Posted on 05/03/2005 5:33:17 AM PDT by wallcrawlr
Rebecca Polzin walked into a drugstore in Glencoe, Minn., last month to fill a prescription for birth control. A routine request. Or so she thought.
Minutes later, Polzin left furious and empty-handed. She said the pharmacist on duty refused to help her. "She kept repeating the same line: 'I won't fill it for moral reasons,' " Polzin said.
Earlier this year, Adriane Gilbert called a pharmacy in Richfield to ask if her birth-control prescription was ready. She said the person who answered told her to go elsewhere because he was opposed to contraception. "I was shocked," Gilbert said. "I had no idea what to do."
The two women have become part of an emotional debate emerging across the country: Should a pharmacist's moral views trump a woman's reproductive rights?
No one knows how many pharmacists in Minnesota or nationwide are declining to fill contraceptive prescriptions. But both sides in the debate say they are hearing more reports of such incidents -- and they predict that conflicts at drugstore counters are bound to increase.
"Five years ago, we didn't have evidence of this, and we would have been dumbfounded to see it," said Sarah Stoesz, president of Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. "We're not dumbfounded now. We're very concerned about what's happening."
But M. Casey Mattox of the Center for Law and Religious Freedom said it is far more disturbing to see pharmacists under fire for their religious beliefs than it is to have women inconvenienced by taking their prescription to another drugstore. He also said that laws have long shielded doctors opposed to abortion from having to take part in the procedure.
"The principle here is precisely the same," Mattox said.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
Nicely done, pa mom.
But see, you claim that you can't morally use a condom, yet you defend abortives. You are using abortives- so why not a condom, since you can't moraly defend what you're doing now?
Do you see how I could be confused at your position? It's not logical at all.
If the child is going to die anyway, killing the mother off just so that the child can be baptized would be a monstrously despicable act.
Really, its a simple question. Would you rather be responsible morally for the direct murder of a child (possibly your own), or the unintended but inevitable death or a mother (possibly your wife) from a natural medical condition?
I'd rather save my wife, if the choice is between her and a fetus.
Though the Women's Movement has degenerated over the last few decades, the original gains brought about by the Women's Movement were a net positive effect on our society.
If the Pill is partly responsible for such gains, that is another point in its favor.
How does this case differ from the case of an attorney who, when asked to defend a person accused of wife-beating, says, "I'm sorry, but I do not take cases where I am asked to defend accused wife beaters"??
Is that attorney "imposing" his beliefs on someone else?
Should he find another line of work?
What utter nonsense. You can't seem to grasp the concept that many women want to enjoy the benefits of sex without the downsides.
Why would that be a good thing?
Therein lies the problem. You have no way of assessing my knowledge level on this subject yet you continue to act as though you are the supreme authority on the subject. Nor, do you possess the power to divine why other women are prescribed BCPs. You are the poster child for your condition and your condition alone. And no I don't pass judgement on who should do what job. My point was only that if are uncomfortable with the duties of a particular job don't apply for the position.
Again, asking someone to explain what their positions are and why they hold those positions is not "Eating each other up."
Secondly, this isn't a political discussion. I would assume most of us here are on board for whatever reductions in abortion "rights" we can get. Some of us have a consistent philosophy of protecting life from conception on. We think it is the only consistently moral view.
Accusing us of being like the Taliban or of not caring for born children or a multitude of other distractions does nothing to allow us to understand your position.
I try not to ascribe motives to others, but you offer no help. How can one acknowledge that birth control can cause early abortions and be OK with this? What distinguishes the life in the first hours or days from the one you would protect from abortion a week or two later?
SD
I have plenty of money, a stable marriage and reasonable mental health. I have no reason not to have anymore children other that I feel we have enough. But what I feel doesn't matter to God. I should be allowing Him to chose how many children I have. I am therefore against the teachings of the Church, even with NFP.
This is a sad caricature of the position of the Church.
"Should those spouses be reprehended who make use of marriage only on those days when (in the opinion of some doctors) conception is impossible?"
"After mature examination, we have decided that such spouses should not be disturbed [or disquieted], provided they do nothing that impedes generation" (Sacred Penitentiary, 1853)
"Whether it is licit to make use of marriage only on those days when it is more difficult for conception to occur?"
"Spouses using the aforesaid method are not to be disturbed; and a confessor may, with due caution, suggest this proposal to spouses, if his other attempts to lead them away from the detestable crime of onanism have proved fruitless." (Sacred Penitentiary, 1880)
"A particular aspect of this responsibility concerns the regulation of procreation. For just reasons, spouses may wish to space the births of their children. It is their duty to make certain that their desire is not motivated by selfishness but is in conformity with the generosity appropriate to responsible parenthood." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Para. 2368)
"It is a popular misconception that the Church requires Catholic parents, under pain of sin, to have large families; the only thing insisted upon is that they should not exercise the marriage act in a sinful manner. If, for any reason whatever, married people agree to live in mutual continence, they commit no sin and their restraint may even be virtuous. It is also the considered judgment of the Church that married persons may be prudently allowed to use their marriage rights at those times when conception is less likely." ("The Teaching of the Catholic Church", [Fr. E.Mahoney] Fr. G. Smith, Burns Oates & Washbourne, 1956, p 1091)
You should also read this long excerpt:
2622. Is Birth-Control Ever Lawful? -- (a) If this refers to an * end * (viz., the limitation of the number of children or the spacing of their arrival), it is not unlawful in itself (see 2617) ; and it is sometimes a duty, as when the wife is in very poor health or the family is unable to take care of more.But in view of the decline and deterioration in populations today, it seems that couples who are able to bring up children well should consider it a duty to the common welfare to have at least four children, and it should be easy for many to have at least a dozen children. The example of those married persons of means who are unable to have a number of children of their own, but who adopt or raise orphaned little ones, is very commendable. ...
Since the * Allocution *, the more common opinion in this country asserts that the Holy Father taught: 1) that married people who use their marital right have a duty to procreate; 2) that this duty is binding under pain of sin; 3) there are, however, reasons that excuse the couples from this obligation and, should they exist for the whole of married life, the obligation does not bind them at all; 4) the sin does not consist in the exercise of marital rights during the sterile periods; but in abstention from intercourse during the fertile periods precisely to avoid conception, when the couple could have and should have made its positive contribution to society. Sin is present when the practice is unjustifiedly undertaken; 5) the formal malice of illicit periodic continence is not against the sixth commandment; i.e., against the procreation of children or the use of the generative faculty, but against the seventh commandment, i.e., against social justice. The couple is not making its contribution to the common good of society; 6) from 4 and 5 above, it follows that the individual acts of intercourse during a period of unjust practice of rhythm do not constitute numerically distinct sins. Rather, granting the continuance of a single will act to practice rhythm, there is one sin for the whole period of illicit abstention during the fertile periods.
Since the Pope abstained from an explicit statement on the gravity of the sin, the controversy of whether the practice intrinsically is a mortal sin or not continued. The opinion in this country which holds the greatest authority states that mortal sin is involved in the ease of continued practice with a total exclusion of children and frequent use of marital rights during the sterile period.
Diversity of opinion has arisen as to the means of estimating when a serious sin has been committed. Some have used a temporal norm, e.g., unjustified use of rhythm for five or six years would constitute a serious matter. Undoubtedly most of the proponents of this norm would not accuse a couple of certain mortal sin if they already have one or more children; after that, indefinite use of the practice without excusing causes would not be a mortal sin. (This is admitted by most theologians.) Others have proposed a numerical norm as a basis to determine whether or not a couple has made its contribution to the conservation of the race. Concretely the proponents of this theory regard four or five children as sufficient to satisfy the obligation in such a way;
a) that the use of rhythm to limit the family to this number is licit provided the couple is willing and morally able to practice it;
b) that the limitation through rhythm to less than four requires a serious justifying cause. The intention involved to prevent conception would be seriously sinful in itself, since it causes great harm to the common good and involves in practice subordination of the primary to the secondary end or ends of matrimony. At the present time this opinion seems to be more favored in America than the first which places the gravity of the sin in the unjustified practice of rhythm for five years. (For a survey of recent opinion, see * The Conference Bulletin of the Archdiocese of New York *. Vol. XXXIV, No. 1, pp. 36 ff.)
On the other hand, some European theologians have denied that the practice constitutes a mortal sin in itself, independently of circumstances such as injustice and danger of incontinence.
MORAL THEOLOGY: A Complete Course * Based on St. Thomas Aquinas and the Best Modern Authorities * By JOHN A. McHUGH, O.P. And CHARLES J. CALLAN, O.P. REVISED AND ENLARGED BY EDWARD P. FARRELL, O.P., Vol. 2" PART II SPECIAL MORAL THEOLOGY (Continued) THE DUTIES OF MEMBERS OF SOCIETY Art. 2: THE DUTIES OF MEMBERS of DOMESTIC AND CIVIL SOCIETY
Also this:
Rather the problem arises with those who try "to impose an obligation on all married couples that is not to be found in the teachings of the Church, viz., that unless prevented by nature or emergencies, all married couples ought to have large families; and, correlatively, no couple should make use of NFP, except in very rare cases...."(1)In the first place, let us consider the traditional primary end of marriage. As put in a standard pre-Vatican II theological manual, "Finis principalis Matrimonii est generatio et educatio prolis,"(2) that is, "the principal end of marriage is the procreation and education of children." Now the important thing to note about this for our purposes is that the primary end of marriage is the procreation and education of children. And of course education here means much more than schooling. Perhaps it could best be rendered as formation, the entire spiritual, moral, intellectual, social and physical shaping of a child, so that he can serve God in this world and attain eternal life in the next. Obviously in order to be educated a child must first be generated and born. But, as we see too evidently around us, not all children who are procreated are educated. And if parents are indeed the first and primary educators of their children,(3) then the state of their health, both physical and psychological, has a great impact on their ability to educate their children. Thus if parents are stressed or constantly tired or overworked, they are not apt to be the best educators of their children. I am not speaking of their ability to ferry their children around for the latest in art or music lessons or sports camps or whatever. No, I am thinking of the daily interaction of parents and children and the strength needed by parents for the sometimes arduous task of rearing their children. It does not conduce to forming children psychologically if their parents are frequently irritable or overly critical. Yet, as is obvious, fatigue and stress tend to bring out such negative qualities in human beings.
Of course, one might argue that the best lesson that parents can give their children is that of generous sacrifice to God. And I certainly do not deny the value of this lesson. But I question the ability of anyone to look into anyone else's heart or into the privacy of any other family and pronounce whether those parents are living up to the high calling of the sacrament of matrimony or yielding to self indulgence and taking the easy way out.(4) Everyone knows mothers who bear eight, ten or twelve children and who manage such large households with aplomb. But not everyone has their emotional and physical resources and no one else can rightly criticize those who do not have such physical and emotional gifts.
The second line of argument I want to pursue involves a discussion of the purpose of child bearing in conjunction with God's original command to Adam and Eve, "Increase and multiply" (Genesis 1:28). One of the chief insights in the Aristotelian/Thomistic philosophic tradition is that every action has an end. Things exist for a purpose. God's command to Adam and Eve was to bring about the peopling of the earth. And certainly the birth of every human being is a good. But the duty of married couples to have children is rationally related to the population needs of the world and the Church.
A very interesting discussion of this question took place in the 1950s and early 1960s by moral theologians entirely orthodox and loyal to the Church's Magisterium. In particular, let us look at a work written by Jesuit Fathers John C. Ford and Gerald Kelly, volume 2, Marriage Questions, of their Contemporary Moral Theology, published in 1964.(5) Frs. Ford and Kelly opine that, even with absolutely no excusing cause based on health, economics, etc., no married couple is bound by the law of God to have more children than is necessary for the general conservation and gradual increase of the human race. They state, "There may be difficulty in determining the exact limit for various countries; but certainly today in the United States a family of four children would be sufficient to satisfy the duty."(6) Such an approach to the question of use of natural family planning was not limited to these two authors. As they state, "Verbal acceptance of the theory was expressed by a great majority of some thirty moral theologians who discussed it at Notre Dame in June, 1952, on the occasion of the annual meeting of the Catholic Theological Society of America."(7) I am not here holding up the minimum as an ideal. But we have no right to criticize someone else for what is in fact not a sin. Nor can we confuse a counsel of perfection with a duty or expect others to achieve what might be for them heroic virtue.
Thomas Storck, Marriage and the use of Natural Family Planning, the University Concourse, Volume VIII, Issue 1, September 30, 2002
Like I said, someone has stuck a very silly and uncatholic idea in your head.
Your example is flawed because no one has to take an abortive with no other options.
Look- I had to take morphine for menstrual pain- I'd miss school and work...Lie in bed doped out of my mind with a heating pad. I NEEDED something so I could have a normal life. Birth control was the easy answer, but since I hate abortion and abortives so much, I refused to take it despite the fact that it couldn't abort in my case since I wasn't having sex. I didn't want to own an abortive, let alone take one- and give money to line the pockets of people who make them.
So I had incentive to look for options. Your fiance didn't. That fixed it and that was it for her. Because she didn't feel the need to keep exploring, DOES NOT MEAN THERE ARE NOT ALTERNATIVES. You are positive there aren't any without bothering to look deeper. I begged several doctors for alternatives and they told me their were none- Doctors. I refused to beleive them, because I was in pain. They thought no alternatives existed because they had no incentive to look. My Catholic doctor did, and we found "Ponstel", my personal miracle drug. I'm all better now (except during my period, when I still have to take painkillers)
If she (your fiance) can conceive, I can almost assure you that her cycles with regulate and the pain will get so much better. My mom was like me- and after she had her first baby, she evened out. This is common.
The benefits of sex are the pleasureable union of the spouses, the sacrament, and potential children.
The downsides of sex only come from straying from ones spouse - disease, infidelity, guilt, and sin.
Apparently, you, along with Planned Parenthood types, consider children a "downside" of sex right there with veneral diseases.
Sex is very enjoyable without birth control. Trust me!
To answer your question--I'm opposed to anything abortive. Your rubber, spermicide, etc. doesn't kill anyone. While I wouldn't use any of them myself, you aren't hurting anyone if you do.
Why would that be a good thing?
Perhaps you are "value neutral" on the subject, but I believe even scientific studies have shown that children benefit most from stable two parent families. Having and subsidizing a permanent underclass of fatherless children has done little to improve the lot of children brought into this situation.
SD
I'm pinging pa mom because my other post on this thread may have been misleading. Sorry, pa mom.
Thanks, Hermann. I suspect a lot of folks will be comforted by your clarification. ;-)
I assess your knowledge based on what you've said.
My experience shows that you have to hunt for alternatives when drugs you don't like are thrusted on you. Have you ever gone through several doctors looking for alternatives to BCPs?
That is a good argument for further medical research into more effective contraceptives and for better educating young people on their use. If young people did a better job of controlling their fertility, this would be a non-issue.
The birth control pill is a recretional drug- used to have recreational sex.
Recreational sex is the only benefit of a drug that kills innocent, unwitting people that didn't take the durg themselves.
If my taking an aspirin could potentially kill you, your tune might change.
Fertility is not the problem--it's behavior. I can be fertile all my life and not get pregnant.
Young people having sex with or without contraceptives causes this issue. Upwards of 80% of abortions are performed on women using contraceptives regularly.
For some people in some situations, sure. For others, in certain situations, the benefits of sex are purely physical. Heck, in some cases the benefits are purely financial. As always, you paint with too broad a brush. Sex has different benefits for people based on the situation.
The downsides of sex only come from straying from ones spouse - disease, infidelity, guilt, and sin.
For some people in some situations, sure. For others, the downsides of sex consist of getting pregnant or ruining one's hairdo during the act. Again, sex is different for different people.
Apparently, you, along with Planned Parenthood types, consider children a "downside" of sex right there with veneral diseases.
Unplanned children? Absolutely.
Sex is very enjoyable without birth control. Trust me!
I've been there. The only added benefoit of sex without birth control is the dangerous thrill of the risk. I've outgrown the thrillseeking.
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