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.
You sure about Vlad here, because I think he is. And I kind of resent the notion that only selfish misogynistic men would resort to the use of birth control.
You wrote:
“Cop out. And the mud slinging is typical too.”
Yeah, gee, it’s so hard to use google, huh?
“I have better things to do than exchange barbs with a poster that refuses to prove their assertions.”
Apparently not, lib.
You wrote:
“Your cause, man, not “the cause.””
The pro-life cause is pro-life, not pro-death.
“If this is where being against abortion leads, you have just pounded the last nail in the conservative coffin.”
I am Christian and pro-life before I am any definition of “conservative”. I don’t really mind if “conservatism” according to your definition fails if I happen to support what is morally right. This world is transitory.
“Conservatism is now officially dead. It cannot survive having this kind of backward ignorance on our side.”
I have expressed nor embraced any ignorance at all. Saying that being pro-life is ignorant is outrageously stupid on your part.
“This has nothing to do with getting the government out of our lives.”
No, it’s about getting God into our lives.
“Go join the liberals.”
I have no reason to join you.
“You are much more in their spirit of running peoples lives.”
No. I do not see any reason for human beings to embrace what is evil. You apparently do.
“You have a plan. They have a plan.”
God has a plan.
“You don’t get it.”
I do get it. You don’t.
“We cannot survive central planning, whether in God’s name or in Satan’s name or Mao’s name.”
I ask for no central planning. What I ask for is personal responsibility in obeying God’s law. It’s really not much to ask.
“It all leads to the same death of freedom and personal responsibility.”
No, you choose the pro-death way. I choose the pro-life way. It is filled from beginning to end with life, liberty and personal responsibility before God and man.
“Good grief this country is so screwed.”
It might be, but if it is, it is by liberals like you who embrace the way of death.
We have and do discuss the issue as evidenced by my links.
John Patrick,MD, from Augustine College in Canada, speaks on medical ethics to groups like the Christian Medical Association. He notes that this time, the barbarians are inside and we, the people who have studied and understand right and wrong, are outside the gates. When and if the whole structure that is utilitarianism and objectivism fails, we wil survive to lead.
You wrote:
“The only thing to do with doltish Talibani’s like you is call you names until you examine your own ignorant godless souless self.”
First, what is doltish is that you don’t even know (apparently) how to make a plural out of “Taliban”. Also, since what I am expressing here is based squarely in Christianity to say that I am ignorant, godless and soulless (please note correct spelling) is idiotic at best.
“WTF are you talking about? Surely you are a Reid plan.”
A plan [sic]? No. A plant? No. But you certainly seem desperate.
“No one who can string a sentance together is this dumb.”
You seem to be bucking for that level.
“You sound like one of those computer random sentence generators, it is grammatical, sort of, but conotes nonsense.”
That’s a stunningly insightful statement about yourself in light of the above.
You wrote:
“You sure about Vlad here, because I think he is.”
Nope.
“And I kind of resent the notion that only selfish misogynistic men would resort to the use of birth control.”
You have problems with many things - including reality.
I know it must be hard for some men to get their heads around the fact that some women think SOME birth control methods are bloody miserable and uncomfortable and dangerous for women. Even Germaine Greer - one of the more honest feminists - has accused men of being responsible for the abortion craze that overtook the world. After all, who does it suit best? Free sex, no kids, no responsibility, no ties, no nothing.
Instead of fighting the idea, why don’t you consider it for a moment?
Cancer is cells that grow and reproduce without the normal off switch that stops repeated division, in spite of nuclear errors and invasion of other tissues.
Apparently not, lib.
Point to what I've said that makes me a lib.
A couple. I believe that slightly under one percent of breast cancers are in males.
You should have the privilege sometimes (as an advocate, not as a patient, Lord forbid) of trying to get Medicare to pay for the necessary tests and studies. It would make a great Monte Python skit.
You wrote:
“I don’t use Google. They are liberals and track you.”
Oh, hilarious. That has to be one of the richest excuses for refusing to educate oneself I have ever heard!
“Point to what I’ve said that makes me a lib.”
No. I think you need to start doing things for yourself. You seem so pathetically helpless.
You are putting unthought thoughts in my head and unuttered words in my mouth. I have no problem with that perspective at all. My attack is on your Talibani coreligionists here who want to ban everything because it causes communism. Unlike them, I leave it to individual women to decide what they want to do with their bodies so long as they don't expect to burden a social welfare system with the enormous costs of poor decisions.
Even Germaine Greer - one of the more honest feminists - has accused men of being responsible for the abortion craze that overtook the world
Again, you take the leap from some birth control is unacceptable to some women to all men cause the abortion mess. They are actually too different things.
What dentists do in promotion of oral health would be felonious battery committed by any other person. Tooth extraction is not normally regardes as the first step on the slippery slope to thuggery and violence.
It has been posted on FR numerous times that Google tracks users. FReepers have recommended ixquick as they do not track users.
If you call people names you had better be able to point to some evidence.
You are simply flinging mud and have nothing to substantiate your claims.
I have to go. I'm already late.
Blessings on your day.
Controversy does not mean that I cannot discern the truth, evaluate the science, and act on my findings. Just because someone else comes to a different conclusion does not freeze me or make me any more wrong.
Where there is doubt in my mind, i don’t prescribe or even refer. I study and learn, watch the consistency of the others in the debate and recheck if someone I trust comes to a different conclusion.
You wrote:
“Another cop out post.” You mean like this one: “I don’t use Google. They are liberals and track you.”
“It has been posted on FR numerous times that Google tracks users. FReepers have recommended ixquick as they do not track users.”
And yet you won’t search using any search site at all. Again, a “cop out”.
“If you call people names you had better be able to point to some evidence.”
Lib, your words speak for themselves.
“You are simply flinging mud and have nothing to substantiate your claims.”
Again, Lib, your words speak for themselves.
Yes, I’m a Taliban coreligionist! How DID you unmask me?!
Seriously, is English your first language? There are so many mistakes in your last post that I am having trouble understanding what you are saying.
And as Alan Arkin said in “The In-Laws” when his brother-in-law, Peter Falk, made the argument about dental health to the crazed dictator played by the brilliant Richard Libertini: “The dental thing? I’M A DEAD MAN!”
Vlad and dj, Y’all are one the same side for most of this thread.
Wagglebee, see what you’ve wrought? Division and anger, disputing over words, as in your attack on annelizly, who was obviously supporting you.
Love one another.
I'm late for church.
You can’t love someone by spreading lies and the culture of death. I have not spread lies nor do I champion the culture of death. I am not afraid of division over truth. Libs usually are.
You wrote:
“I have not called anyone names and have asked for cites and proof of accusations.”
I have correctly used labels and will continue to do so. I have asked you do lift a finger for yourself. If you’re too lazy or incompetent to do that, then that’s your problem.
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