Contraception Leads to Abortion. Period.
— Posted by John (December 1, 2006 at 5:44 pm)
Ruben at No Room for Contraception has hit the nail on the head in explaining the increasingly obvious connection between birth control and abortion:
It’s a common assumption that contraception reduces the need for abortion in the United States. Yet the history of contraception and abortion in the 60s and 70s shows this assumption to be incorrect.
In the 60s, the legal status of contraceptives and the ability of married couples to use them varied from state to state. Most states had restrictions on how contraceptives could be distributed and who could use them. The United States Supreme Court would play a pivotal role in the increased access to contraception during this period by declaring various state restrictions unconstitutional.
Though it started much earlier, the sexual revolution started to make serious inroads in the mid 60s. The introduction of the birth control pill brought the revolution to new heights. The pill rapidly gained acceptance, and by 1965, 42.9 percent of married teens were using or had used oral contraception.
***
Speaking of the contraception/abortion connection: A few days ago I was working on a story for the Pro-Life Action League’s newspaper on media coverage of our recent “Contraception Is Not the Answer” conference.
In the course of doing so, I was pleased to see that Kathryn Joyce of the liberal magazine The Nation saw fit to note that the conference “served as a sort of coming-out party for the anticontraception movement”.
It’s also worth noting that the comments section article in which she referred to the CINTA conference (the article is on the “Quiverfull” movement within evangelical Protestantism) serve as yet another reminder of the intense hatred experienced by large, non-contracepting Christian families in our culture.
Admittedly, some comments were sensible and fair-minded.
Most weren’t.
Examples:
What pisses me off is that I have to subsidize the breeding of little fanatics for the Holy War these people are planning. Credits, exemptions, dependents, property taxes…The list keeps growing.
If they keep clogging up the tax codes with kid-friendly stuff, we’ll all have to have 50 kids, just so we can keep some of our paycheck.
And:
This movement is frightening. To top it off, they home-school their litters. Just perfect. Another way to dumb down an already diminished populations intelligence.
It’s definitely a race issue, as well. If it weren’t, they’d adopt all the children already here who need parents. Oops, most of those are minority or mixed race. Only Aryans qualify.
These people disgust me.
And:
The behaviour of these parents can be summed up in one word - and this is supported by most of the comments in the posts above. They are ‘IRRESPONSIBLE’.
Anybody who brings into the world a child whom they cannot properly support - materially, spiritually and psychologically - cannot be described in any other way.
Sir Julian Huxley was right when he said that we cannot hide in the arms of an inscrutable God; yet that is exactly what these parents are claiming they can do.
And this one, which once again proves Godwin’s Law:
This sounds much like the rhetoric used by the Nazis to promote their Aryan ideal. Women were encouraged to propagate to produce the Aryan warrior to take over the world.
Frightening stuff.
We’re running out of land, fuel, etc. There are too many people on this planet already. It’s selfish to have so many children.
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mary kay says:
Lauren,
Read the whole thing.
MK
Comment posted December 1st, 2006 at 5:58 pm
Pansy Moss says:
Those comments are just plain eveil. And I know what you said about Godwin’s Law, but these commenters, when they start talking about who should not be breeding and how many, based on their race, religion, or income, that starts to stink of Nazism to me.
To top it off, they home-school their litters. Just perfect. Another way to dumb down an already diminished populations intelligence.
Have these people ever met a homeschooled child?
It’s definitely a race issue, as well. If it weren’t, they’d adopt all the children already here who need parents. Oops, most of those are minority or mixed race. Only Aryans qualify.
So, minorities are only capable of producing unwanted children in need of adopting. A white person never had an unwanted pregnancy, and minorities are incapable of having stable families with a bunch of kids with the one person they married. OK, got it. Yeah, yeah, Godwin’s Law…I’ll shut up.
Comment posted December 2nd, 2006 at 7:57 am
Young Christian Woman says:
Pansy, did you see when one of the quiverfull women responded to the comments? She said that she had fourteen kids, some adopted, of varying skin tones. Someone then said something like, what are you teaching them about their history? It seems like people with large families don’t win either way. If they have big families, why aren’t they adopting? If they do adopt, why don’t they adopt older/minority/special needs etc. kids? If they do adopt these children, well then, they aren’t competent to parent them….
My personal opinion is that our history is our history. Why is it important what color skin someone had? Why can’t a little boy with Latino ancestry want to emulate George Washington? Why can’t a boy with African ancestry want to be just like his white adoptive father? When I was in school we did a living history museum of women (there was not an equivalent one for men). I chose Harriet Tubman and my best friend chose Hatshepsut. She was not Egyptian.
I think that assuming that kids can only look up to and try to be like people with the same skin color is rather racist, and it’s a lot easier to see than how these people are racist just because they have large families (wha?).
My husband and I are pursuing adoption and we do not care what color our baby is. I think one of the biggest reasons so many people request a “white” baby is that so many activists have tried to intimidate “white” parents from adopting “nonwhite” children. There’s a lot of talk about making sure that the child has contact with children or adults of the same race, having a plan to connect that child to his or her culture… but not if you adopt a child with an Italian mother. No requirement to make sure he or she gets to taste lasagne. (Not that any of these are requirements… they are just suggestions. But there are intimations that this could make the difference in whether a birth mother picks you. Oh, and take some pictures of yourselves with racially diverse friends.)
Apparently some people just really, really need to find some way to pick on people who have large families in part for religious reasons. I offer as evidence the fact that they make fun of their sex lives. There’s a headscratcher.
The most inaccurate part of the article, of course, was the tag at the top: “The Christian ‘Quiverfull’ movement measures a mother’s spiritual resolve by the number of children she raises, each one an arrow in the quiver of God’s army.” Where do they get this stuff? Did I miss the part where someone said that you weren’t really quiverfull unless you had at least six kids? Or where someone said that a woman who has fourteen kids is more loved by God than someone who has three? Nowhere do I see the logic that more children means more faith or more of God’s love. The logic that “Children are blessings, so women who can’t have as many aren’t loved by God” is something that only exists in the heads of infertile people. (Trust me, I know what I’m talking about here.)
The quiverfull movement does not hate infertile people. Most of the sites welcome those that have no children or none yet. Those that talk about, say, “1 or 21 kids” are those that focus on parenting. When you see a family with just one child, you don’t know why they have just one child. When you see a church or a society where no one has more than two children, that’s when you can make some assumptions about their views on kids.
The assumptions people on the comments made were ridiculous and untrue–no adoption, racism, drowning disabled kids, forming militias, welfare, irresponsibility, only for religious reasons and not because they love kids…. Oh, and then there’s the assumption that quiverfull people think all their kids should marry and have lots of kids. I do not know whether this was in the comments section or just somewhere commenters linked to, but saying “Well Jesus and Paul didn’t reproduce, were they sinners?” and “The new testament doesn’t have a command to multiply” shows a lack of thought on the issue. (This must not have been the comments page; those there did not seem to have much knowledge of the Bible). To the first: quiverfull people are only saying that one should reproduce within marriage. They are not bashing singleness. The push for children to marry and have kids is much stronger in small families. If Mom has two kids, and two stay single to spread the gospel, that’s bound to be harder than if Mom has eight kids and two decide to stay single. I imagine in large families there’s much less pressure for any one kid to always excel academically or in sports, to go to a specific school, to play an instrument or dance, or otherwise let their parents live vicariously through them. For married people to choose to be childless or drastically limit their numbers of children is in contrary to the Bible, natural law, and societal norms at the time the Bible was written. Paul probably assumed married people would have kids. As for what Jesus said:
“Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.”
“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
As you might have guessed, I feel really strongly about this and pretty much consider myself to be “quiverfull” or at least “quiver-minded” (as my quiver is pretty much empty at this point).
To Lauren: you can berate me all you like, and I will read it, but don’t expect me to respond unless there’s something worth responding you. I already expect that if anyone else has anything to say, it will be intelligent and with the intent to edify themselves, me, or others.
Comment posted December 2nd, 2006 at 10:11 am
Rosie says:
Pansy,
“Have these people ever met a homeschooled child?”
No kidding! My nephew is 10 and he is reading books that most 10 year olds wouldn’t even begin to understand. ( the iliad, odyssey for example). Now he is interested in World War2! The thing about homeschooled children is that they seem to be much more interested in learning than public schoolers. I don’t know too many 13 year olds who would want to read Ann Coulter! It’s funny, the guy who made that comment was publicly schooled, which just helps me make my point.
Comment posted December 2nd, 2006 at 10:37 am
Pansy Moss says:
There’s a lot of talk about making sure that the child has contact with children or adults of the same race, having a plan to connect that child to his or her culture… but not if you adopt a child with an Italian mother. No requirement to make sure he or she gets to taste lasagne. (Not that any of these are requirements… they are just suggestions. But there are intimations that this could make the difference in whether a birth mother picks you. Oh, and take some pictures of yourselves with racially diverse friends.)
I totally agree. I actually have used the same example that no one cares about culture in adoptions if you have an Irish family adopting an Italian child. When the race is different, then it’s everyone’s business. Sheesh.
Comment posted December 2nd, 2006 at 3:13 pm
Young Christian Woman says:
Thank you, Pansy, it is good to know you agree; it means a lot to me. I want to do what is best for my children, and I don’t think that singling out their differences in this way is the way to do it.
Comment posted December 2nd, 2006 at 4:18 pm
Joe says:
I bought the CDs for the CINTA conference. I am on the last one. They are amazing. The Pro-Life Action League has done a great thing for the planet by organising this.
On a side note. I really liked the audio quality of the CDs. Sometimes when I purchase audio from conferences they don’t turn out very good. If anyone is interested I ordered them from here. https://ssl27.pair.com/ejs/plal/cinta.php
Comment posted December 3rd, 2006 at 12:27 pm
John says:
“I bought the CDs for the CINTA conference. I am on the last one. They are amazing. The Pro-Life Action League has done a great thing for the planet by organising this.
On a side note. I really liked the audio quality of the CDs.”
Joe,
On behalf of PLAL, thanks for the compliments on the CDs. (By the way, they make great Christmas gifts!)
As for the sound quality, for that you can thank LCE Media, a company we’ve hired on several occasions to record events like the CINTA conference.
They do a good job, they’re affordable, and they’re easy to work with.
Comment posted December 4th, 2006 at 10:35 am
Generations for Life » Blog Archive » “Reproductive Justice”? says:
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