Some Progress on The Thorny Abortion Issue [Evangelicals To Promote Contraception]

Pocono Record ^ | 6/1/10

[marshmallow]

Welcome news arrived recently on the family planning front. The National Association of Evangelicals has announced a willingness to work with groups that offer contraceptive services and other programs aimed at reducing the number of abortions.

That marks progress in the polarized issue of abortion, which nine of 10 evangelicals oppose. But no one likes abortion. The difference between abortion rights supporters — many of whom provide contraception — and abortion opponents has been that many abortion opponents have also opposed contraception and even sex education, which can help reduce unplanned pregnancy. Now the NAE is officially adopting the position that contraception and other services will help reduce the number of abortions by preventing pregnancy in the first place.

The NAE represents 40 denominations, many evangelical organizations and millions of American evangelicals. The NAE board of directors unanimously adopted a resolution that supports a wide range of efforts to decrease the number of abortions in the United States. According to a statement, the NAE noted results of a Gallup poll of evangelicals that "Significant majorities of (evangelical) respondents indicated support for a wide range of possible methods for decreasing the abortion rate — from parental consent and waiting periods before abortions to efforts at making adoption, pre- and post-natal care, and contraceptive services more accessible."

NAE president Leith Anderson said the group will continue its active opposition to legal abortion, but members feel that despite this opposition they wish to "seek honest conversation" about ways to reduce the number of abortions. Such conversations "should build on our shared concerns for human dignity, protecting children and promoting healthy families and communities," the resolution said.

This newspaper has long argued that teenagers and young adults need full information about their bodies, human sexuality and reproduction, contraceptives and sexually transmitted diseases if they.............

[marshmallow]

They're heading down a dangerous road and it's one which has already been well traveled. This argument (more contraception = less abortion) was popular in the '60s and was condemned by Paul VI in Humanae Vitae.

Proof that Paul VI was right is shown by the fact that only a few years after "the pill" was touted as "the answer" in the '60s and contraception became widespread, we got Roe v Wade at the start of the '70s and it has been with us ever since.

Contraception and abortion are both part of the anti-life mentality and go hand in hand.

[Tennessee Nana]

But no one likes abortion.
______________________________________

Someone does...

50 Million murdered babies are not solid proof that there is a lot of hate being spread around for abortion..

[Jim from C-Town]

Exactly correct! Had supposed ‘Birth Control’ Actual controlled pregnancy there would not be massive out of wedlock births and over a million abortions a year.

[frogjerk]

We are contracepting ourselves to death in this country.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

The National Association of Evangelicals has announced a willingness to work with groups that offer contraceptive services and other programs aimed at reducing the number of abortions.

Matthew 24:4-12; Mark 13:21-23; Luke 21:7-8; Acts 20:29-30; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12; 2 Timothy 3:1-7, 4:1-4; 2 Peter 2:1-3; and Jude 17-19.

[trisham]

Contraception and abortion are both part of the anti-life mentality and go hand in hand.

*************************

Absolutely correct.

[leaning conservative]

If you taught in the school district where I teach ( some days it’s more like an attempt to teach because of the really off the chain behavior we deal w/), you would be pro contraception. I am soooooooooooooooooo tired of seeing young girls all over the place w/ their bellies blown up. Girls & women who should NOT be having children are having way too many. And guess what, we pay for it w/ our sad little paychecks.

This is one of the areas where I just don’t understand why people DON’T use contraception. WHY, WHY, WHY??????????????

About a month ago at lunch one of my sweet 2nd graders said to me, “ My little brother’s daddy has 12 children & 2 on the way.” She was as proud as can be & as innocent as can be. When you are surrounded from birth by pregnant teens it just seems normal to get pregnant. That is scary & that is what I see every day. There is ABSOLUTELY no shame attached any longer. None. Zilch. What do we do?

[Tax-chick]

How much denial of the clear correlation - more contraception equals more abortion - can people get away with before we can conclude they’re either Death Eaters or hawg-stupid?

Even if one does not fully agree with any explanation of the correlation, it is there.

[conservonator]

There is ABSOLUTELY no shame attached any longer. None. Zilch. What do we do?

Shame them, not out of a sense of wrath or superiority but out of love: help them understand that they were made for greater things than to be used as sperm depositories for hedonistic, self loathing "men". This is a problem that contraception will not and in fact can not help because it is actually a liberating factor in peoples attitude towards sex: it allows the gross mis-perception that sex is a recreational activity with few if any consequences.

This problem can not be solved in our current culture because with out a definitive moral starting point there is no reason to even see this as a problem outside of simple economic impact.

[Tax-chick]

to be used as sperm depositories for hedonistic, self loathing "men".

That is what is really shameful. Pregnancy and childbirth are not wrong. Pregnancy is God's planned outcome of sexual relations between men and women. Children are good, not bad.

What is *wrong* is fornication, irresponsible sex that treats another human being as a toilet. Evangelicals (and feminists, and fiscal conservatives, etc.) need to promote *chastity*, not contraception.

[conservonator]

What is *wrong* is fornication, irresponsible sex that treats another human being as a toilet. Evangelicals (and feminists, and fiscal conservatives, etc.) need to promote *chastity*, not contraception.

Exactly. The problem is that we have devolved into a hyper-secular nation that mocks, even in some religious communities the notion of chastity. Without a working moral compass, we are lost. We Christians must begin to restate the case or Christ emphatically, reasonably and with great love.

[Tax-chick]

Yes, you’re right. Many Christians don’t want affirm what Christians have always taught: sex outside marriage is wrong. Many of us have sinned in this way - it’s the way of our society - but we have to honestly repent and say, “That was wrong, I sinned.” and then affirm the truth.

[aumrl]

gotta lota nice scripture refs - but none refer specifically to contraception

[Brian Kopp DPM]

Some history of Christian thought on Birth Control:

(Note: The quotes of the early church fathers can be researched in their entirety, courtesy of Calvin College.)

191 AD - Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor of Children

"Because of its divine institution for the propagation of man, the seed is not to be vainly ejaculated, nor is it to be damaged, nor is it to be wasted." (2:10:91:2) "To have coitus other than to procreate children is to do injury to nature" (2:10:95:3).

307 AD - Lactantius - Divine Institutes

"[Some] complain of the scantiness of their means, and allege that they have not enough for bringing up more children, as though, in truth, their means were in [their] power . . . .or God did not daily make the rich poor and the poor rich. Wherefore, if any one on any account of poverty shall be unable to bring up children, it is better to abstain from relations with his wife" (6:20)

"God gave us eyes not to see and desire pleasure, but to see acts to be performed for the needs of life; so too, the genital ['generating'] part of the body, as the name itself teaches, has been received by us for no other purpose than the generation of offspring" (6:23:18).

325 AD - Council of Nicaea I - Canon 1

"[I]f anyone in sound health has castrated [sterilized] himself, it behooves that such a one, if enrolled among the clergy, should cease [from his ministry], and that from henceforth no such person should be promoted. But, as it is evident that this is said of those who willfully do the thing and presume to castrate themselves, so if any have been made eunuchs by barbarians, or by their masters, and should otherwise be found worthy, such men this canon admits to the clergy"

375 AD - Epiphanius of Salamis - Medicine Chest Against Heresies

"They [certain Egyptian heretics] exercise genital acts, yet prevent the conceiving of children. Not in order to produce offspring, but to satisfy lust, are they eager for corruption" (26:5:2 ).

391 AD - John Chrysostom - Homilies on Matthew

"[I]n truth, all men know that they who are under the power of this disease [the sin of covetousness] are wearied even of their father's old age [wishing him to die so they can inherit]; and that which is sweet, and universally desirable, the having of children, they esteem grievous and unwelcome. Many at least with this view have even paid money to be childless, and have mutilated nature, not only killing the newborn, but even acting to prevent their beginning to live [sterilization]" (28:5).

393 AD - Jerome - Against Jovinian

"But I wonder why he [the heretic Jovinianus] set Judah and Tamar before us for an example, unless perchance even harlots give him pleasure; or Onan, who was slain because he grudged his brother seed. Does he imagine that we approve of any sexual intercourse except for the procreation of children?" (1:19).

419 AD - Augustine - Marriage and Concupiscence

"I am supposing, then, although are not lying [with your wife] for the sake of procreating offspring, you are not for the sake of lust obstructing their procreation by an evil prayer or an evil deed. Those who do this, although they are called husband and wife, are not; nor do they retain any reality of marriage, but with a respectable name cover a shame. Sometimes this lustful cruelty, or cruel lust, comes to this, that they even procure poisons of sterility [oral contraceptives] . . . Assuredly if both husband and wife are like this, they are not married, and if they were like this from the beginning they come together not joined in matrimony but in seduction. If both are not like this, I dare to say that either the wife is in a fashion the harlot of her husband or he is an adulterer with his own wife" (1:15:17).

522 AD - Caesarius of Arles - Sermons

"Who is he who cannot warn that no woman may take a potion [an oral contraceptive] so that she is unable to conceive or condemns in herself the nature which God willed to be fecund? As often as she could have conceived or given birth, of that many homicides she will be held guilty, and, unless she undergoes suitable penance, she will be damned by eternal death in hell. If a women does not wish to have children, let her enter into a religious agreement with her husband; for chastity is the sole sterility of a Christian woman" (1:12).

Martin Luther (1483 to 1546) -

"Onan must have been a malicious and incorrigible scoundrel. This is a most disgraceful sin. It is far more atrocious than incest or adultery. We call it unchastity, yes, a Sodomitic sin. For Onan goes into her; that is, he lies with her and copulates, and when it comes to the point of insemination, spills the semen, lest the woman conceive. Surely at such a time the order of nature established by God in procreation should be followed."

John Calvin (1509 to 1564) -

Deliberately avoiding the intercourse, so that the seed drops on the ground, is double horrible. For this means that one quenches the hope of his family, and kills the son, which could be expected, before he is born. This wickedness is now as severely as is possible condemned by the Spirit, through Moses, that Onan, as it were, through a violent and untimely birth, tore away the seed of his brother out the womb, and as cruel as shamefully has thrown on the earth. Moreover he thus has, as much as was in his power, tried to destroy a part of the human race.

John Wesley (1703 to 1791) -

"Onan, though he consented to marry the widow, yet to the great abuse of his own body, of the wife he had married and the memory of his brother that was gone, refused to raise up seed unto the brother. Those sins that dishonour the body are very displeasing to God, and the evidence of vile affections. Observe, the thing which he did displeased the Lord - And it is to be feared, thousands, especially single persons, by this very thing, still displease the Lord, and destroy their own souls.

(Examining sermons and commentaries, Charles Provan identified over a hundred Protestant leaders (Lutheran, Calvinist, Reformed, Methodist, Presbyterian, Anglican, Evangelical, Nonconformist, Baptist, Puritan, Pilgrim) living before the twentieth century condemning non- procreative sex. Did he find the opposing argument was also represented? Mr. Provan stated, "We will go one better, and state that we have found not one orthodox [protestant]theologian to defend Birth Control before the 1900's. NOT ONE! On the other hand, we have found that many highly regarded Protestant theologians were enthusiastically opposed to it." )

In 1908 the Bishops of the Anglican Communion meeting at the Lambeth Conference declared, "The Conference records with alarm the growing practice of the artificial restriction of the family and earnestly calls upon all Christian people to discountenance the use of all artificial means of restriction as demoralising to character and hostile to national welfare."

The Lambeth Conference of 1930 produced a new resolution, "Where there is a clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood, complete abstinence is the primary and obvious method..." but if there was morally sound reasoning for avoiding abstinence, "the Conference agrees that other methods may be used, provided that this is done in the light of Christian principles."

1930 AD - Pope Pius XI - Casti Conubii (On Christian Marriage)

"Any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of a grave sin."

1965 AD - Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World - Gaudium et Spes, Vatican II

Relying on these principles, sons of the Church may not undertake methods of birth control which are found blameworthy by the teaching authority of the Church in its unfolding of the divine law. (51)

1968 AD - Pope Paul VI - Humanae Vitae (Of Human Life)

Equally to be excluded, as the teaching authority of the Church has frequently declared, is direct sterilization, whether perpetual or temporary, whether of the man or of the woman. Similarly excluded is every action which, either in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, propose, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible. To justify conjugal acts made intentionally infecund, one cannot invoke as valid reasons the lesser evil, or the fact that such acts would constitute a whole together with the fecund acts already performed or to follow later, and hence would share in one and the same moral goodness. In truth, if it is sometimes licit to tolerate a lesser evil in order to avoid a greater evil to promote a greater good, it is not licit, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil so that good may follow therefrom; that is to make into the object of a positive act of the will something which is intrinsically disorder, and hence unworthy of the human person, even when the intention is to safeguard or promote individual, family or social well-being. Consequently it is an error to think that a conjugal act which is deliberately made infecund and so is intrinsically dishonest could be made honest and right by the ensemble of a fecund conjugal life. (14)

1993 AD - Catechism of the Catholic Church

"The regulation of births represents one of the aspects of responsible fatherhood and motherhood. Legitimate intentions on the part of the spouses do not justify recourse to morally unacceptable means (for example, direct sterilization or contraception)." (2399)

[leaning conservative]

I completely respect your viewpoint, BUT..... there is a certain segment of society who are NOT going to stop having sex ( Don’t even get me started on the conversations where people at school ask each other, “How many brothers & sisters does she/he have on his daddy’s side?”It is taken for granted. If the behavior is not going to stop; and I do not see it stopping at all, then at least promote NOT bringing babies into an already troubled situation where they have almost no chance to be productive human beings.

Not to mention, I am so tired of watching my hard working, tax paying, 74 year old mother ( I am going to visit her in 3 days & we are taking in an arts festival... can’t wait!!!!!!!!) still working and these paople just loaf around collecting a check and having babies & more babies.

I will say that is one of the issues that has helped turn me toward a more conservative leaning.

[Tax-chick]

If the culture cannot be changed to increase chastity, why do you think the culture can be changed to increase contraceptive use? People know contraceptives exist: they simply choose not to use them, or not to use them correctly or consistently. (Not just minority teenagers, either: Harvard educated white women, too. And pretty much all men, of course - they don’t care about pregnancy, obviously.)

This is why promotion of contraceptives increases abortion: because if the will is not there to refrain from sex, neither is the will there to consistently and correctly use contraceptives.

[leaning conservative]

About the only thing that would make people use contraceptives would be if their gov’t check & all freebies were cut OFF! I don’t see that happening & I agree w/ your argument.

[red irish]

I have family members who are exactly what you are talking about!!!

[Tax-chick]

if their gov’t check & all freebies were cut OFF

Yes, that would make a big difference. People who are not acting wisely are nonetheless acting rationally, based on their perception of the incentives. It's been demonstrated that even small reductions in the payoffs to welfare mothers reduces the number having children.

[mlizzy]

Without a working moral compass, we are lost.

With the Harry Potter and Twilight series of books/films (the former out-selling all books except the Holy Bible), it's difficult at best to attempt to procure a moral compass among our youth. From Michael D. O'Brien's latest book, Harry Potter and the Paganization of Culture:

The most serious problem is the author's use of the symbolic-world of the occult as her primary metaphor, and occultic activities as the dramatic engine of the plots ... In Herbology they grow plants that are used in the potions--the roots of the mandrake plant, for example, are small human-like "babies" who scream when they are uprooted for transplanting, and are grown for the purpose of being cut into pieces and boiled in a magical potion.

There are many Catholics (however, I do not know if they are partaking frequently in the Sacraments) and Christians of other denominations that are proponents of the Harry Potter series for their own children's consumption.

Fr. Thomas J. Euteneuer (who is an exorcist), Michael D. O'Brien (who I've just quoted above), and Pope Benedict himself (to name only three), have spoken out regarding the hazards of promoting this type of "culture" for our youth. It's easy to see how a young person can become numb to abortion, when the slicing and dicing of "babies" (through the mandrake plant for a potion) is part of a well-received "magical" movie, that parents think of as fun fantasy for their kids. What folly!