I am 100% pro reproductive freedom

[Angainor]

That is to say… I have no interest whatsoever in telling a couple when they can or cannot reproduce.

But there is a point of no return, isn’t there. Once there is a being with his or her own unique DNA, the reproduction is complete. That being has the right to live.

---

I don’t know if I really have a point here, but I just felt like highlighting how the pro-abortion machine twists the meaning of words. I bet you assumed I meant something completely different when you read the title of this thread.

Another thing: An abortion is not a medical procedure, nor does it have anything to do with “reproductive health”.

Medicine cures a sickness. Pregnancy is not sickness to be cured nor is a woman is made more healthy.

OK, I’m done now.

 

[Eileen_T]

Amen, brother.

I used to work at a Crisis Pregnancy Centre. Young girls/women (& sometimes the males) would come in for a pregnancy test and tell me “I’m too young to have a baby” (You might be surprised just how ‘old’ some of them were - one guy was 32!)

My answer to them was that if they didn’t think they were ready to have a baby, then stop having sex! They don’t seem to realise that all methods of birth control, except sterilisation, has a failure rate.

I remember one young couple came to see me and the boy said “It’s not as if it’s really a baby or anything yet.” The girl looked at him and said “Well, it’s not a chicken - of course it’s a baby!”

Angainor:

I bet you assumed I meant something completely different when you read the title of this thread.

I had a suspicion because I have used this approach myself. :tiphat:

 

[carol_marie]

'Wow… you got me!! I was about to get out my pro-life club and beat you. (kidding!)… sort of

 

[Lorarose]

Another thing: An abortion is not a medical procedure, nor does it have anything to do with “reproductive health”.

I’m pro-reproductive health - I think unborn children should be allowed the chance to reproduce themselves someday.

I’m pro-womens’ rights - I think unborn females should not be killed.

I’m pro-choice - I think women should have the choice whether or not to have sex.
When they are pregnant- I think they should have the choice to have the baby or give it up for adoption.

I am pro-women’s health - I think abortion causes women to suffer physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

I am anti-violence. And when it comes to the war on the unborn I suppose you could call me anti-war too.

Oh yeah…add anti-death penalty to that list - the unborn shouldn’t be executed just because mom and dad made a “mistake”

 

[antonius]

Eileen T:

My answer to them was that if they didn’t think they were ready to have a baby, then stop having sex!

If you don’t want a peanut butter sandwich, you don’t smear peanut butter on a slice of bread.

Pretty basic stuff.

 

[stadre]

Lorarose:

I’m pro-reproductive health - I think unborn children should be allowed the chance to reproduce themselves someday.

I’m pro-womens’ rights - I think unborn females should not be killed.

I’m pro-choice - I think women should have the choice whether or not to have sex.
When they are pregnant- I think they should have the choice to have the baby or give it up for adoption.

I am pro-women’s health - I think abortion causes women to suffer physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

I am anti-violence. And when it comes to the war on the unborn I suppose you could call me anti-war too.

Oh yeah…add anti-death penalty to that list - the unborn shouldn’t be executed just because mom and dad made a “mistake”

Great post! I have had these thoughts, but could never put them so eloquently. May I send them to my newspapar? In fact, maybe we should all send it to our newspapers.

The people who call themselves “pro-choice” when they are, in fact, “pro-abortion” upset me a lot. I am pro-choice, just as all of my fellow “anti-abortion” posters here!

 

[Rand_Al_Thor]

Lorarose:

I’m pro-reproductive health - I think unborn children should be allowed the chance to reproduce themselves someday.

I’m pro-womens’ rights - I think unborn females should not be killed.

I’m pro-choice - I think women should have the choice whether or not to have sex.
When they are pregnant- I think they should have the choice to have the baby or give it up for adoption.

I am pro-women’s health - I think abortion causes women to suffer physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

I am anti-violence. And when it comes to the war on the unborn I suppose you could call me anti-war too.

Oh yeah…add anti-death penalty to that list - the unborn shouldn’t be executed just because mom and dad made a “mistake”

Peace be with you!

:clapping:

In Christ,
Rand

 

[KCT]

Once our assoc pastor made a comment about being pro choice. He went on to explain that he’s pro- choosing not to have sex before marriage!! —KCT

 

[dwc]

Hi, Angainor, you got me, and I really enjoyed your post.

Lorarose, I agreed with everything you wrote and got a good chuckle out of it. Thanks.

 

[byHisGrace]

Angainor:

That is to say… I have no interest whatsoever in telling a couple when they can or cannot reproduce.

But there is a point of no return, isn’t there. Once there is a being with his or her own unique DNA, the reproduction is complete. That being has the right to live.

---

I don’t know if I really have a point here, but I just felt like highlighting how the pro-abortion machine twists the meaning of words. I bet you assumed I meant something completely different when you read the title of this thread.

Another thing: An abortion is not a medical procedure, nor does it have anything to do with “reproductive health”.

Medicine cures a sickness. Pregnancy is not sickness to be cured nor is a woman is made more healthy.

OK, I’m done now.

Angainor,
While I applaud your pro-life position, how does it align with your position on artificial birth control? If only God should be allowed to end a life, shouldn’t it also be up to God to determine when a life is created?
God Bless you!

 

[SueKrum]

how was teh opening post pro contraception? did I miss something?

 

[Angainor]

byHisGrace:

Angainor,
While I applaud your pro-life position, how does it align with your position on artificial birth control? If only God should be allowed to end a life, shouldn’t it also be up to God to determine when a life is created?
God Bless you!

We all make choices that determine when life is not created. The obvious example is the priest who determes not to create life by not getting married.

If you take your thought to its logical conclusion we should all get married right after puberty then never deny ourselves when the time seems right.

So, while we all make choices regarding reproduction, there comes a point-of-no return. That point is when a new life is created with its own DNA.

Having said that…

I admit that avoiding artificial birth control may very well be good, but for reasons that involve a commandment other than the fifth.

If avoiding artificial birth control is good it has more to do with the sixth commandment.

 

[byHisGrace]

Angainor:

We all make choices that determine when life is not created. The obvious example is the priest who determes not to create life by not getting married.

If you take your thought to its logical conclusion we should all get married right after puberty then never deny ourselves when the time seems right.

So, while we all make choices regarding reproduction, there comes a point-of-no return. That point is when a new life is created with its own DNA.

Having said that…

I admit that avoiding artificial birth control may very well be good, but for reasons that involve a commandment other than the fifth.

If avoiding artificial birth control is good it has more to do with the sixth commandment.

Angainor,
With all due respect, your analogy is not pertinent. Artificial birth control thwarts an intrinsically reproductive act…a priest is not thwarting God’s design in the sexual context of marriage because he is not married to begin with. There is a huge difference between NOT having sex, and playing God by misusing sex and separating the procreative from the unitive. All denominations (including your own) condemned artificial birth control until 1930. Did the truth change?
May God Bless you!

 

[Angainor]

byHisGrace:

Angainor,
With all due respect, your analogy is not pertinent. Artificial birth control thwarts an intrinsically reproductive act…a priest is not thwarting God’s design in the sexual context of marriage because he is not married to begin with. There is a huge difference between NOT having sex, and playing God by misusing sex and separating the procreative from the unitive. All denominations (including your own) condemned artificial birth control until 1930. Did the truth change?
May God Bless you!

I have to disagree. I think that both not having sex and artificial birth control put us outside of God’s plan for us to have a perfectly harmonious life. If we were perfectly harmonious we would all be getting married right after puberty and never denying ourselves.

However, since this is not a harmonious world, we have to make responsible choices. This is not to say NFP is not a responsible choice, it is a responsible choice. It may even be slightly more harmonious choice then AFP. It is still not *completely *harmonious IMHO.

This is how I would personally rate family planning in order of decreasing harmoniousness:
No Family Planning
Natual Family Planning
Artificial Family Planning
No Family (by choice)

I don’t think any of these rise to the level of sinful, just the reality of living in a world separated from God’s harmony.

 

[byHisGrace]

Angainor:

I have to disagree. I think that both not having sex and artificial birth control put us outside of God’s plan for us to have a perfectly harmonious life. If we were perfectly harmonious we would all be getting married right after puberty and never denying ourselves.

However, since this is not a harmonious world, we have to make responsible choices. This is not to say NFP is not a responsible choice, it is a responsible choice. It may even be slightly more harmonious choice then AFP. It is still not *completely *harmonious IMHO.

This is how I would personally rate family planning in order of decreasing harmoniousness:
No Family Planning
Natual Family Planning
Artificial Family Planning
No Family (by choice)

I don’t think any of these rise to the level of sinful, just the reality of living in a world separated from God’s harmony.

Angainor,
I’m not trying to pick a fight here, honest! I recognize you have an opinion, and you’ve given it some thought, I just don’t understand your logic. You’re suggesting that perfect harmony means we don’t deny ourselves. I don’t understand how you can link those two concepts. The “reality” of living in a world separated from God’s harmony is not an excuse to live outside God’s plan for us.
I’m also curious as to how you can hold your current opinion, (regarding my earlier question) which is contrary to what all Christian denominations taught previous to 1930? Did the truth change? Was/is the teaching wrong?

 

[BlestOne]

Hi There…Lorarose I just have one tiny disagreement with your very eloquent post:
I’m pro-choice - I think women should have the choice whether or not to have sex.
When they are pregnant- I think they should have the choice to have the baby or give it up for adoption.

I think it should read:
I’m pro-choice - I think women should have the choice whether or not to have sex.
When they are pregnant- I think they should have the choice to keep the baby or give it up for adoption.

Not to pick or anything…just don’t want others to be able to pick at it!

 

[Angainor]

byHisGrace:

I just don’t understand your logic. You’re suggesting that perfect harmony means we don’t deny ourselves. I don’t understand how you can link those two concepts.

If you don’t practice family planning, you get the family you get. As soon as you start family planning (natrual or otherwise) you get a family closer to what you want. Which is more in harmony with God’s will?

byHisGrace:

I’m also curious as to how you can hold your current opinion, (regarding my earlier question) which is contrary to what all Christian denominations taught previous to 1930? Did the truth change? Was/is the teaching wrong?

I was reluctant to get into this because of the graphic nature of the arguement, but if it is in the bible…

I guess my problem is that I see planning is planning is planning. I can’t, in my mind, come up with a difference between spilling semen on the ground and spilling semen in a womb only when you are reasonably certain it is barren this time of month.

byHisGrace:

The “reality” of living in a world separated from God’s harmony is not an excuse to live outside God’s plan for us.

I think it is an excuse, and I think Catholics do to, otherwise they wouldn’t plan their families. The reality of our world is much different than bible times. Times were very tough. The very survival of a people from one generation to the next depended on people being commited to reproduction. Babies often died young. People were simply less fertile.

Times don’t change that much. The survival of a people still depends on people being committed to reproduction. But where I’m from babies don’t die young as often and people are healthy and more fertile.

I think that people today do far to much restricting of their family size, but in the reality of today’s world, I think some planning is appropriate, and I don’t see a moral difference between natural and artificial planning.

 

[byHisGrace]

Angainor:

If you don’t practice family planning, you get the family you get. As soon as you start family planning (natrual or otherwise) you get a family closer to what you want. Which is more in harmony with God’s will?I was reluctant to get into this because of the graphic nature of the arguement, but if it is in the bible…

I guess my problem is that I see planning is planning is planning. I can’t, in my mind, come up with a difference between spilling semen on the ground and spilling semen in a womb only when you are reasonably certain it is barren this time of month.I think it is an excuse, and I think Catholics do to, otherwise they wouldn’t plan their families. The reality of our world is much different than bible times. Times were very tough. The very survival of a people from one generation to the next depended on people being commited to reproduction. Babies often died young. People were simply less fertile.

Times don’t change that much. The survival of a people still depends on people being committed to reproduction. But where I’m from babies don’t die young as often and people are healthy and more fertile.

I think that people today do far to much restricting of their family size, but in the reality of today’s world, I think some planning is appropriate, and I don’t see a moral difference between natural and artificial planning.

Angainor,
I don’t think there is much more I can say if you can’t see the moral difference, which is clearly outlined in Church teaching and was supported by all Christian denominations including yours. You have entirely missed the point of the sanctity of the sexual act and the fact that it is holy and for a purpose. It is the substitution of man’s will in place of God’s in the act of sex that is the problem. It is something holy that is a total giving of self and openness to life. The fact that some may not “see” the moral difference is beside the point. If you view this sacred act as “spilling semen in the womb” then I understand your difficulty in understanding the teaching. The fact that many Catholics do not follow the teaching only means they are ignorant or disobedient. It doesn’t change the truth. The truth in faith and morals does NOT change. To equate violating the sexual act with not having sex is not at all the same. You never answered my earlier question, did the truth change after 1930?
I would encourage you to read Humana Vitae and JP2’s Theology of the Body.
May God bless you!
God Bel

 

[Robin_L.in_TX]

“If we were perfectly harmonious we would all be getting married right after puberty and never denying ourselves.”

Do you believe that Jesus and St. Paul were not harmonious? Right now, the Kingdom is present, but we must see and hear beyond the physical to the spiritual reality. It is, but it is not yet.

Jesus told us that in the reality, rather than the image of the Kingdom, there will be no marriage. Celibates choose, through God’s call and by His grace, to live as a sign of the Kingdom in this world, so as to be spiritually free to love all others, being available to help them in spiritual and physical need, and hopefully, to bring them to Jesus. Thus celibate priests and religious are a loving sign of God’s presence in our world and in our lives.

As for artificial contraception, it is a lie. Separating the one we love from their fertility makes it probable that we will come to merely use each other to slake our passions, as opposed to totally sharing ourselves with each other, body, fertility, and spirit.

Natural Family Planning respects God’s plan for marriage. We sometimes use it to offer up the pleasure of our passions for a serious reason. Life is always a blessing. God tells us this again and again throughout the OT. In complete freedom and love, the conjugal act binds us physically and spiritually. Removing the possibility of life destroys the potential fruitfulness of the union, the way in which our earthly families most resemble the fruitfulness of the Trinity.

Just as God the Father and God the Son share a total, self-giving love, which results in the Holy Spirit which blows through the world carrying the Word of Creation on Its breath, so too the conjugal act expresses the total self-giving of spouses which also may result in the creation of new life. God is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He is also Love.

I know this because I, too, am a sinner. Away from the Church when I met and married my husband, we contracepted. It left me empty and aching with a void I did not understand until I read the words of an old celibate man in the Vatican who expressed the intimate, painful feelings of my woman’s heart in his Theology of the Body. God’s plan is unconditional love and life. The more we embrace it, the more we live as God created us to live, the happier we are.

I am leaving my cynicism behind and becoming a happy, sappy idealist, and pray for everyone else to be given the grace to discover the joy of His Truth. How awesome our God is!

May God bless you and rain His abundant graces upon you and your loved ones!

 

[byHisGrace]

“If we were perfectly harmonious we would all be getting married right after puberty and never denying ourselves.”

Do you believe that Jesus and St. Paul were not harmonious? Right now, the Kingdom is present, but we must see and hear beyond the physical to the spiritual reality. It is, but it is not yet.

Jesus told us that in the reality, rather than the image of the Kingdom, there will be no marriage. Celibates choose, through God’s call and by His grace, to live as a sign of the Kingdom in this world, so as to be spiritually free to love all others, being available to help them in spiritual and physical need, and hopefully, to bring them to Jesus. Thus celibate priests and religious are a loving sign of God’s presence in our world and in our lives.

As for artificial contraception, it is a lie. Separating the one we love from their fertility makes it probable that we will come to merely use each other to slake our passions, as opposed to totally sharing ourselves with each other, body, fertility, and spirit.

Natural Family Planning respects God’s plan for marriage. We sometimes use it to offer up the pleasure of our passions for a serious reason. Life is always a blessing. God tells us this again and again throughout the OT. In complete freedom and love, the conjugal act binds us physically and spiritually. Removing the possibility of life destroys the potential fruitfulness of the union, the way in which our earthly families most resemble the fruitfulness of the Trinity.

Just as God the Father and God the Son share a total, self-giving love, which results in the Holy Spirit which blows through the world carrying the Word of Creation on Its breath, so too the conjugal act expresses the total self-giving of spouses which also may result in the creation of new life. God is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He is also Love.

I know this because I, too, am a sinner. Away from the Church when I met and married my husband, we contracepted. It left me empty and aching with a void I did not understand until I read the words of an old celibate man in the Vatican who expressed the intimate, painful feelings of my woman’s heart in his Theology of the Body. God’s plan is unconditional love and life. The more we embrace it, the more we live as God created us to live, the happier we are.

I am leaving my cynicism behind and becoming a happy, sappy idealist, and pray for everyone else to be given the grace to discover the joy of His Truth. How awesome our God is!

May God bless you and rain His abundant graces upon you and your loved ones!