Dumbing-Down the Pro-life Movement

CatholicCitizens.Org ^ | 9/1/03 | Dr. Brian Kopp

[Polycarp]

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		Dumbing-Down the Pro-life Movement 9/1/2003 4:05:00 PM By Dr. Brian Kopp - Catholic Family Association of America, www.cathfam.org Pope Paul VI warned that the contraceptive mentality was counter to Christian morality, and would open the floodgates of divorce, abortion, euthanasia, and moral decine. He was right, but some pro-lifers still don't get it. In this post-Christian era of American society, where conservative politics and the multitude of Christian sects blur in a desperate attempt to build more effective coalitions, many pro-life activists have embraced a ‘least common denominator’ approach to confronting the problem of legalized abortion. In so doing, basic fundamental tenets of moral theology are set aside in hopes of forging a voting block large enough to accomplish incremental advances in this long entrenched battlefront of the culture wars. But by allowing ‘exceptions’ and contraceptions, has political expediency so diluted the Pro-life movement that its political effectiveness and its very moral foundations have been compromised? Has the Pro-life movement been dumbed-down to the point of being unable to credibly defend the unborn? Broad coalitions and voting blocks are essential for achieving political victories. Unfortunately, each incremental increase in size of the ‘conservative/pro-life’ voting block has been gained by incremental lowering of the ‘least common denominators’ to being Pro-life. The most obvious and most debated lowering is in allowing exceptions for the ‘hard cases’ of rape, incest, and the life of the mother. A further lowering includes a generic ‘health of the mother’ exception, which casts a net so wide that the most ardent pro-lifers leave the coalition, and the line between pro-life and pro-choice becomes hopelessly blurred. The pro-life movement began in the late 1960s and early 1970's in response to efforts to legalize abortion. In the ensuing years, the coalition set aside arguments over ‘exceptions’ to forge a larger coalition. The issue of contraception was never credibly debated because many of the movement’s founders were evangelical Protestants who held that the issue had already been ‘settled,’ in spite of the historic Christian traditions to the contrary. For better or for worse, in the interest of political effectiveness, compromises were made, and a movement was born. The historical Christian prohibition on contraception was first shaken by the Anglican's 1930 Lambeth Conference, and within three decades practically all the main Protestant sects had abandoned the universal Christian prohibition against contraception. A large portion of Catholics joined in the rejection of Humanae Vitae in 1968, so that in the earliest stages of the pro-life movement, contraception, a fundamental consideration in the fight against abortion, was never really examined or debated, in spite of Pope Paul VI’s landmark encyclical. The Pope had warned that legalized contraception would result in widespread divorce, abortion, euthanasia and disregard for life and morality, and of course, he was correct. The connection between the acceptance of contraception, beginning only in 1930, and the legalization of abortion, just four decades later, cannot be overstated. The apocryphal ‘right to privacy,’ upon which the horrid decision in Roe v. Wade was based, was first invented by five justices on the Supreme Court in the 1965 case Griswold v. Connecticut. That case held that married couples have a ‘privacy’ right to purchase contraceptives. To this day, Constitutional scholars openly concede that there was simply no foundation or precedent for such a ruling, but there was also no means to stop the Justices from imposing their morals on the nation. The Griswold ruling struck down the only remaining ‘Comstock Laws,’ which were written by Protestant legislators in the 1800's, and made illegal the sale or distribution of all forms of contraception. Over time, contraception and birth control became accepted in our culture because certain Christian sects abandoned traditional Christian teaching regarding sexual morality. The Roe v. Wade ruling was based upon that so-called ‘right to privacy’ unknown prior to Griswold’s overturning of anti-contraception ordinances. The fabricated legal foundations for the ‘right’ to birth control progressed naturally to the philosophical foundations of a ‘right’ to abortion. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey the US Supreme Court said: "In some critical respects, abortion is of the same character as the decision to use contraception... for two decades of economic and social developments, people have organized intimate relationships and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society, in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail." This brutal honesty on the part of the US Supreme Court should have been cause for the pro-life community to reevaluate the role of secular and Christian acceptance of the contraceptive mentality is fomenting the legalization of abortion. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. To orthodox Christians who form the core of the Pro-life movement, it is morally and philosophically inconsistent to support contraception and oppose abortion. The Pro-life community must come to understand the roots of the acceptance of contraception and the direct correlation between the contraceptive mentality and legalized abortion. Even the US Supreme Court admitted the connection. Surely the Pro-life community can address this topic, which has, for the most part, never even been debated, in spite of its role in the legalization of abortion. It can be argued that the dumbing-down of the pro-life movement (i.e. the acceptance of contraception and ‘exceptions’) has prevented any real success in advancing pro-life legislation, and set the movement back. By diluting traditional doctrines of sexual morality within the Pro-life movement, it has become less of a moral movement, and more of a political fishnet designed for harvesting voters for right of center Republican candidates who are expected to moderate their Pro-life views with sufficient ‘exceptions’ to be deemed ‘electible.’ The difference of opinion regarding contraception demonstrates that even Christians can’t agree on what constitutes orthodoxy in theology or sexual morality. Prior to the Lambeth Conference, the major differences between Catholicism and orthodox Protestantism surrounded the Sacraments and the definition of “salvation.” Until 1930, however, all Christians, be they Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or Protestant, agreed on what constituted orthodoxy in moral theology - adultery, abortion, homosexuality, divorce, and contraception were universally condemned as gravely sinful. Sadly, only Roman Catholics have carried this torch into the 21st century. The general acceptance of contraception and the steadfast position of the Roman Catholic Church against it is now one of most compelling arguments that Roman Catholicism is Christ's church. In this context, the abandonment of sexual morality is a harbinger of that Great Apostasy foretold in scripture. And how could it be anything else? The dumbing-down of the Pro-life movement to its ‘lowest common denominator’ is a suicidal policy, and it must be resolved among pro-life Christians, even if the larger political pro-life movement refuses. Failure to resolve the inconsistency between being pro-contraception and anti-abortion pits the Pro-life movement against itself, a position from which we cannot effectively demand public policies protecting society from abortion. The pro-life movement cannot stop judges from ‘playing God’ in courtrooms or women from ‘playing God’ with their unborn babies if they insist on ‘playing God’ in their homes using contraception and birth control. Dr. Brian Kopp - Catholic Family Association of America, www.cathfam.org

[Polycarp]

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN
CONTRACEPTION AND ABORTION

by Professor Janet E. Smith, PhD

Janet E. Smith is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Dallas, Texas. She has edited Why Humane Vitae Was Right: A Reader and authored Humanae Vitae: A Generation Later, and numerous articles on abortion, contraception, virtue, and Plato. This article was edited and reprinted with permission.

Many in the pro-life movement are reluctant to make a connection between contraception and abortion. They insist that these are two very different acts - that there is all the difference in the world between contraception, which prevents a life from coming to be, and abortion, which takes a life that has already begun.

With some contraceptives, there is not only a link with abortion, there is an identity. Some contraceptives are abortifacients; they work by causing early term abortions. The IUD seems to prevent a fertilized egg - a new little human being - from implanting in the uterine wall. The pill does not always stop ovulation, but sometimes prevents implantation of the growing embryo. And of course, the new RU 486 pill works altogether by aborting a new fetus, a new baby. Although some in the pro-life movement occasionally speak out against the contraceptives that are abortifacients, most generally steer clear of the issue of contraception.

Contraception creates alleged “need” for abortion

This seems to me to be a mistake. I think that we will not make good progress in creating a society where all new life can be safe, where we truly display a respect for life, where abortion is a terrible memory rather than a terrible reality, until we see that there are many significant links between contraception and abortion, and that we bravely speak this truth. We need to realize that a society in which contraceptives are widely used is going to have a very difficult time keeping free of abortions since the lifestyles and attitudes that contraception fosters, create an alleged “need” for abortion.

Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the US Supreme Court decision that confirmed Roe v. Wade [U.S. decision to permit abortions] stated “in some critical respects, abortion is of the same character as the decision to use contraception… for two decades of economic and social developments, people have organized intimate relationships and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society, in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail”.

The Supreme Court decision has made completely unnecessary, any efforts to “expose” what is really behind the attachment of the modern age to abortion. As the Supreme Court candidly states, we need abortion so that we can continue our contraceptive lifestyles. It is not because contraceptives are ineffective that a million and a half women a year seek abortions as back-ups to failed contraceptives. The “intimate relationships” facilitated by contraceptives are what make abortions “necessary”. “Intimate” here is a euphemism and a misleading one at that. Here the word “intimate” means “sexual”; it does not mean “loving and close”. Abortion is most often the result of sexual relationships in which there is no room for a baby, the natural consequence of sexual intercourse.

To support the argument that more responsible use of contraceptives would reduce the number of abortions, some note that most abortions are performed for “contraceptive purposes”. That is, few abortions are had because a woman has been a victim of rape or incest or because a pregnancy would endanger her life, or because she expects to have a handicapped or deformed newborn. Rather, most abortions are had because men and women who do not want a baby are having sexual intercourse and facing pregnancies they did not plan for and do not want. Because their contraceptive failed, or because they failed to use a contraceptive, they then resort to abortion as a back up. Many believe that if we could convince men and women to use contraceptives responsibly, we would reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies, and thus the number of abortions. Thirty years ago this position might have had some plausibility, but not now. We have lived for about thirty years with a culture permeated with contraceptive use and abortion; no longer can we think that greater access to contraception will reduce the number of abortions. Rather, wherever contraception is more readily available, the number of unwanted pregnancies and the number of abortions increase greatly.

Sexual revolution not possible without contraception

The connection between contraception and abortion is primarily this: contraception facilitates the kind of relationships and even the kind of attitudes and moral characters that are likely to lead to abortion. The contraceptive mentality treats sexual relationship as a burden. The sexual revolution has no fondness - no room for - the connection between sexual intercourse and babies. The sexual revolution simply was not possibly until fairly reliable contraceptives were available.

Far from being a check to the sexual revolution, contraception is the fuel that facilitated the beginning of the sexual revolution and enables it to continue to rage. In the past, many men and women refrained from illicit sexual unions simply because they were not prepared for the responsibilities of parenthood. But once a fairly reliable contraceptive appeared on the scene, this barrier to sex outside the confines of marriage fell. The connection between sex and love also fell quickly; ever since contraception became widely used, there has been much talk of, acceptance of, and practice of casual sex and recreational sex. The deep meaning that is inherent in sexual intercourse has been lost sight of; the willingness to engage in sexual intercourse with another is no longer a result of a deep commitment to another. It no longer bespeaks a willingness to have a child with another and to have all the consequent entanglements with another that babies bring. Contraception helps reduce one’s sexual partner to just a sexual object since it renders sexual intercourse to be without any real commitments.

“Carelessness” is international

Much of this data suggests that there is something deep in our natures that finds the severing of sexual intercourse from love and commitment and babies to be unsatisfactory. As we have seen, women are careless in their use of contraceptives for a variety of reasons, but one reason for their careless use of contraceptives is precisely their desire to engage in meaningful sexual activity rather than in meaningless sexual activity. They want their sexual acts to be more meaningful than a handshake or a meal shared. They are profoundly uncomfortable with using contraceptives for what they do to their bodies and for what they do to their relationships. Often, they desire to have a more committed relationship with the male with whom they are involved; they get pregnant to test this love and commitment. But since the relationship has not been made permanent, since no vows have been taken, they are profoundly ambivalent about any pregnancy that might occur.

Sexual Promiscuity Increases

By the late sixties and early seventies, the view of the human person as an animal, whose passions should govern, became firmly entrenched in the attitudes of those who were promoting the sexual revolution. One of the greatest agents and promoters of the sexual revolution has been Planned Parenthood. In the sixties and seventies, many of the spokesmen and women for Planned Parenthood unashamedly advocated sex outside of marriage and even promoted promiscuity. Young people were told to abandon the repressive morals of their parents and to engage in free love. They were told that active sexual lives with a number of partners would be psychologically healthy, perfectly normal, and perfectly moral. Now, largely because of the spread of AIDS and the devastation of teenage pregnancy, even Planned Parenthood puts a value on abstinence. Yet they have no confidence that young people can and will abstain from sexual intercourse, so they advocate “safe” sex, “responsible” sex, whereby they mean sexual intercourse wherein a contraceptive is used. Sex educators assume that young people will be engaging in sexual activity outside of marriage.

Young people do not need sex education of the Planned Parenthood type; they need to learn that sexual intercourse can be engaged in responsibly and safely only within marriage. Rather than filling young people’s heads with false notions about freedom, and filling their wallets with condoms, we need to help them see the true meaning of human sexuality. We need to help them learn self-control and self-mastery so that they are not enslaved to their sexual passions. They need to learn that sexual intercourse belongs within marriage, and that with the commitment to marriage comes true freedom; the freedom to give of one’s self completely to another, the freedom to meet one’s responsibilities to one’s children.
There are two cornerstones on which education for sexual responsibility should be built - cornerstones that are both corroded by contraceptive sex. One cornerstone is that sexual intercourse is meant to be the expression of a deep love for another individual, a deep love that leads one to want to give of oneself totally to another. Most individuals hope one day to be in a faithful marriage, to be in a marital relationship with someone one loves deeply and by whom one is loved deeply. One of the major components of that deep love is a promise of faithfulness, that one will give oneself sexually only to one’s spouse.

Contraception severs connection between sex and babies

The other cornerstone for a sex education program should be the refrain that ‘if you are not ready for babies, you are not ready for sexual intercourse, and you are not ready for babies until you are married’. Most people want to be good parents; they want to provide for their children and give them good upbringings. Contraception attempts to sever the connection between sexual intercourse and babies; it makes us feel responsible about our sexuality while enabling us to be irresponsible. Individuals born out of wedlock have a much harder start in life; have a much harder time gaining the discipline and strength they need to be responsible adults. Single mothers have very hard lives as they struggle to meet the needs of their children and their own emotional needs as well. Those who abort their babies are often left with devastating psychological scars. The price of out of wedlock pregnancy is high.

Indeed, even within marriage, contraception is destructive; it reduces the meaning of the sexual act; again it takes out the great commitment that is written into the sexual act, the commitment that is inherent in the openness to have children with one’s beloved.
Those who are unmarried do face a disaster, and abortion seems like a necessity since no permanent commitment has been made between the sexual partners. Those who are married have often planned a life that is not receptive to children and are tempted to abort to sustain the child-free life they have designed. I am not, of course, saying that all those who contracept are likely to abort; I am saying that many more of those who contracept do abort than those who practice natural family planning.

Contraception takes the baby-making element out of sexual intercourse. It makes pregnancy seem like an accident of sexual intercourse rather than the natural consequence that responsible individuals ought to be prepared for. Abortion, then, becomes thinkable as the solution to an unwanted pregnancy. Contraception enables those who are not prepared to care for babies to engage in sexual intercourse; when they become pregnant, they resent the unborn child for intruding itself upon their lives, and they turn to the solution of abortion. It should be no surprise that countries that are permeated by contraceptive sex, fight harder for access to abortion than they do to ensure that all babies can survive both in the womb and out. It is foolish for pro-lifers to think that they can avoid the issues of contraception and sexual irresponsibility and be successful in the fight against abortion. For, as the Supreme Court of the US has stated, abortion is “necessary” for those whose intimate relationships are based upon contraceptive sex.

References:

For verification of the claims here made about Planned Parenthood, see George Grant, Grand Illusions: the Legacy of Planned Parenthood (Brentwood, TN: Wolgemuth and Hyatt Publishers, Inc., 1988), and Robert Marshall and Charles Donovan, Blessed are the Barren (San Francisco, CA; Ignatius Press, 1991).

Portions of this article are printed as portions of chapters in “Abortion and Moral Character”, in Catholicism and Abortion, ed. By Stephen J. Heaney to be published by the Pope John XXIII Medical-Moral Research Centre and “Abortion and Moral Character”, in Doing and Being: Introductory Reading in Moral Philosophy, ed by Jordan Graf Haber, to be published by Macmillan.

Permission given for reprinting portions from ‘The Connection between contraception and Abortion’, by Dr. Janet E. smith, published by Homiletic & Pastoral Review, April 1993, distributed by One More Soul.

"The Connection between Contraception and Abortion" by Janet E. Smith is available from One More Soul.


*****

[papagall]

Thunderously clear, Sir! With contraception practices a precipitous rise in abortion killing comes too. Thirty plus years of contraception has also brought more than 42,000,000 executed concepti. Wonder how that compares to ANY thirty year period in the ages prior to 1973, or even prior to 1968?

[Maximilian]

Great job, excellent article. A point that needs to be made.

But more than just making a point, this is a truth that needs to be defended in real life. The pro-life movement has been nothing but 30 years of failure. Pragmatism has gotten us nothing. Incrementalism has gotten us nothing. Moral betrayal has gotten us nothing. So why not try honesty, courage, and the truth? What does the pro-life movement have to lose?

[Maximilian]

However, the case against contraception DEPENDS on Catholic presuppositions in a way that the case against abortion does not.

Not true. It's a teaching based on the natural law. It applies equally to all men of whatever religion. The prohibition of contraception is not specifically Catholic at all. Orthodox Jews have always found contraception fundamentally abhorrent. So did all 3 major protestant founders, each of whom wrote specific condemnations of contraception. Historically, Orthodox teaching did not even clearly distinguish between contraception and abortion, they were considered basically the same crime.

So to call this a "Catholic doctrine" is a fallacy.

Catholics may do well to learn the entire doctrine on sexual morals, but in the context of fighting abortion in a secular society (as opposed to persuading just Catholics) the issue of contraception should be put aside

This is fundamentally wrong and misguided, as well as a recipe for failure. Catholics can never put aside any part of their morality. "Fighting abortion in a secular society" is a pointless task if it requires one to ignore essential moral rules. It is pointless from a pragmatic perspective because one cannot "fight" one evil while accepting others. And pointless from a moral perspective because contraception will send you to Hell just as surely as abortion.

[Maximilian]

Furthermore, it is at best very misleading to say that contraception is of the same "character" as abortion. As sins, they are incommensurable.

Wrong. You fail to appreciate the moral severity of the crime of contraception. Here is what St. Thomas Aquinas said:

"Next to murder, by which an actually existent human being is destroyed, we rank this sin by which the generation of a human being is prevented."

[Maximilian]

I believe the former is achievable legislatively pretty quickly (saving 1.4 million babies a year), and that the latter will NEVER be achieved legislatively (OK, maybe in 50 years), but instead will occur after decades of changing hearts and minds.

This is pragmatism of a kind which demonstrates a lack of faith in God. God does not ask us to be successful, only to be faithful (I think Mother Theresa said that). We are being unfaithful when we ignore the roots of moral corruption in our society to focus on political "realities."

Meanwhile, the true political "reality" is that the pro-life movement is a whore that is used by the Republican party to get votes and then tossed aside when the campaign is through. Yet the pro-life movement comes back time after time to be used and abused again. "This time is going to be different" is the shared mottoe of the pro-life movement and the woman living with a violent, drug-addict criminal.

[Sir_Ed]

"To have coitus other than to procreate children is to do injury to nature" (2:10:95:3)."

So does this mean that couples too old to have kids, like in their late '40's, '50's and '60's, should perforce stop having sex and become chaste, even though they are married, because there is no chance that they can have kids?

Or what about couples, like my friend Ian, that had cancer, had radiation and are now sterile, are they to stop having sex?

Or women that have had hysterectomies? They, too, should be chaste, even though they are married?

I gotta tell ya', I personally think that is absurd.

Ed

[tkathy]

Good old Protestant contraceptive is needed here.

[Fester Chugabrew]

BUMP to the topp for the Bishop of Smyrna.

[Tax-chick]

Good piece. I think you're quite correct, and that a significant weakness in the "political" pro-life movement is that there always seems to be the silent qualifier "... until it interferes with anyone's responsibility-free sexual behavior." Amoral sexuality is pagan, and so is child-killing.

[shhrubbery!]

From the point of view of Catholic doctrine, there is a continuity between the teachings on contraception and on abortion. However, the case against contraception DEPENDS on Catholic presuppositions in a way that the case against abortion does not. The case against abortion may be made effectively to a secular but intellectually honest society (which, on the whole, the U.S.A. still is). On the other hand, you will not get an intelligent person to UNDERSTAND, let alone accept, the teaching against artificial contraception until you have first made the case for Christian sexual morality in general

Well said.

Polycarp's reasoning re the 'correlation between the contraceptive mentality and legalized abortion' is not lost on me: I understand and accept the immorality of contraception.

Yet I think it is counterproductive for us pro-lifers to insist on this teaching at the same time we try to convince a secular public of the immorality of abortion.

Pursuing the most effective way of ending the hideous crime of abortion must take priority. Slowly but surely we've made progress in re-awakening the public to the truth about abortion.

It would be foolish to take ourselves back to square one by doing something that, while good in itself, would undoubtedly be perceived as doctrinaire, and would open up the pro-life movement to backlash.

We have only to look at the recent public opinion backlash against the abominable radical homosexual movement, to see how overreaching may be the wrong tactic.

[tom h]

I actually agree with both of you. The Catholic writer is exactly right, that the current state of affairs began with a liberalism that originated 70 years ago. He is also right, that the matters are really tied together. Once an adult can separate sex from procreation, then it can be separated from love, marriage, commitment, family, motherhood and fatherhood, etc., and can become a form of worship itself.

But where I agree with you is that change doesn't come fast. It took 70 years to get where we are today, and the tide has turned. It might be another 50 years before civilization values life as it once did.

[Polycarp]

Thanks for your input, Maximilian. I must tell you though that the pathetic lack of response, even if they disagree, from the other traditionalist Catholics of Free Republic only confirms for me the points I made on an earlier thread for which you took me to the woodshed, i.e., they obsess over liturgical issues and ignore the culture war battles waging all around us. I even specifically requested Loyalist ping his list of traditionalist Catholics, to no avail. There is good reason why I do not align myself with trad Catholics.

[Loyalist]

PING

[Polycarp]

Thanks Loyalist! Disregard my last to Maximilian.

[Voice in your head]

The author seems to place greater value on the coercive enforcement of what he regards as moral behavior, rather than on the liberty of man. What is the virtue in a society that abides by God's will, if it must be done at the point of a gun? And, is such a society really abiding by God's will? How does that differ from the Taliban? It is a different religion, but the same same tyranny is justified in the same manner.

The purpose of government is to secure the rights of the people in its society. That has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not my neighbors are using a rubber. It has everything to do with defending the lives of people to whom the government serves.

“…by incremental lowering of the ‘least common denominators’ to being Pro-life. The most obvious and most debated lowering is in allowing exceptions for the ‘hard cases’ of rape, incest, and the life of the mother”

I am with the author, in that I see no moral or legal reason why abortion should be permissible in cases of rape or incest. Whether conceived by consentual sex between 2 non-related individuals or by way of rape or incest, the baby is still a person, endowed by his/her creator (nature, God, the mother, etc.) with inalienable rights, including the right to life. Where I do not understand the author’s reasoning is where he takes issue with the “life of the mother” exception. Assuming that there is a situation in which continuing a pregnancy would kill the mother, what could be the possible objection to aborting or some other procedure to terminate the growth within the womb? Is there no such thing as self-defense?

”That case held that married couples have a ‘privacy’ right to purchase contraceptives. To this day, Constitutional scholars openly concede that there was simply no foundation or precedent for such a ruling, but there was also no means to stop the Justices from imposing their morals on the nation.”

Does anyone have a link to the concessions of those Constitutional scholars? I would be interested in reading their reasoning.

”The pro-life movement cannot stop judges from ‘playing God’ in courtrooms or women from ‘playing God’ with their unborn babies if they insist on ‘playing God’ in their homes using contraception and birth control.”

Contraception and birth control are measures taken to prevent conception. Why are these on the same moral level as killing babies? In the former, nobody’s rights are violated. In the latter, a baby’s right to life is clearly violated.

[eastsider]

"Ception" = life"

The -ception in conception and contraception comes from the verb capere, meaning (1) to capture, catch, grapple; (2) to get, lay hold of, pick up, take.

[Polycarp]

Main Entry: con·cep·tion
Pronunciation: k&n-'sep-sh&n
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English concepcioun, from Old French conception, from Latin conception-, conceptio, from concipere
Date: 14th century
1 a (1) : the process of becoming pregnant involving fertilization or implantation or both (2) : EMBRYO, FETUS b : BEGINNING <joy had the like conception in our eyes -- Shakespeare>
2 a : the capacity, function, or process of forming or understanding ideas or abstractions or their symbols b : a general idea : CONCEPT c : a complex product of abstract or reflective thinking d : the sum of a person's ideas and beliefs concerning something
3 : the originating of something in the mind
synonym see IDEA
- con·cep·tion·al /-shn&l, -sh&-n^&l/ adjective
- con·cep·tive /-'sep-tiv/ adjective

Main Entry: con·tra·cep·tion
Pronunciation: "kän-tr&-'sep-sh&n
Function: noun
Etymology: contra- + conception
Date: 1886
: deliberate prevention of conception or impregnation
- con·tra·cep·tive /-'sep-tiv/ adjective or noun

[Polycarp]

The author seems to place greater value on the coercive enforcement of what he regards as moral behavior, rather than on the liberty of man.

The author does no such thing, I assure you. I know because I'm the author.

This is a call to educate and evangelize the pro-life movement itself, the great majority of which is ignorant of the irrefutable link between the contraceptive mentality and legalized abortion.

Why are these on the same moral level as killing babies? In the former, nobody’s rights are violated. In the latter, a baby’s right to life is clearly violated.

Most effective popular forms of contraception are hormonal in nature. ALL hormonal contraception acts at times by causing early spontaneous chemical abortions.

So hormonal contraceptives at least are no different than any other form of chemically induced abortion. See the Archives of Family Medicine study, Postfertilization Effects of Oral Contraceptives and Their Relationship to Informed Consent

[eastsider]

I'm talking about the -ception part, not concipere. It doesn't mean life. The verb concipere means to conceive.