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.
Try to forgive each other.
Vlad, dj asked for sources, a simple enough request, not hostile at all.She was on your side for most of the thread. I believe you over reacted.
Wondering about your reference to "this" society. What society would that be?
Ah, I was thinking of your tagline from a few days ago about how everything can be tied in to communism or something along those lines.
Causing is vastly different than being involved in.
Finding root cause, rather than just involvment, will help us more efficiently root out Marxism.
If you refuse to look at any site that isn’t an original scientific report, take it up with wagglebee; they are his links, not mine.
The main reason people are not up to the task of raising children is because the very meaning of marriage, family and sex has been perverted due to the left. EZ meaningless sex, EZ divorce, sex divorced from marriage and procreation has created extremely disturbed and amoral people.
Voila.
My point entirely.
PS - you did not address one point I made yesterday about feminism, revisionist “herstory”, hatred of men and so on. You POV is entirely leftist feminist nonsense, from what you have posted.
Why would we expect them to start now?
I have heard that theory as well. It seems reasonable, imho.
I saved the links on 62 and 97. Thanks to wagglebee and DJ.
No one but you has introduced your wife into this conversation.
DJ is not a liberal.
Please don’t try to blame this on wagglebee. That would be more than unfair, it would be ludicrous.
Agreed.
Wagglebee is not to blame for those who refuse to see the truth. Contraception (the ultimate of which is abortion) is inherently evil. Admonishing that behavior is both loving & charitable. It is an act of mercy to point out that embracing contraception is very, very wrong. You, by your acceptance of it, are no pro-lifer.
Your whinig about loving each other on this thread makes me think of Rodney King “can’t we all just get along”. The answer is no, not when pig-headed people refuse to even entertain for a minute that they are wrong.
You wrote:
“Try to forgive each other.”
What’s there to forgive?
“Vlad, dj asked for sources, a simple enough request, not hostile at all.”
Did I say there was hostility?
“She was on your side for most of the thread. I believe you over reacted.”
Your beliefs about me are not important to me.
Oh, that one: The Commie Plot Theory of Everything. The theory was propagated by “rrrod,” a colorful old character on the North Carolina forum.
That is ridiculous. Contraceptives that prevent conception are not abortions.
With that logic you could say abstinence is abortion.
Married people who chose to use BC because maybe they can't afford another child or maybe they chose to have none at all are inherently evil?
You might want to reconsider your morals and more importantly your dictatorial attitude.
Ok, great.
How about babies? Are babies the same way?
The point being that babies are not the same as bikes. The rules are there for a reason, and yes it does matter, and this is the source of our disagreement.
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