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.
Geez, leave me out of your posts, please. I don’t like your manner AT ALL.
which is why I’m more than a little amused that fellow FReepers have taken it upon themselves to “set them straight” - as if they are part of the problem.
Their seeming concern that such ideas are threatening to their perception of a successful election reveals their own bias.
People of faith are not the problem.
Practicing catholics who refrain from birth control are not the problem.
The pope is not the problem.
Conservatives turning on one another - suggesting one group ought to shut up....that is a problem.
I used your name and quoted you. FR rules are that I ping you. If you talk about someone you must ping them.
You couldn't possibly be more wrong about the case and what you said!
First of all a tracheotomy has NEVER been considered extraordinary medical care, they have been used for centuries. And that is all the Baby Joseph's parents wanted.
Secondly, AFTER Baby Joseph was given the tracheotomy and AFTER it was established that he was BREATHING ON HIS OWN, you continued to insist that he was "brain dead" and being "tortured." You are obviously either unable to understand or unwilling to admit that a brain dead person CANNOT breathe on their own, moreover a brain dead person CANNOT feel "torture" (you never did get around to explaining how not allowing someone to suffocate was "torture").
So my line of thought is no different than the Catholic Church. A ventilator for a terminally ill patient is extraordinary care. You may now say- “he is not on a ventilator, you were wrong!. However, you are not there in the room. You do not know what is now going on.
Your line is totally different than the Catholic Church's because Baby Joseph IS NOT ON A VENTILATOR.
Your insinuation that the family is somehow lying about this is pathetic.
You have a nice day Andy.
The problem for our country is that a number sitting on the opposite side of the table from me just want to get their hands on the levers or power to legislate morality.
This libertarian "legislate morality" talking point gets really old.
We have ALWAYS had laws governing morality. Laws against, murder, rape, stealing, and etc. govern morality.
However, neither you nor anyone else on this thread have been able to establish where ANYONE on this thread has suggested outlawing contraception.
I want you to drop my name off your pings. I don’t know what the rules say about someone who does that despite being told not to. I suspect they’d be on my side.
Excellent post, Cronos.
Yes. Once. Some troll, not unlike our Vlad here, suggested that it was just fine with him to strip search teenage girls in a school in Arizona to look for some sort of analgesic (tylonol IIRC). I presume the idiot school board settled for a large sum of money, and an agreement to revise their strip search of teenage girls policy since I have not heard about it in a while. The vlad-like troll who tried to defend it got pretty badly abused, as he well deserved. It was hilarious. The Monitors seemed to have no problem with skewerin the troll.
I quoted you and used your name in a post. FR rules are that I include you because I specifically named you. I don't know how much clearer I can explain the rules.
If you need more information you can FReepmail a Moderator and ask them about it.
Yeah. That sounds like quite a ruckus too. The only other one I’ve ever been involved in was a thread I posted about soup. I was astonished. Still am.
I came on here out of curiousity. As you stated, we don’t know each other. I made a comment about abortion being prized by licentious men which upset some freepers. You supported that idea as I supported some of your ideas. That is all.
But I have been disgusted to hear other freepers calling you “a liar.” What a disgrace! You have every right to post your opinions without being called a liar. I am at the point of pushing the abuse button myself - which I HATE to do. I’ve done it twice in all the years I’ve been here. But I’m willing to do it again. No one should be subjected to harrassment the way you have been targetted.
You are deliberately ignoring the point of my posts to you. I will now deliberately hand you over to the mods. Have a nice day.
You know. you are almost as big a self-abuser as this Vlad is. A key component of carrying your point in a debate is bringing evidence to bear that supports your side of the argument not your opponents side.
In this case you cited an article demanding that I read it. I read it, and if it does one thing, it surely connotes the divisiveness of this issue among practicing Catholics, which is point enough. Then you accuse me for pointing out that that is what your article said and berate the article for being propaganda.
Next time you want to rely on a Papal Bull cite and quote principle points from the Bull and not some propaganda Time article that barely mentions the arguments of the Bull.
I am not the fool here. You and your fellow self-abuser in chief are responsible for your own arguments. Not me. Not anyone else.
Coingrats. You just outed another abuse button addict.
How much more obvious can it be that FR does not allow people to be spoken about without them knowing?!
You do that. I already told you to talk to a Moderator in Post 630. Glad to see that you are doing so.
They can. But having admitted one method of contraception, methods that prevent conception to repeat the idiotic redundancy of the lead article, why not admit others. Or is it that little bit of latex thing.
Now if your problem is that selfish men think they have a right to demand that women take harmful drugs, well that is a different issue and a very different point of morality than the one you are making here.
They can. But having admitted one method of contraception, methods that prevent conception to repeat the idiotic redundancy of the lead article, why not admit others. Or is it that little bit of latex thing.
Now if your problem is that selfish men think they have a right to demand that women take harmful drugs, well that is a different issue and a very different point of morality than the one you are making here.
They can. But having admitted one method of contraception, methods that prevent conception to repeat the idiotic redundancy of the lead article, why not admit others. Or is it that little bit of latex thing.
Now if your problem is that selfish men think they have a right to demand that women take harmful drugs, well that is a different issue and a very different point of morality than the one you are making here.
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