Posted on 08/20/2011 1:53:21 PM PDT by wagglebee
I can’t count the amount of times I’ve been asked what my stance is on contraception. It’s not breaking news that many oral contraceptives and some invasive barrier methods (IUD) have been proven to cause abortion, including the highly controversial ella and Plan B drugs, and I stand firmly against the use of anything that destroys a life created at conception. But what about contraception that prevents conception from taking place?
I’m not the only one who has gotten this question; people want to know how the pro-life movement as a whole feels about this.
In fact, the medical students we reach out to face this question on a daily basis.
This question is a hard one to answer, which is why many avoid it: What is the pro-life movement’s stance on contraception, including methods that prevent conception?
As a physician, what is the right decision to make when a woman asks for birth control? What if she is living below the poverty line, has 3 or 4 children, hasn’t obtained a high-school diploma, and is co-habiting with a man who needs to support her financially? Presumably, she’s aware of the possibility of pregnancy and could be afraid of how she will feed and clothe another child.
What do you say? What’s the pragmatic response here?
Here’s how I think that conversation should be started:
1) Birth Control, no matter what form, doesn’t prevent abortions. In fact, it provides a false sense of security.
The Guttmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood’s own research arm, released study showing that condoms fail 14% of the time. That’s enough to provide some concern, especially when coupled with the Guttmacher’s own numbers showing that over half of all abortions are on women who were using some method of birth control. This is a cry in the face of pro-abortion propaganda claiming that if women had better access to birth control, abortions would become unnecessary.
Well, clearly not.
Contraception gives women a false sense of security, and condoms and birth control clearly can’t be relied on as a fail-proof method of stopping a pregnancy from occurring.
2) Birth control comes with it’s own complications and risks. It some cases, it’s deadly for both the child and mother.
Aside from condoms, oral and invasive methods of birth control come with their own complications. In addition to blood clots and strokes, chemical contraceptives have been proven to end the life of a preborn human mere hours or days after conception by thinning the uterine lining and making implantation more difficult for the developing person. Invasive methods that are implanted into your upper arm or uterus come with the same set of risks to both the mother and child. The most common form of hormonal contraception, the pill, has been categorized by the World Health Organization as a Group I carcinogen. That’s the highest possible ranking; cigarettes are also Group I.
One only has to read the inserts that come with chemical contraception, listen to commercials for hormonal birth control that spew out a long list of side effects, or glance at Facebook ads calling for women who took Yaz birth control pills to contact a law firm to join the lawsuit (google Yaz and lawsuit!) to grasp the unbelievable amount of life-altering consequences of imbibing hormonal birth control.
3) Condoms and birth control are everywhere. You can obtain them for free, yet the abortion and STD rate hasn’t fallen.
Planned Parenthood and county health departments have been giving out free condoms and birth control for years. Yet, the unplanned pregnancy, abortion, and STD rate in America has failed to fall and, in the case of STDs, has significantly increased. Despite this evidence, the Obama Administration just issued a new ruling forcing all health insurance plans to cover birth control with no deductible.
What’s even more scary is that Planned Parenthood knows this. They actually rely on the failure of the contraception they provide to increase their abortion profits.
4) Finally, and most importantly, birth control – in any form – is a Band-Aid.
It seems like the best way to answer the question regarding the pro-life stance on contraception is to emphasize helping women as a whole instead of handing out a temporary “fix”.
Dolling out free condoms isn’t social justice. Handing over a pack of pills to an uneducated mother living in poverty with a man who doesn’t respect her enough to marry her isn’t restoring proper relationships in her life. At the end of the day, what have you accomplished? You’ve just acknowledged her tragic situation by implying, “I don’t know how to help you”, or, “I don’t have time to help you, but here, use these and hope for the best.”
Protecting women from the scarring trauma of abortion and repairing broken relationships in her life seem to be the best way the pro-life movement can restore true social justice – Christian justice – to this woman’s life.
These are my thoughts on how we can make a real impact, but the pro-life movement needs to come together and agree on one answer to this question. Unity will only help us protect more women and the pre-born from the injustice of abortion.
Power?
What power did a woman gain by contraception?
The power to work and earn a living? Single women did and do that just fine. Married women did and do that too.
“I decided not to listen to the Pope regarding that issue based on what I have seen.”
And what has that gotten you? I’m sincerely curious here.
Please read my statement more carefully. I can’t find anything claiming colostrum as implicated in breast cancer. Before I wade though all your links, do any of them specify colostrum?
For those of us who remember when the pills was first marketed, you seem pretty naive. It was supposed to eliminate the need for abortion. Instead, it made abortion on demand necessary. Freud got one thing very right: sex is a very. very powerful thing. Trying to regulate is like trying to control the Mississippi.
If you read the article, condoms are not fool-proof. They fail 14% of the time to prevent pregnancy & there are sources which demonstrate the ability of some viruses to penetrate condom. You are promoting a lie that has destroyed our nation. “free sex” & sex without consequences is a lie.
And don’t even get me started on the environmental pollution stemming from all the women taking hormonal birth control. It annoys me to no end to think of how our drinking water has been polluted, yet leftist morons who so love Gaia make no mention of this because BCPs serve their agenda.
And yet we act surprised to hear that the west is dying. What is the airman going to say when he returns home and uses those same condoms.
Why are we hearing stories of the same people those airman fought gaining power and control over society? Because he as the airman chose the condom over children. Chose the bliss of today for the sacrifices of tomorrow, and by his own act cuts his own throat. What did he fight for in the first place if not to preserve what is being torn down?
My mistake, I thought you were referring to the abortion-breast cancer link.
Before I wade though all your links, do any of them specify colostrum?
I'm not sure.
1. Some of us don't have the desire or bandwidth to read/watch every conspiracy theory that is promoted by well-meaning individuals. Contrary to the opinion of some, there isn't a socialist/marxist under every rock or spreading tree.
2. Associating using birth control methods such as condoms or the pill with marxism is at the very least overgeneralizing.
3. Associating using the same with promiscuity is disingenious as well.
4. For example: There are many couples that understand they cannot effectively raise another child and wish to live within their ability to do so. Demonizing them is counterproductive and extremely disheartening.
5. Also for example: Some women use the pill to normalize an otherwise out of control menstruation and hormone imbalance.
6. If we continue along this path of infighting and accusatory and inflammatory discussions, we will forever lose this country to the real enemies.
FReegards.
ping to post 80 - a very fine observation of what “empowering” women has done to us.
“I did not want children, and therefore I was not forced to have them because of an accident.”
So, you are saying that you had no choice in the matter to engage in sexual activity, and yet at the same time you are arguing that contraceptives made you powerful? That makes no sense. If the contraceptives make you powerful by giving you control, then you make the decision to use them.
Sexualy activity is a choice, you choose to engage in it and reap the consequences. I would argue that contraceptives do nothing to give you power you do not already have. How do contraceptives give you the choice whether or not to have sex when you can simply say no?
In what post did I ever say anything about condoms? Give the post number.
Some women use the pill to normalize an otherwise out of control menstruation and hormone imbalance - the article is referring to the use of BCP for prevention of pregnancy, not regulation of menstruation
Associating using birth control methods such as condoms or the pill with marxism is at the very least overgeneralizing. Associating using the same with promiscuity is disingenious as well. - you are denying the reality of the situation. I’m sure you are well-meaning, but very misguided. It is not a stretch to think that the widespread use of the Pill has led to promiscuity. No stretch at all. And, the so-called “conspiracy theories” you accuse fellow FReepers of spreading are too well documented to be someone’s fantasy boogey man. Wake up.
The Church struggled for a thousand years to create a stable environment for raising children, creating the family as we still understand it. The traditional family is far from a perfect model. but it half-way civilized sexuality. The sexual revolution has drastically weaked it, and the result, is somewhat like the results in Roman society because of the revolution of the first century BC. Augustus tried to reinstate the traditional family morality by fiat, and failed although after his own family disappeared from the scene, Roman socierty became much more stable. We owe a lot to Roman family law, and Christianity built on it, as it also did on Jewish morality. We also owe a lot to German customs, which added some positive elements. In any casse. one does not throw away a thousand years of evolutionary developmenbts in the law, and try to recreate a replacement out of whole clothe, with such novelties as “gay marriage.”
I certainly hope that every man on this site that is against birth control and abortion and are making their opinions on womens reproduction are being VERY VERY careful never to have sex unless its to produce a child. Sex isn’t recreation you know.
You do realize that Free Republic is a PRO-LIFE forum right?
Sex isn’t recreation you know.
Nobody is forcing women to have sex.
Wow! Really? Sounds like a fertility enhancement method to me.
I wish I had links at my fingertips but don’t, but here is my recollection on the topic.
The connection between abortions and breast cancer is real; it is increased the earlier a woman has had an abortion, as well as the number. Also it is increased if a woman had an abortion before carrying a pregnancy to term. From what I remember, because the breasts undergo hormonal changes very early in the pregnancy, the abortion, unlike a nature-caused miscarriage, which are not allowed to continue normally. The hormonal changes involve increase in breast tissue including growth of the milk ducts or glands, and when abruptly stopped in an abortion, can cause cancer. I do not remember exact mechanisms involved.
Feminists and pro-abortion people really, really hate these studies and bury them as much as they can.
“Wow! Really? Sounds like a fertility enhancement method to me.”
Um, no. You just don’t get it do you? And, those 14% of failures often end in abortion.
That is sort of my point, except that if folks are going to push a rediculously over the top agenda, conservatism is dead. Something has to work. If logic doesn't perhaps ridicule might, or at least might convince other conservatives that these view are toxic to getting our country under control.
I think that much more of our moral rot is due to the liberal use of the federal reserve printing press, allowing people to reap rich rewards for the most destructive and nonproductive of enterprises and activities. That the federal reserve could get away with what Argetina or Brazil cannot is because we won WWII and the cold war and so folks were happy to take our paper, stuff it in their vaults and give us goods and services in return. Those days have come to a close.
But none of that is because of birth control or marxist plots, actually.
I’ve got to save that list.
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