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.
Yes, I still believe that baby is brain dead.
However, we are talking about birth control pills.
Are you a man?
Do you think women have to be “helped”?
Maybe, you belong with the Taliban in Afghanistan.
You are so right:
I like birth control. I took the pill and have used other forms of birth control. It has allowed my husband and I to have kids when we wanted them and to help us have the number of kids we wanted (well sort of). I did have identical twins, so I got 1 more kid than I wanted.
Stereotype much?
However you do need educating.
I’m sorry to say that you could not be more wrong.
The breasts respond to the process of birth by preparing milk to nurture the baby. Aborting the baby may lead to the breasts producing unfully developed milk that just sits in the breast and leads to what we call ‘cancer’ (when more cells die than are created).
I normally stay out of contraception threads, as there are some places where I disagree with the majority of posters here, but:
It is the other way around. Cancer is out of control cell growth and division, usually forming tumors. The pre milk stuck in the mammary ducts provides an ideal nutrient for accelerated cell growth and replacement. There is a small but statistically significant correlation between bottle feeding and breast cancer, for a similar reason (I’ll try find the study)
When more cells die than are created, it is called necrosis, and has a cascading effect. Prime example of that would be gangrene.
Were you abused?
**********************************
I hope that your unwanted child isn't aware of that.
How sweet! They are twins. Can you tell the difference between the one you wanted and the one you didn't?
Let me guess,
You like women barefoot and pregnant?
Birth control pills gave me a lot of freedom. I did not want children, and therefore I was not forced to have them because of an accident. I did not need “help”. How insulting , and paternalistic is that argument.
The moral decay in our society is from other issues, such as welfare, poor education, etc. Women who have the freedom to choose pregnancy (or not) is not causing the decay of our society.
Most women take BCP- and some get pregnant. It is not foolproof, but it sure beats taking nothing at all.
Most of the time failure is because they forgot to take a pill.
BCP is no more dangerous than any other medication on the market.
I am also willing to bet you that a majority of women on FR have taken BCPs, so unless you are a deep rooted Catholic, you are not going to win any converts over to your side of thought.
I’m a grandmother. Watch the movie and get a clue.
“I never hear that men as a whole need help...”
Men are not burdened with this license to kill.
This unique authority is ONLY and ALWAYS given to women. And can only be used against those who are the very definition of innocence and the literal fruit of mom’s being.
Yet use of that unholy authority is already enthusiastically marketed as gender-based duty by the Left. Such enthusiasm, as seen in China, can easily become a mandate.
If ObamaCare is not aborted, it will become our national baby. And that third bud on your family tree may one day be judged a parasite within it. But, no worries, removal is covered. As is a more permanent cure for this condition.
Yes, I believe moral clarity and the Constitutional respect for innocent life would “help women”.
Baby Joseph is breathing on his own and has been for MONTHS.
How EXACTLY can a "brain dead" person breathe on their own?
Maybe, you belong with the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Typical troll.
Life begins an conception and any pill or procedure that destroys life after conception, whether it is a partial birth abortion, morning after pill or birth control pill is abortion.
I’d go so far to say that Planned Parenthood knows it doesn’t reduce abortion but increases. PP isn’t stupid enough to promote something that will reduce money flowing to its coffers.
I do. Women would be more particular about who they slept with and more likely to have sex within marriage or, at least, a committed relationship.
Oh, you're a feminazi. Okay. I read those books and went to a few of those meetings. The foundation of feminism has always been envy and hatred of men. Feminist revisionist history lies that when men were heads of families and women primarily housewives and mothers, all women were abused and miserable and all men were evil powermad dictators. In fact, feminists hate "history" because it is "his story". They prefer herstory - "her story".
You apparently went to those meetings and read those books and believed the lies.
******************************
I'm so sorry.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.