The real reason for abortion and contraception

[Serious]

No, your ananlogy is wrong. A married couple can engage in the marital act mostly for pleasure while still understanding that a baby may be conceived, even when it is unlikely; that would be like your idea of eating foods with little or no nutritional value.

Using certain types of contraception makes conception less likely but not impossible. Even that is “forbidden”. When the couple wishes to conceive they stop using contraception. When they do not wish to conceive they use it. It is their decison. Only in the deep South is there a “fine” saying: “the place of the woman is barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen”.

What using contraception is more like is what bulemics do: vomit their food so as to avoid the natural consequences of eating.

In ancient Rome it was a usual practice. But actually this is more like an abortion, and I was talking only about contraception.

Additionally, a person who does eat solely for pleasure too often or too much is in danger of falling into the sin of gluttony.

That is not relevant. We are discussing an imperfect analogy.

 

[St_Francis]

Using certain types of contraception makes conception less likely but not impossible. Even that is “forbidden”. When the couple wishes to conceive they stop using contraception. When they do not wish to conceive they use it. It is their decison.

Contraception is immoral. Using a less effective form does not make it less immoral.

Only in the deep South is there a “fine” saying: “the place of the woman is barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen”.

Gee, I’ve lived in the rural South for many years and have never heard anyone say that.

In ancient Rome it was a usual practice. But actually this is more like an abortion, and I was talking only about contraception.

No, if we continue the food analogy, abortion would be like liposuction, where the “product of eating” is removed. Vomiting what one has eaten renders the act of eating “sterile,” so to speak, avoiding the “end” of the act. (The end, as I have used it here, means the result for which the act was created.)

That is not relevant. We are discussing an imperfect analogy.

Just wanted to clarify that point.

 

[Serious]

Contraception is immoral.

Says who? The church? Why should the church be considered an authority for non-catholics? The point is that using contraception does not make one “not open” to conception in GENERAL. It makes them “not open” at a specific time. And the question remains: why should one be “open” to conception every time? If everyone would be living by those standards, soon we would only have “standing room” on Earth. Do you really think that God is so dumb, that this is what he had in mind when he (allegedly) said in Genesis 1:28: “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.”? Do you really believe that God meant: “fill the Earth to the brim”?

I know that it is the teaching of the church that any kind of sexual activity which either lowers or prevents conception is a “mortal sin”. You are welcome to accept and live by it. But for others it is just a nonsensical teaching. When I see the forum of “Moral Theology” where a very sizable percentage of the posts is concerned with the guilt induced by those teachings, I feel extremely sorry for those posters.

Gee, I’ve lived in the rural South for many years and have never heard anyone say that.

Oh, I did. Not by the rednecks, but about the rednecks, to be sure. I also heard the phrase: “… bless her heart” - which allows you to make any rude and/or derogatory remark socially acceptable. For example: “she is so ugly and dumb… bless her heart”. (Not that it has any relevance here, I quoted it just to lighten up the conversation.)

 

[Hastrman]

Says who? The church? Why should the church be considered an authority for non-catholics? The point is that using contraception does not make one “not open” to conception in GENERAL. It makes them “not open” at a specific time. And the question remains: why should one be “open” to conception every time? If everyone would be living by those standards, soon we would only have “standing room” on Earth. Do you really think that God is so dumb, that this is what he had in mind when he (allegedly) said in Genesis 1:28: “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.”? Do you really believe that God meant: “fill the Earth to the brim”?

You plainly do not understand how big a thing this planet is. According to the economist Jacqueline Kasun, merely improving agriculture methods—not resources, just methods—to the 1984 state of the art, which is not exactly Clarke’s Third Law stuff by 2012 standards, we could feed 35.1 billion people at an American level of calorie intake. At a Japanese level, we could support 105.3 billion.

There is no overpopulation. Malthus wrote his book purely as an argument against the French Revolution—his argument was that if the poor were given conditions that didn’t kill most of their children before they reached adulthood, everyone would starve. The major impetus of the idea in the 20th century was the Cold War, with the two superpowers trying to influence the demographics of their enemies’ supporters. We, for instance, have memos from Kissinger about how Brazil needs to be encouraged to practice population control so they won’t compete with the US for oil.

The guy who wrote Population Bomb was an entomologist, Paul Ehrlich. Actual economist Julian Simon made him a bet, where Ehrlich would select a list of commodities whose prices would increase as they became scarce due to overpopulation creating massive increases in demand. Simon would pay Ehrlich if the predicted price increase happened, and Ehrlich would pay Simon if it didn’t.

Ehrlich lost, rather spectacularly. And he still hasn’t paid up.

 

[Serious]

You plainly do not understand how big a thing this planet is. According to the economist Jacqueline Kasun, merely improving agriculture methods—not resources, just methods—to the 1984 state of the art, which is not exactly Clarke’s Third Law stuff by 2012 standards, we could feed 35.1 billion people at an American level of calorie intake. At a Japanese level, we could support 105.3 billion.

Oh, I sure do. It is not simply a matter of nutrition. People need space. Don’t forget the extreme frustration and stess that comes along with ghetto-like crowding in too many people into a too small space.

Consider the good old geometric progression. That 105.3 billion would be reached quite soon, a little over 200 years (in 2244 to be precise). See : metamorphosisalpha.com/ias/population.php using the growth rate of “0.012”. And this is the current growth rate not like one championed by the curch. If we look at the rate of “0.02”, which is still much less than the “use no contraception”, then the 105 billion would be reached in 2145, less than 150 years. What would be the growth rate if no one used artificial contraception? I have no idea, but a 5% growth seems quite modest. That ominous 105 billion would be reached is 2059. By 2100 (less than a 100 years) the population would be 789 billion. And that is what God had in mind? Be serious.

What about a thousand years? And then what? Eventually it would “fill up” the Earth. There is no escape from the results of geometric progression. Of course the ancient people had no idea about this, so they cheerfully invented that their deity would advocate such a silly notion.

 

[Dave_B]

Oh, I sure do. It is not simply a matter of nutrition. People need space. Don’t forget the extreme frustration and stess that comes along with ghetto-like crowding in too many people into a too small space.

I think hunger is the bigger issue than space.

There are est 925m people 14% of the world population who are hungry and malnourished.

Malnutrition effects 32% of children in developing countries - one in three.

Two billion people or over 30% are anemic.

What can be done about that?

 

[Serious]

I think hunger is the bigger issue than space.

There are est 925m people 14% of the world population who are hungry and malnourished.

Malnutrition effects 32% of children in developing countries - one in three.

Two billion people or over 30% are anemic.

What can be done about that?

These are important issues, but they belong to a different thread. In this one the topic is that contraception is sensible, since without it the population growth would be even more steep. (In a different thread I seem to recall that you not not view contraception as interinsically “evil”. I am glad to see your sensible approach.)

 

[JimG]

With respect to contraception, I should note that many Evangelicals are rethinking the issue, and recommending a theology more in line with historic Christian teaching up to and after the Reformation. Dr. Allan Carlson, an evangelical, has recently written a book on precisely this subject, titled “Godly Seed–American Evangelicals Confront Birth Control–1873-1973”.

 

[St_Francis]

Says who? The church? Why should the church be considered an authority for non-catholics? The point is that using contraception does not make one “not open” to conception in GENERAL. It makes them “not open” at a specific time. And the question remains: why should one be “open” to conception every time?

Either contraception is moral or it is not. If it is wrong, then it is wrong for everyone, every time.

If everyone would be living by those standards, soon we would only have “standing room” on Earth.

The Americas alone have well more than enough land for each person on Earth to have one acre each. I think it will be a few million years before we attain SRO…

Do you really think that God is so dumb, that this is what he had in mind when he (allegedly) said in Genesis 1:28: “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.”?

No, I think God is smarter than we are, and having created us, knows what is best for us, just as the manufacturer of a car knows what is best for the car.*

Consider that God created an entire universe out of nothing. Then He created a solar system in which everything was so balanced that one of the planets could sustain life. Then He created life itself, in all its complexity…*

Do you really believe that God meant: “fill the Earth to the brim”?

I do believe that God told us to be fruitful and multiply. I do not think we will exhaust the resources He has given us.

I know that it is the teaching of the church that any kind of sexual activity which either lowers or prevents conception is a “mortal sin”. You are welcome to accept and live by it. But for others it is just a nonsensical teaching.

The fact that many reject something doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

When I see the forum of “Moral Theology” where a very sizable percentage of the posts is concerned with the guilt induced by those teachings, I feel extremely sorry for those posters.

The Catholics who feel guilty about their use of birth control have a means to rectify their sin: all they have to do is go to Confession with the intention to stop using abc.*

Oh, I did. Not by the rednecks, but about the rednecks, to be sure.

Oh, the sophisticated folks saying that; I get it now.

I also heard the phrase: “… bless her heart” - which allows you to make any rude and/or derogatory remark socially acceptable. For example: “she is so ugly and dumb… bless her heart”. (Not that it has any relevance here, I quoted it just to lighten up the conversation.)

I picked up “you all” and it drives my children crazy I tell them it is a sorely needed part of our language, but they don’t buy that. They wouldn’t go for my alternative of using thou and thee, either!

 

[timotheos]

How many of us think we couldn’t live without vacations? But the whole practice is a relatively recent (last 200 years or so) phenomenon.

Much of what we believe we cannot live without, we most definitely can. But why would we ever give up what we enjoy?

There used to be a certain respect about sex, when we knew what it was for, how powerful it was, and what the result was. That result was so important that those engaging in it needed to be in a covenantal relationship, a strong institution for the protection of the couple and the raising and protection of children, and that institution was respected and protected by society. Back then, words like honor, respect, nobility, and chivalry were used, understood and practiced. Was this a bad thing?

But now, not so. We have traded in great sacredness for lowly vulgarism, called it progress, and convinced ourselves we cannot live without it. And alas, despite rhetoric to the contrary, such a life is no authentic life. The more we indulge ourselves, the less satisfied we become.

 

[Serious]

Either contraception is moral or it is not. If it is wrong, then it is wrong for everyone, every time.

Either stealing is moral or it is not. If it is wrong, then it is wrong for everyone, every time - even if you need a piece of bread to feed a starving person. The conclusion is that contraception is not wrong, and definitely not wrong every place and every time.

The Americas alone have well more than enough land for each person on Earth to have one acre each. I think it will be a few million years before we attain SRO…

I answered this to Hastrman. The geometric progression shows that we don’t have millions of years, we do not even have a few hundred years, even at this current 1.2% growth rate. If 500 years we would have 269 billion people. If the growth rate would be just 2% then in 500 years there would be 15 trillion people on Earth.

 

[mwok]

Either stealing is moral or it is not. If it is wrong, then it is wrong for everyone, every time - even if you need a piece of bread to feed a starving person. The conclusion is that contraception is not wrong, and definitely not wrong every place and every time.

I answered this to Hastrman. The geometric progression shows that we don’t have millions of years, we do not even have a few hundred years, even at this current 1.2% growth rate. If 500 years we would have 269 billion people. If the growth rate would be just 2% then in 500 years there would be 15 trillion people on Earth.

Does anybody die in your alternate reality?

 

[Hastrman]

I answered this to Hastrman. The geometric progression shows that we don’t have millions of years, we do not even have a few hundred years, even at this current 1.2% growth rate. If 500 years we would have 269 billion people. If the growth rate would be just 2% then in 500 years there would be 15 trillion people on Earth.

I was actually using one of those “geometric progression” calculators, to try and arrive at populations for colony-planets in my sci-fi book (I write hard science fiction).

The numbers I was getting kept striking me as too high. So I did something: I looked up the average growth rate for the last couple of centuries, and the world population in something like the year 1600. Then I ran the numbers.

It turns out, there ought to be roughly 400 billion people on earth now, according to the “geometric progression”. The model is fundamentally, catastrophically, contemptibly flawed.

I’m curious: how much Chaos Theory do you know?

The chief adage of Chaos Theory is that, given that any phenomenon will always be more complex than our attempts to model it, any iterative model is usually no better than a wild guess, and can never be better than an educated guess.

 

[Serious]

I was actually using one of those “geometric progression” calculators, to try and arrive at populations for colony-planets in my sci-fi book (I write hard science fiction).

Good for you. I always felt envious when I saw a well-written book (especially sci-fi).

The numbers I was getting kept striking me as too high. So I did something: I looked up the average growth rate for the last couple of centuries, and the world population in something like the year 1600. Then I ran the numbers.

It turns out, there ought to be roughly 400 billion people on earth now, according to the “geometric progression”. The model is fundamentally, catastrophically, contemptibly flawed.

Is it the model, or the parameters, which are wrong?

I’m curious: how much Chaos Theory do you know?

Quite a bit. I am a mathematician.

The chief adage of Chaos Theory is that, given that any phenomenon will always be more complex than our attempts to model it, any iterative model is usually no better than a wild guess, and can never be better than an educated guess.

Any model is a simplification, so there is no surprise there. It is supposed to be a simplification. The question is, when we leave out certain aspects, do we leave out something that will make the model unusable?

Do you deny that there is a geometric progression going on in population growth? Never mind the exact growth factor. It is also obvious that there is a fluctuation going on - wars, famines, epidemics, etc. Also there is the fact that in better developed countries there is a widespread custom of having fewer children (contraception, anyone?) and that skewes the model. Let’s not forget that this thread is about contraception, not pure examination of population growth. With the Catholic model, where there is only the NFP method, and people would (supposedly) welcome any number of children, the picture would be vastly different.

 

[mwok]

Why aren’t women always fertile like men?

 

[St_Francis]

Either stealing is moral or it is not. If it is wrong, then it is wrong for everyone, every time - even if you need a piece of bread to feed a starving person. The conclusion is that contraception is not wrong, and definitely not wrong every place and every time.

To take something which someone would be supposed to reasonably give is not stealing–and a person is morally obliged to give food to a starving person from their excess, ie, the starving person should not take food from others who are very close to starving.

I answered this to Hastrman. The geometric progression shows that we don’t have millions of years, we do not even have a few hundred years, even at this current 1.2% growth rate. If 500 years we would have 269 billion people. If the growth rate would be just 2% then in 500 years there would be 15 trillion people on Earth.

See, you’re awfulizing: assuming the very worst things will happen in an attempt to justify a current action (which is unnecessary to beging with, aside from its immorality).*

The law of unintended consequences is already wreaking its damage on the US population. We started seriously reducing our reproduction in the 1960s. At that time, there were 13 people contributing to Social Security for every retired person. Now the latest I heard was 3 (a few years ago… and that includes the influx of women into the labor pool). This number is going to go down as the Boomers retire.

We don’t know what will happen in the next 500 years. Maybe an epidemic will occur; maybe we will learn to colonize other planets; maybe Christ will return. You are skeptical? I don’t know if you are old enough to remember when the Club of Rome predicted that we would run out of oil in the 1990s? Well, we found new deposits and improved our technology, and we still haven’t run out of oil.

Consider a scientist who is studying the reporduction of mice. He has a limited amount of space, so he takes some of the mice away, maybe selling them to another lab for other experiments. He may remove some of the mice who are unsuitable for the experiment.*

He organizes the space and cares for the mice. He makes sure they have enough food and cares for their health.

Now you asked a question before, and I will ask you: Do you think that God, Who created the entire universe and everything in it, cannot care for us? Assure that we do not end up in the state you describe, a dystopia of lack of space?

In fact, He has. His system, the Catholic system, is way better than our current systems. We cannot look at the issue of contraception in isolation, as if that is all there is to life.

The first aspect of the system God desiged is that people are aware that sexual activity is related to conception of babies, thus they have sex only when they can properly care for a baby. They do not have sex indiscriminantly with people they do not want to have children with at times they lack the resources to raise a child.

The second thing is that God gives people vocations. Some people He intends to be parents. Others He intends for one of a number of celibate lifestyles. And one of the truly wonderful things about that is that a good number of these people are intended to help the needy: the poor, the elderly, the ill.

Thus God’s system not only prevents a population explosion but cares for those in need.*

But this system is not working out. People sin and conceive babies they cannot care for and kill them before they are born. Others contracept and discourage them from a celibate lifestyle in favor of providing grandchildren.*

Then we think that we are smarter than the omniscient and omnipotent Creator of the universe and that we can fix all this by some system or another which simply does not work, because those systems do not take the true nature of man into account.*

 

[Serious]

To take something which someone would be supposed to reasonably give is not stealing–and a person is morally obliged to give food to a starving person from their excess, ie, the starving person should not take food from others who are very close to starving.

That is not how “stealing” is defined. Of course a convenient “redefinition” will always save the day. Stealing is an act of taking something without the permission of the owner. It has nothing to do with the idea that the owner should voluntarily give it. Of course a reasonable judge would take a view that the act of stealing is justifyable in the case of saving a starving person. But the act is still stealing.

The law of unintended consequences is already wreaking its damage on the US population. We started seriously reducing our reproduction in the 1960s. At that time, there were 13 people contributing to Social Security for every retired person. Now the latest I heard was 3 (a few years ago… and that includes the influx of women into the labor pool). This number is going to go down as the Boomers retire.

Sure. But that only shows that the system of Social Security is nonsensical. It should be abolished, if it were politically feasible.

Now you asked a question before, and I will ask you: Do you think that God, Who created the entire universe and everything in it, cannot care for us?

If he existed, he certainly could. He could intervene even today and help those millions of starving ones. But he does not. So there is no reason to assume that he would in more dire circumstances.

 

[St_Francis]

That is not how “stealing” is defined. Of course a convenient “redefinition” will always save the day. Stealing is an act of taking something without the permission of the owner. It has nothing to do with the idea that the owner should voluntarily give it. Of course a reasonable judge would take a view that the act of stealing is justifyable in the case of saving a starving person. But the act is still stealing.

No, we instinctively understand that in some cases, taking is not stealing, and this is reflected in our definitions, which run like this:Take (another person’s property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it: “thieves stole her bicycle”. Note: “without … legal right”

Sure. But that only shows that the system of Social Security is nonsensical. It should be abolished, if it were politically feasible.

No, it shows unintended consequences of doing things. *We have the bad effect of a misguided attempt to save the planet from a theorethical and far-off overpopulation and the more immediate and unintended effect of our being able to care for the elderly only by importing people. Things are interconnected.

If he existed, he certainly could.

He could and He has, both on an individual sacale and a large scale.

He could intervene even today and help those millions of starving ones. But he does not.

There is no need for His intervention nor is He in any way obliged to. The world is as it is, with sufferings and turmoil, because of human actions. If God intervenes too much, then we will never learn or grow.

So there is no reason to assume that he would in more dire circumstances.

God has assured that there is sufficient food for everyone on earth–He has provided the capacity. We have misused it. The tyrants who allow their people to starve, and the thugs who steal food and keep it and who prevent food from being grown are the ones at fault here.*

 

[TimothyH]

The real reason for abortion is contraception.

Widespread availability and use of contraception has created the culture of recrational sex which the OP complains about. And the culture of recreational sex which is created and enabled through contraception has resulted in a huge demand for abortion, not to mention porn addiction, children without homes, divorce, and a whole host of other disasters.

It’s a permissible attitude about the use of contraception. That is the root cause. Take away contraception and abortion goes away with it.

-Tim-

 

[Serious]

No, we instinctively understand that in some cases, taking is not stealing, and this is reflected in our definitions, which run like this:Take (another person’s property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it: “thieves stole her bicycle”. Note: “without … legal right”

That is even worse. A “legal right” is arbitrary. And I am not interested in arbitrary definitions. Stealing is stealing, and sometimes it can be justifed, other times it cannot. So much for “if X is wrong in one time, it is wrong every time”. This is just as nonsensical as the reverse would be: “if X is right one time, it is right every time”. Both of these stances would be idiotic.