[Campion]

What's wrong with good old fashioned Protestant birth control? I believe it to be a gift from God.

Which god? Moloch? Baal? Bacchus? Surely not the God of Israel.

"Good old Protestant birth control," as you call it, was unanimously and vigorously condemned by all Christians -- Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox -- until 1930. The laws against birth control in the US, the Comstock laws, were written by Protestants. The Reformers, all of them, condemned artificial contraception as grave immorality.

In 1930, the Anglican Lambeth Conference became the first mainstream Christian body in history to endorse contraception. That decision was condemned, not only by the Pope, but by Mahatma Gandhi (!) and most of the rest of the world. Just a few years ago, Robert Runcie, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, said, in essence, that that decision logically led to approval of homosexual acts. He said that once the acceptance of contraception made it clear that it was okay to completely separate sex from procreation, it necessarily followed that homosexual acts could not be prohibited either.

The Supreme Court has stated quite clearly that their acceptance of contraception in the Griswold case, which struck down the Comstock laws, led directly to Roe v. Wade, because abortion is necessary as a "backstop" if contraception fails.

This article hits the nail right on the head. If American Catholics practiced Catholicism, and American Evangelicals learned the truth that their forebearers knew, that contraception is a sin against God, the pro-life movement would make progress.

[hocndoc]

Until late in the 19th century, no one knew the exact nature of conception. Now, we know that a child is not conceived at intercourse, but a few hours or days later. We know that Augustine had it wrong in believing that life begins at quickening.

Knowledge - and technology - enables us to make decisions about birth control or contraception that were impossible in the past.

We can practice what once was called "birth control" (before we had to distinguish between abortion and spacing conception) without the fear of killing any human beings.

The 1973 Supreme Court made several factual, logical, and ethical errors. One was the correlation between abortion and contraception.


Sexual immorality is not synonymous with contraception. Contraception within a marriage is definitely not a sin. My husband and I have used contraception most of our 30 years of marriage, and we are good, Christian people.

We can find errors and misunderstandings in any former group of theologians. When a question of morality comes up, it's best to first agree that we wish to approach the issue acknowledging each other as children of God in Jesus Christ.

I agree with tkathy that contraception, along with much of today's medicine and technology, is a gift of God - the God of Abraham and Moses, and Whose Son is my Savior.