Free contraception is good for big business abortion

Abortion is big business.  Merchants of death such as Planned Parenthood, and now apparently the White House, know this.  Therefore they promote promiscuity, which will lead to more abortions which will produce more profits.  It isn’t difficult.  As part of the process, they will try to make sure there are free contraceptives (not to mention abortifacients) for as many people as possible.  The result will be “failures” of contraception, which then leads to more abortions.  This is why Planned Parenthood would hand the stuff out.  It’s good for the bottom line. See this for more on the tactic.

With that as a preamble, I read this at CNA:

Denver, Colo., Feb 24, 2012 / 09:21 am (CNA).- Advocates of President Obama’s contraception mandate should admit that its main purpose is sexual liberation and not “women’s health,” according to a feminist author who supports the mandate.

“The phrase ‘women’s health’ in the birth control dispute is the latest nimble euphemism,” author and blogger Pamela Haag wrote in a Feb. 17 essay.

Access to contraception, she said, “isn’t really about my ‘health.’ It’s not principally about the management of ovarian cysts or the regulation of periods.”

“Birth control isn’t about my health unless by ‘health’ you mean, my capacity to get it on, to have a happy, joyous sex life that involves an actual male partner,” wrote Haag, criticizing White House supporters for discussing contraceptives mainly as “preventive services” for women’s health.

“The point of birth control is to have sex that’s recreational and non-procreative,” wrote Haag approvingly. “It’s to permit women to exercise their desires without the ‘sword of Damocles’ of unwanted pregnancy hanging gloomily over their heads.”

Haag, a supporter of “reproductive rights” and “women’s sexual liberty,” accused “mainstream liberal voices in Congress” of publicly ignoring the real purpose of mandatory contraception coverage.

“Barbara Boxer frames the birth control issue ‘a la mode’ as about ‘defending women’s health,’” she noted. “EMILY’s List refers to the ‘war on women’s health.’”

“I understand why they’ve done this, in terms of narrow political expediency. We’ve been on the defensive about reproductive rights and women’s sexual liberty for decades. We’ve used a euphemism of ‘choice’ for years.”

[…]

Read the rest there.

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29 Comments

  1. Supertradmum says:

    In ancient times, in Canaan, Phoenicia, and in Carthage and other places, the first baby was put into a jar and the jar rolled into a furnace to the god Moloch. Jars with such infant remains have been found in This was to ensure prosperity to the family and the nation. Nothing has changed in the minds of the pagans, who worship money, status, license.

  2. Supertradmum says:

    sorry “found in those areas” is missing above. My internet connection is going on and off…

  3. Elizabeth D says:

    There’s some bracing honesty. This person is being very logical, advocating contraception is not about women’s health. I can remain healthier far more surely by sexual abstinence. Becoming a mother is also very healthy–pregnancy is a wonderfully healthy function of the body.

    Mandating the provision of contraceptives does actually seem to be motivated by a notion that recreational sex is a “human right”. From the limited perspective of PP and the like, it perhaps does have something to do with generating abortion business, but from the perspective of a lot of ordinary people it is about the attempted absolutizing of their right to engage in any consensual adult behavior as basically an end in itself.

  4. nsummy says:

    A. Abortions are not done for profit. Planned Parenthood is a non-profit for example and only exists because of funding.

    B. How could any logical person think that contraception will lead to more abortions? If anything it will prevent unwanted pregnancies and abortions.

    Time for the church to get with the times. Contraception is not controversial outside the thoughts of hardline Bishops who have never had sex in their lives. Regardless of what you think of Planned Parenthood, they are not the only game in town. Free condoms can be found on every college campus in the US. Same goes with birth control.

  5. Joseph-Mary says:

    We have known this for a long time. The “information” the PP brings into schools and to the young children is to indoctrinate them in to ways of sin and grab their imaginations while young and to make them sex addicts and totaly encourage promiscuity. Just about everything is called “perfectly normal” from masturbation to homosexual acts. So seriously incidious. And the government pays out tax dollars to PP and encourages and protects their evil sinful agendas.

    Demonic to the core.

  6. Joseph-Mary says:

    to nsummy,
    In San Fran where free (cheap,faulty) condoms are available in high schools, etc.—incidence of STDs and pregnancies are up. You need to get with the times and hear what former PP directors say about the promotion of sex to children because the outcome is abortion. PP made over a billion dollars in a recent year. Lies that only 3% of services are the killing of unborn children. But when you deal with murder, what are lies. They are not really non-profit and diretors make hundreds of thousands of dollars. They have quotas for abortions and want to expand that so called death service. They do immeasurable harm to women–they kill babies and the souls of all involved.
    It is not about chase bishops–this is a grave offense against GOD! It is mortal sin. Just because it is legal will n ever make it moral or right. And women suffer their whole lives.
    How many souls will go to hell for the sin of unrepentant abortions?

  7. NoTambourines says:

    They know contraception will fail, by the simple statistical fact of material failure, and by user error. Then, they serve up the next course of “options.”

    They know the problem will snowball because people’s behavior has changed, as they increasingly make choices they would not make if they did not suppose they could rely on contraceptives.

    Cha-ching.

  8. irishgirl says:

    @ Joseph-Mary: BRAVO! Way to go! What you said!

  9. eulogos says:

    Nsummy,
    A. I hope someone produces PP’s financial statements here to clarify this point. But there are people who used to work there who say they were pressured to produce the highest possible income by pushing abortion, and also to use ancillary services to abortion as a way of increasing income from government funding.
    B. You are in clear error here. It is true that given an equal number of sexual acts, the use of contraception for all of them would result in fewer pregnancies. But in fact, making contraception available, greatly increases the number of sexual acts engaged in by people who do not want a child as a result, and who would not accept a child as a result. It makes people believe they have the absolute right to engage in sexual acts without expecting to have to take responsiblity for a child. Wherever contraception has been pushed and made more available to young people, the number of abortions increases rather than decreases. This is not only because of contraceptive failures, but because of careless use of contraceptives , and the tendency of people to forget there is a natural connection between sex and pregnancy.
    I remember back in 1969 a friend of mine who had been taking the pill since her mid teens had to stop taking it because she had developed a blood clot. She was given a diaphragm, but that was a lot of trouble. When she did not use it and became pregnant, she expressed amazement. She really had not believed, in her heart and feelings, that having sex had anything to do with babies for people like her. In her mind, those other people, married people out in the suburbs, had babies when they decided to and were “trying” for a baby. It had nothing to do with her and her boyfriend. She went to Puerto Rico and had an abortion. (This was pre Roe v Wade.) The availability of the pill simply extinguished the connection between sex and pregnancy in her mind. That is what the availability of contraception has caused.

    Sadly, free condoms can be found on MOST college campuses. I was disgusted to find a bowl of them in the dorms at my alma mater. This most certainly was not the case when I was there. I think that was because in the 60’s, women were expected to be on the pill if they were sexually active. But it was also because the college while it had just stopped trying to prevent sex among students with pariental rules, was not about to encourage it actively, either.

    There are some few college campuses where there will never be condoms in the dorms; St.Thomas Acquinas and Christendom, for example, and there are probably a few more real Catholic colleges like them.

    Why should the Church “get with the times.” What is so good about “the times”? Is there something naturally right about “the times” just because they are now? Do you think there is a natural increase in wisdom in the human race as years progress, so that the mores of ten years hence must necessarily be superior to those of ten years since? Can’t you think of counterexamples to that proposition in human history?

    Someone once said (either Belloc or Chesterton I think) that the Catholic Church was the only institution which relived a person from the disgusting slavery of being a “child of his times.”

    The fact that there are a number (I am not saying what number or percentage) of bishops and priests who have never had sex in their lives, indicates to me that maybe the rest of us won’t wither up and die if we don’t have quite so much of it! Their lives should not be viewed as a form of ignorance, but as a witness to the possibility of restraint of the sexual impulse.

    Susan Peterson

  10. AnAmericanMother says:

    nsummy,
    You’re kidding yourself here.
    C.S. Lewis recognized immediately, back when the Anglicans at Lambeth 1930 decided that contraception was permissible (the first church to do so), that contraception removed the most basic impulse of chivalry that caused reasonably decent men to refrain from sexual relations out of concern for causing an unwanted pregnancy. Of course, it also removed the most basic impulse of prudence that caused most reasonably decent women to refrain from sexual relations if they didn’t want to get pregnant.
    Decency has apparently gone by the boards. Morality left the building a long time ago.

  11. tealady24 says:

    What a sorry conversation this is, and it was started by the White House! Obviously that dingbat who calls himself president isn’t doing too well with the ladies, so what better topic to catch their dim-witted attention with, than “contraception”?
    Just watch and see how in the months to come, when things aren’t going his highness’s way, the media will ‘suddenly’ focus on what IS ‘important’.
    Never let a good crisis go to waste, and always re-name something (religious liberty), something else (women’s health).

  12. HyacinthClare says:

    May an accountant chime in on the “non-profit” expression? That means, and ALL IT MEANS, is that the company is supposed to have as a primary purpose the service of the community, AND IT PAYS NO INCOME TAX ON ITS PROFITS. If it doesn’t “make” profits, it doesn’t stay in business long. It’s welcome to make profits, on which it pays NO TAX, if it convinces the IRS it is providing a service with them. Officers of non-profits can make huge salaries, perfectly legally.

  13. nsummy says:

    Some good points made here, but flaws of course. Lets put aside Planned Parenthood for a second. yes the provide abortions and contraception, amongst other services. If you think they are the main reason people have abortions, take birth control, or have sex you are mistaken.

    Yes birth control is not 100% for certain. Just like seat belts aren’t, safety equipment, etc. Just like having sex only in marriage does not mean you won’t get HIV. The list goes on. There are risks in everything. Where some of you are wrong is that you falsely believe that just because someone becomes unexpectedly pregnant they will get an abortion. Yes some will, but I would venture that a majority do not. Like this article, you guys are using blanket statements. To back up your beliefs you cite personal anecdotes. Of course this is no different than this blog post generalizing the beliefs of millions of people by quoting some goofy feminist.

    I will say though that numerous studies have proven that abstinence only education doesn’t work. Places that support this education always have the highest amount of teen pregnancies, look at Sarah Palin’s daughter. Worked very well.

    When I talk about the church updating with the times I am talking about overpopulation and disease. HIV spreading like crazy in Africa, kids are being born who cannot be fed. It is reckless for the church to sit here and talk about procreation when they say that “natural” birth control is ok. Why is it ok not to procreate as long as you pull out? To me that is as ridiculous as all of these Jewish laws that are bent so that the original intent of them is not even followed.

  14. pm125 says:

    11:56:
    A. Why would an org. work for profit when the funds are given by the taxpayers, especially an org. that is a tool of social influence potentially reaching everyone. Nothing is free. The employees are not volunteers, the clients get in line, landlords get rent, etc. and the accountants are busy.

    B. Some logical people, now and back through the ages, see that contraception is an enemy of natural life, whole person health long term, and that killing is inherent. Mentality of brains located below the head and neck. Logic, care, and health can be seen in the animal world (where man does not manipulate environment) more and more.

  15. ArtND76 says:

    nsummy: To echo your remarks, “Some good points made here, but flaws of course.”

    Yes, I am painfully aware that the existence of Planned Parenthood is not the major cause of the use of artificial contraception, they merely use it to increase their abortion activity. The strong desire for recreational sex is that major cause. If that desire for “pregnancy free” sex, when it is wanted, wherever it is wanted, and with whomever it is wanted – if that desire is not there, the motivation for the vast majority of the usage of artificial contraception simply goes away – and so do the unplanned pregnancies and resulting abortions.

    You agree that artificial contraception is not 100%. You also agree that sex that is not monogamous has very real risks of potentially deadly STDs. I think we all get that. Then you state that it is wrong to assume an unexpected pregnancy will result in an abortion a majority of the time. Just look at the United States population as a whole, versus the number of abortions in the last 40 years. Over 50 million U.S. citizens do not exist now due to abortion versus a total population of 300 million, and this is no personal anecdote. Now, of the proportion of live births that did occur, how many were due to unexpected pregnancies?

    You mentioned abstinence not working and Africa. Take a look at this debunking of your own myth concerning abstinence not working:

    http://www.worldvision.org/worldvision/pr.nsf/stable/update_uganda_52902

    Now if you protest that condoms are still involved, I will answer that the magic bullet that makes the Ugandan program effective is the abstinence part, not the condoms. The conclusion portion of a British medical journal article titled “Condoms and seat belts: the parallels and the lessons” is instructive:

    Seat belts have not delivered all the safety benefits that were originally expected of them. A theory of risk compensation may explain why the obvious benefits of seat belts do not necessarily translate into benefits when they are used by whole populations. If safety interventions engender compensatory changes of risk behaviour among drivers, it is highly probable that interventions to reduce sexual health risks could also change risk behaviour.
    There is much preliminary evidence that sexual behaviour does respond in this way. We believe that those who plan and implement interventions in sexual health should actively look for this phenomenon and deal with it. We should ask why condom promotion is apparently not having much effect in most developing countries. We should ask whether we have the right balance between messages about condom promotion and partner reduction or selection.

    Indeed. I think they were on to something – and it had nothing to do with Catholic teaching. It was merely catching up with where Catholic teaching was already.

  16. Theodore says:

    This is just another example of privatizing profits (“women own their own bodies”) and socializing the costs (“I want to have sexual relations without consequence and you should pay so that I can do so.”).

    Also, Dr Rich (Richard Fogoros, MD) provides a nice discussion on the inside baseball of why the HHS ukase was issued and according to his analysis Catholics are only collateral damage for the risk that Obama has taken to reign as he has.

    http://covertrationingblog.com/healthcare-policy/why-angering-catholics-makes-sense-for-obama Long paragraphs quoted in full because I think they are so important.

    “So why did he do it?

    The reason DrRich is compelled, once again, to tear himself away from the fascinating re-write of his textbook of electrophysiology, to the point that he finds himself posting more often during his blogging sabbatical than during normal times, is that nobody in the media seems to have figured out the correct answer to this question. And it is important to know the correct answer, because it tells us a lot about the battle that is really shaping up.

    The President did not issue this politically counterproductive directive because it was necessary for the health of American women. (One set of healthcare services American women have plenty of access to, regardless of their income levels, is birth control and abortion services. That, after all, is why we taxpayers fund Planned Parenthood.) So to imply, as some have done, that without this directive American women would be falling dead on the streets is just absurd.

    Nor did he issue it in order to further weaken religious freedom, or to further undermine the Constitution as our founders gave it to us. These features of his directive, DrRich submits, are merely useful side benefits, and would not have been compelling enough to jeopardize his re-election.

    The reason President Obama issued this directive was not to undermine religious or constitutional principles, but rather, to establish new principles of his own that are critical both to Obamacare and to the overarching Progressive agenda.

    DrRich has pointed out many times that the real battle we will face as Obamacare is being rolled out is the battle over whether American citizens will retain individual freedom sufficient to be permitted to spend their own money on their own healthcare. Indeed, DrRich has written a series of posts that spells all this out in painful detail. If you need to know why limiting individual prerogatives is so critically important to Progressives, and why Obamacare must be the vehicle for establishing these limitations, simply read the first post in that series.

    DrRich understands how paranoid this all sounds at first glance. To see the truth of it, one must take several glances, and observe, over time, the actual behavior of Progressives in the wild.

    DrRich hereby asserts that this new directive – which various commentators insist protects the health of women, or undermines religious freedom, or tears down Constitutional guarantees – actually was issued in order to establish, once and for all, the essential set of foundational principles for Obamacare, to wit:

    1) The government will determine what constitutes healthcare and what does not.
    2) If the government says it’s healthcare, every insurance product must cover it.
    3) If it’s not covered by insurance, thou shalt not have access to it.

    The first two of these principles are pretty obvious, and constitute, in fact, the overt meaning of the President’s directive. The government has determined that contraception, abortifacients, and sterilization constitute essential healthcare services, and therefore all employers must cover them, whatever their religious beliefs or other sensibilities may be.

    But if you listen carefully to the arguments being made by supporters of the new directive, you will hear them saying that it’s critical that women have access to these services, as Jay Carney, the President’s Press Secretary avers, without paying for them themselves.

    And that’s what the whole fight comes down to. Women must be provided these services without paying for them.

    Progressives pretend they mean by this that many, many women are going without these services today because they cannot afford them, and so we must make sure the services are provided for them free of charge. But of all medical services that exist today, access to birth control and abortion are likely the ones which are most accessible to women of all socioeconomic backgrounds. And if there are women whose financial status still precludes receiving these services (among whom are most likely not the women gainfully employed by Catholic institutions), surely the President can imagine remedies for this situation that do not require taking the kind of extraordinary political risk he has just taken.

    No. Women must be provided these services without paying for them NOT because there are so many women going without them today due to the cost to them. Rather, women must be provided these services without paying for them because we cannot allow women (or any patient) to pay for these services (or any service the Central Authority classifies as “healthcare”) out of their own pockets.

    All healthcare services must be covered by all insurance products – regardless of which institutions provide those insurance products – precisely because nobody can be permitted to pay for healthcare outside the sanctioned insurance product.

    This is the principle which is being established by the President’s new directive. This principle, so critical to Obamacare and to the Progressive agenda, is a principle worth fighting for. None of the other explanations offered by proponents or opponents of the President’s action make any sense. Establishing this critical principle is the only thing that justifies the huge political risk the President is now taking.”

  17. nsummy says:

    Thank you ArtND for providing insightful and logical discussion. A few things though, I think you may have misread some of my comments, which would be easy to do as my thoughts were all over. When I was talking about abstinence-only education I was referring to the US. Studies have indeed shown that it does not reduce unplanned pregnancies or the spread of STD’s. I can cite numerous studies if you would like.

    You ask out of all of the babies born, how many are unexpected? That I do not know, nor do I know if there is even a study. I do know that its wrong to assume that an unexpected pregnancies end in abortion or even suggest most do. I don’t like to draw on personal experience to back my statements but I personally know of at least 10 children who were unexpected born out of wedlock, not one of those couples ever considered abortion.

    The bottom line is that people are always going to have sex, whether inside or outside of marriage, regardless of religion. There is nothing that can be done to stop it, legally or morally. Just like the programs that provide clean needles to drug users we should make sure that those engaging in risky behaviors are protected. A majority of Catholics agree with me and so did the Papal commission 50 years ago.

    One other interesting tidbit, in the rush to bash Obama, the Bishops have failed to realize that patients can get their tubes tied or get a vasectomy in many Catholic hospitals today.

  18. heway says:

    Thanks Theodore -I’ll buy that!
    Many people do not realize that a contraceptive pill or device causes an abortion to occur. Conception takes place before the zygote reaches the uterus. Having used contraception usually causes the uterus to be unprepared to recieve the conceptus -and it is discharged as waste from the body. Hence an abortion!
    I also truly believe that part of this is about population control.
    Nsummy, if you understood more, you wouldn’t be so angry….pray. Have you looked at this president’s record on killing infants?

  19. pm125 says:

    DrRich hereby asserts that this new directive – which various commentators insist protects the health of women, or undermines religious freedom, or tears down Constitutional guarantees – actually was issued in order to establish, once and for all, the essential set of foundational principles for Obamacare, to wit:

    1) The government will determine what constitutes healthcare and what does not.
    2) If the government says it’s healthcare, every insurance product must cover it.
    3) If it’s not covered by insurance, thou shalt not have access to it.

    Number 3 is the one that will add to the tragedy we know occurs daily with infanticide. Geriatric population next …? Only the privileged survive – wonder how the policies of high level goverment officials look.

  20. wmeyer says:

    Of course, these “services” are essential, so that we may follow Europe down the road to cultural suicide. The fertility rate in the U.S. is barely replacement level (2.11), and in most of Europe it is below 1.3. This makes claims of overpopulation sound stunningly stupid. If you really think there is a need for population control, you would do better to look at the Muslims in Europe, whose fertility rate ranges from 3.5 to 7. By around 2040, Europe will be dominated by Islamic republics–or a caliphate–as the majority population will by then be Muslim.

  21. Grateful Catholic says:

    CNA quotes Pamela Haag: “Birth control isn’t about my health unless by ‘health’ you mean, my capacity to get it on, to have a happy, joyous sex life that involves an actual male partner. . . . The point of birth control is to have sex that’s recreational and non-procreative. . . . It’s to permit women to exercise their desires without the ‘sword of Damocles’ of unwanted pregnancy hanging gloomily over their heads.”

    For a slightly deeper take on this topic, if you have not already read George Weigel’s excellent article, “The Libertine Police State,” February 13 at National Review Online, check it out. http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/290842/libertine-police-state-george-weigel

  22. Theodore says:

    @pm125 3;35 pm.

    Consider this, if there are not enough tax payers in the future, then the government can mandate pregnancy. Ladies will become brood mares to ensure that the population remains where it is “supposed” to be, at least until artificial gestation is possible.

    Wretchard has a great post on that idea, “. What in principle prevents the government mandating women to have a certain number of children to keep the tax revenues flowing in? If you can be required to buy insurance; required to provide services perhaps contrary to your beliefs; required to give away services for “free”, what cannot a woman be “required” to have children?

    Government could for example, stipulate that a person’s extended family have a minimum number of children (counting from your father or grandfather) equal to a certain ratio to the older age cohorts, or be ineligible for the state insurance pool. Otherwise a person would have to make other insurance or pension arrangements. The rational would be simple: we have to be “fair”, we have to make sure people contribute their “share”.”

    http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/comment/195317/

  23. ArtND76 says:

    nsummy: Perhaps in the U.S. there are factors involved that are not considered in the studies – factors that could be corrected, but if left uncorrected leave “abstinence only” ineffective. I suspect that ineffectiveness is due to strong contrarian messaging primarily from the entertainment industry, with little effective counter messaging (if any at all) from family, school, or government.

    Your comment “The bottom line is that people are always going to have sex”, in my opinion, needs to be qualified with ” … some people are always going to have sex”. The question is, how big or small a percentage is some? After all, some people will always have traffic accidents, become smokers, alcoholics, drug addicts or bank robbers. If some people are always going to do certain things, does that make them right? Does that mean we should not attempt, with the Grace of God, to be better than that?

    Should we not be focusing our activities on helping those enslaved, whether by alcohol, drugs, sex, or any other addiction, to become free of that? Jesus Christ did not come to free Israel in the political sense – He came to free them from bondage to sin.

    As to your assertion that the majority of Catholics and a papal commission agree to “protect” people from risky behavior, with all due respect – the Pope has the final word and there is a reason for that. Jesus Christ, whom we hold to be the Son of God, creator of us all, did not found His church on the foundation of a majority of believers, nor upon any other collection of believers. He founded His church on Peter, who in turn made it clear that this applied to his rightful successors. Jesus also made a promise to His church, the one founded on Peter, that “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” I think that promise only applies to those who follow the Pope’s teaching concerning faith and morals – not because the Pope is perfect or even good – but because God promised His protection to His church, and He gave His church a singular identity to make it easy to recognize: the one founded on Peter.

    I will stick with God’s promise to His church rather than looking to a majority or a commission.

  24. Maltese says:

    @nsummy: It is reckless for the church to sit here and talk about procreation when they say that “natural” birth control is ok. Why is it ok not to procreate as long as you pull out? The Church, of course, considers pulling-out as serious as using a condom–in fact, a mortal sin (what was once called the Sin of Onan). One Catholic Apologist I read equated using a condom to gay sex. Morally, what’s the difference? You are using a person for sexual gratification ignoring infinite God’s intended use of the sexual function: procreation.

    God created the sex-drive for procreation first, union second, any other use is a subversion.

    Condoms have certainly benefited misogynistic, porno-viewing, men who objectify women. But they have led to the degradation and disintegration of society. They also are a grave sin which cause divorce en-masse. The absent, ephemeral and penumbral “right to privacy” is secretly in the Constitution, and is used in Griswold–which is exactly the argument used in Roe. Sometimes Justices pull a Copperfield to make a square peg fit a round hole!

    Thus, legalizing Trojans has led to legalizing Dilation and Extraction abortion.

  25. brassplayer says:

    wmeyer says:
    The fertility rate in the U.S. is barely replacement level (2.11), and in most of Europe it is below 1.3. This makes claims of overpopulation sound stunningly stupid.

    Spoken like someone who has never had to drive Los Angeles freeways during rush hour. :-D

  26. LisaP. says:

    nsummy,

    What seems to be true on first blush is rarely true on deeper inspection, especially on a subject that has such entrenched partisans, you can’t skim the surface on this stuff and come up with the truth.

    A couple quick examples: the ten pregnancies you know of that were unplanned but carried to term. Your friends that had abortions simply haven’t told you about them the way the friends who decide to keep the baby have. And your friends who had “unwanted” pregnancies, probably some of them weren’t, not really, but in this country telling someone you were open to being pregnant can seem shameful in many crowds, so it’s easier to tell people it was an oopsie. But even the friends that carried the baby they told you about to term may not have told you about their abortions. It is not easy information to share, no matter your ideology, and it’s not your business. But you now have the skewed idea that no one actually HAS abortions so it’s o.k. to be pro-choice because it’s just an idea, not a real thing.

    Abstinence education and studies — have you ever been involved with a “study”, particularly a sociological one? Don’t cite studies. There are lies, damned lies, statistics, and way down past that there’s studies. But I do personally believe abstinence education has about as much efficacy as I do when I tell my elementary school daughters not to eat junk and then send them to school where they are given candy as rewards for work, candy as incentive for behavior, parties with processed junk food weekly, and boxed processed cafeteria food for breakfast and lunch. I would not, then, be shocked to find my lectures on food didn’t prevent bad health in my child, or blame the lectures. They got swallowed up in the real world. Show me an abstinence education program operating in an environment where contraception was not freely available, and we’ll compare success rates then.

    Keep digging, and I do believe you will find many of the “givens” you take for granted as true are not actually based in truth. You may not come around to the point of view of many here, but you may lose some of your trust in the institutions you have rested it in until now. They seem such smart and compassionate places to put your confidence, but look behind the curtain and you’ll see a whole new perspective. Best to you in all your inquiries.

  27. LisaP. says:

    brassplayer,

    I believe that’s referred to as the “distribution problem” these days! And a very good example of it that is!

  28. aviva meriam says:

    Lisa P…..
    Iuldn’t agree more.

    ArtND76… Economists use the term MORAL HAZARD to describe something that is designed to mitigate risk and therefore takes away the incentive of the individual to behave more responsibly. Seat Belts, and Airbags have decreased the physical cost of getting into an accident so drivers do not have to be as careful. Its very real. And it would be impossible to argue that the sexual revolution (sex without relationship consequences) could have happened without THE PILL. The cultural studies on the consequences of the sexual revolution (especially involving children born out of wedlock) are devestating… these children have grater proprensity for health issues, emotional issues and greater difficulty achieving success by objective measurements (education, income, relationship stability).
    Nsummy, there are several flaws in your logic. For example, many studies demonstrate that most drivers drivve at least 10 miles per hour over the speed limit. Does that mean that we should abolish the speed limit? Does that mean we sholdn’t enforce the speed limit?

    If something is morally WRONG, despite the fact that it is popular does not alter its moral status. For many centuries slavery was not only condoned and tolerated but actively promoted throughout western culture. That did not make it morally acceptable. Segregation and predjudice were culturally acceptable, and many US politicians were members of the KKK…. (President Wilson, Senator Byrd as examples)…. that does not mean it wasn’t (and remains) morally abhorent.

    And just because something is used by a vast percentage of the population does not mean that use of that product should be subsidized by everyone else in the population. When I pay for something, or subsidize something/someone I am complicit in that act. I should not be forced by law to pay for or be complicit in the destruction of innocent life.

    Faith in God (and the accountability to Him at the end of our lives for all of our actions) often leads to difficult choices…. there are many times when we can either do what is right or what is easy…. And the Bishops are right to stand on the side of Life.

  29. SKAY says:

    3) If it’s not covered by insurance, thou shalt not have access to it.

    “Number 3 is the one that will add to the tragedy we know occurs daily with infanticide. Geriatric population next …? Only the privileged survive – wonder how the policies of high level goverment officials look.”
    Yes the Geriatric population is next(the panel in Washington will decide what is “cost effective” – considering your age)–when Obamacare really kicks in. Of course the Democrat Senators and Congressmem/women would not pass the Republican ammendment that would have made them give up their special healthcare and be under the healthcare bill they passed for the rest of us. We are now finding out what is in it (asPelosi said)–now that the Democrats passed it and Obama signed it.
    It sounds like they already knew what was in it.
    It also sounds like we will not even be able to buy medication on our own that the Dr. might think is more effective — if it is not “approved”.
    This IS about the Constitution and our first ammendment rights. He said(interview in the 90’s) that he does not like the Constitution as written–so he and those BEHIND him are now trying to rewrite it through this terrible bill.

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