What 10 Priests Say About Contraception

[theCrow]

Thecrow, your “fact” is an outright lie! Contraception use has resulted in an increase in abortion.

Source?

National Abortion Rate Sees Huge Drop As More Women Are Using Birth Control:

Between 2008 and 2011, the national abortion rate declined by 13 percent, according to a new report from the Guttmacher Institute that will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health journal. That puts 2011′s abortion rate at 16.9 abortions per every 1,000 women of reproductive age, the lowest rate recorded since Roe v. Wade legalized the procedure in 1973.

 

[Mulligan2]

Thecrow, your “fact” is an outright lie! Contraception use has resulted in an increase in abortion.

Can you cite a non-partisan study that supports your claim? Many on the pro-life side view contraception and abortion as both being bad, yet the proper use of birth-control vastly reduces unplanned pregnancies. And unplanned pregnancy is the primary reason why women seek abortions.

The following is from NBC News in 2012:

*When more than 9,000 women ages 14 to 45 in the St. Louis area were given no-cost contraception for three years, abortion rates dropped from two-thirds to three-quarters lower than the national rate, according to a new report by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis researchers.

From 2008 to 2010, annual abortion rates among participants in the Contraceptive Choice Project – dubbed CHOICE – ranged from 4.4 abortions per 1,000 women to 7.5 abortions per 1,000. That’s far less than the 19.6 abortions per 1,000 women nationwide reported in 2008, the latest year for which figures are available.

Among teen girls ages 15 to 19 who participated in the study, the annual birth rate was 6.3 per 1,000 girls, far below the U.S. rate of 34.3 per 1,000 for girls the same age.

The study’s lead author, Dr. Jeffrey Peipert, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Washington University, expected both measures to fall, but even he said he was “very surprised” by the magnitude.*

 

[Jaaanosik]

On the other hand, if there are serious reasons a couple should not have children at a particular time, the alternative would be temporary abstinence, and since priests are experts on abstinence, more so than any couple, they might be the best people in the world to right in favor of it.

Being in the bed with loved one and practice abstinence is a torture.
Priests don’t have anybody next to them, that does not count.

 

[rcb2418]

I concur with Crow as well; at least to some degree. It is easy for priests to sit back and pontificate on contraception when it is not a real concern for them. They don’t have to worry about children. They don’t have to worry about their child’s health and well-being, education, influences - both good and bad - that the child will face. Priests don’t have to worry about their teenage daughter getting pregnant or their teenage boy running with the wrong crowd.

All these things are oblivious to priests because they are not problems priests face on a daily basis.

I think we are living in a shallow society where our main concern is money and luxurious that we forget one important thing, God gives us everything we need to survive. All He asks from us is to trust Him and have faith in him. Of course there’s always a contraception that’s 100% effective, abstinence. Not only does it prevent unwanted pregnancies, but it also helps us learn self control. A son becomes a son when you let it control you. Yes, sex is pleasurable, but its purpose is to procreate. Why do you think after a certain age men’s libido goes down and they can’t function as well? Nature is wise. You don’t see animals wearing condoms or birth control pills, yet they only mate when it’s their time to procreate.

 

[rcb2418]

I concur with Crow as well; at least to some degree. It is easy for priests to sit back and pontificate on contraception when it is not a real concern for them. They don’t have to worry about children. They don’t have to worry about their child’s health and well-being, education, influences - both good and bad - that the child will face. Priests don’t have to worry about their teenage daughter getting pregnant or their teenage boy running with the wrong crowd.

All these things are oblivious to priests because they are not problems priests face on a daily basis.

I think we are living in a shallow society where our main concern is money and luxurious that we forget one important thing, God gives us everything we need to survive. All He asks from us is to trust Him and have faith in him. Of course there’s always a contraception that’s 100% effective, abstinence. Not only does it prevent unwanted pregnancies, but it also helps us learn self control. A son becomes a son when you let it control you. Yes, sex is pleasurable, but its purpose is to procreate. Why do you think after a certain age men’s libido goes down and they can’t function as well? Nature is wise. You don’t see animals wearing condoms or birth control pills, yet they only mate when it’s their time to procreate.

 

[rcb2418]

-]/-]

Seriously, what is the real reason the Church is against artificial contraception? Is it really a moral issue? Or is it because the Church has an agenda to eventually convert the whole world back to Catholicism, and she needs a bigger and bigger membership in order to accomplish this?

This idea makes no sense to me. I believe it’s more a moral issue. If the reason were to be the second reason you mentioned, then the church would not accept abstinence (Billings Method). They don’t say stop having sex, just don’t have sex when the girl may be fertile. They even offer classes to teach you this method of birth control.

There’s religions and sects that accept all types of birth control and whose purpose and believes teach them to convert people to their religion because it’s the only “true religion”. Wouldn’t they be promoting the same thing? Yet they claim sex was only meant to procreate at the beginning of humanity.

 

[CatholicSheila]

I concur with Crow as well; at least to some degree. It is easy for priests to sit back and pontificate on contraception when it is not a real concern for them. They don’t have to worry about children. They don’t have to worry about their child’s health and well-being, education, influences - both good and bad - that the child will face. Priests don’t have to worry about their teenage daughter getting pregnant or their teenage boy running with the wrong crowd.

All these things are oblivious to priests because they are not problems priests face on a daily basis.

I find it quite funny that when priests speak out about contraception people complain that they have no right to talk because “they don’t have sex”.

Yet when I say I am trying to follow the Churches teaching on sex and sexuality the response is “but even Priests have sex”.

Interesting…

Disclaimer: I realise you didn’t say the latter Lost_Sheep, it is simply something I have heard a lot lately and I find it amusing that the automatic response from some is the exact opposite.

 

[Brendan_64]

In Evangelium Vitae, John Paul II wrote about contraception as being a contributor to the culture of death.

Although contraception doesn’t in itself kill, it is very closely connected with abortion. He described them as being “fruits of the same tree”. Chemical abortifacients (morning after pill etc.) and abortive intrauterine devices are distributed as easily as contraceptives and result in the blurring of their difference in the public’s mind. A self-centred concept of ‘freedom’ results in a ‘contraceptive mentality’ where conception is viewed as an unwanted ‘side-effect’ of sexual intercourse, and this reinforces an ‘abortive mentality’ within society.

Therefore while contraception doesn’t in itself directly kill, it contributes to the development of a culture that accepts abortion as a means to an end.

 

[TarkanAttila]

A few other thoughts:

1. Using Contraception will greatly and I mean HUGELY reduce abortions and STDs, this is a FACT. So wouldn’t that be a GOOD thing, especially in some hard hit third world countries.
2. Most young people are having sex for pleasure and yes, as an expression of LOVE. Of course it can be for LUST, but I know many committed couples who have been together for years, even decades, both married and unmarried who obviously are having lots of sex.

So some good logical points to think about.

Crow, in our country, you’d say we have a fairly free access to contraception, no?

According to Guttmacher, half of pregnancies are still unexpected. Half of unexpected pregnancies end up getting aborted in this country. Do you really think half of people in this country are * not* using contraceptives and a quarter are just expecting to have abortions later?

Did it also occur to you not all expressions of “love” are truly loving? In Japan, for example, love suicides have cropped up at one time or another as an expression of love between a couple. They just go out into the woods and hang themselves, and their souls are with each other forever - so they say. Is that also acceptable?

If not, perhaps not all expressions of love are acceptable. Perhaps sexual expression might also need to be moderated?

 

[Royalist]

One of the priests quoted in the article says, “The Church’s teaching on artificial contraception seems to most people today archaic and silly.”

I give him credit for realizing the way this message is being received.

You can blame the media for that.

As the media has pushed, and the culture has accepted, increasingly disordered behaviors, the Church’s unchanging teaching on them starts to “seem archaic and silly” to most people. Contraception, promiscuity, abortion, homosexuality, soon bigamy and euthanasia and bestiality.

(Honestly bigamy is a lot less disordered than homosexuality; I’m really not sure why the culture doesn’t accept it already.)

 

[Mulligan2]

You can blame the media for that.

I disagree. I think you’re giving the media too much credit.

As the media has pushed, and the culture has accepted, increasingly disordered behaviors, the Church’s unchanging teaching on them starts to “seem archaic and silly” to most people. Contraception, promiscuity, abortion, homosexuality, soon bigamy and euthanasia and bestiality.

Really???

(Honestly bigamy is a lot less disordered than homosexuality; I’m really not sure why the culture doesn’t accept it already.)

I disagree.

 

[TarkanAttila]

Much as I’d like to talk about “why not bigamy?”, let’s not get off track.

200 years ago contraception, though it may have been heard of, was less socially acceptable. Same with no fault divorce, abortion, cohabitation, fornication, and of course the present issues.

So how did society come to accept things that our forebears considered morally discourageable if not outright immoral?

Frankly, the redefinition of marriage, I think, has been centuries in the making. Homosexuality was only one of the steps - sort of like a sign of advanced cancer. Contraception was an earlier sign of a radical change in how society understands marriage that, I think, has been in the works since Henry VIII divorced and remarried Anne Boelyn.

 

[Lost_Sheep]

On the other hand, if there are serious reasons a couple should not have children at a particular time, the alternative would be temporary abstinence, and since priests are experts on abstinence, more so than any couple, they might be the best people in the world to right in favor of it.

People who advocate abstinence obviously have never had sex. They make it sound so easy.

 

[Brendan_64]

People who advocate abstinence obviously have never had sex. They make it sound so easy.

Nonsense. It’s simply a matter of self-control. Some people talk as if we are slaves to our urges and desires. We only become slaves to our desires if we choose to be. God gave us the gift of free will, we are free to choose, we are in control of what we choose to do.

 

[Lost_Sheep]

Nonsense. It’s simply a matter of self-control. Some people talk as if we are slaves to our urges and desires.

Nonsense. It is a natural human function; just like eating, sleeping and going to the bathroom.

I find it odd that all the rules regarding contraception are written by people who aren’t affected by it.

 

[adrift]

Crow, really??? That old song?

I trust you have NO opinions on anything for which you are NOT trained. Since priests go through years and years of training, spriritual & practical, so that they can give us all guidance to heaven, I find it refreshing that priests are speaking out about what sex is REALLY all about.

Thank you for posting this!

The most insightful things about marriage have been through priest who gain there insight by counseling hundreds of couples. They aren’t limited to experiences that they are involved but have more of a wide view.

Couples in their twenties do not understand how their attitudes are the result of societies misguided philosophy that children are a disease and sex is a recreation. Such attitudes result in the idea that marriage isn’t necessary and divorce.

 

[adrift]

People who advocate abstinence obviously have never had sex. They make it sound so easy.

Do you have a source for this over reaching statement? I advocate abstinence and I have children so that obviously disproved your statement.

I find it odd that you would regulate it to just a bodily function. The last time I heard it described as such was a man who only wanted sex and not a relationship. In other words, he just wanted to use women.

 

[Brendan_64]

Nonsense. It is a natural human function; just like eating, sleeping and going to the bathroom.

There are a great many married couples who practice abstinence. There are a great many single people who practice abstinence, There are a great many gay people who practice abstinence.

Yes it is a natural function, but that does not mean that it is an uncontrollable urge. Sexual intercourse is needed to procreate, as food is needed to sustain life. We can control our urge to have sex just as we can control our urge to over-eat; it simply requires a degree of self-control, exercising the gift of free-will that God has given us and taking responsibility for our own actions rather that abdicating responsibility and putting it down to animal urges that we cannot control.

 

[Pug]

People who advocate abstinence obviously have never had sex. They make it sound so easy.

Sheep you are off here. I advocate it in certain situations, and I have had sex. I have practiced abstinence for extremely long periods of time, while lying in bed next to my spouse every night, too. It requires a certain physical distance in the relationship to do that without going nuts, at least for me. No kissing while watching a movie in the den at night, no letting my eyes linger on my spouse, etc. I do not claim it is easy. I do claim that with discipline it gets easier, though. Age also helps some. I find that it interferes with the connection I desire with my spouse, so its necessity makes me sad. And that does not go away.

I can sound much more frustrated with abstinence that I am doing right now, but it is Sunday and I am in a good mood.

 

[Corki]

A few other thoughts:

1. Using Contraception will greatly and I mean HUGELY reduce abortions and STDs, this is a FACT. So wouldn’t that be a GOOD thing, especially in some hard hit third world countries.

No. Most abortions are committed on women who were using contraception so contraception does not “HUGELY” reduce abortions. The rate of abortion since contraception has been widely available has skyrocketed.

And no, most contraception has no impact AT ALL on STDs. Only condoms provide protection and only* partial *protection from some STDs.