I told my Baptist neighbor the truth about contraception

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My Southern Baptist neighbor and I were in the cul-de-sac chatting this morning while our kids played, and as usual, she turned the talk toward religion. She asked whether Catholics read the Bible, and I was also happy to clear up for her that we do not, in fact, worship Mary (where do people get this stuff?!) :eek:

Anyway, she then started talking about how her church is very pro-life, and I responded by saying how the CC really stands up for life better than anyone, from conception to natural death. She agreed, so I asked her why so many Baptists (and others, obviously) use abortifacients and other contraceptives. She didn’t know what abortifacients were, so I explained it, and she was aghast, as she is on the pill. She almost cried right there in the cul-de-sac and said she’d talk to her husband about it. I feel terrible that I made her feel bad! I don’t generally go around discussing this, but she did open the door. I need someone to tell me I did the right thing. She did say, when I apologized for upsetting her, that she was glad I’d said something and she would rather know.

I have a pamphlet to give her that explains scientifically how the different types of birth control pills work, but beyond that, I’m not sure what to do to help her. I don’t want to give her all the facts and leave her with no support. Any suggestions?

Also, if everyone could pray for my neighbor, that would be great. Thanks!
 
Of course you did the right thing!

Give her the websites for One More Soul and Couple to Couple League.

When she comes back with questions, if she does, just be ready with answers. And, she shouldn’t feel guilty-- she didn’t KNOW.

The book The Bible And Birth Control by Charles Provan is great for a non-Catholic. He’s protestant.
 
Reassure her that she has no guilt because she didn’t know.

It’s a real shock for people when they find that out, because the pharmaceutical companies and the OB/GYNs actively hide it from people. When I brought up this function of hormonal birth control to a doctor once, he hemmed and hawed until I pressed him, and he admitted that yes, that is one way they work.

The companies and the doctors have seen the cultural evidence. Whatever our laws say, most Americans deep down believe life starts at conception and want to protect and care for it. If more people knew that hormonal birth control does not work only before conception, and can in fact work after conception to make survival impossible for the baby… their revenues would go down like a sled on solid ice with greased skids. And they KNOW that!

I know when I found out, I nearly had a panic attack every time I took a pill. Three or four days after I found out, I threw the rest of the pack away and have never used any since. Once you have that knowledge, whatever your other qualms about birth control issues, etc., you just morally can never go back. That’s true for the vast majority of people.
 
Let her know about any Natural Family Planning courses that are available. Tell her that she and her husband, once they are ready, can attend the classes together, and make decisions about it together.

Let her know that the success rate of NFP is actually probably higher than that of chemical birth control. 🙂
 
on my right-thing-o-meter, your actions read 100%.:

you waited for an invitation,
you told the truth,
you were gentle and compassionate (I’m certain you were-- especially in response to her tearful worries)
you possible helped prevent any further demise of the little souls created in her marriage.

your neighbor lady sounds like a sincere, goodwill soul. i’ll keep her in my prayers.
 
Of course you did the right thing by telling her the truth.👍 Now that she knows how the pill works, she will need an alternative. Your next step is to let her know how NFP works and where to learn it. She needs to hear the truth about married love; what it looks like, what it means, how it works in a sacramental marriage that mirrors the love of the Trinity.
 
I just wanted to give you a big 👍 and :clapping: and :hug1: . You definitely did the right thing! The previous posters have all made great suggestions on what else you can do for her. Praying for you and your neighbor and her DH. 🙂
 
And Catholic News Agency has a story on protestants turning toward NFP. You might share something like this with her.
 
Loren_1of6 said:
Of course you did the right thing by telling her the truth.👍 Now that she knows how the pill works, she will need an alternative. Your next step is to let her know how NFP works and where to learn it. She needs to hear the truth about married love; what it looks like, what it means, how it works in a sacramental marriage that mirrors the love of the Trinity.
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I am a convert. I previously thought that contraception was ok. That God gave us free will and common sense to look at our own situtations and choose.

I would recommend reading Pope Paul VI’s encyclical “Humanae Vitae”. It totally changed my mind. He made perfect sense!
You can get it on the Vatican site under the Pope section.
😃
 
AMEN! I would reassure her again, pray and offer to help her with any questions.

My guess is that she will probably tell some of her friends as well. If they are interested, offer to get them more information - my guess is that your parish should have some.

You might also suggest some of West’s books like Theology of the Body for Beginners or The Good News about Sex and Marriage. You can tell her that all of the teachings come from Sermons given by the Pope and are based upon Biblical passages so that she can cross-reference the teachings with her Bible if she wants (you know, she might want to make sure there are none of those “Catholic” only teachings in there) 🙂

Joe
 
Thank you for all your replies! I jotted down the Web sites, books, etc., that everyone recommended, and I’m thinking I’ll pick one or two to give her to start with. I’m a little worried I’ll overwhelm her with my piles of Catholic literature. 🙂 I’m praying that she’ll keep asking me questions and that I’ll have the answers…
 
Professor Janet Smith has an excellent talk on all way the pill has harmed our society. She goes at through science and studies. It is amazing!
 
dkoinzan said:
Professor Janet Smith has an excellent talk on all way the pill has harmed our society. She goes at through science and studies. It is amazing!
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I have her talk and it is very good. It’s called “Contraception, Why Not”. You can get it at OMS. You can get it free of charge, there is a small shipping charge. Click here. Of course you might already have it.
 
Janet Smith is awesome! We first heard her speak while we were still Protestant, and loved what she had to say.

We were kicked out of our Protestant church in 2002, but until then, we were very involved, and I can assure you that many Protestants were open to the idea of big families and eliminating ABC. Our pastor and his wife had 8 children (actually, ten, because two were in heaven), and our youth pastor and his wife had 7 children. The leading member of the church (wealthiest) had 8 children. And many of the families in the church were four or more children. (Evangelical Free Church in America).

So don’t worry about offending Protestants with information about ABC. Many are open to hearing the pro-life, pro-family teachings.
 
Social reform starts at the family level, so this is a good thing 😉
 
dkoinzan said:
Professor Janet Smith has an excellent talk on all way the pill has harmed our society. She goes at through science and studies. It is amazing!
Click to expand...
Sabda said:
I have her talk and it is very good. It’s called “Contraception, Why Not”. You can get it at OMS. You can get it free of charge, there is a small shipping charge. Click here. Of course you might already have it.
Click to expand...
I almost forgot about this talk – I actually do have it, on CD, and I do remember it being very good, although it’s been a while since I listened to it.
Cat said:
Janet Smith is awesome! We first heard her speak while we were still Protestant, and loved what she had to say.

We were kicked out of our Protestant church in 2002, but until then, we were very involved, and I can assure you that many Protestants were open to the idea of big families and eliminating ABC. Our pastor and his wife had 8 children (actually, ten, because two were in heaven), and our youth pastor and his wife had 7 children. The leading member of the church (wealthiest) had 8 children. And many of the families in the church were four or more children. (Evangelical Free Church in America).

So don’t worry about offending Protestants with information about ABC. Many are open to hearing the pro-life, pro-family teachings.
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I think you may be right on this. I have to admit I was surprised when my neighbor, instead of immediately refuting what I said (which is her usual response when we’re talking religion!), just paused and said, “Really?” I’m so sad for her that now she feels so guilty about having used the pill; I mean, like other posters have said, she just didn’t know. Protestant churches are doing a great disservice to their members by not standing up for the truth on this issue.
 
threeangels said:
I almost forgot about this talk – I actually do have it, on CD, and I do remember it being very good, although it’s been a while since I listened to it.

I think you may be right on this. I have to admit I was surprised when my neighbor, instead of immediately refuting what I said (which is her usual response when we’re talking religion!), just paused and said, “Really?” I’m so sad for her that now she feels so guilty about having used the pill; I mean, like other posters have said, she just didn’t know. Protestant churches are doing a great disservice to their members by not standing up for the truth on this issue.
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I think they’re coming around. One of the problems in Protestant churches is that they have to be careful not to offend too much, or they will lose members. Let’s say a church has 200 members. If 50 of them walk out, that’s a quarter of the membership. How would you like to lose a quarter of your income? Or see your parish lose a quarter of their income? We can all pontificate on the lack of spirituality of considering membership over “the truth,” but it doesn’t look so spiritual when a pastor has to tell his family that they are broke.

Also, keep in mind that many Protestant churches consider their mission to “Preach the Gospel,” and they can’t do this if they offend everyone to the point where no one is coming to their church.

Also remember that contraception is not specifically taught against in the Bible (at least not obviously), so it is something that Protestant churches leave up to the individual Christian.

BUT…what the Protestant pastors are learning is that the STRICT pastors who teach a solid morality end up attracting MORE people to their churches!

And so now the Protestants are re-discovering that the Bible DOES teach anti-contraception!

What has to happen in the Protestant churches, at least the evangelical ones, is that Dr. James Dobson has to ratify it. If and when he speaks, evangelical Christians listen. Until Dr. Dobson started teaching against abortion, most evangelical churches dinked along and ignored the issue, or taught that it was up to each individual Christian.

Then in the late 1970s/early 1980s, Dr. Dobson came out gangbusters against abortion, and evangelical pastors and churches began jumping on the bandwagon and joining the Catholics who had been preaching against it from the very beginning.

I personally believe that it was around this time that Protestants began getting “interested” in Catholicism, and that a lot of the conversions we see today start when Protestants get involved with Catholics at the local leve in a pro-life cause (protests, PACs, Life Care Centers, sidewalk counselling, shepherding, etc.)

So again, Protestants are coming around. It’s just hard to get them organized.
 
My protestant friend told me that all her married friends (except me, of course!) are on the pill. It’s pretty sad. 😦
 
If Dr. Dobson would come out for NFP maybe the American priest would do the same. I honestly have heard very little until this year. Thank God we are celebrating the 40th anniversary of HV or I think there still would be little heard. Just two years ago I gave a short talk about HV to the Catholic School Board where my children attended and the group nearly crawled out of their seats. Had the priest defended HV it would have went over better, unfortunately it seems the truth takes second fiddle to not offending.
 
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