A wholly reasonable approach to birth control

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1ke said:
We aren’t required to have as many children as possible.
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That is why so many Roman Catholic couples use artificial birth control. I have read that it is a rather high percentage of married Roman Catholic couples who are using artificial birth control and don’t believe that there is anything wrong with doing so. It is even true for unmarried women as I have been told while dating a Roman Catholic girl from time to time. The local Catholic college has a sociology department and they conducted a poll for incoming freshmen and for outgoing graduates. The question was whether or not it was wrong for married couples to use artificial birth control. About 50% of the incoming freshmen said yes it was wrong. But after 4 years of Catholic college, only about 10% of the graduating seniors said it was wrong.
 
AlNg said:
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1ke:
We aren’t required to have as many children as possible.
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That is why so many Roman Catholic couples use artificial birth control.
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I do not understand how your statement follows.
 
AlNg said:
That is why so many Roman Catholic couples use artificial birth control.
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One does not follow the other.

People sin. There are many reasons Catholics use contraception: ignorance, secular influence, mixed marriages, bad guidance from parents or individual priests, fear, just to name a few.

But Church teaching is there, clear and unambiguous, for those who want to live according to God’s law, striving for holiness.

Periodic abstinence is the moral means of spacing children when needed.
AlNg said:
I have read that it is a rather high percentage of married Roman Catholic couples who are using artificial birth control and don’t believe that there is anything wrong with doing so.
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Keep in mind many people identify as Catholic because they have a Catholic ancestry or culture, not because they practice. Surveys are tricky things.
AlNg said:
It is even true for unmarried women as I have been told while dating a Roman Catholic girl from time to time.
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Well, unmarried Catholic women who are sexually actively aren’t practicing the faith either— fornication is a sin against the sixth commandment too. As they are well aware.
AlNg said:
The question was whether or not it was wrong for married couples to use artificial birth control. About 50% of the incoming freshmen said yes it was wrong. But after 4 years of Catholic college, only about 10% of the graduating seniors said it was wrong.
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As I said, surveys are a tricky thing, and in college many fall away from the faith entirely.

Surveys aren’t the arbiter of truth. Surveys do reveal we have much work to do in evangelization.
 
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AlNg said:
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Rau:
I do not understand how your statement follows.
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They don’t want too many children, so they limit the number of children by using artificial birth control.
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People who do so are not practicing aspects of their faith. Are you claiming that people not practicing their faith fully never happens with Protestants, Orthodoxy, Muslims, Hindus, etc…? Your point?
 
Wesrock said:
Your point?
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I have read that many Catholics do not accept the teaching of their Church on artificial birth control for married couples. Actually I read that it was a fairly large percentage in the USA.
 
1ke said:
surveys are a tricky thing
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Do you think that these surveys are wrong? And that the overwhelming majority of Catholics believe that it is gravely wrong for married couples with several children already - to use artificial birth control?
 
AlNg said:
I have read that many Catholics do not accept the teaching of their Church on artificial birth control for married couples. Actually I read that it was a fairly large percentage in the USA.
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Which, again, has nothing to do with the Truth and everything to do with Man’s propensity to sin.

There are lots of Catholics, Methodists, Baptists, Jews, Muslims, etc., who “disagree with” or don’t practice aspects of their faiths.

Premarital sex is morally wrong in all of these faiths— and yet, there are many young people raised in all these faiths who engage in it, who cohabit, etc.

There are 10 commandments, you can find members of all faith traditions who’ve sinned against the 10. Doesn’t negate them in any way.
 
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Throughout our nearly 20 year marriage we never used ABC. We have three children. I see the church‘s position as a very difficult standard, of course. But many things that the church urges us to are very difficult. Consider the call to holiness. After many years of following Jesus, I’ve come a long way, but I still have so very much farther to go. But I still strive, I am progressing, even though I’ll never attain perfect holiness in this life.

I sort of see the church teachings on birth control in the same way. It’s part of a larger call to holiness in our sexuality. And coming from the culture we come from, many of us have many long miles to go before we reach that high standard of sexual holiness. So I think there’s grace as we journey along this way. If we are making an honest effort to go from a not-good place, to a better place, is the Lord pleased with that? Even if I’m still far from the ideal place? Of course.
 
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AlNg said:
Do you think that these surveys are wrong?
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I think the surveys over represent people as Catholic who do not actually practice Catholicism.

Many people select “Catholic” on surveys who aren’t practicing— they select it because they were “raised Catholic” even though they are now fallen away, or because they are Irish or Italian or Mexican or Polish and identify culturally as a Catholic because the place of their ancestors is a “Catholic country”.

Many people treat Catholicism similarly to “Jewish” which is both a religion and an ethnicity.

Edited to add: there are practicing Catholics who contracept also, which again demonstrates our sinfulness. The Truth remains.
 
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AlNg said:
They don’t want too many children, so they limit the number of children by using artificial birth control.
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That’s a choice, it need not follow. There are better choices. Eg. periodic abstinence.
 
The Catholic approach to family planning works with the combined fertility patterns of the couple as God made them. There are fertile times and infertile times. If a couple has a reason to avoid conception, they abstain during their fertile time and are intimate during their infertile time. They are honoring the way their bodies are designed to work. With artificial contraception, they are altering their God-given fertility to avoid conception. NFP is ordered to life. It works with sexuality as made by God coupled with the God-given use of reason. It doesn’t attempt to stay God’s hand by blocking fertility while taking advantage of their sexuality.
 
Just because something wasn’t morally acceptable in the past doesn’t mean it can’t be morally acceptable today. Times change
 
Some things are instrinsically evil, which means that it is wrong regardless of time, place and context.
 
goout said:
What is the point you are making?
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According to what I read it appears that there are many Catholics who think that the teaching on artificial birth control needs to be changed as it has been changed in other religions.
 
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Toledo said:
It is sad to say that there are hundreds of millions of murderers out there, many who aren’t wise or smart enough to realize that their choice of artificial birth control is literally killing their children. Literally hundreds of millions of killers out there, who prize pleasure and kill their children instead.
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The main function of most hormonal birth control is to prevent ovulation so no fertilization can occur and then to make it more difficult for sperm to reach the egg. Because chances of fertilization is already low I doubt that an egg is fertilized often and fails to implant due to birth control. And anyway, it is estimated that up to 50 percent of fertilized eggs don’t implant regardless of whether one is on birth control and so at best, hormonal birth control only contributes marginally miscarriages. It probably actually helps reduce miscarriages because it prevents many eggs from being fertilized
 
rosejmj said:
Just because something wasn’t morally acceptable in the past doesn’t mean it can’t be morally acceptable today. Times change
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Many people believe so. For example, in the past it was not morally acceptable to talk in church. It was not morally acceptable for a woman to enter church without covering her head. Now, even the women distributing Holy Communion do not cover their heads.
 
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