Is Contraception the Hill We Want to Die On?

Crisis Magazine ^ | february 14, 2014 | Austin Ruse

[NYer]

Using artificial contraception to avoid pregnancy is a mortal sin, according to the teachings of the Catholic Church.

While only the Catholic Church maintains this teaching on contraception, it would be a better world if everyone did.

Paul VI was a prophet when he told the world that great societal evils would follow upon the widespread use of contraception: a loosening of morals, an objectification of women, family breakdown and all the rest of the pathologies that have visited us like furies.

Many of us also hold that contraception also leads inevitably to abortion. After all, according to national statistics, 94 percent of the women getting abortions have used contraception at some point in their lives. Meaning they know what it is and how to get it. Contraception is a promissory note that is cashed by abortion when it fails.

Contraception was made a constitutional right in this country by the Supreme Court in two cases, Griswold v. Connecticut and Eisenstadt v. Baird. Griswold gave married people the right to use it and the decision was based on the sanctity of marriage. Eisenstadt kicked over that rationale by making it a right for single people, too. And then came the deluge.

According to the United Nations the US has one of the highest incidents of contraceptive use in the world. Anybody who wants it can easily get it, including abortifacient “contraceptives” like Plan B that are now available over-the-counter. Bowls of condoms adorn the entrances of clubs and the desks of school administrators. A month’s supply of the pill can be had for as little as nine bucks a month at your local Wal-Mart. And the Obama administration has now made it federal law that all women get it for free.

The abortion crowd knows that Americans love their contraceptives and that Americans would fight tooth-and-nail against anyone who might try to take them away. That’s why the abortion crowd loves to make the abortion debate all about contraception. This is why the “war on women” rhetoric has been so effective. They have been able to convince a significant portion of the electorate that pro-lifers want to take away their contraceptive pills.

But do we?

Serious Catholics understand the evils associated with contraceptives, including the medical dangers to women who take them, and we tell that story. But I am not aware of any campaign to ban contraceptives. In order to do that, we would need to overturn not one but two Supreme Court decisions. I have never seen a bumper sticker that says, “Overturn Griswold … and Eisenstadt,” not even on Judy Brown’s car. Think Roe has been hard to overturn? Try Griswold.

Not even the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has made banning contraceptives a part of its lobbying program. Their spokesman, my wife, told the New York Times in 2003, “while the church does not lobby to ban contraception, it does oppose policies like coercive government birth-control programs or laws that force individuals or institutions with moral or religious objections to provide contraceptives.”

And by the way, when was the last time you heard a sermon from your priest about contraception, let alone a statement by your Bishop?

A Catholic politician in Northern Virginia has come under fire from a primary challenger and LifeSiteNews for asking the Federal government to allow adult women to buy oral contraceptives without a doctor’s prescription. She is being accused of being a bad Catholic and questions are being raised about whether faithful Catholics can support her.*

This letter came at a time when contraceptives are already available in drugstores all over Virginia. You see racks and racks of condoms everywhere. What’s more, there are 136 federally funded Title X family planning clinics in Virginia where poor women can get contraceptive pills for free and virtually instantly, as many have doctors on site who write the prescriptions.

I must admit if I was in her place, I would not have sent the letter, but then I could never be elected to this most liberal part of Virginia, the tony suburbs of Washington DC where she is the only Republican of any kind elected to the Virginia House of Delegates from inside the Beltway.

Even though she represents a profoundly pro-choice area, where abortion is practically a sacrament, she has a stellar pro-life record, voting against state funding of abortion, against abortion funding in a proposed state health exchange, in favor of ultrasound, and she even voted in favor of something that many pro-lifers oppose for prudential reasons, personhood for the unborn child. She voted a single time against an amendment to cut abortion funding from Obamacare but, according to pro-life watchdog Family Foundation of Virginia, she did so as a vote against Obamacare and not as a vote in favor of abortion. And one of her Republican challengers runs on this, and on contraception?

Such charges tend to be made in desperation and truth be told, the primary opponent making these charges has about as good a chance to win in this district as I do.

But her challenger’s chances aside, the more interesting question is what is the duty of the Catholic politician when it comes to contraceptives?

There is no question that the Catholic politician is duty bound to limit and then to stop legal abortion. After all, abortion is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being. Protecting the innocent from abortion is not a uniquely Catholic matter. Is contraception the same as abortion, or is it more like divorce, a fundamental Catholic teaching but one that we do not seek to impose on others. We may seek to convince others but we do not seek to impose it on them through public policy.

There are good public health reasons to be against contraception. Hormonal birth control pills can cause cancer, for instance. And this is a very important point to make when we properly try to undermine public confidence in contraceptives. But this is not a Catholic reason to vote against them and Delegate Barbara Comstock is being attacked on Catholic grounds. We do not see any great Catholic campaigns against smoking and smoking probably causes more cancer than the pill.

Comstock’s letter should be seen in the context of where we are in our new Obamacare world. Contraception was universally available before Obamacare, but now every person in America gets it for free, either through employer insurance or the healthcare exchanges. They have utterly won and somewhere in the pits of hell, sitting in the cocktail lounge, drinking a celebratory martini is Margaret Sanger.

Here’s an irony: the policy change Comstock called for could actually reduce the use of contraception, because women would actually have to reach into their own pockets to buy it. Are free pills paid by tax dollars the purer “Catholic” position than making women pay for it themselves?

Abortion advocates everywhere are eager to use contraceptives as a cudgel to beat us with and they would love nothing more than for us to actually fight on that ground. Comstock declined. In one fell swoop she took the cudgel away from them.

As for her critics, do they really want us to charge up Contraceptive Hill, flying our flags high and singing Te Deums? Must we now launch campaigns to ban contraceptives? And condoms, too? Must we make overturning Griswold and Eisenstadt a litmus test for candidates and judges?

Certain defeat awaits us up Contraceptive Hill. We should not fight there.

___________________________
* In the spirit of full disclosure, my wife and I, along with former US Ambassador to the Holy See Jim Nicholson and other serious Catholics, have endorsed Barbara Comstock’s candidacy to replace retiring Congressman Frank Wolfe in Virginia’s 10^th Congressional District.

[Gamecock]

What hill?

Wasn’t there a thread just this morning bemoaning the fact that TV priests aren’t talking about contraception during their homolies?

Seems Rome needs to get it’s collective act together first.

[mdmathis6]

The forced sexualization of our kids and brainwashing them to be homosexuals should be the hill we die on.

[LurkingSince'98]

Dear Game

re protestant trolls

Psychologists: Internet Trolls Are Narcissistic, Psychopathic, and Sadistic
Soulskill posted yesterday | from Hugh Pickens DOT Com

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes “Chris Mooney reports at Slate that research conducted by Erin Buckels of the University of Manitoba confirmed that people who engage in internet trolling are characterized by personality traits that fall in the so-called Dark Tetrad: Machiavellianism (willingness to manipulate and deceive others), narcissism (egotism and self-obsession), psychopathy (the lack of remorse and empathy), and sadism (pleasure in the suffering of others). In the study, trolls were identified in a variety of ways. One was by simply asking survey participants what they ‘enjoyed doing most’ when on online comment sites, offering five options: ‘debating issues that are important to you,’ ‘chatting with others,’ ‘making new friends,’ ‘trolling others,’ and ‘other.’ The study recruited participants from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk website and two measures of sadistic personality were administered (PDF): the Short Sadistic Impulse Scale and the Varieties of Sadistic Tendencies Scale. Only 5.6 percent of survey respondents actually specified that they enjoyed ‘trolling.’ By contrast, 41.3 percent of Internet users were ‘non-commenters,’ meaning they didn’t like engaging online at all. So trolls are, as has often been suspected, a minority of online commenters, and an even smaller minority of overall Internet users. Overall, the authors found that the relationship between sadism and trolling was the strongest, and that indeed, sadists appear to troll because they find it pleasurable. ‘Both trolls and sadists feel sadistic glee at the distress of others. Sadists just want to have fun ... and the Internet is their playground!’ The study comes as websites are increasingly weighing steps to rein in trollish behavior but the study authors aren’t sure that fix is a realistic one. ‘Because the behaviors are intrinsically motivating for sadists, comment moderators will likely have a difficult time curbing trolling with punishments (e.g., banning users),’ says Buckels. ‘Ultimately, the allure of trolling may be too strong for sadists, who presumably have limited opportunities to express their sadistic interests in a socially-desirable manner.’ Perhaps posting rights should only be unlocked if you pass a test.”

[RginTN]

Certain defeat awaits us up Contraceptive Hill. We should not fight there.

---

I’m not a Catholic but its wrong to sacrifice ones principles because a majority may be against it or one may lose in the courts.

Abolitionists never gave up even after loss after loss in the Supreme Court.

Stand firm even when its not popular to do so.

[EBH]

The author concludes it is not a battle we should fight. But if one considers the earliest comments from progressives in the Woodrow Wilson’s Presidency, it becomes abundantly clear that things like abortion, contraception, and minimum wage form a deadly circular argument.

...a Princeton economist said this:

“It is much better to enact a minimum-wage law even if it deprives these unfortunates of work… better that the state should support the inefficient wholly and prevent the multiplication of the breed than subsidize incompetence and unthrift, enabling them to bring forth more of their kind.”

Royal Meeker, U.S. Commissioner of Labor, under Woodrow Wilson.

If the teeming masses understood that the very thing they are clamoring for is their own extinction, would it change the game? For the Democrats this war on women issue is not about freeing a woman from a bad choice. Their incompetence is rewarded by them not bringing forth more of their kind.

Is contraception hill the battle worth having? Only if we truly are willing to remove the mask of the democrat party. Contraception/abortion is about doing away with a whole class of people. Minimum wage is there to lock people out of the job market, not make it more fair.

[LurkingSince'98]

dear mdmath..

you have got that exactly right.

to let any taint of that to fall upon the little ones is just asking the Lord to rain judgement down upon our own heads for looking the other way.

AMDG

[LurkingSince'98]

thanks

yes, inaction is the same as assent.

Do nothing and they will take your silence as a vote for their warped principles.

Lurking’

[Gamecock]

That would fit the Papist/liberal paradigm very well, wouldn’t it?

[Jim Noble]

“the 60’s generation of groovy priests and nuns who as some one recently said “wanted to appear a little protestant’ to be ecumenical.”

How come they took the bad parts?

If they took being on fire for Jesus, it would make a world revolution.

[livius]

What this idiot doesn’t realize is that contraception is a symbolic issue. It’s the teensy, weeny, tiny pinch of incense to Caesar that really (as Obama assured them) “doesn’t mean anything,” but will bring down the whole thing.

Paul VI was weak and defeated, but even he realized this and that’s one of the reasons he said “no” in Humanae Vitae.

[LurkingSince'98]

Jim,

I agree as a traditional Catholic - I love our Church and I love the Scripture which certainly stokes the fire in my belly.

However, they are primarily socialists and I don’t believe they took the bad parts, but purposefully imported marxist/socialist agitprop and ‘liberation theology’ into the Catholic church wherever and whenever they can.

thaks
Lurking’

[LurkingSince'98]

Jim,

I also see you point, by that I meant that the Catholic priests to appear more ecumenical - tried to be more protestant by accepting the protestant teachings on contraception which are generally more liberal than Catholic teachings on contraception.

thanks

[RichInOC]

It profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world...but for Northern Virginia?

[ex-snook]

The saddest part for this country is that the brightest and most capable women and men are electing to opt out of children. The pill is the weapon of mass destruction. Darwin did not count on the competition from lifestyle to negate the survival of the fittest.

[MHGinTN]

I wonder, what would happen if Catholics actually voted based upon what the Church teaches? I mean, Catholic Democrips vote despite what the Church teaches so why are Republicants allowing this issue to define the ‘opposition’ to the democrips?

[SECURE AMERICA]

If you are not willing to fight for your principles then you really don’t have any principles..

[LurkingSince'98]

hi MHG..

those Catholic Demorats are not catholic at all by voting for abortion on demand they have automatically ex-communicated themselves from the body of the Church, latae sententiae. They just don’t accept it.

“A latae sententiae penalty is one that follows ipso facto or automatically, by force of the law itself, when a law is contravened; a penalty that binds a guilty party only after it has been imposed on the person is known as a ferendae sententiae (meaning “sentence to be passed”) penalty.”

AD Majoram Dei Gloriam

[Rashputin]

Like it or not, the Church remaining faithful to what Scripture and preaching and teaching against contraception is the hill we'll "die on" and it's playing out in the courts as we speak. If the Church fights in court, loses, and then yields rather than closing down what it has to and starting to routinely proclaim the Truth, it's all over for the Catholic Church in this country.

It's not a matter of fighting to change laws, it's a matter of fighting to change people's hearts. The laws that forbade contraception were passed when Catholic votes were insignificant because all Protestants agreed with what Scripture makes clear. They were repealed when "enlightened" interpretations first swayed the "elites" and rapidly accepted by Protestants because their churches decided in the sixties to not risk a battle on that particular hill.

If there is no Catholic backbone left to stick to the Truth come what may, it'll be the straw that broke the camel's back for this country.

[MHGinTN]

Um, then if they have excommunicated themselves why are they continuing to receive Eucharist from the Priests?

[Ransomed]

“While only the Catholic Church maintains this teaching on contraception...”

The Amish and old order Mennonites never changed either. Also, if one searches for ‘Protestants/Evangelicals/fundamentalists against birth control within marriage’ it seems there is a growing movement that is connecting the dots between acceptance of bc and other societal ills, some are flatly rejecting bc within marriage.

Freegards, thanks for all the pings on FR