What is your opinion on the use of birth control in ANTICIPATION of being raped?

[Rence]

And not to be “nit picky” but you can’t tell if conception has taken place until there’s enough hormone for a blood test a few weeks later [some newer tests claim within one week]. **But it can take between 24 - 72 hours for sperm to reach egg, so chances are good if teh woman gets the ECP before 24hours post rape she won’t have concieved. **

Exactly. And for many women, including me, it would be worth the risk.

 

[Rence]

When I look through many of the posts in this thread I don’t see any reason to answer the the OP as towhether any form of (“birth control”) is ridiculously helpful in thwarting the ANTICIPATION of Raping ANY individual.

The OP isn’t asking if using contraception is helpful in thwarting the anticipation of rape. She’s asking about contraception* to avoid pregnancy *in antifipation of being raped. For example, she wants to know, in areas of the world where a woman is very likely to be raped on a day to day basis, what is your opinion on the use of birth control to avoid a forced pregnancy.

 

[Katie966]

But I’m not sure an insurance company would cover the cost of using an ultrasound for this reason. That might cost the patient quite a bit if it’s not covered…you can’t just get any test without a proper diagnosis that matches it. If the hospital has a pregnancy test available and a rapid test available, the insurance company is likely to deny covering an ultrasound. If the rapid test is not available, an ultrasound might be covered…

For a person who was actually interested in making certain that ovulation had not occurred, and who truly cared, I can’t imagine that the fact that their insurance might deny a claim would factor into their decision. Anyone who felt that a human life was more valuable than the cost of an ultrasound wouldn’t say “That’s too expensive, nevermind”.

There is always (unfortunately) the option of obtaining emergency contraception outside of a Catholic hospital, so if someone is going to do it, it is available elsewhere.

 

[Betterave]

My apologies; then how about what is rationally implies at this site in Africa

mencanstoprape.org/ where the highest statistical Rape occurrences of the world.

Where Seven people (“Women, Children and Men”) are Raped every second.

I’m not sure what you’re talking about. The site appears to be based in Washington D.C. rather than Africa. And again, I don’t believe the rape statistics you mentioned are accurate. I’m quite certain that they are absurdly inflated.

The only other intervention that would stop Rape, Incest, Murder and every other vile despicable injustice to innocent people would be direct intervention from Jesus Christ Himself.

What do you mean by “other intervention”??

With everything good that can be said about Christian Morality I fail to see how the human sin allotted to Rape can be stopped.

In the full time humans have allotted here on earth before Judgment Day its impossible for humans to stop such travesty.

Rape is a human reality that will go on til the end of this world.

I agree, but I’m confused about why earlier you were talking about an “obvious solution in plain sight when it comes to stopping Rape” - there is no such obvious solution, right?

Sometimes I get caught up with great emotion due to the fact that I myself am a Victim of Gang-Rape at Gunpoint and Torture.

Obviously we can all understand that you would be emotional because of this. I agree with you, there is a lot of stinking horrific evil in the world. But I don’t think that means we can give up trying to address evil in a reasonable and honest way. Doing that will only contribute more to the evil in the world. I will ask St. Maria Goretti to pray for you and for our crucified Lord to give you peace.

 

[Rence]

For a person who was actually interested in making certain that ovulation had not occurred, and who truly cared, I can’t imagine that the fact that their insurance might deny a claim would factor into their decision. Anyone who felt that a human life was more valuable than the cost of an ultrasound wouldn’t say “That’s too expensive, nevermind”.

You’re totally right, but it’s good information to have. It’s always a good idea to know what’s covered and what’s not.

There is always (unfortunately) the option of obtaining emergency contraception outside of a Catholic hospital, so if someone is going to do it, it is available elsewhere.

That’s true.

 

[copperblade]

I think the statistics about how likely it is to be raped are morally irrelevant. If you have decided you will not have sex, and you take a birth control pill, is it wrong? The only way it will operate as a contraceptive is if you are in fact raped. So in this case, while the chances of being raped vary and are not under your control, the chances of the contraception only coming into effect due to rape is 100%

 

[JaneGrey]

Hello Jane;

When it comes to the topic of Rape and placing blame, people especially men will always dance around and redirect some thought provoking solution, rather than look at the obvious solution in plain sight when it comes to stopping Rape.

Rapist; most of whom are Men and even potential rapist whom themselves have considered raping will never self-condemn themselves as not only being the root of the problem and source of the crime of Rape but also the solution to stopping Rape.

Peace
Chris

Oh i completely agree with you. I just thought your arguments would be great for the ‘Slutwalk’ and some other threads which focus on blaming the victim.

 

[pnewton]

Then I take it you don’t believe that MEN are the biggest advocates of Rape Crime.

I don’t and find the statement offensive. I would wager there is not one single soul here who advocates the crime of rape. I find the men-hatred associated with that list ridiculous. If a similar list came our blasting women for the sins and crimes of a small group, it would be considered chauvinist. In any case, none of that preaching had to do with the topic.

 

[Katie966]

I think the statistics about how likely it is to be raped are morally irrelevant. If you have decided you will not have sex, and you take a birth control pill, is it wrong? The only way it will operate as a contraceptive is if you are in fact raped. So in this case, while the chances of being raped vary and are not under your control, the chances of the contraception only coming into effect due to rape is 100%

This is a really good point.

 

[Betterave]

Oh i completely agree with you. I just thought your arguments would be great for the ‘Slutwalk’ and some other threads which focus on blaming the victim.

What arguments? The ones based on false statistics that don’t make any sense??

 

[centurionguard]

I don’t and find the statement offensive. I would wager there is not one single soul here who advocates the crime of rape. I find the men-hatred associated with that list ridiculous. If a similar list came our blasting women for the sins and crimes of a small group, it would be considered chauvinist. In any case, none of that preaching had to do with the topic.

I assume you know very little about Rape Statistics.

Your beliefs from your statement above that Men statistically are not the biggest contributors to the crime of Rape gives testament that you know little about Rape.

 

[Cristiano]

I assume you know very little about Rape Statistics.

Your beliefs from your statement above that Men statistically are not the biggest contributors to the crime of Rape gives testament that you know little about Rape.

You are just talking down people mixing information with your personal generalizations. If you stick to the information and skip generalizations and slogans, you can easily discover that you can have a wide number of people that will agree with you.

 

[pnewton]

I assume you know very little about Rape Statistics.

Your beliefs from your statement above that Men statistically are not the biggest contributors to the crime of Rape gives testament that you know little about Rape.

What bearing does your assuming and wild speculation about me have on the thread subject, or did you just have to hurl a few insults to make yourself feel better tonight?

FYI - In case you need a refresher, it is on birth control, not the role of men in rape.

 

[Dikaios]

Why? We have the teaching here from the bishops. Why would we not listen? The reason that ABC is sinful is not because the chemical compounds are intrinsically sinful, or that we have an obligation to produce children through rape. Rather, it separates the procreative function from sex. Making sex unholy. It is a given that rape is unholy and therefore rape does not require a procreative function.

I’m not sure how I feel about this whole debate, but I do not think the prohibition against contraception applies only to the marital act as is being implied in this post. People keep citing this unitive + procreative requirement. I feel like this is muddying the waters, though. Sex does not become “anything goes” just because the act is not unitive. A couple of drunk teenagers who don’t know each other can have sex, and it would be wrong for them to procreate (and obviously for abortion to occur) even though the act was not within marriage or unitive. The nature of the sex/the intent behind the sex of the actors does not seem relevant at all when talking about contraception.

I am debating whether it would matter for rape, and I’m not sure it would. I need to spend some time with it, though. It just does not ever seem licit to ever contracept intentionally, as it would frustrate the purpose of the sexual act (a sexual act, as I noted, does Not have to occur in a specific way with certain intent) and thus violate natural law. Further, a woman who is taking birth control for health reasons is not intending to contracept when she is coincidentally raped. A woman who takes plan B after rape Is intending to contracept. This distinction seems important to make clear, even if it doesn’t necessarily follow that plan B after rape is immoral.

(I’m also a bit annoyed by this plan B thing. I’m really confused why there’s debate over whether or not it’s an abortifacient. I don’t understand the argument that abortion only occurs once a fertilized egg is Implanted. Why not count conception as fertilization and abortion as the intentional destruction of a fertilized egg?)

 

[Dikaios]

I’m not sure how I feel about this whole debate, but I do not think the prohibition against contraception applies only to the marital act as is being implied in this post. People keep citing this unitive + procreative requirement. I feel like this is muddying the waters, though. Sex does not become “anything goes” just because the act is not unitive. A couple of drunk teenagers who don’t know each other can have sex, and it would be wrong for them to procreate (and obviously for abortion to occur) even though the act was not within marriage or unitive. The nature of the sex/the intent behind the sex of the actors does not seem relevant at all when talking about contraception.

I am debating whether it would matter for rape, and I’m not sure it would. I need to spend some time with it, though. It just does not ever seem licit to ever contracept intentionally, as it would frustrate the purpose of the sexual act (a sexual act, as I noted, does Not have to occur in a specific way with certain intent) and thus violate natural law. Further, a woman who is taking birth control for health reasons is not intending to contracept when she is coincidentally raped. A woman who takes plan B after rape Is intending to contracept. This distinction seems important to make clear, even if it doesn’t necessarily follow that plan B after rape is immoral.

(I’m also a bit annoyed by this plan B thing. I’m really confused why there’s debate over whether or not it’s an abortifacient. I don’t understand the argument that abortion only occurs once a fertilized egg is Implanted. Why not count conception as fertilization and abortion as the intentional destruction of a fertilized egg?)

I’d like to add, I guess, this. Just because a sexual act is not unitive does not mean it no longer has to be procreative. One does not necessarily follow the other. That is, non-unitive sex (rape, outside of marriage—as has been suggested here) is not free to be non-procreative just because it is non-unitive. Inhibiting either part of the purposes of the sexual act is what violates natural law as far as I understand it. While a rape victim would not be inhibiting the unitive purpose of the sex (she had no control over that) by using contraception, she Would be inhibiting the procreative purpose of sex by using contraception—an intentional violation of the natural law.

This is what I was trying to get at anyway.

 

[Dikaios]

A couple of drunk teenagers who don’t know each other can have sex, and it would be wrong for them to procreate (and obviously for abortion to occur) even though the act was not within marriage or unitive. )

That should be “…and it would be wrong for them to CONTRACEPT.” Sorry, I’m sure that makes the post very confusing.

Let’s maybe pile on to this actually. Let’s imagine a very drunk Married couple who don’t even remember having sex the night before. Or, perhaps, even the husband thought he was having sex with someone who wasn’t his wife. Or in a sort of sitcom plot, maybe he is an awful man who Intended to have sex with someone who wasn’t his wife but did actually have sex with his wife without his realizing it. Then you have cases where the husband could rape his wife—have sex with her by violence against her will. Obviously in those scenarios the sex would not be unitive. There was no real intent to unite in the sexual act even though they were married.

I am not then comfortable saying that the wife is allowed to take emergency contraception to inhibit a pregnancy just because the sexual act was not unitive the night before. This seems like it would violate the other purpose of the sexual act. To reiterate, just because the act was not unitive (even within marriage) does not mean that it doesn’t have to be procreative.

 

[JaneGrey]

What arguments? The ones based on false statistics that don’t make any sense??

The way I see it, centurionguard is essentially saying or meaning that men are the largest perpetrators of rape. Which they are. I dont know that men are the ones who advocate rape the most, but I have no reason to say for certain they do not. I have no statistics either way. The men on CAF might not advocate rape but they dont represent every man in society.

The other posts I have read from centurionguard tell me that he acknowledges that sometimes women rape men and other women as well. I dont think he is out to get men. What I agree with most in his posts is his assertions that rape is solely the fault of the perpetrator and that instead of wasting time educating people on how to prevent rape, we should also spend time educating people about not feeling they have a right to another’s body.
Having said all that, I think his posts would be more relevant in some other threads.

 

[centurionguard]

What bearing does your assuming and wild speculation about me have on the thread subject, or did you just have to hurl a few insults to make yourself feel better tonight?

FYI - In case you need a refresher, it is on birth control, not the role of men in rape.

While your assuming that I’m making wild assumptions; why are you judging me saying I’m hurling insults to make me feel good.

C’mon you can do better than that.

As two respectable Catholics we both know Birth Control used in any manner whatsoever is Morally Wrong. That fact alone invalidates any opinion suggested by the OP that birth control can be used in the ludicrous suggestion that the majority of potential Victims can Anticipate their own Rape which is often perpetuated by the Myth that any Rape Victim could have stopped their own Rape.

Furthermore; this idea above only adds more insult to the injury of Stigma of Rape Victims as if placing some onus of fault, shame, and guilt that they could have stopped their own rape.

I don’t buy into any of this given the circumstances of my own Gang-Rape and Torture at Gunpoint being a heterosexual man. And I would infinitely defend female rape victims with anyone saying they were the fault of their own victimization.

How many Rape and Incest victims are you going to find on this CAF site that would say they Anticipated their own Rape or Incest?

It’s almost inconceivable to fathom that any person (“who claims to be Catholic”) doesn’t know that Birth Control under any circumstance is morally wrong.

No disrespect to the OP but I’m at a loss why the suggestion of using birth control in ANTICIPATION of being raped?

Peace
Chris

 

[Betterave]

The way I see it, centurionguard is essentially saying or meaning that men are the largest perpetrators of rape. Which they are. I dont know that men are the ones who advocate rape the most, but I have no reason to say for certain they do not. I have no statistics either way. The men on CAF might not advocate rape but they dont represent every man in society.

I have no argument with you there.

The other posts I have read from centurionguard tell me that he acknowledges that sometimes women rape men and other women as well. I dont think he is out to get men.

Agreed.

What I agree with most in his posts is his assertions that rape is solely the fault of the perpetrator and that instead of wasting time educating people on how to prevent rape, we should also spend time educating people about not feeling they have a right to another’s body.

Now I disagree. Here’s a simple question that should make clear why: If a man is raped, it is extremely likely that he is in prison and that he bears some responsibility for being there. Do you really want to say that a man who is raped in prison could no more have prevented his being raped than a young child who is raped? Now what about a woman who gets drunk and goes to bed with a drunk Mike Tyson and gets raped: does she bear no more responsibility than the young child who is raped? The answers here are obvious. The suggestion that acknowledging this reality has anything to do with claiming that we should feel we have a right to rape others is completely absurd and dishonest.

 

[PiousFriend]

~Part 3, directive 36 of the USCCB’s Ethical and religious directives for Catholic Health Care services

In short, rape victims can use emergency contraception.
Ideally, rape would be prevented. If/since, this is not possible, the next ideal would be to prevent rape victims from becoming pregnant and from getting STD’s, agreed? The best way to prevent STD’s in cases of rape is the use of male condoms. Condoms are also a decent way to prevent pregnancy. But, rapists aren’t exactly known for their consideration of their victim’s wellbeing, so often, condoms are not used, I presume. Therefore, rape victims are more at risk for STD’s and unwanted pregnancy than say, a married couple (duh). In some parts of the world, rape is a much more common occurence than in Western society where most CAF members live. For example, there is a significantly higher chance of being raped in a country such as the Democratic Republic of Congo. Besides the trauma of being raped, getting an STD, and raising a child whose father is your rapist, women in these countries don’t have an exactly easy life anyway (poverty, already have large families, etc.)
In accordance with Catholic teaching, these women can licitly use emergency contraception (aka Plan B/morning after pill or copper IUD) (provided that ovulation has not yet occured.) Here’s the problem: in poverty stricken areas, determining if ovulation has occured is not possible in a timely matter (and time is of the essense), plus it may be prohibitavely costly. If you were a Catholic medical provider in an area of the world like this, would you be willing to provide EC to a rape victim even if you couldn’t determine if ovulation had occured? (Give it the benefit of the doubt, so to speak.)
Whether your answer is yes or no, another thing to consider, though it may not be in accordance with Catholic teaching, is would you consider prescribing birth control (aka the Pill, patch, implant etc) as a preventative measure to women at such a high risk of being raped? Or if you were in the situation of being at high risk, would you consider using it? Would being married or single have an impact on your decision?
Another situation to consider: what if you were in a situation of being frequently raped by someone, say a family member. You could licitly take the morning after pill every single time you were raped (if you practiced some sort of fertility awareness so would know when you ovulated). But the morning after pill is not meant to be used as a regular method of birth control. So would you be willing to take the Pill/patch/implant etc as a method of birth control then? Keep in mind that this is not the marital act. This is rape. Also, I am asking for your personal opinions here, not the official Church teachings - you have free will to ignore the teachings.
I mentioned before that the copper IUD can be used for emergency contraception (up to 5 days, as opposed to 3 days for the morning after pill.) The copper IUD is not abortifacient TECHNICALLY. (They would never give an IUD to a pregnant woman.) Yes I know, a newly conceived human being could fail to implant blah blah blah and some call that abortion. For the sake of argument, let’s go with the accepted understanding of how the IUD works which is to “hinder ascent of sperm to the fallopian tubes (where fertilization occurs) or reduce the ability of sperm to fertilize an egg. IUDs influence the number of sperm reaching the uterine cavity and the fallopian tubes. The sterile foreign-body reaction in the uterine cavity causes both cellular and biochemical changes that may be toxic to sperm. The copper released from the IUDs may have a toxic effect on the sperm.”
(fhi.org/en/RH/Pubs/booksReports/methodaction.htm)
So if you were expecting to get raped again in the near future, would you be more likely to consider the copper IUD over the morning after pill? (Because the IUD can be left in and in fact prevent conception for 10 years if you choose to keep it that long.) Again, just asking for opinions here people. Let’s not get into a discussion of if these things are abortifacient. The medical community agrees they are not, by definition, abortifacient and although you may disagree, it is not the issue at hand. I am just asking if you think circumstances lessen the intrinsic evil of contraception, and what you would do in if you were in such a circumstance.

This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. That is like going out of your house wearing a football helmet just in case you might possibly get hit in the head with a rock. How can you protect yourself from everything that “might” happen? What would happen to me if, while driving through a small town, I was suddenly seized from my car and made emperor of the village by the restless natives who lived there?
Certainly that sounds ridiculous, I’ll confess, but why is it any less possible than anything else we might be afraid of and wish to prepare for? Ultimately unless you go out wearing a suit of armor you perpetually take the risk of experiencing pain and the antidote for that is always love and forgiveness. Castles and moats might work better than birth control in the long haul and may give you considerably less grief.