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.
I’m having a blast, nasty thread though. I hate to see the name calling and false accusations here though over simple disagreements.
Oh, sorry Las Vegas! There was a long line this morning lining up outside of my bedroom (boy, are they going to be disappointed!!) demanding entry - at least that was said by some who were accusing poor Vlad of wanting to do that. I got mixed up! Sorry about that, lol.
Do you play requests? I need lots of big band music to really relax me.
Oh believe me, I know. It’s a good thing termites aren’t wrecking the deck. I’ve got fish to fry.
Ain't no thang.....I'll go back to working on my typing skills now! (after that last post of mine ;))
I am not surprised are dependent upon something. At least it is only Glenn Miller Benny Goodman. It is a shame it isn’t truth or knowledge.
Plenty of people just don’t like to click multiple links, especially when their viewpoint is in opposition. Nothing to do with finger injury.
First, contraception is different than a morning after pill, but second, my war is on the absolutism of the absolutists around here. Tell me this, how do you abort a baby with a condom?
What is his plan? When and where did he reveal it to you? Is penicillin part of God's plan, or is it God's plan that we are supposed to die at an early age from chance bacterial infections? Was Flemming interefering with God's plan?
We just want to know since apparently you have so much greater insight in the will of God than the rest of us.
It wouldn’t solve the 2-3 weeks of bleeding every month.
I had problems on the pill, and I had been on it too long that’s why I didn’t go on that.
The IUD completely fixed the problem. I think I would have had to have surgery or something else more drastic.
Actually Vlad, when you make a statement that defies common sense and common experience the onus is on you to offer substantive evidence of your claim and not the person who doubts you.
In the scientific world, if someone publishes an article claiming the moon is made of green cheese and I rely on that which is contrary to good sense and common knowledge, the embarassment is entirely on me and not on the other crank who made the original claim. Indeed, in such a case before I can get away with relying on the cheesiness of the moon I would need to provide overwhelming evidence, like several cheese samples produced by several Moose who independently traveled to the moon to retrieve the samples, videotape recordings of the whole proceedings, independent eyewitness evidence that I even launched the questionable Moose into space, etc.
You don't just get to stand back and tell someone else to disprove that which they doubt. The moral and intellectual burden is all on you.
…the most important foundation of society to keep safe and healthy, physically, morally and spiritually, is the family. If the family is suffering physical, mental and spiritual degradation, society is placed in grave peril, as has repeatedly been the case in past civilizations…
[The Culture Of Life: Presuppositions And Dimensions, General Assembly of the Pontifical Academy for Life, March 1 - 4, 2001, (Unofficial results), By Mercedes Arzú Wilson] That's quite a source you cite there, why didn't you include the whole thing?
You are missing my point. You were sarcastic. You tried to pass the buck to another poster. Then you tried to deny it.
You are missing my point. You were sarcastic. You tried to pass the buck to another poster. Then you tried to deny it.
You wrote:
“Actually Vlad, when you make a statement that defies common sense and common experience the onus is on you to offer substantive evidence of your claim and not the person who doubts you.”
Since what I said neither defied common sense of common experience - among those who have a clue - your claim makes no sense. Libs have no clue about this because they have never looked into it.
“In the scientific world, if someone publishes an article claiming the moon is made of green cheese and I rely on that which is contrary to good sense and common knowledge, the embarassment is entirely on me and not on the other crank who made the original claim.”
Since what I said was absolutely correct - and there’s proof of that easily available online - I feel no embarrassment at all. Again, google. It’s easy.
“Indeed, in such a case before I can get away with relying on the cheesiness of the moon I would need to provide overwhelming evidence, like several cheese samples produced by several Moose who independently traveled to the moon to retrieve the samples, videotape recordings of the whole proceedings, independent eyewitness evidence that I even launched the questionable Moose into space, etc.”
Wow, the length you libs will go to to avoid using google is amazing.
“You don’t just get to stand back and tell someone else to disprove that which they doubt.”
I simply told everyone to look it up online. It’s easy. I already did it (more than once). I am sure you can do it too. Try. What are you afraid of?
“The moral and intellectual burden is all on you.”
Not. One. Bit. It’s all yours.
Actually there is. It is for rhetorical effect. I have a lot of experience debating these "trolls" {did it again). They attempt to avoid fact and logic while casting moral dudgeon on folks they know nothing about as if they are uniquely attuned to the voice of God. So, you ridicule them, call them names, insult their manhood, and say foul things about their slovenly arguments to enrage them and draw them out, like a picador in a bull fight. Then they charge at the silly red flag and you can have your way with them.
I am quite prepared for an extended argument, one that they will forever attempt to evade - like they are here - until they are drawn into it.
No, I do not for a minute confuse rhetorical devices for good argument. But THEY do, and I am not averse to employing these devices to get them to make a point that one can then debate and then get them actually to debate the point.
You wrote:
“What is his plan?”
It is not contraceptives.
“When and where did he reveal it to you?”
Never did. He did reveal it to the Church, however and all Protestants knew it until about 1932.
“Is penicillin part of God’s plan, or is it God’s plan that we are supposed to die at an early age from chance bacterial infections? Was Flemming interefering with God’s plan?”
No, cures are not a violation of God’s plan. Pregnancy is not a disease. I am not surprised you apparently consider it to be. You and Planned Parenthood have much in common.
“We just want to know since apparently you have so much greater insight in the will of God than the rest of us.”
Crack open the CCC. Learn. Read Humanae Vitae.
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