Contra-Contraception

new york times ^ | 5/7/06 | RUSSELL SHORTO

[mathprof]

Daniel Defoe is best remembered today for creating the ultimate escapist fantasy, "Robinson Crusoe," but in 1727 he sent the British public into a scandalous fit with the publication of a nonfiction work called "Conjugal Lewdness: or, Matrimonial Whoredom." After apparently being asked to tone down the title for a subsequent edition, Defoe came up with a new one — "A Treatise Concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed" — that only put a finer point on things. The book wasn't a tease, however. It was a moralizing lecture.[snip]

The sex act and sexual desire should not be separated from reproduction, he...warned, else "a man may, in effect, make a whore of his own wife."[snip]

The wheels of history have a tendency to roll back over the same ground. For the past 33 years — since, as they see it, the wanton era of the 1960's culminated in the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 — American social conservatives have been on an unyielding campaign against abortion. But recently, as the conservative tide has continued to swell, this campaign has taken on a broader scope. Its true beginning point may not be Roe but Griswold v. Connecticut, the 1965 case that had the effect of legalizing contraception. "We see a direct connection between the practice of contraception and the practice of abortion," says Judie Brown, president of the American Life League, an organization that has battled abortion for 27 years but that, like others, now has a larger mission. "The mind-set that invites a couple to use contraception is an antichild mind-set," she told me. "So when a baby is conceived accidentally, the couple already have this negative attitude toward the child. Therefore seeking an abortion is a natural outcome. We oppose all forms of contraception."

[Mrs. Don-o]

I have noticed that the argument against gay marriage has sparked new thinking about what "traditional" marriage really is. Gay sex is inherently sterile, and contracepted sex is intentionally sterile. Both unnaturally subvert the God-given design for sexuality, which unites pleasure, spousal unity, and fertility in one act of love.

How could anyone argue that contracepted sex is OK, but gay sex is wrong --- unless we really ARE just bigoted against gays?

Altering sex to deliberately make it infertile is a refusal of natural sex. Writer Richard Rodriguez (I think it was on the PBS program, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer) made this point when he said that contracepting couples are heterosexual gays.

[RHINO369]

Look at the 4th and 9th amendments then tell me there is no right to privacy. The constitution doesn't give Americans rights, it limits our government, and nowhere does the constitution give government the right to spy on its citizens.

[MHGinTN]

Thanx for the ping, but I'll pass on discussing this topic since I don't believe it wrong to practice contraception. Even my good Catholic married friends who practice the rythm method do so because they believe it okay with God to do so.

[SandfleaCSC]

So you think the Founding Fathers of this country were like Lenin, because they didn't put a right to privacy in the Constitution?

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

I think that pretty much covers the "privacy thing". By the way, the Constitution is an enumeration of the Government, people's rights aren't listed in it one by one. I'm not quite sure I understand where authoritarians like you guys get your info.

[SandfleaCSC]

What you said, Capt. quick draw. :)

[RHINO369]

Your way was more elegant.

[SandfleaCSC]

Ping

Another fine example of the Taliban wing of FR musings on privacy and copulation. I love these guys.

[muir_redwoods]

"Your sexual habist and practices are not a private matter. They are quite public when they either do not produce reproductive results or do so in abudance. The death of western civilisation is toi a large extent due to the attitude that what one does in private has no public or general effect on society. Quite the opposite is of course true. The "right to privacy" is a modern bourgeois concept that doesn't even exist in the constitution. Societies have a primal imperative to assure their own perpetuation. It has been so since the dawn of mankind. Those societies that become lax in that respect, become extinct as did the Romans and other civilisations before us."

I have rarely read a paragraph with more errors-per-word.

I am a private person and my consensual behavior with another adult is, literally, none of your business. No rationalizing on your part can change that and no minor-league jesuitical discourse will alter it.

[SandfleaCSC]

Your way was more elegant.

You should have seen the first draft. I had to self edit. :)

[RHINO369]

Not to mention with the leaps in productivity, and the unprecedented leap in technological knowledge, a civilizations population matters much less than it did 2000 years ago. Within the next 100 years, wars will be fought by machines and robots, that were built by robots and machines, that are powered by nuclear power plants that are managed automatically. Having a population at 600 million would be worse than having a population at 350 million because we'd have to struggle to feed those 600 million.

[kalee]

Thanks for posting the article, very long but worth reading.

[traviskicks]

"We oppose all forms of contraception."

Big Government Social Conservative alert.





Libertarian ping! To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here.

[M203M4]

Another fine example of the Taliban wing of FR musings on privacy and copulation. I love these guys.

I am always entertained as well.

"Hey you! You are conspicuously lacking in children! Your bourgeois decadence is of no help to the perpetuation of The Motherland. Get out your little red book and study harder. Next time we are coming in - and we had better see only missionary! It takes a village, and we are going to take away your liberties for the common good."

[Larry Lucido]

Puritanism: The deathly fear that someone, somewhere is getting a blow job from his wife.

[Larry Lucido]

See what I mean?

[ndt]

"Sounds like fun!"

Hey, move over your hogging the trough!

[SandfleaCSC]

"Hey you! You are conspicuously lacking in children! Your bourgeois decadence is of no help to the perpetuation of The Motherland. Get out your little red book and study harder. Next time we are coming in - and we had better see only missionary! It takes a village, and we are going to take away your liberties for the common good."

Sarcasm is the enemy of the people. You will now be confined to the reproduction camps and be forced to couple with Madeline Albright while staring at a life size photo of Cacique.

[gondramB]

>>A law that was never enforced. The real reason Griswold pushed against it was to create a "right to privacy."<<

You know, the right of the people to left alone by the government as long as they are not hurting someone is a cornerstone of the American system of government - for lack of a better term "right to privacy" sounds good.

It is very ironic that the abortion debate has led to small government conservatives arguing there is no right to privacy.

I'd like to see us separate those issues - recognize the right to privacy but make it clear that right does not extend to killing your child.

[balch3]

a conservative who's not a social conservative is no conservative at all.

Abortion is ending. Contraception will be ended eventually.

[eleni121]

Good reply. Sandflea forgot the part about marxism being bourgeios...does he even know that?