Ping.(As usual, if you would like to be added to or removed from my "conservative Catholics" ping list, just send me a FReepmail. Please realize that some of my "ping" posts are long.)
C.S. Lewis perceived the switch more than four decades ago, when he wrote that contraceptives had removed the biggest practical argument against fornication (because of the great reduction in risk of pregnancy), and that therefore you must FIRST make the case for Christianity to modern adults before you can make the case for Christian sexual morals. (Of course, other religions also condemn fornication, so the same remarks apply, though I am only concerned with Christianity here.)
Catholics may do well to learn the entire doctrine on sexual morals, but in the context of fighting abortion in a secular society (as opposed to persuading just Catholics) the issue of contraception should be put aside (except, of course, that abortifacient "contraception" should be called by its right name of abortion and fought as such).
The purpose of government is to secure the rights of the people in its society. That has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not my neighbors are using a rubber. It has everything to do with defending the lives of people to whom the government serves.
“…by incremental lowering of the ‘least common denominators’ to being Pro-life. The most obvious and most debated lowering is in allowing exceptions for the ‘hard cases’ of rape, incest, and the life of the mother”
I am with the author, in that I see no moral or legal reason why abortion should be permissible in cases of rape or incest. Whether conceived by consentual sex between 2 non-related individuals or by way of rape or incest, the baby is still a person, endowed by his/her creator (nature, God, the mother, etc.) with inalienable rights, including the right to life. Where I do not understand the author’s reasoning is where he takes issue with the “life of the mother” exception. Assuming that there is a situation in which continuing a pregnancy would kill the mother, what could be the possible objection to aborting or some other procedure to terminate the growth within the womb? Is there no such thing as self-defense?
”That case held that married couples have a ‘privacy’ right to purchase contraceptives. To this day, Constitutional scholars openly concede that there was simply no foundation or precedent for such a ruling, but there was also no means to stop the Justices from imposing their morals on the nation.”
Does anyone have a link to the concessions of those Constitutional scholars? I would be interested in reading their reasoning.
”The pro-life movement cannot stop judges from ‘playing God’ in courtrooms or women from ‘playing God’ with their unborn babies if they insist on ‘playing God’ in their homes using contraception and birth control.”
Contraception and birth control are measures taken to prevent conception. Why are these on the same moral level as killing babies? In the former, nobody’s rights are violated. In the latter, a baby’s right to life is clearly violated.
The problem I have is the "How do we get there from here" part.
In answer to this question, I think the best tactic is to fall back on the Natural Law, rather than address it in a way that relies upon Church history (not that Church history can't play a role - it can and should - but that need not be the main rhetorical thrust).
The Natural Law on this issue is very simple. The purpose of sex is procreation. If you're engaging in sex in a way that intentionally blocks the procreative purpose, you're committing a perversion against the Natural Law.
All the moral and social consequences that follow from that are the same ones identified several places above. When you create a society that systematically violates the Natural Law, you would obviously expect social decay and even social breakdown in some areas (witness the growing acceptance of homosexual "marriage," sexualization of ever younger children, and now a growing "polyamorist" movement). That's the importance of Natural Law in a secular society. It allows you to address moral problems, even among conflicting moral views, by drawing on the experience of our shared humanity.
Obviously the Christian teachings on the matter are richer and fuller, and Christians should eagerly engage anyone (especially their fellow Church members) with a willingness to brag about how true and right the Church has always been about this issue. That would be a welcome shift from the currently pervasive embarrassed avoidance of it.
I think the main problem here is two-fold. The first part is that most people truly have separated sex from procreation. They see them as virtually unrelated things. Getting them to see them as one is going to be one heck of a struggle all its own, but it's an essential foundation to any progress against contraception.
The second problem is sexual obsession bordering on addiction. Even when they realize and admit it's wrong, there are going to be a LOT of people who refuse to change anyway (and don't think these will all be liberal Democrats). Many (perhaps even most) will still want their sex for recreation, rather than procreation.
I think we can do something about the first problem. The second is trickier. Part of it stems from the "culture of death" mindset, which has conditioned most people to see lots of children as a burden and a sadness rather than a blessing and a joy. When people want 1 or 2 children (or none at all), an anti-contraception ("contra-contraception?" Or perhaps just "ception"?) message seems to hedge them into a life of celibacy. The way this mindset pervades so many aspects of our culture is dizzying. Modern people don't realize that we live in the most sexually obsessed culture the world has ever seen. The fact that it has simultaneously lead to such an anti-child culture is a perversion worthy of Satan himself.
I believe this to be true. It has never been fully examined. However, the quixotic comprehensive "culture of life" has never been fully examined. If it had been examined and studied, it would be widely publicised that a comprehensive "culture of life" has NEVER existed on the planet Earth at any time in history. Just a few examples:
___A comprehensive "culture of life" would not unilaterally demonized women who are pregnant, but not married.
___A comprehensive "culture of life" would not stigmatize children born out of wedlock as "bastards" and illegitimate (how can a human being, in God's likeness, be "illegitimate"?). It would not have singled out these children of God for discrimination and public shame.
___A comprehensive "culture of life" would not support the law-of-the-jungle mentality in financial and resource distribution. (Laws of the jungle dictate that the weak must be sacrificed for the survival of the strong.)
___A comprehensive "culture of life" would not advocate, aid and abet father abandonment of offspring, such as the children born of unions during wartime excursions in foreign lands (as has been the US policy in Asia and before that the policy of all European empirical excursions).
___A comprehensive "culture of life" would not hide, aid and abet rapists and child rapists among its heirarchy. ___A comprehensive "culture of life" would not allow millions of mostly women and children to starve in poor coutries while selling arms for profit to spread more misery and internal strife in poor areas.
___A comprehensive "culture of life" would not have supported slavery and near slavery, nor would it have supported race and gender apartheid in education and economic opportunities.
In short, to single out contraception without looking at all the cultural instetutions we have supported and continue to support which are not anything near to supporting the concept of the value of every human life, is shortsighted and hypocritical. There is much we have not fully and credibly debated.
First, with no government or court approval whatsoever, we may refuse to practice any form of birth control, maximize the number of our children and raise them dedicated to the entire agenda and to raise their large families similarly and so on through the generations. As we well know, our opponents will not emulate this tactic. We will have as allies the hard-core Chassidic Jews (average 9 kids per family), the hard core of the Islamic faith who have similar birth rates and the hard core of the evangelicals and pentecostals who also have high birth rates and whose literature racks and stores increasingly carry books urging couples to trust God and turn their backs on the contraceptive mentality.
Second, many, many serious religious believers do not understand the science of the birth control pill and the science of the IUD, both of which function as abortifacients and NOT as contraceptives. More babies are killed by these two methods than by a multiple of all surgical abortions. Most folks do not want this news. Our job is to make sure they get this news anyway. Fully informed, under our post-Griswold, post-Roe culture and "laws", they can make the decision to kill or not to kill their children. That decision is not a mere decision as to whether to have children or how many to have.
Third, we must convert "Catholics" to the Catholic Faith once again, replacing dissenters with Catholics.
Demography will take care of the rest.