Need good articles on contraception

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Poof

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I’m about to write a paper (for English class :D) on contraception and it’s failure as a measure towards the improvement of the quality of life of the general population. I’ll be posting a summary of what I plan to write in order to give you guys a general idea of my future paper.

In my country (the Philippines), the reproductive health bill is garnering a lot of controversy and attention, Pro-RH people usually put up these two arguments.
  1. Population manages population growth, thus, it improves the quality of life of the people.
    A good number of our poor are having sex irresponsibly in the sense that they produce more children despite knowing that they can’t afford to support them. The idea is that less mouths to feed = higher quality of life.
  2. Contraception, or condoms in particular, provides protection from STDS and there’s nothing wrong with that.
My objective in this paper is to prove that contraception fails as a measure towards the improvement of the quality of life of the general population because…

First, it leads to demographic crunches (China, Singapore, Europe etc) blah blah blah…The fact that contraception succeed’s in controlling population growth is irrelevant because it ultimately fails to solve its end goal, improving the quality of life of the population (because of demographic crunches).

Second, contraception does not solve the STD problem. In fact, it makes things worse because it promotes sexuality promiscuity under a false blanket of security…blah blah blah.

In conclusion, why not use NFP? Both contraception and NFP seek to do the same thing. However, why choose contraception over NFP when it leads to all of these problems, when NFP leads to no problems? While it may be true that contraception is more convenient because it requires no teaching, and just requires a simple “putting on”, NFP is the only real, concrete solution with no baggage whatsoever. The goverment plans to spend a considerable amount of money in its planned provisions of contraceptives, why not use this money to promote and educatethe masses about NFP. It may be inconvenient to start with but afterwards, everything’s a breeze and you don’t have to worry about demographic crunches or a rise in STDs…

That’s the summary of my paper, if anyone has some good reads that will help me, please share them! 😛 I remember reading a post on the forums comparing aids in the Phillippines and Thailand…and how the Philippines promoted abstinence while Thailand promoted contraception and now their STD rates are 50 times higher than ours. If that person is to reading this, I would greatly appreciate it if you would share your source with me. 👍 Suggestions are also welcome. Thanks!
 
Poof said:
My objective in this paper is to prove the contraception failure as a measure towards the improvement of the quality of life of the general population because…
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Take care with this approach. It might be correct that contraception improves the quality of life regarding material issues, then you would try to prove something that is not true.
And robbery combined with murder or slaughtering the poor will also often improve the average wealth of the survivors.
 
I posted a thread about some correlations with contraception that might be helpful (to use the US as a comparison). I’ll go find it and post a link here.
 
carn said:
Take care with this approach. It might be correct that contraception improves the quality of life regarding material issues, then you would try to prove something that is not true.
And robbery combined with murder or slaughtering the poor will also often improve the average wealth of the survivors.
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Sorry, but what did you mean when you said “then you would try to prove something that is not true”? I see your point about killing poor people would also improve the average wealth of the survivors but I don’t see how that relates to using contraception… 😃
 
Poof said:
Sorry, but what did you mean when you said “then you would try to prove something that is not true”? 😃
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The threadstarter seems to be convinced that contraception reduces the average wealth level and wants to prove that. But it might be opposite, then his attempt will fail and likely, as he is emotionallly bound to prefer it being otherwise, he will subconciously misinterpret or alter facts.
 
Poof said:
Sorry, but what did you mean when you said “then you would try to prove something that is not true”? 😃
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I think what carn is saying is that, since many people have differing definitions of “quality of life”, that you may not be able to prove that contraception does not improve “quality of life”. If a person contracepts and does not conceive, and this leads to that person being able to have more “me-time” or more materilal possessions…and if these things are what the person considers as “quality of life”, then that person would never be convinced that contraception didn’t improve his/her quality of life.

Here’s the link I mentioned:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=645053
 
ahs said:
I think what carn is saying is that, since many people have differing definitions of “quality of life”, that you may not be able to prove that contraception does not improve “quality of life”. If a person contracepts and does not conceive, and this leads to that person being able to have more “me-time” or more materilal possessions…and if these things are what the person considers as “quality of life”, then that person would never be convinced that contraception didn’t improve his/her quality of life.

Here’s the link I mentioned:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=645053
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Alright, thanks for explaining :D. Well, when the pro-RH people say “quality of life” they usually refer how well, or to what extent a person’s basic needs are satisfied and not the amount of “me-time” I have or the amount of money I can spend for myself. When these people say quality of life, they usually say it in regards to a family, the parents, and how much they can provide for themselves and their children. Like in a family of 10, a single meal will be divided by 10. However, in a family of 4, a single meal will only be divided by four (thus, the needs of the four when it comes to nutrition are better satisfied). Instead of having 10 people who had little too eat and are still hungry, you now have 4 people who are full and satisfied). Similarly in education, a family of 10 may only have enough money to send their children to go to less-superior-school x (they might not even afford to send all of the children) However, if this family were smaller then they could probably send all of their children to more-superior-school y. The problem is, a good number of the poor people here are irresponsibly having sex…producing more children even if they know that they cant adequately provide for them. Here’s where contraception comes into the picture. With contraception, families can now have sex responsibly, without the consequence of producing a child. If they want to have children, they can do away with the contraceptives. If they don’t want to have children but want to maintain that intimacy between them, then they could use the contraceptives. This is the argument I’m facing.

Also, thanks for the link I’ll check it out as well.
 
You need to define “quality of life.”
If I were doing a paper on this for the US, I would be comparing teen pregnancy rates prior to the birth control pill and after. You may want to compare teen pregnancy rates in your country with teen pregnancy rates in countries that have free access to contraceptives.

You also might want to look into the book “Selfish Reasons for Having more kids” amazon.com/Selfish-Reasons-Have-More-Kids/dp/046501867X
Its not a perfect book. Honestly there are aspects of the book that I can’t stand, but he gives a strong defense for large families.

Another thing to consider is that countries with very small family sizes tend to embrace materialism. You’ll find many articles that talk about the wonders of having a small family. Ultimately it comes down to values. JPII said that children teach each other while parents’ act as a guide. When determining your family size, you should consider that you want to create a community for your children. He states that having two children is like having two only children. So it feels like more work, but once you’ve built the community, it gets easier. Sources that support large families really view materialism as a success. Its all about how much money you have, what opportunities you have for career advancement, and how well you are able to provide for your material needs. It doesn’t look at how broken families today are, at our divorce rate and how common depression is in the US. Granted, I have no idea how common depression is in other countries.

I know this isn’t a lot of date for you to use. Rather, its to give you some thoughts. Your data depends on your definition.
 
Okay, something just hit me…one of my core arguments is that widespread use and acceptance of contraceptives will lead to a population collapse…just as we see in Europe, China, Singapore, etc. My question is, by promoting NFP as an alternative, wouldn’t it also lead to a demographic collapse? They both provide a way to have sex without the consequence of pregnancy.
 
Poof said:
Like in a family of 10, a single meal will be divided by 10. However, in a family of 4, a single meal will only be divided by four (thus, the needs of the four when it comes to nutrition are better satisfied). Instead of having 10 people who had little too eat and are still hungry, you now have 4 people who are full and satisfied). Similarly in education, a family of 10 may only have enough money to send their children to go to less-superior-school x (they might not even afford to send all of the children) However, if this family were smaller then they could probably send all of their children to more-superior-school y. The problem is, a good number of the poor people here are irresponsibly having sex…producing more children even if they know that they cant adequately provide for them. Here’s where contraception comes into the picture. With contraception, families can now have sex responsibly, without the consequence of producing a child. If they want to have children, they can do away with the contraceptives. If they don’t want to have children but want to maintain that intimacy between them, then they could use the contraceptives.

This is the argument I’m facing.
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What i tried to say is that the argument you are facing might simply be correct.
Having 4 children instead of 10 will often increase material wealth and taking contraception instead of abstinence might be less problematic for the couple.
 
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