So...should artificial birth control be illegal too?

[Rence]

I see you like putting words in my mouth. Laws, as I said, are for the smooth functioning of society. We drive on the right because it is a law and it is a law because if people drove on whichever side they pleased we would be in eternal gridlock. This is not a moral issue. The entire population of Great Britian is not immoral because they drive on the left.

I’m saying the point of a moral code is to develop virtue. Any religion that needs to turn its moral virtues into laws to get its members to conform is a wimpy religion. Catholicism has never been a wimpy religion. St Francis wasn’t required by law to adopt the virtues of poverty, chastity, and obedience. He undertook the rigors of these virtues of his own free will and for that we look up to him as a paragon of virtue.

I agree that the world should not be subject to the laws of the Catholic Church (or any religion), but I don’t think that a religion (or culture) is wimpy by trying to get non-members as well as members to conform. I think it’s natural for religions, cultures, or other communities to want everyone to conform to their rules. It’s a bit overbearing? maybe? but not wimpy.

ABC is against the rules of the Church for reasons that non-catholics don’t agree with. And due to that, I don’t agree that it should (or probably ever will) be made illegal. Besides, there are too many other legitimate reasons for being on ABCs besides contraception - whether conservative people believe it or not, because with all due respect it doesn’t matter what they think.

I know we all live in different places and are surrounded by different peoples. But where I am, the majority of people use ABCs, even Catholics. I just don’t see ABCs being illegal. It doesn’t matter if it used to be illegal, they’re legal now, and used by many. They’re as easy to get a hold of as M&Ms. People aren’t just going to stop because Catholics want them to.

I think that when some people try to take things to extremes, it makes people who are on the fence, jump to the other side. For me, the more people press for the abolition of ABCs, the more I’ll fight for it to be legal. Why? Because there are people who 1) don’t believe in the rules of the Church and as such should not be subject to them and 2) people who need them for non-contraceptive purposes. You’re not going to make people more Catholic by enforcing Catholic rules on them. You’re just going to make them hate the Church more and rebel more. If you want people to stop using ABCs, you should educate them about ABCs and NFP and it should be their choice. When the choice comes from THEM, then it has merit. Forcing people to do what you want is just going to backfire in the end. Just MOHO.

Why do I fight so hard for freedom of choice? Because I value mine. If I live by the rules of the Church it’s because I choose to. I won’t live where I am subject to the laws of someone else’s religion. Therefore, it’s only right for me to protect someone else’s choice.

 

[edwest2]

First, artificial birth control should be illegal.
And for what reason, other than forcing people to convert to Catholicism, should condoms be made illegal?

What? Does it say on the package: For use by non-Catholics only? Self control. What’s wrong with that? Too many people are brainwashed into believing they need to have sex all the time. Marriage is the only situation where sex should occur. Too few people take that seriously. Making the girl pregnant is a serious matter outside of marriage but it’s been turned into something irrelevant.

Who decides when you have sex? The State? The Church? Who is in control of you?

Peace,
Ed

 

[Christopher68]

So, sin is okay if both people consent to it???

I didn’t say it was ‘okay’. However, it is abundantly clear that not all sins require laws. After all, we don’t live in a thoecracy (thank God).

 

[Timbothefiveth]

Of course not, I don’t think anyone should be forced to get sterilized or have an abortion. I was simply responding to someone’s comment about unwanted children. I don’t think decreasing crime is worth limiting people’s freedoms, I’d rather live in a society that had both freedom and crime.

But you’re willing to kill people. Don’t you see the irony here? BTW, you didn’t answer the second question in my post.

If abortion is illegal those who are determined to get them will get them illegally which will increase the incidence of malpractice.

If murder is illegal people will kill witnesses. Should we legalise other forms of murder? If stealing is illegal, people will kill witnesses. Your logic says we should legalise stealing.

There are religions other than Catholicism out there that would love to turn their morality into law. What if Islam took over and imposed their morals?

By this logic: We need to get rid of forms of government. Sure, having a republic might work fine, but you what another form of government is? Communism. That’s right, if you support any government at all, you risk communism! The difference is that Catholics are right.

That’s why I say Catholics shouldn’t impose their morals on others; because I don’t want those other religions to force their morals on me.

Let’s say I don’t like you imposing the 4th commandment on me. Should I then be allowed to murder people?

Is it virtuous to refrain from commiting a sin that is impossible to commit? No.
Virtue means you could commit the sin, but you develop the strength to resist it.
You want to eliminate sin by eliminating the possibility to sin.
You want to make it easy. Lock you in a room by yourself and you can’t fornicate.

But you still don’t commit the sin. There is nothing wrong with this. It’s like not going to a house full of ungaurded goods if you are a kleptomaniac. You should try to avoid tempting situations.

I’m saying the point of a moral code is to develop virtue. Any religion that needs to turn its moral virtues into laws to get its members to conform is a wimpy religion.

But now you’re not allowing me to develop the virtue to not murder even when it’s not illegal! BTW, abortion does stop society from functioning, for those who aren’t born.

Who is in control of you?

This is misleading. The question should be “who is in charge of you?”. The answer of course, is God.

 

[Priscilla_Ann]

What? Does it say on the package: For use by non-Catholics only? Self control. What’s wrong with that? Too many people are brainwashed into believing they need to have sex all the time. Marriage is the only situation where sex should occur. Too few people take that seriously. Making the girl pregnant is a serious matter outside of marriage but it’s been turned into something irrelevant.

Who decides when you have sex? The State? The Church? Who is in control of you?

Peace,
Ed

So you want to make condoms and other artificial birth control illegal? I can’t wait to hear how you’re going to enforce that without violating people’s privacy? Or do you believe that the Catholic Church or the government should be in people’s bedrooms? Do you really understand where you’re going with this?

 

[angelerulastiel]

Reported Maternal Deaths from YEAR Illegal Abortion in U.S.

1940 1,679
1950 316
1960 289
1966 120 First State Legalized in 1967
1970 128
1972 39 Supreme Court Decision in 1973
1977 21
1981 8

I just feel the need to point out that it says Illegal. I would expect the number of deaths from Illegal abortions to go down when abortion is legalized. In most cases why would you have an illegal abortion when you can have a legal one? Women would be dying of legal abortions instead of illegal. For this to be a useful number you would have to compare the TOTAL number of maternal deaths from all abortions.

 

[gardenswithkids]

“secular laws”? Who created this term? Laws exist for the good of the entire community. Good laws should follow from good and moral choices, not value neutral choices. Police covering crimes like prostitution used to be called the Vice Squad.

Virtue is good - vice is bad. It’s that simple.

Peace,
Ed

Ed, I think you missed the point of my post, which was a reply to someone else.

I used the term “secular laws” to distinguish laws of the state from other types of laws. (natural law, moral law). “State laws” would have been a better term to use. Yes, laws of the state exist for the good of the entire community or to protect the weak. As I notes, abortion and no-fault divorce and even contraception are bad for the community. Despite Roe v. Wade’s cry of “privacy”, abortion is not a private action. It affects a child, a family and ultimately all of society. Same with divorce–it affects families and ultimately society.

The reason to prohibit or restrict things like divorce and abortion is not simply because they are immoral or against Church teachings. (No one here suggested making it illegal to miss Mass on Sunday.) They should be prohibited because they harm people in our society.

 

[gardenswithkids]

So you want to make condoms and other artificial birth control illegal? I can’t wait to hear how you’re going to enforce that without violating people’s privacy? Or do you believe that the Catholic Church or the government should be in people’s bedrooms? Do you really understand where you’re going with this?

Do you understand where we came from on this? Contraception was once illegal.

I don’t know the full details of how it was enforced, but I bet condom machines weren’t decorating at public restrooms. I believe enforcement of laws against contraception may have been aimed more at physicians and pharmaceticals. The case of Griswold vs. Connecticut showed a fine of $100 (or something like that) to the director of Planned Parenthood for distributing contraception.

Of course, I don’t want the government in my bedroom. Nor do I want contraception in my bedroom. Nor do I want total strangers noticing the number of children I have and then feeling it appropriate to recommend that my husband and I use contraception.

 

[Jermosh]

Abortion;: The myths, the realities, and the arguments by Germain Gabriel Grisez

I am out of he office this week fso i dont have acess to my copy perhaps you local library has a copy. Her book is heavily footnoted and substatiates all the numbers she gives.

As far as materal deaths:

Year Deaths
1940 1,407
945 744
1950 631
1955 224
1960 251
1965 201
1970 119
Source: “Induced termination of pregnancy before and after Roe v. Wade” JAMA, 12/9/92, vol. 208, no. 22, p. 3231-3239.

I was looking for actual abortions. Plus I think there is the issue of deaths being mislabled due to possible scandle. It seems to get a true number on actual abortions previos to RvW we need to rely on foresic statistics, some are showing a increase, others a lot less.

 

[Priscilla_Ann]

Do you understand where we came from on this? Contraception was once illegal.

I don’t know the full details of how it was enforced, but I bet condom machines weren’t decorating at public restrooms. I believe enforcement of laws against contraception may have been aimed more at physicians and pharmaceticals. The case of Griswold vs. Connecticut showed a fine of $100 (or something like that) to the director of Planned Parenthood for distributing contraception.

Of course, I don’t want the government in my bedroom. Nor do I want contraception in my bedroom. Nor do I want total strangers noticing the number of children I have and then feeling it appropriate to recommend that my husband and I use contraception.

Yes, contraception was once illegal. There was also a time when women did not have the right to vote. Do you really want to go back to the way things once were? Sure, you can fine people who use or sell condoms. What would that really accomplish? And if no condoms are available, are you ready to deal with the consequences of that? Unwanted children and an increase in STD’s?

I don’t care about the number of children you have. Have a dozen or two, if you choose. And that is the point. You want to choose, but you don’t want anyone else to be able to make different choices than you do. You deal with the consequences of your choices; let others deal with the consequences of theirs.

 

[kage_ar]

So you want to make condoms and other artificial birth control illegal? I can’t wait to hear how you’re going to enforce that without violating people’s privacy? Or do you believe that the Catholic Church or the government should be in people’s bedrooms? Do you really understand where you’re going with this?

History did not begin when you were born.

Prior to the 1960’s, birth control was illegal. Morality went down the toilet, abortion became as serious as piercing one’s ears and marriages crumbled. In order to restore society, we are morally bound to work to restore these moral laws to the books.

How would it be enforced? How do we enforce drug laws - it is against the law to manufacture or sell them.

 

[estesbob]

I was looking for actual abortions. Plus I think there is the issue of deaths being mislabled due to possible scandle. It seems to get a true number on actual abortions previos to RvW we need to rely on foresic statistics, some are showing a increase, others a lot less.

Gremain Grisez handles the argument that not all the deaths were reported quite well in the book I referenced. The simple fact is that there are not that many realtively speaking,deaths of women of child bearing age and the ovverwehming majority of their deaths were from readily identifable causes-accidents , cancer, heart attakcs, etc. The primary cause of maternal death from abortion was infection-maternal deaths dropped sustantially with the introduction of anti-biotics in the 40s.

 

[gardenswithkids]

Yes, contraception was once illegal… Sure, you can fine people who use or sell condoms. What would that really accomplish? And if no condoms are available, are you ready to deal with the consequences of that? Unwanted children and an increase in STD’s? …

STD’s and unwanted pregnancy would not neccesarily increase. Prior to the wide-spread availability of contraception, people had a notion that sex can get a woman pregnant. Here’s a article recently written by a former pro-choice atheist that expressed it well: lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/jan/10012801.html

(from the Commentary by Jennifer Fulwiler )

*Until a couple of years ago, I was militantly pro-choice. When I heard people make anti-abortion statements, it filled me with a white-hot anger that I could barely contain. Behind my views was a buried but unspoken sense that there was something inherently unfair about being a woman, and abortion was a key to maintaining any semblance of a level playing field in the world. *

*My peers and I were taught not that sex creates babies, but that unprotected sex creates babies. We absorbed through cultural osmosis the idea that every normal person will have sex at some point in his or her life, and that the sexual act, by default, has no significance outside the relationship between the two people involved. In this worldview, when unexpected pregnancies came up, it was seen as a sort of betrayal by the woman’s body. My friends and I lamented the awful position every woman was in: Unexpected pregnancies were like lightning strikes, and when one of these unpredictable events did occur, there were no good options for dealing with them. Abortion wasn’t ideal – even we acknowledged that it was a violating procedure that was hard on a woman’s body – but what choice did anyone have? To not have the option of terminating surprise pregnancies when they came up out of nowhere would mean being a slave to one’s biology. *

My staunch support of these views did not soften until a few years ago, when a religious conversion after a life of atheism led me to the Catholic Church. I began researching the ancient Judeo-Christian understanding of human sexuality, in which the sexual act is seen as being inextricably entwined with its potential for creating new human life. The more I considered this point of view, the more I questioned my long-held views. In fact, I started to see the catastrophic mistake our society had made when we started believing that the life-giving potential of the sexual act could be safely forgotten about as long as people use contraception…

…In an article published by the Guttmacher Institute’s Family Planning Perspectives, John A. Ross estimates that a woman using contraception with a 1 percent risk of failure has a 70 percent chance of experiencing an unwanted pregnancy over the course of 10 years. Guttmacher also reports that more than half of women seeking abortions were using a contraceptive method when they got pregnant. …

…I don’t care about the number of children you have. Have a dozen or two, if you choose. And that is the point. You want to choose, but you don’t want anyone else to be able to make different choices than you do. You deal with the consequences of your choices; let others deal with the consequences of theirs.

I don’t mean to high-jack the thread, but I make the point those of us who choose the “alternative life-style” of having a several biological children are exposed to significant hypocrisy of many who claim to be “pro-choice.” A popular magazine asked on its cover just this week, “How Many Children are Too Many?” I deal with the consequences of my choices–and when I choose to engage in marital relations with my husband, I recognize that sometimes that choice results in pregnancy.

Far too many women fail to recognize that sex can get them pregnant. Then, (paraphrasing from Ms. Fulwiler’s commentary), they react to pregnancy as if they were randomly struck by lightening.

 

[SugarMagnolia]

What? Does it say on the package: For use by non-Catholics only? Self control. What’s wrong with that? Too many people are brainwashed into believing they need to have sex all the time. Marriage is the only situation where sex should occur. Too few people take that seriously. Making the girl pregnant is a serious matter outside of marriage but it’s been turned into something irrelevant.

Who decides when you have sex? The State? The Church? Who is in control of you?

Peace,
Ed

Does it say on the package: For use by non-Catholics only?
No, it is not the condom manufacturer’s responsibility to tell Catholics what the Church teaches.

 

[SugarMagnolia]

I agree that the world should not be subject to the laws of the Catholic Church (or any religion), but I don’t think that a religion (or culture) is wimpy by trying to get non-members as well as members to conform. I think it’s natural for religions, cultures, or other communities to want everyone to conform to their rules. It’s a bit overbearing? maybe? but not wimpy.

ABC is against the rules of the Church for reasons that non-catholics don’t agree with. And due to that, I don’t agree that it should (or probably ever will) be made illegal. Besides, there are too many other legitimate reasons for being on ABCs besides contraception - whether conservative people believe it or not, because with all due respect it doesn’t matter what they think.

I know we all live in different places and are surrounded by different peoples. But where I am, the majority of people use ABCs, even Catholics. I just don’t see ABCs being illegal. It doesn’t matter if it used to be illegal, they’re legal now, and used by many. They’re as easy to get a hold of as M&Ms. People aren’t just going to stop because Catholics want them to.

I think that when some people try to take things to extremes, it makes people who are on the fence, jump to the other side. For me, the more people press for the abolition of ABCs, the more I’ll fight for it to be legal. Why? Because there are people who 1) don’t believe in the rules of the Church and as such should not be subject to them and 2) people who need them for non-contraceptive purposes. You’re not going to make people more Catholic by enforcing Catholic rules on them. You’re just going to make them hate the Church more and rebel more. If you want people to stop using ABCs, you should educate them about ABCs and NFP and it should be their choice. When the choice comes from THEM, then it has merit. Forcing people to do what you want is just going to backfire in the end. Just MOHO.

Why do I fight so hard for freedom of choice? Because I value mine. If I live by the rules of the Church it’s because I choose to. I won’t live where I am subject to the laws of someone else’s religion. Therefore, it’s only right for me to protect someone else’s choice.

**I think that when some people try to take things to extremes, it makes people who are on the fence, jump to the other side.

You’re not going to make people more Catholic by enforcing Catholic rules on them. You’re just going to make them hate the Church more and rebel more. If you want people to stop using ABCs, you should educate them about ABCs and NFP and it should be their choice. When the choice comes from THEM, then it has merit. Forcing people to do what you want is just going to backfire in the end. Just MOHO.**

I agree with this. In fact, I believe, our licentious society is a response to the puritanical mind-set of the past. Thus does one form of extremism result in the opposite form of extremism. When Catholics proclaim that condoms should be criminalized and that anyone who has premarital sex is as sinful as a mass-murderer or child-molester, what is the reasonable person to do?

What you’ve written above actually describes my current position as I return to the faith after a many decades long absence. I have really gotten sick of the licentiousness I see all around me: gays all over television saying their lifestyle is natural, young women who think it’s normal to have many baby-daddys, advertisements in public places that are basically soft porn. So I turned back to the Catholic community where people do not condone this sort of behavior and I find the opposite extreme here.

 

[Christopher68]

Prior to the 1960’s, birth control was illegal. Morality went down the toilet, abortion became as serious as piercing one’s ears and marriages crumbled. In order to restore society, we are morally bound to work to restore these moral laws to the books.

How would it be enforced? How do we enforce drug laws - it is against the law to manufacture or sell them.

The war on drugs has been an unmitigated disaster. If that is your rationale, I highly suggest you learn more about it. This link is a good place to start:

harrybrowne.org/GLO/DrugWar.htm

 

[SugarMagnolia]

Yes, contraception was once illegal. There was also a time when women did not have the right to vote. Do you really want to go back to the way things once were? Sure, you can fine people who use or sell condoms. What would that really accomplish? And if no condoms are available, are you ready to deal with the consequences of that? Unwanted children and an increase in STD’s?

I don’t care about the number of children you have. Have a dozen or two, if you choose. And that is the point. You want to choose, but you don’t want anyone else to be able to make different choices than you do. You deal with the consequences of your choices; let others deal with the consequences of theirs.

Your common sense is refreshing.

 

[estesbob]

The war on drugs has been an unmitigated disaster. If that is your rationale, I highly suggest you learn more about it. This link is a good place to start:

harrybrowne.org/GLO/DrugWar.htm

We agree on this. I think the war in drugs has done more to erode our civil liberties than anything else on the the last 40years. Doesnt have anything to do with abortion, howerver but if you want to start a thread suggesting the decriminalization of drug use we would be on the same side!

 

[edwest2]

So you want to make condoms and other artificial birth control illegal? I can’t wait to hear how you’re going to enforce that without violating people’s privacy? Or do you believe that the Catholic Church or the government should be in people’s bedrooms? Do you really understand where you’re going with this?

It appears the idea of self control does not appeal to you.

Peace,
Ed

 

[edwest2]

The war on drugs has been an unmitigated disaster. If that is your rationale, I highly suggest you learn more about it. This link is a good place to start:

harrybrowne.org/GLO/DrugWar.htm

The war on drugs has been successful. It’s too bad the war on cigarettes has gotten such a late start. Everyone should be taught that both are dangerous and that illegal drugs can ruin lives and drive up health care costs. And treatment is fine but that’s like saying, “I’ll take illegal drugs until I’m so messed up that I’ll need treatment.” “Or, I’ll shoot myself in the foot just for kicks then I’ll go the hospital and get it patched up.”

Peace,
Ed