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.
P.S. How many men do you know that have had breast cancer?
Thank you for that supporting information.
There are plenty of problems with getting pregnant. I was on a whole slew of drugs during my pregnancies to keep me from going into preterm labor. I also had some permanent problems from pregnancy.
One cell transcribes incorrectly, and from then on all of it's daughter cells are the same way defective. The body does not recognize the aberrant cells as non self, and the cells grow uncontrolled.
It is the uncontrolled growth with no stop code that is the cancer.
it is called a cancer because it grows into local tissue much like a crab's claws, a cancer.
Not that they all do that. Some do not invade, just grow in their own capsule. Others break off in small cell size bits and take a ride down stream in the blood or lymphatics to set up shop elsewhere.
Any mass dying is most often after the growth outstrips it's own blood supply, then undergoes necrosis due to lack of blood within the center of the mass(oxygen).
My goodness, no. Cancer is not necrosis (cell death) although it may cause necrosis. Simplified, cancer is the uncontrolled growth and multiplication of abnormal cells.
seven seconds, Hah.
You type fast! (And gave a more complete explanation, as well.)
It’s the beer.
What is God's will regarding children then?
Certainly. However, moral decay and marriage failure specifically are not caused by the pill nor condoms. Demonizing those that use BC will neither prevent marriages from failing nor Marxism from spreading in America.
Sure we are watching it happen. Alienating half the conservatives on a forum only further guarantees its success. Didn't you mention the Marxist tactic of dividing into small groups?
If Marxists are patient waiting for the dominoes to fall, why can't we organize ourselves, put aside the petty differences and aim for root cause first? If failed marriages are the symptom, what causes it? Do guns cause violent crimes? Neither do tools used in the execution of infidelities cause failed marriages. Whether those tools are contraceptives or pornography or street walkers or the availability of no-fault divorce.
Marriages fail because of lack of self-control. Among other examples of the human condition. How can we regulate that from anywhere outside the individual?
And therein lies the crux of what Stalin and Gramsci stated as key components to crushing America. None of the components are external to the individual but rely on the individuals' ability to govern self appropriately. Much of what ails America could be fixed by the proper application of self control by each individual.
Some give money and some give of self.
Yup. Free and easy sex has nothing to do with moral decay. /s
http://www.sourcetext.com/grammarian/
I have been reading “The Graves of Academe,” by the late Richard Mitchell, source of the tagline. This book, and all his publications, are online at the site linked.
This link is to a section that I think is relevant to the kind of discussion we find when people’s anti-life or anti-birth concepts are challenged.
I’m very late to answer you but where in the world did you get the idea that women have been barefoot and pregnant in American society, lol?!!! You’ve got a lot of reading to do, kiddo.
Just because YOU came from a crazy, mixed-up family doesn’t mean all women did.
Did you not read my post correctly?
Birth control used by MARRIED COUPLES WORKS. One night stands, selfish boyfriends, and refusal to use birth control properly or at all are what causes unwanted pregnancies. Sheesh. Learn how to read.
This is my first time on a contraceptive thread. God, I hope it’s my last.
Ya know, “the folks” you speak about are probably not too interested in getting into my bedroom (as if there was anything to see!) so I’m not worried about them. This is a DISCUSSION FORUM, OK? We come here to talk about various issues and I’ll jump in to support whoever I want.
I firmly believe that there are dangerous forms of birth control. IUD, anyone?
Sounds to me like they want to get into everyone's bedroom. Your "friends" here do not come across as folks who are screaming to get government out of our lives. In fact - pay attention because this is why conservatism doesn't sell - they come as if they are in the same wrong headed mold as the liberals wanting to use the power of the state to accomplish an end - their end rather than some other end. THAT is what has led to the moral decay in this country.
You wrote:
“You have gone so far past being “pro-life” that I think you must be a Reid plant to ensure conservativism is repulsive to all reasoning people.”
Opposing contraception is a basic part of the pro-life cause. That’s why most people who call themselves pro-life are not really pro-life. And true pro-life ideas are not repulsive to any reasoning person. You’re just not a reasoning person.
You wrote:
“Birth control used by MARRIED COUPLES WORKS.”
Actually the failure rate is relatively high and the bad effects on marriage are common.
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