Is contraception the answer to reducing abortions?

[Listener]

I think that the number of abortions would definitely be reduced if people used some form of family planning, including NFP.

The reason I think this way is that I can remember what was happening in Communist USSR back in the 1950’s. In those days, the women who lived there had lots and lots of abortions. The reason given for this very sad state of affairs is that these women had absolutely no access to any form of birth control.

 

[RWMorris]

RWMorris, I appreciate the way you posted about your difficultiy with catholic teaching on contraception vs NFP. As someone who has practised NFP for 8 years now (including 2 planned kids and one ‘what the heck’ kid), I’ll give you my experience.

God made sex to both bond spouses and give them kids. But don’t think of them as separate elements! They are inextricably linked in a healthy marriage.

When a couple uses NFP to avoid children for a time the couple enjoys the God - given non-fertile times for sex that bonds them together, but then must FAST from sexual union during the fertile time if they wish to avoid children for now (as you know, they must discern a just reason for this). This fasting, by its very nature, allows (but doesn’t guarantee) the couple to retain the healthy and balanced attitude towards their sexual union and BOTH of its purposes. Nobody REALLY understands why fasting is so crucial in the spiritual life, but we know from revelation that it is. This fasting time has a way of purifying the couple’s ability to discern just reasons from frivolous ones. Indeed, I probably would still have just two kids if it weren’t for this effect.

Contracepting couples, by contrast, inherently change the meaning of their sex. By taking direct action to sterilize their love, they unknowingly and (usually subtly) change it into an occasion of mutual self-gratification. It makes sex into a form of gluttony. Gluttony being the exact opposite of fasting, it is no wonder that contracepting couple choose to have fewer kids. Their version of love-making never prompts them to ponder why they are forsaking more kids.

The above is WHY ABC is a sin. Like any sin, it doesn’t render the sinner or the marriage utterly evil and without merit, but it DOES inflict damage on them.

Great explanation. I appreciate you taking the time to explain NFP in this fashion. It has really helped me develop an understanding of why NFP is not sinful while non-abortive contraception is.

 

[wanner47]

For the record, I’m a woman, and I think both contraception and abortion are sinful. I also think that contraception leads to a contraception mentality, which encourages reckless behavior and more casual sex – ergo, more chances for the contraception to fail, and thus more abortions.

My husband and I have used NFP since 2003 to both abstain from and achieve pregnancy, and it’s a blessing to our marriage.

 

[guanophore]

I love the Catholic preoccupation with SIN–right reasons NFP is OK apparently , but practice NFP for the wrong reasons, and you SIN, even with NFP!!

A longitudinal study was done in England of children born after the mother had scheduled an abortion, but for some reason, did not have it performed. A high percentage of these children as adults were in jail, were felons, were mentally ill. I don’t think that their mothers felt that they had ‘glorified God’ by having these unwanted babies.

Sounds like they should have given them up for adoption.

Contraception is not murder.

Actually, most of it is. It kills the fertilized egg by preventing implantation.

 

[1234]

It is if it is abortive, such as the pill or IUDs or the morning after pill.

It depends if you think that an un-implanted embryo is the same an an implanted one. Many Christians don’t regard un-implanted embryos as equivalent to a fetus which can’t survive outside the uterus, or a fetus that can survive, or a full-term newborn. I stay out of these arguments as I have no difficulty with contraception or “abortion” of non-implanted embryos. All are preferable to abortions.

The “pill” prevents ovulation, so is not an abortofacient.

The so-called “morning after” pill potentially is an abortofacient, as is an IUD–they act by preventing implantation.

 

[1234]

How does having knowledge of one’s body mean another controls you?

Because others, usually men, try to control how women use their bodies and threaten them with hell if the women don’t conform to their teachings.

 

[guanophore]

Women’s choices should not be limited or controlled by men.

Men appear, at least on Catholic fora, to have an undue preoccupation with the church’s doctrines on conception.

Well, that is great! If it is true, it means that perhaps one understands that thinking about the consequences of sexual intimacy is more important than one’s own gratification.

The monitoring of one’s bodily cycle is nothing “controlled by men”. I have news for you, WOMEN ARE A WALKING HORMONE CYCLE!!! God made them that way.

Men are too, but it is a different cycle. There is also apparently no time in the male cycle when he is not fertile, whereas, for a women, there are times when she is at least more or less fertile. Knowing one’s cylce and working within it is exactly what couples do that want artificial conception. Women who want to use this method to concieve don’t seem unduly burdened by it.

 

[wanner47]

It depends if you think that an un-implanted embryo is the same an an implanted one. Many Christians don’t regard un-implanted embryos as equivalent to a fetus which can’t survive outside the uterus, or a fetus that can survive, or a full-term newborn. I stay out of these arguments as I have no difficulty with contraception or “abortion” of non-implanted embryos. All are preferable to abortions.

Since when has the opinions of “many Christians” determined truth? Neither Christianity nor Catholicism is a democracy, and Truth is not determined by majority vote.

Life begins at conception. That is truth. An embryo that hasn’t yet implanted is just as much a human being as an embryo that has.

The “pill” prevents ovulation, so is not an abortofacient.

Um, no. The PRIMARY mechanism of the Pill is to prevent ovulation. However, a SECONDARY mechanism of the Pill is to change the uterine lining so as to make it inhospitable to implantation. If the primary mechanism fails, then the Pill is indeed an abortifacient.

The so-called “morning after” pill potentially is an abortofacient, as is an IUD–they act by preventing implantation.

Technically, the “morning after pill” is the same as the birth control pill, only in a much higher dose. If a woman has not yet ovulated, then the morning after pill will work to prevent ovulation; if she has ovulated, it will work to prevent implantation.

 

[wanner47]

Because others, usually men, try to control how women use their bodies and threaten them with hell if the women don’t conform to their teachings.

If that’s the kind of environment you grew up in and/or regularly observe, then I feel very sorry for you. It is not, however, the norm.

 

[Scottgun]

If that’s the kind of environment you grew up in and/or regularly observe, then I feel very sorry for you. It is not, however, the norm.

And even if it was the norm, why should the innocent unborn child get punished with death?

 

[fix]

Boy, do you have it wrong.

who.int/inf-new/aids2.htm

Excerpts:

**"**Uganda’s success in reducing high HIV infection ****rates is the result of high-level political commitment to HIV prevention and care, involving a wide range of partners and all sectors of society. Same-day results for HIV tests and **social marketing of condoms **and self-treatment kits for sexually transmitted infections, backed up by sex education programmes, have helped reduce very high HIV infection rates.’

"Since 1990, a USAID-funded scheme to increase condom use through social marketing of condoms has boosted condom use from 7% nationwide to over 50% in rural areas and over 85% in urban areas. The social marketing scheme involved sales of condoms at subsidized prices or free distribution by both the government and the private sector. The scheme was also backed up by health education and other public information. Meanwhile more teenage girls reported condom use than any other age group – a trend reflected in falling infection rates among 13-19 year old girls in Masaka, in rural Uganda. And among 15-year-old boys and girls, the proportion who had never had sex rose from about 20% to 50% between 1989 and 1995.

(emphasis mine in second excerpt).

Start a new thread.

Uganda AIDS Prevention Success Being Undermined by Infuriated UN Condom-Pushers

 

[fix]

Because others, usually men, try to control how women use their bodies and threaten them with hell if the women don’t conform to their teachings.

I see, so you assert woman are not intelligent enough to grasp truth for themselves.

 

[lukewarm]

Not a tricky issue at all, if one follows the Church teachings on abstinance before marriage.

True but is that being realistic or idealistic? Is it realistic to think that abstinence is the answer in this day and age? Personnally I don’t think so, the Bush backed abstinence programs have done nothing to stem premarital sex at all. Most adolescents will experiment with sexual acts prior to marriage that is simply a fact of life. And it isn’t anything new, even better than 60% of out puritans were pregnant before marriage. The only thing that has changed today is the availability of abortion and the stigma of being a single mother removed, and men not wanting to be married or feeling pressured into marriage to “make an honest woman out of her”.

It’s a different time and people simply aren’t going to stop having sex until they’re married which is typically late 20’s early 30’s now. That is puting your head in the sand and hoping this all goes away.

 

[fix]

True but is that being realistic or idealistic? Is it realistic to think that abstinence is the answer in this day and age? Personnally I don’t think so, the Bush backed abstinence programs have done nothing to stem premarital sex at all. Most adolescents will experiment with sexual acts prior to marriage that is simply a fact of life. And it isn’t anything new, even better than 60% of out puritans were pregnant before marriage. The only thing that has changed today is the availability of abortion and the stigma of being a single mother removed, and men not wanting to be married or feeling pressured into marriage to “make an honest woman out of her”.

It’s a different time and people simply aren’t going to stop having sex until they’re married which is typically late 20’s early 30’s now. That is puting your head in the sand and hoping this all goes away.

Once contracepted sex is accepted we change the very nature sex and what married love and sex actually are. There is no great benefit to encouraging contraception unless we intend to separate love from the sex act. That has happend and society is less better off.

 

[lukewarm]

Once contracepted sex is accepted we change the very nature sex and what married love and sex actually are. There is no great benefit to encouraging contraception unless we intend to separate love from the sex act. That has happend and society is less better off.

There is a difference between “accepting it” and simply acknowledging it as innevitable. I believe premarital sex is largely innevitable within society save a few strong willed adolescents, any society, at any time will engage in premarital sex en masse that’s just a fact of life.

 

[fix]

There is a difference between “accepting it” and simply acknowledging it as innevitable. I believe premarital sex is largely innevitable within society save a few strong willed adolescents, any society, at any time will engage in premarital sex en masse that’s just a fact of life.

I think people ackowledge all types of evils happen.

 

[lukewarm]

I think people ackowledge all types of evils happen.

Of course and we take preventative measures to guard against the innevitable (I won’t call it evil) lapse of good judgment. I see contraception as guarding as best I can against the inevitable actions of my children.

 

[Good_Daughter]

NFP is only a barrier in the sense of timing."

A barrier does not have to be physical. For instance, being trained as an automobile mechanic is a barrier against poverty. It is not a common use of the word, but proper none-the-less.

In NFP, if a couple does everything correctly and still ends up pregnant, then the barrier (timing) has failed. Every-one’s body is different, and NFP is subject to failure just as non-abortive ABC is subject to failure.

I a couple uses non-abortive ABC and are comfortable and accepting of new life if it happens, then I don’t (currently) see the difference between NFP and non-abortive ABC.

I wanted to add this perspective, in case it helps you at all.

According to your definition of the term, faithful Catholics certainly may use some “barriers” against pregnancy (like NFP or abstinence). What faithful Catholics may not use are “barriers” against their own fertility. In other words, the Church teaches against thwarting natural, healthy, useful fertility.

All contraception (abortive, non-abortive, artificial or natural like withdrawl) disregards the God-ordained state of our fertility at any given time, creating instead a “fake” infertility. This is like saying, “God, you determined my relative fertility and, even though it’s healthy and useful, I’m changing it to infertility when I need or want sex without babies”. Meanwhile, ironically, God designed the female reproductive cycle for sex not to result in babies most of the time! We need only tune in to his wonderful design to plan our families prayerfully and without insult to His gift of human fertility.

 

[fix]

Of course and we take preventative measures to guard against the innevitable (I won’t call it evil) lapse of good judgment. I see contraception as guarding as best I can against the inevitable actions of my children.

The act of contraception is certainly evil and so is the act of fornication or adultery. I see no merit in encouraging anyone, especially the young, to seek contraception as a means to engage in bad acts. Among other things it simply allows them a false sense of security and allows them to think they may act as they wish because they are “safer”. What a disservice.

 

[lukewarm]

The act of contraception is certainly evil and so is the act of fornication or adultery. I see no merit in encouraging anyone, especially the young, to seek contraception as a means to engage in bad acts. Among other things it simply allows them a false sense of security and allows them to think they may act as they wish because they are “safer”. What a disservice.

A disservice is simply calling your children “evil” and pretending like they aren’t engaging in what 99.9% of unmarried children do when they go out on Friday nights. I refuse to just bury my head in the sand and hope that my rants about the evils of premarital sex and an enternity in hell for rounding second will be enough to discourage my children (it won’t be, children rarely think in terms of eternity, they are impulsive and think in the here and now)… But you got your way of parenting I got mine…