Hypocritical Contraception?

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What an excellent discussion happening!

Welcome KathleenBP!! 👋 Great to have you here! I think folks, we may have added another wise lady similar to puzzleannie on the forum here. It is so great to hear from those wise “old ladies” who have been there done that. (Uh oh, I’m turning 37 soon. May I join the club?) 😃

It is so good to see so many people being made aware of the horrible detriment that ABC has wrought. Until I learned about NFP, due to health problems, I didn’t know any of the real facts about Margaret Sanger’s racist and eugenic beliefs. I once thought ABC liberated women too. Then I studied the wonderful women of the suffrage movement. Wow! Those were some amazing ladies. They were pro-family, pro-education, anti-contraception and anti-abortion. A few were even pro-celibacy.

Sadly, Sanger was none of the above. She was particularly against education of the poor.

NFP has always existed. Throughout history across all cultures women have had a rudimentary understanding of cyclical fertility. And the happiest women have had wonderful men by our sides willing and ready to show self-control.
 
Good_Daughter said:
I’m confused.

If a couple have sex while the wife is pregnant, how can there be “an open possibility that life can be formed” (which you say is a must)? Are expectant Catholic couples allowed to have sex if that sex can’t form a life?

Please, help me understand.
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Yes, I see your confusion. By ForMary’s logic I must cease breast-feeding my daughter, or I must abstain? I am naturally infertile brought about by breast feeding. Since I cannot “reproduce” it must be sinful??

Count me in confused there too. :rolleyes:
 
I used to have trouble understanding this a bit also (why non-abortive contraceptives were different than NFP.) I trusted the Church and agreed, I was just slightly confused as to the logistics and reasoning.

Anyway, I had one of my philosophy professors teach the difference between contraception and the “sin of contraception” (I might add he is a Catholic professor that is faithful to the Church and has promised fidelity to the Church :D)

Contraception is preventing pregnancy through artificial means. Now for there to be the “sin of contraception” the married couple must be both 1. choosing sexual intimacy and 2. making the sexual act non-fertile.

Periodic abstinence (NPF) is not “the sin of contraception” because the couple is not choosing sexual intimacy. AND The couple is not making the sexual act non-fertile. So periodic abstinence (NFP) is not “the sin of contraception.”

A contraceptive device is in itself is indifferent, for example if one is being raped it is not a sin for you them to ask the rapist to use a condom. (IF you are being raped you are NOT choosing sexual intimacy, and so thus, not guilty of the sin of contraception, if your rapist uses a condom. All you are doing is self-defense.)
 
Texas_Roofer said:
? did the pill build shoes? ? did the pill educate these women or produce false diplomas? So was school illegal before the 1960’s?

( has God been talking for 2000 years?)

Seriously 50+% of the women now are legally single, 25% have a STD (and that will go up). Women make up a larger percent of poverty. Relations for sale are becoming common. A large percent of children are not raised by their biologoical parents. I do hope solutions are found however I am not sure we are seeing positive affects
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The first is just a saying…we donlt actually believe women went around barefoot…though many of them were likely pregnant alot. And no it did not educate women nor was school illegal. It was just seen as unneccessary to educate women…since it wasn;t like we were going to get a job in most cases. And in general I am pretty sure women were considered too stupid to waste higher education on. In general women were seen as lesser beings. Not to say though that every women went uneducated, but many would have. I think it is good to remember we only got the right to vote less then a century ago and made more pretty big leaps especially in attitudes since then. The pill wasn;t the cause of all these attitudes and things changing it was likely an affect of it. However by allowing women more control of their fertility it allows her more freedom in getting jobs and what not. And also likely increased the chance employers would want to hire a woman. Cause before it was very likely she would have had to leave the work force to raise her family and it takes time and money to hire and train employees. But yeah the pill did come with some bad things no doubt about that.
 
Hello All,

There are so many reasons not to contracept. The things that the Family Planning clinics and drug companies do not tell young women is that the hormonal changes produced by the pill thin out the woman’s uterus and vaginal wall, there by allowing STD’s more access to infect women. Gee, that does not sound like a liberating object to me. Nor does the fact that the pill has allowed men to look at women as merely toys…available for their immediate gratification. I do not know how many young women have suffered through migraines, mood swings, weight gain and other hidden dangers so as to be available to their husbands or boyfriends. Is that liberating? When you take the openess to life out of a marriage, women often begin to feel used. It is a psychological fact! If contraception has freed women to be better…then why the skyrocketing divorce rates, the infidelity, the depression. Women can not do it all, even if society says they can. Sure, they may have full time jobs, a household to run, children to raise, husbands to befriend, but something will give. What will it be? Why do we put our kids on drugs to control many misdiagnosed cases of ADHD (put your own personality disorder initials here)? Is it maybe because families are no longer held together by love, stability and discipline? They are dragged through many hours of parents away from home, other people - God forbid the government - raising them, parents who are exhausted and stressed due to the rat race we call “the American way.” I was there, I did that…it was very hard! Not to mention, the many hours spent away from my beautiful daughter. God graced her with the means to mature and know right from wrong…I truly wasn’t there for her, so much of the time. I also was lucky enough to have a daycare that was Christian based. Not because I picked it out, I live in a very small town and the woman just happen to be on fire for Christ! It is so obvious that many who feel that there is nothing wrong with contraception have bought the society’s lie. Condoms do not prevent much of anything. When doctors were asked why teens weren’t warned of the inability of the condom to protect them from HPV - which occurs from thigh to thigh contact, the doctors said that they didn’t want teenagers to just give up and have sex without any kind of protection. Like our teenagers are animals and can not be given the truth and treated with the love that tells them that chastity and purity are possible and very beautiful ways to love God, themselves and their peers. Would any young man hurt a girl on purpose? Probably not, but they do not know the truth. Our young generation is taught to conquer! Go ahead, have sex, you can’t help it, you have no control. Oxytocin…a hormone that is released during sex, during orgasm and also during breast feeding causes a bonding. Hence, so many couples bond in their heart before they truly know if they were meant for each other. I know…I am a victim of my own hormones. I married a man that was alcoholic and we had nothing in common. But, I had given myself to him and “loved” him. All in the name of what society taught me to be the norm. Sex was not love, love was not sex…yeah, right.
God knows what he is doing. We should always be open to life, open to God’s will and keep sex and intimacy sacred, hand in hand with marriage. Marriage that is entered into after a time spent with the other person, free of the act of sex, so that we are thinking clearly and purely.
OK, I will get off my soap box…
In Christ,
Kathleen:getholy: :getholy: :getholy:
 
OK,

In a different light, because some are of the belief that women can not accomplish anything without the “freedom” of contraception. My best friend past away last November. She was 85 years old. I am 45 by the way…lol! She was an MD and actually went back to Philadelphia to celebrate her 50th anniversary since graduating from Medical School in 2000. She was a missionary doctor for 25 years in Angola and Ethiopia, until the communist forced the missionaries out. She came back to the states where she practiced Emergency Medicine, joined the Army and worked as a team doctor for the Oakland Raiders. She managed her way up to my little part of the world on a rock hounding and bird watching expedition. She enjoyed kayaking, horseback riding, traveling and was very busy sending kids to college and vocational schools. She was an Anglican and we spent many hours discussing religion. She never married, but brought more than 4000 babies into the world. She loved men and I even know of some crushes that she had, as a 70+ year old women. Ranchers and Farmers made her blush…😛 She did all of this, without ever blaming men for any of the hardships she endured. She was turned down my UC Berkley way back when, because women didn’t stay in professions for long, as they usually got married and had a family, hence her denial letter read that she was not accepted. She applied to an all woman’s college in Philadelphia and was accepted. She lived with a woman who had lost her husband during WW II and helped this woman raise her two young boys. She attended Mass with them so that the littlest boy would not run amuk! I could go on all day about this incredible woman, but what I am trying to show…look at Joan of Arc, St. Theresa of Avila, St. Claire, Mother Theresa, Mother Angelica…they were all open to life…they took care of the poorest of the poor, they strove to bring the truth of God’s love and mercy to others…without believing that a woman’s only way in the world must be paved with changing what is normal in woman. I, as a nurse have seen the terror in the eyes of a contracepting woman who finds out that she is pregnant…at least with NFP, if you become pregnant, you are open to new life and as a rule know that God will be there for you and your family. We must trust in God, knowing that nothing is impossible with his love. So many times I have felt like I was at the end of my rope, but when I let go…and let God, grace came my way.
I feel so sorry for the women out there trying to fulfill their life with new cars, job advancements, big houses and the like. IF contraception has set women free, why the constant stress of divorce, depression, new age practices, drug and alcohol abuse? I went that route…I had to detour before it killed me.
The secular society really has a pessimistic opinion of what life is about. It is not about our ability to control our lives and live fast and hard, gaining all the riches that the world has to offer. Look at the celebrities, the politicians, the wealthy…if they do not have God, they are sorrowful souls.
In Christ,
Kathleen:byzsoc:
 
Calliso said:
Well I donlt think they should have too, but you can;t deny that pregnancy does put a physical toll on a woman. It may mean she is not working at her 100% best and even mean that she has to take extended time off work. And neither of those are going to look good to a current or potential employee. So the pill gave them more control other things like that. It gave married couples more control over how big their families got. But like I said before it also had a lot to do with changing attitudes towards women too. The shift towards seeing us not as lesser beings but as more equal ones did help a lot too. The pill helped things but I do think you could say it isn;t THE thing that liberated women.
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The pill however does cause abortions. Are you aware of that?
 
Em_in_FL said:
“Procreative” does NOT mean “Fertile”…
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Agreed. I’ve also seen problems result when people interchange the terms “procreative” and “reproductive”.
Em in Fl said:
The term “procreative” means “done in a manner that COULD result in life IF fertility is present”…
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My question actually refers to times when a couple is infertile. When I’m pregnant, how can I have sex with “an open possibility that life can be formed”? The bigger question: Does the Church really teach, like ForMary said, that we must have “an open possibility that life can be formed” in every marital act?

This is not directed at you, Em, but to the forum in general: NFP promoters often witness to the world that NFP is effective at both postponing pregnancy and keeping marital relations open to life. It’s no wonder their audience is confused and skeptical. Maybe we need better terms to describe the benefit NFP really provides.
 
Calliso said:
The first is just a saying…we donlt actually believe women went around barefoot…though many of them were likely pregnant alot. And no it did not educate women nor was school illegal. It was just seen as unneccessary to educate women…since it wasn;t like we were going to get a job in most cases. And in general I am pretty sure women were considered too stupid to waste higher education on. In general women were seen as lesser beings. Not to say though that every women went uneducated, but many would have. I think it is good to remember we only got the right to vote less then a century ago and made more pretty big leaps especially in attitudes since then. The pill wasn;t the cause of all these attitudes and things changing it was likely an affect of it. However by allowing women more control of their fertility it allows her more freedom in getting jobs and what not. And also likely increased the chance employers would want to hire a woman. Cause before it was very likely she would have had to leave the work force to raise her family and it takes time and money to hire and train employees. But yeah the pill did come with some bad things no doubt about that.
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I still don’t understand why I have to take a pill to be seen as “equal” to a man. Isn’t that inherently discriminatory? Isn’t that saying I am already unequal? How come I have to take a permanent hormonal replacement therapy that puts me at risk for stroke, cancer and early abortions to have a career?

The pill wasn’t a response to women’s growing rights and equality in America. It was the downfall.

I also don’t see how pregnancy taking a toll on women’s health can be used as a valid reason here, because birth control pills and abortion both take a toll on women’s health. You can’t choose one to support your argument and ignore the other.
 
Good_Daughter said:
My question actually refers to times when a couple is infertile. When I’m pregnant, how can I have sex with “an open possibility that life can be formed”? The bigger question: Does the Church really teach, like ForMary said, that we must have “an open possibility that life can be formed” in every marital act?

This is not directed at you, Em, but to the forum in general: NFP promoters often witness to the world that NFP is effective at both postponing pregnancy and keeping marital relations open to life. It’s no wonder their audience is confused and skeptical. Maybe we need better terms to describe the benefit NFP really provides.
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I do understand your frustration with the terms… I agree with you there, I wish it were easier to describe.

I like going back to some of the church writings on the subject… Humanae Vitae is great… (emphasis is mine)

Here’s a good quote…
Observing the Natural Law
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  1. The sexual activity, in which husband and wife are intimately and chastely united with one another, through which human life is transmitted, is, as the recent Council recalled, "noble and worthy.’’ (11) It does not, moreover, cease to be legitimate even when, for reasons independent of their will, it is foreseen to be infertile. For its natural adaptation to the expression and strengthening of the union of husband and wife is not thereby suppressed. The fact is, as experience shows, that new life is not the result of each and every act of sexual intercourse. God has wisely ordered laws of nature and the incidence of fertility in such a way that successive births are already naturally spaced through the inherent operation of these laws. The Church, nevertheless, in urging men to the observance of the precepts of the natural law, which it interprets by its constant doctrine, teaches that each and every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of human life. (12)
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Union and Procreation
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  1. This particular doctrine, often expounded by the magisterium of the Church, is based on the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act.
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The reason is that the fundamental nature of the marriage act, while uniting husband and wife in the closest intimacy, also renders them capable of generating new life—and this as a result of laws written into the actual nature of man and of woman. And if each of these essential qualities, the unitive and the procreative, is preserved, the use of marriage fully retains its sense of true mutual love and its ordination to the supreme responsibility of parenthood to which man is called. We believe that our contemporaries are particularly capable of seeing that this teaching is in harmony with human reason.
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Faithfulness to God’s Design
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  1. Men rightly observe that a conjugal act imposed on one’s partner without regard to his or her condition or personal and reasonable wishes in the matter, is no true act of love, and therefore offends the moral order in its particular application to the intimate relationship of husband and wife. **If they further reflect, they must also recognize that an act of mutual love which impairs the capacity to transmit life which God the Creator, through specific laws, has built into it, frustrates His design which constitutes the norm of marriage, and contradicts the will of the Author of life. Hence to use this divine gift while depriving it, even if only partially, of its meaning and purpose, is equally repugnant to the nature of man and of woman, and is consequently in opposition to the plan of God and His holy will. But to experience the gift of married love while respecting the laws of conception is to acknowledge that one is not the master of the sources of life but rather the minister of the design established by the Creator. **Just as man does not have unlimited dominion over his body in general, so also, and with more particular reason, he has no such dominion over his specifically sexual faculties, for these are concerned by their very nature with the generation of life, of which God is the source. “Human life is sacred—all men must recognize that fact,” Our predecessor Pope John XXIII recalled. “From its very inception it reveals the creating hand of God.” (13)
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I encourage you to read through the entire document… yes it’s long, but it’s an absolutely beautiful tribute to marital love.
 
hasikelee said:
I still don’t understand why I have to take a pill to be seen as “equal” to a man. Isn’t that inherently discriminatory? Isn’t that saying I am already unequal? How come I have to take a permanent hormonal replacement therapy that puts me at risk for stroke, cancer and early abortions to have a career?

The pill wasn’t a response to women’s growing rights and equality in America. It was the downfall.

I also don’t see how pregnancy taking a toll on women’s health can be used as a valid reason here, because birth control pills and abortion both take a toll on women’s health. You can’t choose one to support your argument and ignore the other.
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I don’t know how other people mean it when they say “equal” - I’ve never used this term myself regarding ABC. I think what they are saying is that it gives women the same opportunity that men have in that they can have sex without having to become pregnant. Men have never had to worry about carrying a baby around and all that it entails so it was never a consideration to them when they had sex - with ABC, the women were also able to take this approace.

I want to ad - but not to you Hasikilee becaues you didn’t say it - but there are some folks who seem to be indicating that if a woman uses ABC she suddenly glows red and walks around naked - advsertising “free sex” for all or something. Many women who use ABC are married, they aren’t suddenly simply sex dispensers anymore than women who don’t use birth control are only baby dispensers. Most use it simply because it is more effective than NFP and you don’t have “off” days.
 
Swan said:
I don’t know how other people mean it when they say “equal” - I’ve never used this term myself regarding ABC. I think what they are saying is that it gives women the same opportunity that men have in that they can have sex without having to become pregnant. Men have never had to worry about carrying a baby around and all that it entails so it was never a consideration to them when they had sex - with ABC, the women were also able to take this approace.

I want to ad - but not to you Hasikilee becaues you didn’t say it - but there are some folks who seem to be indicating that if a woman uses ABC she suddenly glows red and walks around naked - advsertising “free sex” for all or something. Many women who use ABC are married, they aren’t suddenly simply sex dispensers anymore than women who don’t use birth control are only baby dispensers. Most use it simply because it is more effective than NFP and you don’t have “off” days.
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Exactly you explained it well 🙂
 
Swan said:
I don’t know how other people mean it when they say “equal” - I’ve never used this term myself regarding ABC. I think what they are saying is that it gives women the same opportunity that men have in that they can have sex without having to become pregnant. Men have never had to worry about carrying a baby around and all that it entails so it was never a consideration to them when they had sex - with ABC, the women were also able to take this approace.

I want to ad - but not to you Hasikilee becaues you didn’t say it - but there are some folks who seem to be indicating that if a woman uses ABC she suddenly glows red and walks around naked - advsertising “free sex” for all or something. Many women who use ABC are married, they aren’t suddenly simply sex dispensers anymore than women who don’t use birth control are only baby dispensers. Most use it simply because it is more effective than NFP and you don’t have “off” days.
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There just seems to be something inherently discriminatory about calling it equality and freedom for a woman to change herself chemically and/or abort her kids to compete with males in a workplace. Maybe I don’t have enough of a “taste” of discimination against pregnant women to understand why some women feel the pill is a necessity to be equal to men.

The companies I’ve worked for are extremely accommodating of women, and I’ve never seen a pregnant woman or one with children perform less than her childless counterparts. With that personal experience, I find it hard to comprehend what some posters are saying here.

Lol, although in my personal experience I believe that the pill is definitely used to engage in more sexual intercourse, I have never swiped the paintbrush over everyone. The efficacy of fertility monitoring vs. chemical contraception is probably long enough for another thread, so I won’t get into that here. 🙂
 
I will say it again. Pill users beware the pill causes abortions.
 
holdencaulfield said:
Then how can you support contraception usage without also supporting abortion.
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It’s a matter of psychological comfort. Think of how many people support abortion but rejected the so-called “partial birth abortion.”

And I remember people who supported partial birth abortion would balk at the idea of infanticide, say up to 5 months after birth.

And the Dutch believe you can kill infants, but some of their populace is troubled over killing up to age 12.

Everyone draws a line in the sand. The problem with those who don’t draw it at the beginning is that they have no justification for an arbitrary reason. Since they moved the line according to their feelings, justification or reasoning, anyone’s personal opinion counts as much as theirs. So now we have legal sanction to kill a human based on someone’s personal opinion. Scary!

Sorry to jump in lol!
 
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