Free Republic

In constructing his evangelical family ethic, [Martin] Luther placed emphasis on Genesis 1:28: “Be fruitful and multiply.” This living-together of husband and wife—that they occupy the same home, that they take care of the household, that together they produce and bring up children—is a kind of faint image and a remnant, as it were, of that blessed living together [in Eden]. Luther knew that the contraceptive mentality was alive and well in his own time. He noted that this “inhuman attitude, which is worse than barbarous,” was found chiefly among the well born, “the nobility and princes.” Elsewhere, he linked...

Millions of women and girls globally have lost access to contraceptives and abortion services because of the coronavirus pandemic. Now the first widespread measure of the toll says India with its abrupt, months-long lockdown has been hit especially hard. Several months into the pandemic, many women now have second-trimester pregnancies because they could not find care in time. Across 37 countries, nearly 2 million fewer women received services between January and June than in the same period last year, Marie Stopes International says in a new report — 1.3 million in India alone. The organization expects 900,000 unintended pregnancies worldwide...

The Supreme Court has no excuse for allowing Nevada officials to use a public health crisis to fill poker tables while emptying pews. All four gospels record that the Roman soldiers who crucified Jesus cast lots for his clothing. This was not the last time government agents were more interested in gambling than God. The latest instance is in Nevada, where the state government has granted casinos special privileges denied to churches. Casinos are allowed to operate at half-capacity, while churches are restricted to a hard cap of 50 people, no matter their capacity.When this double standard was challenged in...

[Catholic Caucus] Funding Anti-Fertility Bishops' agency caught peddling contraception — again WASHINGTON (ChurchMilitant.com) - A new report by the Lepanto Institute reveals that Catholic Relief Services (CRS), the U.S. bishops' charitable arm, is "knowingly and willingly implementing a project in at least four African countries that was created specifically for — and aimed directly at — the spread of contraception." CRS claims it doesn't promote condom use because another program partner does it. But it's CRS' responsibility to ensure all facets of the program, including teaching the use of contraception, is carried out.  In part five of a series of reports on CRS...

A group of Maine abortion and birth control clinics is extending contraception prescriptions for women by three months for fear more time at home due to the coronavirus will result in a “baby boom.” “It’s just human nature, if you’re home, there are more opportunities to have sexual relations,” said Evelyn Kieltyka, vice president of program services at Maine Family Planning, reported the Union Leader. “I haven’t looked at the data, but my memory says that in times when people have had to stay home for long periods of time, there could be a little baby boom,” she added.

WASHINGTON, D.C., January 31 (C-Fam) Last November at a summit in Nairobi, the UN Population Fund announced that it would take $264 billion to reduce global maternal deaths and protect women and girls from violence. The agency just released a publication outlining the details of how the billions would be spent—and the fine print includes abortion. One of the enduring legacies of ICPD in 1994 is the compromise that was struck among nations: that the legal status of abortion was for national governments to determine, and that where legal, it should be “safe.” In the past quarter century, the same...

[Catholic Caucus] German bishops’ working doc calls for approval of contraception, homosexuality, women’s ordination The 'synodal path' working doc defended the use of contraception, masturbation, and homosexuality. January 29, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – The working documents in preparation for the assemblies of the German bishops’ “Synodal Path” defend the use of contraception, the practice of masturbation, and an active homosexual lifestyle. Additionally, neither the question of the ordination of women nor that of making celibacy optional for priests is taken off the table. In 2019, four panels of experts were preparing working documents to serve as the basis for discussion among...

TRENTON, N.J. — The Democratic governor of New Jersey has signed a bill into law that grants $9.5 million to family planning groups in the state, including the abortion and contraception giant Planned Parenthood, after the organization declined to comply with new Health and Human Services (HHS) rules and consequently lost federal Title X funding. “Today, I signed a bill replacing Title X funding to ensure access to health care and family planning resources,” Gov. Phil Murphy said in a statement posted to social media on Thursday. “The Title X gag rule is nothing less than an attack on the...

1. A long time ago, before I was sexually active, I was put on the pill to control symptoms of extreme PMS. Not only did I see no relief from symptoms, truthfully, everything stayed the exact same, including my cycles being irregular and unpredictable. After more than a year on the pill, I decided to stop taking it and my cycle became regular, my extreme symptoms of moodiness and irritability literally stopped and the severe cramping was reduced – none of which had happened on the pill like it was supposed to. 2. At the same time I stopped taking...

During the advent of my first pregnancy, in 2012, I was comfortably settled into my own unique brand of postmodern feminist Christianity. I remember lounging on the couch amidst waves of debilitating nausea, watching news coverage of the controversial Contraceptive Mandate, rolling my eyes in anger and disgust at those regressive Catholic priests in their prim white collars, telling women what to do with their bodies. Yet almost exactly two years later, I would be standing before such a priest at the Easter Vigil Mass, publicly confessing my desire to be received into the largest, oldest male-helmed institution in...

Medical Examiner noted daughter's use of NuvaRing in report MUSKEGON, Mich. — A mother in West Michigan is warning women about the potential dangers associated with certain birth control methods. Alexzandria Givens died in July, just two days shy of her 21st birthday. She had gotten out of bed to use the restroom when she collapsed. Her boyfriend quickly dialed 911 and Ally's parents. Ally's mother, Carla Givens, told FOX 17 on Friday, “It was a worst nightmare phone call you’d ever get in your life. We got it and we rushed out of bed and went to his house...

Like most of my colleagues, I intended to have two, maybe three kids. And like them, I thought the Catholic view of sex and contraception was ridiculous. That was about 25 years ago. Since then, I’ve discovered Theology of the Body (TOB) — Pope John Paul II’s biblical analysis of what it means to be human. This radically transformed my view of the body, human sexuality — and in turn, birth control. And now, I don’t think the Catholic view is ridiculous. I think it’s biblical. And though I’m not dogmatic about it, I, like a growing number of evangelicals,...

Clearly, the mentality that drives abortion, drives contraception. And when evangelicals embraced contraception they began thinking like pragmatists. Children became liabilities, not blessings. Marriage became a means to personal fulfillment, not family and sacrifice. And birth control became essential to personal health, as though our natural design was somehow defective. Posted to the website of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) is a shocking quote by Pastor Joel Hunter. “Unmarried sex with contraception is not God’s plan,” he says. “(B)ut unmarried sex without contraception is not a plan at all. If holy living is not the choice of some in...

I used to think like most evangelicals when it came to family planning. I strongly opposed abortion, but embraced contraception and thought Catholic objections to birth control were on par with praying to Mary. Abortion, I reasoned, takes an innocent life and is clearly wrong. But contraception merely prevents conception. What could be wrong with that? Sadly, I had never considered arguments on the other side. When I did, I found they aren’t flimsy or far-fetched. They’re solid and Scriptural. And they aren’t just Catholic either. Every Protestant Reformer opposed contraception. In fact, before 1930, every church — Protestant and...

In the fall of 2015, a rash of posters appeared around Copenhagen. One, in pink letters laid over an image of chicken eggs, asked, “Have you counted your eggs today?” A second — a blue-tinted close-up of human sperm — inquired, “Do they swim too slow?” The posters, part of a campaign funded by the city to remind young Danes of the quiet ticking of their biological clocks, were not universally appreciated. They drew criticism for equating women with breeding farm animals. The timing, too, was clumsy: For some, encouraging Danes to make more babies while television news programs showed...

TEXAS, November 12, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – As the Trump administration opens the door to legitimate health organizations receiving money that previously went to the abortion industry, pro-life pregnancy centers are hoping to seize the opportunity to grow. But one Texas-based pregnancy center alliance is trying to do so with an inconsistent stand on birth-control methods that can function as abortifacients. In February, the Trump administration finalized the Protect Life Rule, which requires “clear financial and physical separation between Title X-funded projects and programs or facilities where abortion is a method of family planning” and bans “referral for abortion as a...

A three judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has upheld a block against the Trump administration’s religious exemption to the HHS’s contraceptive mandate. In January, Judge Haywood Gilliam of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued an injunction against the new rules on contraception coverage, which allowed employers to opt out of providing birth control and abortion-inducing drugs in their health insurance plans if it violated their religious or moral beliefs. In a 2-1 decision released Tuesday, the majority decided to uphold Gilliam’s injunction banning enforcement of the religious exemption...

Abortion rates have dropped again in Colorado, and heath authorites are crediting increased access to birth control statewide. Pharmacists have written thousands of prescriptions for the birth control pill since 2017, when Colorado became only the third state in the nation to allow women to get prescriptions for oral contraceptives at the pharmacy instead of only from a doctor. State and federal dollars are funding free and low-cost IUDs — intrauterine devices that prevent pregnancy for five years or more — for low-income women and teens who visit community health clinics across the state. Another contributing factor: the so-called morning-after...

Neocatechumenals Heading Into the Sunset, With a Push From the Pope On Friday September 20 Pope Francs received in audience, at Casa Santa Marta, the founder of the Neocatechumenal Way, Francisco “Kiko” Argüello, accompanied by his two lieutenants María Ascensión Romero and Fr. Mario Pezzi. On the occasion, Kiko offered the pope a sketch he had made with the likeness of Saint Francis Xavier, a Jesuit and a great missionary of Asia.The gift was not a random one. An illustrious relic of Saint Francis Xavier is kept in Macao, on the coast of China, where the Vatican congregation “de Propaganda Fide”...

FULL TITLE: How the Pill transforms your personality as revealed in a landmark book by a top psychologist: It changes who you fall for, It dictates the clothes you wear AND it lowers your libido (but the good news? You are less likely to divorce) After more than a decade on the Pill, our family complete, my husband and I decided on a more permanent way to prevent pregnancy. He took the lead by having a vasectomy, and I ditched the Pill. But a couple of months later, I realised that I felt . . . different. I didn’t notice...