a side-benefit of eating (pleasant taste) while rejecting the paramount purpose of eating (nutrition and sustenance). This abuse naturally results in grave damage to the body over time.

It's perfectly analogous to onanism or contraception which is an attempt to enjoy a side-benefit of intercourse (physical pleasure) while rejecting the paramount purpose of intercourse (procreation).

But let's flip all the cards, and let me present to you the same question that I proposed to steve-b.

Is suicide morally good, evil or neutral?

Would you remain neutral to the suicidal intentions of your mother, father, sister, brother, son or daughter? If so, what would that say about you? Would that make you a paragon of virtue, or loveless and hard-hearted?

[steve-b]

You have already stated that murder, theft and adultery are wrong.

Cite?

[eastsider]

There is no further deconstruction necessary of living human being than there is of living human person. Either the zygote is not alive, not human, or doesn't exist. That's the scope of the rebuttal.

[Campion]

It is morally neutral, as nobody else is harmed.

If the person has surviving family or close friends, those persons are frequently terrifically harmed.