Most Catholic women use birth control banned by church

[Serap]

Someone mentioned that the periods of abstinence in NFP are similar to fasting. That is the first aguement I’ve actually understood. Everything else made no sense.

 

[laszlo]

If these numbers are true, they tell us little.

The important thing is not how many people sin, which is 100%, but how many are forgiven.

When will they do a poll asking how many Catholics seek absolution for their sins?

2% monthly or more often, 12% several times a year, 12% once a year

cara.georgetown.edu/CARAServices/FRStats/reconciliation.pdf

This is self evaluation. The reality somewhat lower (26% claims they attend mass every week, less that 20% does according to the October count of heads).

As for the Catechesis, there was no Catechesis in sexual topics neither in the good old times.

They were speeches against the abortion when it was officially allowed in Hungary in 1954, reversing the previous extremely strict policy; but nothing about other methods of birth control. There were areas in Hungary where there was only one child / family, the average was 2 children per family, but no one cried out that the population will be drastically diminishing in the next generation (as it did: over 10% shrink in the last decade)

What the Church should do to emphasize the average 3 children or more principle, as the positive side of the sexual morality.

 

[1holycatholic]

Be that as it may, please do not assume that they are ALL contracepting. Rates of infertility have sharply risen over the last few years and it may be more prevalent than you believe.

I don’t assume that they are all using artificial contraception.

CDC
Percent of all married women 15-44 years of age who are infertile (i.e., who are not surgically sterile, have not used contraception in the past 12 months, and have not become pregnant), 2002: 7.4%
That’s pretty low. The number is confounded by the fact that nearly forty percent of children are born outside of wedlock.

 

[wanner47]

I don’t assume that they are all using artificial contraception.

CDC
Percent of all married women 15-44 years of age who are infertile (i.e., who are not surgically sterile, have not used contraception in the past 12 months, and have not become pregnant), 2002: 7.4%
That’s pretty low. The number is confounded by the fact that nearly forty percent of children are born outside of wedlock.

Your number is from 2002. Infertility rates have risen sharply in the last 10 years.

 

[KostyaJMJ]

If a woman says yes to sex because she is afraid of sustaining physical or emotional abuse if she says no, then that is definitely coercion and she needs to get out of the situation.

In the marriages in which you’ve “seen” this, did you offer to take the woman into your home until she could rectify her situation?

In the marriages where I’ve seen this the woman went and stayed with her parents for a night or two and then returned. I became involved because I lived nearby but there is little that I can do to help. It’s situations like that that make me glad I’m not a catholic woman.

 

[crazzeto]

In the marriages where I’ve seen this the woman went and stayed with her parents for a night or two and then returned. I became involved because I lived nearby but there is little that I can do to help. It’s situations like that that make me glad I’m not a catholic woman.

? your religion says catholic.Unless are you a man? Either way, in a situation like what your describing I don’t believe the Church teaches you must stay in an abusive relationship. The obedience St. Paul wrote of is not fully and completely blind.

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

I’m not sure how NFP will stop a man from treating his wife like a sex object. The only difference is that with NFP and an unwilling spouse the woman will have children until it either kills her or she mentally breaks down.

Well it isn’t right to treat anyone like an object…maybe Mrs. Sanger should have met with the husbands and taught them to love their wives as Christ …(oh she didn’t care about that.)

 

[silentstar]

Coerced sex is just as bad as rape, and if a woman finds herself in that situation she needs to get out of it.

In this situation change often needs to happen incrementally - there are times when a woman suddenly leaves due to some violence but for women who have become accustomed to that situation, they need to gradually and non-judgmentally be shown there are better alternatives. They may not even see it as abusive. Additionally they may not have a place to go or a way to support themselves. In the interim I think ABC Is preferable to risking your life on another pregnancy. Women in this situation also feel a responsibility to the children they already have.

A traditional marriage in which women sometimes don’t work outside the home can leave a woman being faced with living below the poverty line if she leaves, b/c she may not have much recent work experience and may only be viewed as qualified for very low-level jobs. I personally view being a SAHM as important work and I think employers should be creative in evaluating what a woman is capable of - but too many of them don’t, unfortunately.

 

[silentstar]

Well it isn’t right to treat anyone like an object…maybe Mrs. Sanger should have met with the husbands and taught them to love their wives as Christ …(oh she didn’t care about that.)

She was trying to give options to women, not try to change men. “But I love him and I can change him” is a fiction a lot of women tell themselves. Many women can’t change the way their husbands feel and if they can’t do it I don’t see how Sanger could have managed it. A man’s home is his castle and all that.

 

[silentstar]

In the marriages where I’ve seen this the woman went and stayed with her parents for a night or two and then returned. I became involved because I lived nearby but there is little that I can do to help. It’s situations like that that make me glad I’m not a catholic woman.

My parents’ marriage is like this so I saw it although the abuse was mental, emotional, and financial and not really physical. However it was abuse - violent topics discussed in an intimidating way were a daily occurrence although it was not exactly direct threats we knew to stay in line.

In addition my mother almost died during her 7th pregnancy, attempted against medical advice, at 5 months she had toxic shock and multiple organ failure. She was in the hospital for 2 weeks and I think probably had long-term psychological and maybe physical damage.

I have read and talked to people about DV and in defense of Catholics, it is being found that traumatic brain injury is a factor in why women can have trouble leaving. Being hit can cause brain injury and the situation may not lead to getting prompt medical care. Brain injury can impair judgment in ways that are subtle and long-term. It can be treated but needs to be seen for what it is, that the woman may have neurological/physical issues in addition to psychological ones, in my opinion.

Recently Bishops have released some pretty firm statements against DV and affirming the value of women.

 

[silentstar]

Please don’t make assumptions.

My stepsister and her husband have no kids, even though they’ve been married eight years. You know why? They’ve struggled with infertility their whole marriage and are currently trying to adopt. If you saw them at your parish, you’d assume they were contracepting.

My sister and her husband are Catholic. They are currently pregnant with their second child. My sister had four miscarriages between her oldest son and her new baby. But if they were in your parish, you’d assume they were contracepting between their son and this new baby.

You can’t know what couples are struggling with so PLEASE don’t make unfounded judgements. We are called to judge justly, not rashly.

I’m sorry for their suffering. Pregnancy loss and infertility are difficult issues, that’s great about the new baby. I know that doesn’t make up for the miscarriages but it’s great that worked out.

 

[wanner47]

In the marriages where I’ve seen this the woman went and stayed with her parents for a night or two and then returned. I became involved because I lived nearby but there is little that I can do to help. It’s situations like that that make me glad I’m not a catholic woman.

So your solution is to give the woman contraception so the abuse can continue unchecked and unabated?

If a woman is being abused she needs to change her situation and we, as a society, need to empower her to do that. The *last *thing we need to do is throw contraception at her and tell her to keep taking the abuse as long as she doesn’t have any more kids.

 

[1holycatholic]

Your number is from 2002. Infertility rates have risen sharply in the last 10 years.

Through 2009 fertility rates fell, except for women over 40 where they rose. (Source CDC)

Fertility rates are falling because women are contracepting and deferring attempts to get pregnant until later in life. But the fertility rate isn’t the same thing as the infertility rate. There doesn’t seem to be any newer figures on infertility in the United States, at least none that are credible.

In any case it would need to be a massive change in order to make your point. If a massive increase in infertility had occurred it would have made the news, and there aren’t any articles about it.

 

[1holycatholic]

I have read and talked to people about DV and in defense of Catholics, it is being found that traumatic brain injury is a factor in why women can have trouble leaving. Being hit can cause brain injury and the situation may not lead to getting prompt medical care. Brain injury can impair judgment in ways that are subtle and long-term. It can be treated but needs to be seen for what it is, that the woman may have neurological/physical issues in addition to psychological ones, in my opinion.

Recently Bishops have released some pretty firm statements against DV and affirming the value of women.

What do you mean by DV? Dei Verbum?

 

[Serap]

What do you mean by DV? Dei Verbum?

Domestic Violence

 

[1holycatholic]

Domestic Violence

Thanks.

 

[kimmielittle]

She was trying to give options to women, not try to change men. .

She was not. Margret Sanger was a racist - bigot - who embraced eugenics. She was not about women and choice - She was about controlling who is worthy In her views ] to live.

It is a vicious cycle; ignorance breeds poverty and poverty breeds ignorance. There is only one cure for both, and that is to stoop breeding these things. Stop bringing to birth children whose inheritance cannot be one of health or intelligence. Stop bringing into the world children whose parents cannot provide for them. -Margret Sanger

While Planned Parenthood’s current apologists try to place some distance between the eugenics and birth control movements, history definitively says otherwise. The eugenic theme figured prominently in the Birth Control Review, which Sanger founded in 1917. She published such articles as “Some Moral Aspects of Eugenics” (June 1920), “The Eugenic Conscience” (February 1921), “The purpose of Eugenics” (December 1924), “Birth Control and Positive Eugenics” (July 1925), “Birth Control: The True Eugenics” (August 1928), and many others.

At a March 1925 international birth control gathering in New York City, a speaker warned of the menace posed by the “black” and “yellow” peril. The man was not a Nazi or Klansman; he was Dr. S. Adolphus Knopf, a member of Margaret Sanger’s American Birth Control League (ABCL), which along with other groups eventually became known as Planned Parenthood.

Sanger’s other colleagues included avowed and sophisticated racists. One, Lothrop Stoddard, was a Harvard graduate and the author of The Rising Tide of Color against White Supremacy. Stoddard was something of a Nazi enthusiast who described the eugenic practices of the Third Reich as “scientific” and “humanitarian.” And Dr. Harry Laughlin, another Sanger associate and board member for her group, spoke of purifying America’s human “breeding stock” and purging America’s “bad strains.” These “strains” included the “shiftless, ignorant, and worthless class of antisocial whites of the South.”

A good read: Especially if Catholic

blackgenocide.org/sanger02.html

 

[silentstar]

What do you mean by DV? Dei Verbum?

Sorry, domestic violence. While at times the Church like anyone else can be less than supportive - I think there is often far more support than many people think or fear is the case. Many female victims (who are more likely to be physically injured) are used to abuse and may have brain injury issues from either an adult relationship, or child abuse. This is not everyone and women should not be judged that way but there are rehabilitation techniques that can help mild problems with focus or concentration or etc.

joanofarc has linked to a bishops’ statement against domestic violence. I don’t have the statement but it’s pretty clear and supportive.

sorry, didn’t see Serap’s answer.

 

[Serap]

@Serap:

Don’t look at the intent to have children or not have children. It’s another issue, but it’s not where the distinction between NFP and ABC lies.

NFP works with the way God designed sex. ABC is designed to work against the way God designed sex. That’s the distinction.

Thanks. God designed it a certain way, yes. So why are so many Protestant churches (actually “all”) supporting ABC as a licit means to space births?

 

[silentstar]

Thanks. God designed it a certain way, yes. So why are so many Protestant churches (actually “all”) supporting ABC as a licit means to space births?

Actually I’m curious - has anyone ever found a document in which a Catholic and a Protestant (of any kind) debate this, in a civil way, with reference to Church history and not just personal opinion? I’d be interested in reading that if something exists.