A Challenging Truth, Part One: How Birth Control Works

Catholic Exchange ^ | February 9, 2008 | Patti Maguire Armstrong

[Tax-chick]

An excellent line from Shrek!

Is it? It was commonly used in my childhood!

Pat insists that his mother ship from space is going to land and establish him as global dictator. It's led to some interesting situations. "Pat says we have to let him get on the trampoline now or his death gliders will blast us!"

[Scotswife]

In the beginning of the first Shrek...they stole the line from you!

“”Pat says we have to let him get on the trampoline now or his death gliders will blast us!””

Oohhh...I’m very afraid of Pat.
Will have to make sure he never meets up with my Mary...there’s no telling what destruction the two of them could accomplish together.

[Tax-chick]

I’m always worried when I don’t have Pat in sight.

[Scotswife]

I remember a story posted a few years ago about a family spending a night in a hotel.
The 2 yr. old waits for parents to fall asleep, somehow climbs up to the top shelf of the closet and gets the car keys out of mom’s purse.
He lets himself out of the room, unlocks the car and then drives the car right through the wall of of the hotel.

Police arrive and while they are investigating everyone realized kid is missing again.
He was back in the car...with the keys.

Lots of posters were trashing parents and police of course.
I read that and thanked my lucky stars my 3 yr. old boy hadn’t figured that out yet.

[Tax-chick]

LOL! I don’t think I saw that, but I doubt we’ll get all these boys out of the house without something that makes the news. Pat is *really* smart, and James and Vlad do everything he tells them to.

[B4Ranch]

>>A Challenging Truth, Part One: How Birth Control Works<<

Keep your pants on and it works just fine.

[NYer]

Cervical cancer, high blood pressure, and infertility are side effects of contaception.

Researchers have also confirmed earlier studies that show women who use birth control pills have a higher risk of developing breast cancer.

[samiam1972]

I took birth control when I was a teenager and in the very early years of my marriage. I was clueless about this stuff and about my faith. Hubby and I were a part of a young married couples group when a person came and talked to us about the pill. I cried all night and never took another pill. There was so much I didn’t know! I mourn for the possible children I may have lost during all those years and am eternally grateful for the four I now have.

I’ve found that for us, NFP has become pointless. We no longer worry about whether or not God will bless us with more children. After years of talking about how many kids we’d like to have and whether or not we could “afford” any more the discussion has naturally turned to the fact that we love them all so much, we’ll take as many as we can get.

[Emmett McCarthy]

I’m glad you are OK. We’ll never know how many lives have been lost and how many ruined over 40 some years of all this. Many of us are very aware of our mistakes and failures - some made willfully, some naively and some under coercion.
It took me years to finally begin to face it all.
If you would like, please click on http://www.myspace.com/emmettgrayson a song called “A Dream A Lot Like Mine” will come up. It’s free, of course.

[NYer]

There was so much I didn’t know!

Of course not and you shouldn't worry yourself over the past. If you must, worry about the media messages being fed to your children today and how they will empact them in the future. We do our best, as parents, to shield and protect our precious children. But when they reach a certain age, they flex their wings and begin to fly. Our responsibility is to lay the foundation of faith that we know will be their source of strength as they mature.

At times, I am naively shocked by the advertising that crosses the screen of my non cable tv, while preparing dinner. Advertisements for 'male enhancement' pills or 'genital herpes' medication. How low has our society sunk that it is necessary to broadcast such advertisements during family viewing hours. For the most part, I have turned off the tv at home or limit my viewing to EWTN or TMC and several other cable stations that provide informative viewing.

My daughter is now 21 and through her I see the ramifications of contemporary American society. Where possible, I try to correct her views that stem from what she watches. Mercifully, she is proud of her Catholic faith even if she doesn't practice it on a regular basis. I use any and all opportunities to continue her Catholic education in faith and morals. It is a daily challenge to keep adult children on the right path because at a certain point in time, they consider our thinking outdated. My prayers for young Catholic parents raising children today. Keep up the good work!

[netmilsmom]

Hey Lady!
What am I looking for in your post?

[Salvation]

Thanks for posting this. I thought about posting it last night when I first saw it, but told myself I would wait until today. Now, it’s already up!

[Salvation]

More from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

                From the Catechism of the Catholic Church (click on the book for the link.)    

2399 The regulation of births represents one of the aspects of responsible fatherhood and motherhood. Legitimate intentions on the part of the spouses do not justify recourse to morally unacceptable means (for example, direct sterilization or contraception).

 

2370 Periodic continence, that is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of infertile periods, is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality. These methods respect the bodies of the spouses, encourage tenderness between them, and favor the education of an authentic freedom. In contrast, "every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible" is intrinsically evil:

Thus the innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality. . . . The difference, both anthropological and moral, between contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle . . . involves in the final analysis two irreconcilable concepts of the human person and of human sexuality.

[Salvation]

Blessings to you from God on high!

[Yaelle]

A good book to teach women how to use their body’s signs to know when to conceive and when not to is “Taking Charge of Your Own Fertility” by Toni Wechsler. Not religious at all (nor offensive to the religious) but very factual and easy to follow. Women should understand their own bodies better than they do.

[Yaelle]

Not going to insert myself in Catholic teachings but I just wanted to add that Jews consider the birth control pill to be a more g-dly form of birth control than the barrier methods. The reason is that sperm can still contact egg (theoretically) so nothing is coming between them. The pill is SUPPOSED to simply prevent the egg from ripening (doesn’t always work).

The progesterone in the pill does indeed make the uterine lining less hospitable for any embryo that happens to be created; however, poor uterine lining can occur in any woman and also be another cause of an early (often unknown) miscarriage.

Every month, a husband and wife trying to conceive could be having miscarriages and not know it. 30-90% of all of a woman’s eggs (varies by individual woman and of course by age) after the early 20s are no longer chromosomally compatible with existence (I am talking about making it to the 2nd trimester, not children born with Down Syndrome). Not everyone realizes this.

[8mmMauser]

Pinged from Terri Dailies

8mm

[Catholic Iowan]

“One of the Eucharistic Prayers begins the consecration, “Before He was given up to death, a death He freely accepted ...”. I always get a chill, because I know how I fail in “freely accepting” the ways I’m called to die to self.”

How about another line in all the Eucharistic Prayers that the radical feminists have perverted. “This is My body, given up for you,” has been twisted into, “this is my body, you can’t tell me what to do or what I can do with it.” One shows ultimate love and sacrifice, the other ultimate selfishness.

[Tax-chick]

Excellent observation. If often think of that line, too. It’s a challenge, here in my 40’s, to give my body for the Lord’s purposes, to bring more children into the world if that’s what He wants.

[SuzanneWeeks]

Then pray that they never meet my Cooper either. I could run a street full of houses with my bebe’s energy (he’s 3) DH and I always say, “if you could only harness their energy for good, imagine what they could do” :) LOL