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.
“Gay marriage hs nothing to do with this-in which I do not support.”
Then you don’t believe that marriage is a commitment between two people. You believe that marriage is a commitment between a man and a woman.
What’s the difference between a marriage, and say, a roommate? Having a roommate is a commitment too.
“Do you think that people should be celibate, and not get married if they do not want children?”
Yes, that makes sense to me. If you want children get married. If you don’t, then refrain.
“When you talk about choices that I made, do you think that having children is a beneficial choice?”
It depends on the person. It depends on the circumstance, but I believe that children are a benefit to society in general and that for the vast majority, having a family is beneficial to them. That’s not the same as saying that everyone should have children.
“Who are you to say what is good for me?”
Who I am? Just another keyboard cowboy concerned about unintended consequences. I do not have the right to tell you what you ought to do with your life. I do have the right to express my opinion that I believe that long term use of birth control is unhealthy.
“I certainly did not want to invest years into a child, only to find out that I did not like my child as a person.”
Interesting. So you believe that the purpose of children is to satisfy you.
“but her life sucked because she believed what the Pope told her to do.”
So why did her life suck? In your opinion, her life sucked, could she not say that your life without children sucks too?
Let me get his straight.
You believe that a woman strapping he babies in a car seat and pushing the car into a lake is murder.
You believe that a woman at seven and half months of pregnancy who enters and abortion clinic to abort her baby is a murderer.
You believe that a woman at two months a pregnancy who aborts her baby is a murderer.
However, you do not believe that a woman who kills her baby by taking day after abortion pills or “birth control” pills is a murderer?
If I were kaila I would have told you to shove you busybody, nosy question up your backside a looooong time ago.
Hat tip to you kaila for your patience.
LOL, your trolling idiocy never ceases to amaze me.
You should look up the very definition of contraception and quit equating it with “morning after pills”
They’re two entirely different things.
Troll on.....
Do you believe that a married woman with a WHO class 4 heart disease who has a tubal ligation or uses condoms to prevent a pregnancy is performing an inherently evil action? Would you recommend instead that the couple stay celibate for their lives? Or should she risk pregnancy, which can carry maternal death risk of 50-60% for the more severe conditions?
We are done.
Wagglebee was not the one getting sarcastic about this. You were, so don't try to pass the buck now.
Excuse us for having a pleasant and polite conversation.
You may want to read the article written by a genuine medical doctor.
She writes: “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.”
Please tell me why a baby, just days after conception should not be protected from murder while a baby two months after conception should be protected against murder?
I wonder how many of the posters on this thread read the article, or even the posts to which they responded.
Okay, you’re excused.
You wrote:
“You have spent most of this thread refusing to give a cite for a statement that you made.”
No, actually you have spent most of the thread refusing to do anything for yourself.
“Because I asked you to give some proof of your statement you have done nothing but attack and call names.”
False. Because you were too lazy to do anything for yourself, I refused to do it for you. Calling you a lib was merely correct labelling and had nothing to do with what you asked. I also never attacked you. I merely correctly dealt with you.
“I can only conclude that you cannot back up your statement and that is the cause for all the sound and fury.”
There is little sound and no fury. You seem to be the only one who is upset and you are apparently still unable to do a simple internet search.
“We are done.”
We were done long ago. All that was left was your complaining and refusal to do any simple work.
Thanks for giving us your permission.
It’s an interesting thread, especiall for those of us who are really thankful for birth control in our marriages
Welcome ;)
They’ve changed up the IUD. I’ve used one for years. I was having heavy periods, and did not want to use the pill to control it. My doctor suggested the IUD, and it’s been fantastic. I was having lots of problems beforehand, and it totally fixed it.
Please stop this. DJ is not a liberal and your continued harassment is unacceptable.
im·preg·nate (m-prgnt)
tr.v. im·preg·nat·ed, im·preg·nat·ing, im·preg·nates
1. To make pregnant; inseminate.
2. To fertilize (an ovum, for example).
3. To fill throughout; saturate: a cotton wad that was impregnated with ether.
4. To permeate or imbue: impregnate a speech with optimism. See Synonyms at charge.
adj. also (-nt)
Saturated or filled.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/impregnation
You are deliberately conflating the difference between preventing conception with aborting a fertilized egg.
Case in point:
"Please tell me why a baby, just days after conception should not be protected from murder while a baby two months after conception should be protected against murder?
"
How can something that never was be aborted?
Troll on.....
I’m glad it works for you - seriously. I’d hate for any woman to get in trouble using that bloody thing. The medical community has been forced over the last 35 years to make that thing workable for women.
I’m alot older than you and remember the “original” IUD. It was terrible and made a lot of women infertile. Read up on it and respect the women who came before you who demanded that the IUD help women and not terribly injure them.
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