Pro-life Protestants and birth control pills

[mark_a]

This is not a Protestant bashing thread.

The area I live in has at least 3 local Protestant broadcast TV stations.

I have never heard on any of these stations about the abortive effects of birth control pills.

These stations are not particularly anti-Catholic.

Please tell me your views. Are birth control pills ok? How about ru486?

 

[ALLFORHIM]

Hi,

I never knew anything about birth control pills causing abortions until I asked some questions. A catholic was asking me about birth control. My minister told me that there are some birth control pills that cause spontaneous abortion without the woman even knowing.

The doctors dont give you the info. unless you ask. There are birth control pills that do not cause abortions. It is up to the person to ask the questions because doctors arent going to freely give up the info.

 

[jonfan]

Hi AFH,
Catholic teaching is against birth control. However if the woman needs to use a birth control for health reasons that is accepted from my understanding.

God bless,
Jon

 

[awantz]

Please tell me your views. Are birth control pills ok? How about ru486?

I have only investigated some birth control pills that can cause an abortion and as soon as I found that out I said, I will never even think about taking those birth control pill from this point on." As far as the ru486 pill. I am definatly aginst it. I was one of many people trying to keep it from being approved. I just wish we had succeded.

 

[dosdog]

This is not a Protestant bashing thread.

The area I live in has at least 3 local Protestant broadcast TV stations.

I have never heard on any of these stations about the abortive effects of birth control pills.

These stations are not particularly anti-Catholic.

Please tell me your views. Are birth control pills ok? How about ru486?

up until 1930, all Protestant denominations agreed with the Catholic Church’s teaching condemning contraception as sinful. At its 1930 Lambeth Conference, the Anglican church, swayed by growing social pressure, announced that contraception would be allowed in some circumstances. Soon the Anglican church completely caved in, allowing contraception across the board. Since then, Protestant denominations have followed suit.

The Bible mentions two forms of contraception specifically and condemns both. Onan to avoid fulfilling his duty according to the ancient Jewish law of fathering children for one’s dead brother.(Gen. 38:8–10).
(Deuteronomy 23:1) condemns birth control by sterilization.These were the methods of male sterilization available in those days.

 

[mark_a]

As far as the ru486 pill. I am definatly aginst it. I was one of many people trying to keep it from being approved. I just wish we had succeded.

Thanks for your brave stand.

My understanding is that all chemical birth control for women (pills/patches, not barriers and 'cides) can, in varying degrees, create unfavorable conditions for a fertilized egg to implant and continue developement.

Are there any birth control pills that do not cause spontanious abortion at least some of the time?

 

[Syele]

Thanks for your brave stand.

My understanding is that all chemical birth control for women (pills/patches, not barriers and 'cides) can, in varying degrees, create unfavorable conditions for a fertilized egg to implant and continue developement.

Are there any birth control pills that do not cause spontanious abortion at least some of the time?

No pills/patches/shots for birth control that I know of are safe. I used the pill years ago, before I knew of the abortificant properties they have. I’m not familiar with any information about spermicides/Barrier methods being abortificant.

Nothing was ever taught to me in my protestant churches about birth control being wrong, but when ru486 came out… it was taught as very wrong. I think many protestants just don’t know the pill is an abortificant and use it out of ignorance. I mentioned it to a friend of mine and she was vehement, “THAT’S NOT TRUE!” So Ignorant or in denial.

I am definately against any form of Birth control that can cause abortions.

 

[chutton]

This topic really bothers me. I was never taught that the b/c pill was an abortient (whatever that is called!). When I got married I just naturally went onto the pill, as this is what everyone in our church did (even my own mother in her earlier years). Then I read an article in a local paper outlining that it may have this abortive (?) effect. It began to create some concern in my mind at this point. I spoke to my doctor about it and asked point blank if this was true and was told a definite no. So, I just kind of pushed this to the back of my mind. I went off the pill when we were ready for my husband to go for a vasectomy. This was all about the time I started looking into the position of the catholic church on certain issues. It was at this point that I began to get concerned that we were really off track in this regard. Now my husband and I feel a little bit of uncertainty about whether the vasectomy was within God’s will. To make a long story short, I feel guity for these things and have repented to God. My husband and I have agreed we will simply not go for further testing (in regards to the vasectomy’s effectiveness) and will let God do as He pleases. But it really bothers me that the protestant church hasn’t taken a stand on this issue. In fact I don’t think they really think about it at all or dig into it. There are some within the protestant church that encourage the same practises as the catholic church in this regard…I just thought they were a little “whacko” until I started looking into things a bit further. Anyways, I will certainly be discussing these things with my daughters as they grow older.

 

[Jeanette_L]

The Catholic Church sounded the alarm early in the 20th century as to the logical progression of the devaluation of the human person, first by the rampant acceptance and use of birth control, next leading to legalized abortion and then finally on to euthanasia. It was in discovering this wisdom that I began to take the claims of Catholicism seriously. If you read Humanae Vite, well, the wisdom is astounding.

I couldn’t find this same insight concerning what would be the inevitable evil that would come from this wholesale abandonment of 4000 years of combined Judeo/Christian teaching among any of the other Christian churches, as a matter of fact, most are still in denial of the correlation, and this became a big red flag for me (one of many).

As an Evangelical, the topic of birth control was absolutely never discussed from any pulpit I had ever sat in front of. As a matter of fact, if a family had a lot of children, they more often than not were looked upon as though they were being at the least just a little looney, and at the most irresponsible, a completely non-Biblical position to take. The evil of abortion had become a frequent topic in some of the churches I had attended, but the link between birth control and abortion had never been made. I was astonished when I had come to see this link, and that no one in my Protestant/Evangelical circles was willing to even think on it. Especially given the Biblical evidence against birth control, I was so disheartened to realize that we were completely off track and no one seemed to notice or care.

I am a Catholic now, and very secure in knowing I made a great move!

 

[mark_a]

Syele, Chutton, Jeanette L,

Thanks for your great (name removed by moderator)ut.

I can’t speak for Catholics elsewhere, but in my area the word about birth control pills is not really coming from the pulpit. The task of spreading the word seems to have been “awarded” to Catholic TV, radio, print, and internet media.

The Catholic Church heirarchy seems to be telling everyone that will listen, but the majority of us Catholics just aren’t listening.

Why do you think the word is not getting out to Protestants about the pill?? There are so many great Protestant preachers out there. A few of them may be ignorant of the facts, but certainly most are not.

Is the problem that if one Protestant pastor tells the truth his flock will jump ship? There are several Orthodox who post here who accuse the Catholic Church of the same.

 

[HailMary]

Please read this:
catholiceducation.org/articles/sexuality/se0002.html

 

[Syele]

I spoke to my doctor about it and asked point blank if this was true and was told a definite no. So, I just kind of pushed this to the back of my mind.

Someone correct me if I’m wrong, cause I’m not well studied in this area but this is how I understood what all I read…

I think the reason you doctor said no Is a difference in belief about when it becomes a child. The pill causes abortion by not allowing the fertilized egg to implant in the womb. So Doctors say it didn’t abort because it was never implanted. I believe that it becomes a child at fertilization, not implantation. So if you don’t allow it to implant… it was a life that was not allowed to live or aborted.

 

[mark_a]

Someone correct me if I’m wrong, cause I’m not well studied in this area but this is how I understood what all I read…

I think the reason you doctor said no Is a difference in belief about when it becomes a child. The pill causes abortion by not allowing the fertilized egg to implant in the womb. So Doctors say it didn’t abort because it was never implanted. I believe that it becomes a child at fertilization, not implantation. So if you don’t allow it to implant… it was a life that was not allowed to live or aborted.

The devil is in the details. And the details are written by the drug companies.

 

[chutton]

Someone correct me if I’m wrong, cause I’m not well studied in this area but this is how I understood what all I read…

I think the reason you doctor said no Is a difference in belief about when it becomes a child. The pill causes abortion by not allowing the fertilized egg to implant in the womb. So Doctors say it didn’t abort because it was never implanted. I believe that it becomes a child at fertilization, not implantation. So if you don’t allow it to implant… it was a life that was not allowed to live or aborted.

I’ll clarify a few details. First of all, the newspaper that I was reading this information in (the first time I’d heard about the abortive effects of the pill) was being told from a catholic viewpoint. I was quite surprised to hear such a developped answer and I did understand the issue was the fact that the pill, at one stage of the hormones would be creating an undesirable condition for an already fertilized egg to implant and that the uterus would reject it… However I can’t remember how I worded my question to the doctor at the time. It was a number of years ago. And I don’t think I even wanted to really hear that information be acknowledged as true, sadly enough. I honestly can say that I thought those who were against birth control and had large families were a bit extreme and possibly even irresponsible. I think part of the issue is that it really impacts our lives as families and I think we tend to be a bit selfish in a lot of ways, trying to control a whole bunch of factors (financial, children that may be born with birth defects, ages of children etc. etc.) I am really curious how I would have done things had I really been armed with this info at the very beginning of marriage. I feel slightly hypocritcal being too vocal about it now as I didn’t even practise this when I was able to. And I still don’t really know what to think in terms of condom use and also vasectomies. The pill seems pretty clearly questionable morally to me as it does jeoparidze an already fertilized egg. Anyways, I’m rambling here.

 

[Jeanette_L]

Syele, Chutton, Jeanette L,

Thanks for your great (name removed by moderator)ut.

I can’t speak for Catholics elsewhere, but in my area the word about birth control pills is not really coming from the pulpit. The task of spreading the word seems to have been “awarded” to Catholic TV, radio, print, and internet media.

The Catholic Church heirarchy seems to be telling everyone that will listen, but the majority of us Catholics just aren’t listening.

Why do you think the word is not getting out to Protestants about the pill?? There are so many great Protestant preachers out there. A few of them may be ignorant of the facts, but certainly most are not.

Is the problem that if one Protestant pastor tells the truth his flock will jump ship? There are several Orthodox who post here who accuse the Catholic Church of the same.

I think in both camps it all comes down to comfort. The Catholic laity that disregard the Church teachings on birth control do so because they don’t want to add another layer of responsibility or burden or inconvenience to their lives. This is how our society has come to think of children and it permeates every group of people, even if they choose not to acknowlege their compliance with this attitude.

In the Protestant world (which varies to such extremes, it’s hard to put everyone into a single group), in the Evangelical world where I am most familiar, to have to admit that you may be dead wrong about such a critical aspect of human life and death, where it touches your faith at it’s foundation, well it would be earth shattering. I know because I experienced it. Everything that you felt you firmly knew and believed, because those you trusted to lead you, told you that you were safe in believing, it all suddenly is open to scrutiny. If the Evangelical leadership could be so wrong about something so critical, where else could they be wrong? If one domino falls, chances are, others are going to fall also. No one wants to start this scenario in motion, so you shut it out of your mind. You refuse to look at it further.

So, you may have some ministers out there who in their gut know that they may be wrong in not digging into this, but to open the can of worms is so frightening and risky, it takes more courage than most have. To stray from the “party” line, so to speak, would lay yourself open to broad criticism and possible ostrasization from the rest of your world as you know it, it can stop your heart just to think about it.

We need to pray for enlightenment and courage for the Christian world and it’s leaders, so Christians can be led in truth to live and act according to God’s plan for us.

 

[vladimir998]

If you have Protestant friends who are pro-life, but using the birth control pill, introduce them to the organization called Protestants Against Birth Control = missionariestopreborn.com/birthcontrol.htm

Also, there is a great little book by Charles Provan called THE BIBLE AND BIRTH CONTROL. Provan is a Protestant. He shows that birth control is unbiblical and against Protestant tradition.

 

[Jeanette_L]

If you have Protestant friends who are pro-life, but using the birth control pill, introduce them to the organization called Protestants Against Birth Control = missionariestopreborn.com/birthcontrol.htm

Also, there is a great little book by Charles Provan called THE BIBLE AND BIRTH CONTROL. Provan is a Protestant. He shows that birth control is unbiblical and against Protestant tradition.

What a great thing to learn! I will definitely make a note of this organization and the above mentioned book. It helps to have someone from their side agreeing with what you are discussing so as not to make it sound like a Catholic only issue, which is how it usually is dismissed.

Thanks for the info!

 

[vladimir998]

I am so glad I could be of service! I nearly forgot this book:

Open Embrace: A Protestant Couple Rethinks Contraception by Sam and Bethany Torode.

---

**From Publishers Weekly
**For such a short book, Open Embrace: A Protestant Couple Rethinks Contraception packs some serious punches. Authors Sam and Bethany Torode argue that all married Christians, not just Roman Catholics, need to seriously examine the widespread usage of contraception, which they feel is against God’s plan for creation. (Pregnancy is not a disease, they assert. Why vaccinate against it?) While supporting Natural Family Planning, which they define as informed abstinence, they also make a particularly uncompromising case for stay-at-home moms, which will probably irritate many readers. More controversially, they argue that a culture that worships sex without procreation will sacrifice its children through abortion, claiming that America’s increasing permissiveness about legalizing contraception in the 1960s led inexorably to Roe v. Wade in the 1970s. While it’s good to see some ecumenical diversity in the contraception debate, some of the basic arguments of this book are problematic.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

This review might be mixed, but it is from a secular source after all. This book is a real eye-opener for Protestants because most have never even thought about ANY of this.

 

[Syele]

bwahahahaha!! This part jsut struck me as funny…

     Only two things could convince a man to get a vasectomy reversal.         [LIST=1]

*]a radical restructuring of his beliefs, or
*]a nagging wife.

Seriously though… thanks for the link.

 

[mark_a]

While it’s good to see some ecumenical diversity in the contraception debate, some of the basic arguments of this book are problematic.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Do you know the problematic arguments of the book?

By the way, the Christianity Today websight has a few articles about NFP and such if you do a site search.