For some, pro-life also means anti-contraception
Check out this fascinating video from Hunter Stuart and RH Reality Check. He went to one of the Forty Days for Life protests outside of a clinic in Central Wisconsin that doesn't even provide abortions. It's fascinating, and terrifying.
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: For some, pro-life also means anti-contraception.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.feministing.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.fcgi/16182
It irks me so much as a Christian how some religious people twist things at their convenience and are so effing hypocritical. Why don't they pray for people on death row or throw their weight behind universal healthcare? Pro-life my ass.
Oh yes, and it's the fault of condoms that some men feel there are no repercussions with sex and therefore use women. Nothing at all to do with pressure on women to be gatekeepers of sex and morality. Glad that's been cleared up.
What a great way to view a child. As a "consequence" and not as something that was wanted and strived for.
Well, sometimes a child isn't wanted or strived for. That's why people actively avoid pregnancies... because they don't want a child. And for someone who doesn't want a child, for whatever reason, they can't see pregnancy as anything but negative.
Sorry if that's hard to accept, but that's just the reality.
I don't think Mighty Ponygirl was expressing a problem with people who don't want to be pregnant feeling negatively toward pregnancy; I think she was pointing out the hypocrisy in the anti-contraception "babies are wonderful precious gifts from God/babies are your punishment for having sex, haha suck it!" attitude.
As punishment for sex :(
As punishment for sex :(
People protest outside the Planned Parenthood clinic in my town, which does not provide abortions. I always thought they were just confused...now I have to wonder if they are actually against birth control and women seeing an affordable gynecologist.
Uh, I know. I see some anti-choice protesters outside of the Ft. Collins CO planned parenthood and its all I can do to keep from stopping the car, getting out and bashing them in with a baseball bat. Its always old geezers too. Luckily the PP is situated so that its near a busy road and they cant really get huge protests or else they'd be obstructing traffic.
I should know, when I was a catechism student, there was all sorts of info against birth control, and they allege that Margaret Sanger is some kinda racist. I've seen ugly, and it's there
To be fair, Margaret Sanger was kind of a racist. Look it up -- she advocated for eugenics. I would start with her article, "A Plan for Peace" in Birth Control Review, 1932.
Doesn't mean PP is evil or that they're racist now, but we should be aware that the origins are pretty problematic.
I've wondered about that "Margaret Sanger was a racist" thing. Yes, she did a lot of things to appear to align with the eugenics movement, but she was very good at getting involved in communities that would be able to aid her in her quest for accessible contraception. I rarely hear that she was an anarchist (another alliance) or a conservative republican (she married Slee, a wealthy one who ended up funding research for the pill).
Sanger publicly proposed that there be a government agency to:
"take an inventory of the secondary group such as illiterates, paupers, unemployables, criminals, prostitutes, dope-fiends; classify them in special departments under government medical protection, and segregate them on farms and open spaces as long as necessary for the strenghtening and development of moral conduct.
Having corralled this enormous part of our population and placed it on a basis of health instead of punishment, it is safe to say that fifteen or twenty millions of our population would then be organized into soldiers of defense---defending the unborn against their own disabilities. "
She has also written in support of creating a "race of thoroughbreds," stated that "birth control will lead to a purer race" and even stated that "The campaign for birth control is not merely of eugenic value, but is practically identical with the final aims of eugenics."
I really don't think it's worth our time as feminists to try to defend Sanger. She was pretty progressive in her ideas that women should have access to reproductive services, but she's no hero.
Yes, but it should also be highlighted that the American eugenic movement in general did not want to work with Margaret Sanger. Eugenists wanted birth control for the "unfit", while also encouraging "fit" women to reproduce. Margaret Sanger, however, wanted to provide birth control for all women, including healthy caucasian women aka "fit" women. Most eugenists distanced themselves from Sanger because of this, seeing that her goals weren't the same as theirs.
Eugenics isnt necessarily racist.
True, but see the quotes above (and many others).
There is only ONE abortion clinic in my state and it's about 2 hours north of where I live. There are several Planned Parenthood locations in my city and they're picketed pretty often because they provide contraception. This is upsetting but it isn't at all uncommon. I wouldn't be surprised if your protesters are anti-contraception.
This was supposed to be a reply to JesiDangerously.
You're probably right. Their signs all just say the typical "Don't kill babies" crap, nothing expressly against condoms or the pill...but they're probably just being sneaky picketers.
But that's the thing, they honestly think that contraception "kills babies". I know it sounds crazy but I'm not making this up. Some extreme anti-choicers believe that preventing a pregnancy is the same as killing a baby.
I live less than a mile away from a Planned Parenthood that is picketed pretty often. It also happens to be where I go to get contraception. So on the day of my appointment there were a few protesters milling around in the parking lot. I got the usual, "Don't kill your baby!" crap and stupidly fell for it. This is what followed:
Me: I'm not here for an abortion. They don't even provide abortions here.
Protester: They give out the birth control pill and that prevents souls from coming into this world so it's the same thing as killing.
Seriously.
One reason some folks think that bc is like abortion is because of how it alters the lining of the uterus to prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg.
If you believe life begins at fertilization, then yes, birth control pills can end life (in the rare case that they fail to prevent ovulation, and an egg gets fertilized but then fails to implant).
Just to be clear -- I'm not advocating this point of view. I'm just saying that from their premise that life begins at conception, objecting to both abortion and bc (and emergency contraception) is not inconsistent.
Didn't think you were, Lily A. But thanks for clarifying anyhow ;-)
That happens even without BC.
They may have been against the pill because, should a woman ovulate anyway, it also works as an abortifacient.
Yes, I suppose that makes some kind of sense MyFeminineMind but it's the rhetoric that bothers me (to be fair all anti-choice rhetoric bothers me). A zygote is not equal to a fetus and definitely not equal to a baby. So to protest with "Baby killer!" signs at a clinic that provides contraception which can at most prevent implantation makes no scientific sense... not that they're big on science of facts...
Yes, it gets to the point where you have to suppose they believe that every period a woman has makes her a baby killer. Be pregnant. All the time. That's why you exist. Otherwise you're a baby killer!
I suppose that's why I dislike the argument that they're at least being logically consistent. If you follow the logic all the way to the end of the line, you end up in a pretty disturbing place.
Exactly. But of course the anti-choicers only follow their personal "logic" to the point where they're "satisfactorily" controlling what other women do with their bodies - if any real thinking were going on, they wouldn't be doing this in the first place.
No it doesn't.
The abortifacient properties of the pill aren't really advertised due to its highly controversial nature. When the pill first came out, they used a high dosage of estrogen. Due to the side effects that so many women were experiencing, however, they decreased the dosage, increasind the chance of break-through ovulation.
A second source of confusion is disagreement about semantics. Traditionally, "conception" was defined as "fertilization", but recently it is more often used to mean "implantation." So if someone believes life begins at "conception, meaning "fertilization", and another takes that to mean "implantation"--then there can be confusion and disagreement about whether a drug prevents conception, and therefore whether it does or does not act as an abortifacient.
Here is a video I just found that explains, for the first few minutes, how the pill works. http://www.veoh.com/browse/videos/category/news/watch/v18099681BXbeMShk
Abortion refers to the end of a pregnancy. Pregnancy refers to implantation in the uterus.
Therefore, the pill is not an abortifacient in that it does not end pregnancies.
I wish it did. It'd be a lot easier for women to terminate pregnancies on their own by just filling their prescriptions.
I'm going by the common, contemporary medical definition of these terms because we're talking about biology. If people want to call the loss of a fertilized egg an abortion, I'm going to call them on that particular definition. It's not medically accurate. If they want to call the intentional causing of a fertilized egg the ending of a human life and immoral and akin to murder, they can believe that and I'll believe something else. But once you start using medical terms incorrectly, I'm going to say something.
It seems as though you're more interested in obfuscating the issue with semantics than getting to the facts! When people say "contraception is abortion", they certainly aren't using the confusing medical definition of the term. They're using the human rights or ethical definition. Since it is the ethical and human rights equivalent of abortion, they call it "abortion", but they are using the non-medical definition of the term. There is nothing at all medically inaccurate about this.
Let's say I slammed my fingers in my car door, and then said "I was in extreme pain for at least a minute". But then you took out a medical dictionary and the pain scale, and said "technically, you were not in 'extreme pain', because you were able to speak and communicate after fifteen seconds. " There are medical and there are common-sense definitions of terms. Describing the incident as causing me "extreme pain" is certainly not medically inaccurate!
In any case, contraception and abortion do the same thing. They kill your child. Anyone who would never personally have an abortion would be a complete hypocrite to use any of those forms of contraception, or have sex with someone who was. Also, any pro-lifer who was not every bit as opposed to hormonal contraception as he or she was to induced abortion would be contradicting themselves as well. And don't even get me started about "pro-lifers" who want to "reduce the need for abortion" with abortifacient contraception.
Please take your unscientific, unsupported, anti-abortion "facts" and go troll somewhere else.
The later few minutes of that video goes into how "a unique being is is created at conception", which makes me doubt the validity of the first few minutes.
Progesterone actually prepares the lining of the uterus for implantation. It also serves the purpose of enhancing the effect of the estrogen, making the body think the woman is already pregnant.
There is actually no way to know if an egg is fertilized but fails to implant. hCG is a hormone which is the first indicator of pregnancy. When the zygote implants, it begins secreting hCG in order to signal to the ovary to not degrade the corpus luteum. If the egg is fertilized and then doesn't implant we would never know. So the claim that hormonal birth control or the morning after pill prevents implantation of a fertilized egg is not supported. We can speculate that it might happen, but there is no way to prove or disprove it.
But isn't that what it's designed to do? We might not actually be aware when it's happening, but my understanding is that's what it's supposed to do... please correct me if I'm wrong.
I believe she's saying that one cannot know if an egg is fertilized if it doesn't implant. Therefore, it's impossible to know if birth control or the morning after pill is preventing fertilized eggs from implanting. If implantation does not occur, it's really, really tough to find out whether or not fertilization occurred.
I hope I understood your question right, but preventing implantation is not the main mechanism for hormonal birth control. They are designed primarily to stop ovulation so there is no egg for the sperm to fertilize at all. Most have a secondary effect of thickening cervical mucous which makes sperm less likely to reach the egg. It can have an impact on the uterine lining so some speculate that if an egg is successfully fertilized, the changes in this lining would prevent it from implanting. As MLEmac28 said, there is no way to prove that this actually happens and it would be rare if it did.
Schrodinger's cat much?
You can certainly prove that it does happen. We can be completely sure of two facts:
1) While it is much less frequent than it would be otherwise, ovulation does still occur when hormonal contraception is used.
2) Hormonal contraception makes the uterine lining much more thin than it would be otherwise.
We can infer from these two facts that hormonal contraception does, in fact, cause abortions - or something no different whatsoever from an abortion. This is not a case of "nobody knows". Take a look at my link to the article in the examiner - some experts think that abortifacient contraception is responsible for up to four million abortions per year.
neither hormonal birth control or the morning after pill are actually designed to prevent implantation. As Lisa said, hormonal bc prevents ovulation. The morning after pill is meant to prevent or delay ovulation, as well as increase the cervical mucous. Since sperm hangs out for a few days, delaying ovulation can do the trick. If the woman has already ovulated, Plan B probably won't help. The fact that Plan B only works in a three day time frame is also evidence that rejects the hypothesis that it prevents implantation. It takes about a week for a fertilized egg to implant. Birth control that would prevent implantation would probably still work a week after the fact. An IUD can be inserted up to a week after unprotected sex and still have a reasonably high success rate of preventing a pregnancy. So it's more likely that an IUD prevents implantation than does Emergency Contraception.
While we're swapping stories, I went to get some plan B and there was a lone woman standing outside. She was just standing there, praying, and when I came out I was carrying the emergency contraceptive.
Her: If you've conceived a child and take that pill you'll be a baby killer.
Me: ...This is my third time taking it, so am I a serial baby killer?
My friend who accompanied me laughed, bible lady did not. She yelled verses at us all the way to my car.
And this is why I don't like pro-lifers. Not their ideals--they can believe whatever they want--but their tactics. Too often the most charitable term is 'harassment'.
It's so weird for alot of us to hear about this stuff. Stuff like this is unheard of on Canada. Ontario at least. This site always amazes me in how it reminds just how far behind the US compared to most Western nations. I really really really want the US to catch up - it's frustrating as hell to know so many people have to deal with this BS.
I find your comment funny, considering that when I was going to university in Fredericton (home of the Morgentaler Clinic) there was constant harassment one summer. They were waving the bloody baby pictures in people's faces. Just ask any of the ladies that worked at the clinic there...things have not gotten much better. They are actually having to walk their clients to the door of the abortion clinic so that they are not harassed or assaulted. It's pretty bad. There are some provinces/cities that are quite good. Apparently from what I have heard Alberta is pretty good and it sounds like Ontario is too. But not NB. Still very controversial there.
Uggg... Ontario is still a hotbed for protests in my experience. The 40 Days for Life campaign just started in Ottawa, again, for the second time this year. They are protesting outside the Morgentaler clinic.
The scary part was when they were saying there was no difference between contraceptives as "murder" and killing the reporter. REALLY?!? I feel like doing that segment on SNL's Weekend Update...
This kind of video just makes me want to curl up and cry.
This piece was much less offensive when I misread "For some, pro-life also means anti-constipation".
Hee hee. Do they pass out exlax at their protests?
"Usery"
Yet another example of the religious zealots' and misogynists' firm grasp on the English language.
::sigh::
I know! I thought for a second he said 'usury' and thought 'Er, contraception makes people loan money at interest? Anyway I think the church actually ok'd that about 600 years ago.' :P
I'm disappointed that the interviewer didn't ask more of the people about their sexual practices. Like, I mean, besides the woman with the 12 babies, who else there has made a choice about how many babies they want?
I wish he would have ask the young man how many kids he wants....also that seemingly married couple---to confirm, do they not use contraception then? Do they use that family planning schedule thingy? Do they abstain from sex within marriage? How do they feel about miscarriages cause by too many pregnanies? How should people deal with that?
I think the interviewer was trying to appear as neutral as possible so that the protesters would keep talking. If he'd asked some of the questions you suggested they probably would have become hostile instead of actually answering the question. Just a theory.
That guy should not have been interviewed, who is going to willingly have sex with him anyway? That makes his birth control opinion null and void.
I think the look on the wife's face and the total silence when the interviewer asked "should birth control be made illegal" said enough for me about their private sexual practices.
Man, the allegory and rhetoric is so full of logical holes and mis-use of the english language that it's making my head spin:
Using condoms = wearing earplugs during a conversation
"artificial contraception"
Using condoms promotes "usery"? Kid, you have access to rubbers and I doubt you're going around "using" women. Why? Because you're a person who can make their own choice about how they perform their sexuality. Rubber doesn't magically transform people into sex addicts. Jebus. Also, "usery" is as much of a word as Truthiness is.
"Using BC is not sharing your whole self with your partner. Full commitment is not marriage." As flowery and pretty is that sounds, what it really says is: full subjugation of your body and its functions to your husband is what marriage is about! You're a bad person if you don't give yourselves up to the whims of The Big Man/your husband. It's all in the plan, and you are simply a tool.
"Do you realize the side-effects of taking the pill?"
Do you realize the side-effects of being pregnant? Carrying a product of rape or incest? Struggling to feed yourself, and suddenly having another mouth to provide for and no support? Being trapped in an abusive relationship because a child is now involved? Et al, my morally superior friend. Just because popping out 12 christian soldiers for the lord isn't hard on your body, doesn't mean it won't KILL or seriously harm other women. We are not a monolith!
*facepalm*
Well, "usury" is a word; it just doesn't mean remotely what they think it does.
"Using BC is not sharing your whole self with your partner. Full commitment is not marriage." As flowery and pretty is that sounds, what it really says is: full subjugation of your body and its functions to your husband is what marriage is about! You're a bad person if you don't give yourselves up to the whims of The Big Man/your husband. It's all in the plan, and you are simply a tool."
I don't think these radicals were talking about "full subjugation" of a woman's body to her husband (how many men do you know who want the possibility of a kid every time they have sex?) but rather subjugation of your body to God's will.
It's hard for me to believe there are very many people out there who stll are anti-birth control (of any kind!). If you want to prevent abortion, the best way to do so is to have easy access to effective birth control. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that one out!
Six of one, half a dozen of the other. If to this woman, being on birth control is a cheat to her relationship (of which, she did not explicitly mention God), then one must assume being on birth control is a cheat to her husband. With holding her reproductive functions from her man, makes it all fake. That's sounds like bodily subjugation to me. While the men *I* know don't want sex=kids every time, the men I know aren't pro-life rads with their 12th bun in the oven. :P
But however you wanna label it, the husband is "God" in the household. Lord and Master. The embodiment of the Big Man on earth. There's a reason intense bible study ended up severing my relationship with religion. Had a real problem with "extinguishing my inner flame of rebellion" or whatever to be submissive to my husband/rep for the G man on earth.
But I agree with the last part of what you said. Anti-contraception is ridiculous when the end-game is reduction of abortion. But this is when their stripes show: it's not really about reduction of abortion. It's about punishment befitting the sin.
The nice thing about this video is that it illuminates the elephant in the room: The reason these folks are anti-choice & anti-contraception has less to do with the "personhood" of the fetus than the fact that there should be "consequences" to sex. Its always in the background (this is why anti-choicers are also anti-sex ed) but rarely voiced. Thanks for clearing up the confusion.
http://www.injustice801.com/DJ_Bell_and_Dan_Fair/Home.html
Not entirely related, but I didn't see a link here, so I'm spreading the word. WARNING: Trigger for violent images and homophobia, but it needs to be read.
Siona, that is an important story but this post is not the place for it. That's what the "What we missed" and community posts are for.
I always wish someone would ask these people about their views on "chemical pregnancies" (very early miscarriage) which are estimated to be fairly common. I do not mean to be coarse, but this has always seemed to be a bit of an unmentioned problem in the anti-contraception argument. I've seen estimates that the majority of first pregnancies end in a very early miscarriage, but they are hard to research since many occur before women even know that they are pregnant. Do these people monitor their pregnancy status that closely (i.e. checking even before missing a period) and have ceremonies for all of those lost "children?"
Not that I agree with their argument -- but, to someone that believes life begins at the moment of conception, it would be easy to distiguish between a life that is naturally or accidentally terminated (i.e. miscarriage), and one that is terminated by choice (i.e. abortion). To someone who believes that a conception begins life -- that would be like arguing that you should be able to murder an infant because some infants will die of SIDS anyway.
To the religious, they would simply say that all lives can be terminated at God's will ... but innocent life should not be terminated by the will of humanity.
kbz
Oh I totally follow that. I didn't mean to imply that a miscarriage and abortion were in any way the same thing. The "murder" v. "accident/nature/God" distinction is clear.
My point was simply that if followed to their logical conclusion, these anti-contraception arguments imply that there is no difference between a 1 month old baby passing away from SIDS and a miscarriage before the first missed period. I do not mean to say that miscarriages are not sad or traumatizing in some circumstances, they certainly are. But I am just not sure that these anti-contraception folks really do treat those two things the same. (Think of the implications if an early miscarriage is mistaken for a period... If you really believe those little cells are baby, shouldn't you be more careful?) When taken to the logical conclusion, some of these anti-contraception arguments get a little strange. I think this may indicate that, on some level, the whole thing is more about punishing sex or some other agenda.
I'm highly disturbed by this idea that people should "face the consequences" (be punished) for "having sex." The anti-choicers are looking at babies like they are punishment, but, yet, they say that they are "people" who deserve rights. I had one anti-choicer say directly to me, "You should never have sex and expect not to get pregnant." I was and am deeply offended.
It feels like a terrible, condescending, misogynist thing when I hear people like that young man who was sitting on the car. Grrr. I think it bothers me most, because I like to see myself as a person and not as the incubator or vessel so that some man can get his identity from thinking that women bearing children enforces sexual difference to the point that he can never be anything like a woman, a sub-human woman who serves a function and is never a human being. Geez, I'm so pissed. Sorry, everyone.
I suppose transpeople don't really have anything to worry about then! I wonder if these people would give us the thumbs-up to go at it. There are after all, no "consequences" (as if pregnancy is the only thing keeping people from being rabid sex fiends).
And yet when I flat out told my priest I was using artificial BC, his only response was "well, you know the official teaching". I made my choice, and he didn't try to change it.
It's always fun to hear the pro-life crowd say they're not trying to punish women for having sex, when their choice of words implies otherwise.
This gets rid of a little bit of the optimism I was feeling on the wave of that Alternet article that showed that only 1/5 of anti-abortion people are anti-contraception.
Why do the crazies always have to be the loudest?
1/5 is not that small of a percentage. That's twenty percent... TWENTY PERCENT. Imagine if twenty percent of feminists believed that men should be shot, or twenty percent of school teachers felt that evolution should be taught as a "theory" instead of as science, or if twenty percent of children were diagnosed with autism.
One in five "pro-lifers" believing that all forms of contraception should be illegal is not a comforting number by any stretch.
Evolution IS a theory. Science doesn't really prove things, it strives to find the best answer, which is why it's changeable. Theories are hypotheses that have been tested and have evidence to support them, but no theory is accepted as absolute truth in the scientific community. Teachers SHOULD be teaching it as a theory and stressing the benefits of the scientific method and constantly questioning that which we take for granted as fact.
It completely blows my mind that people that are against abortions are also against contraception. Hello, contraception prevents abortions. How dumb are these people? By their logic, abstinence should also be considered contraception, and therefore *not* having sex should be outlawed!
As a side note, I had no idea Wisconsin was so Catholic. To think how different things could have been if Vatican II had gone a different way. *sigh*
That would depend on your definition of "abortion". My sister-in-law is a devout Christian, and believes that life absolutely begins at conception. We have had a discussion or two about the subject, and while we disagree, I can respect the intellectual consistency of her position.
My sister-in-law is absolutely against abortion, late-term or otherwise. She is not, however, against all methods of family planning. However, because she believes that the intentional termination of a fertilized egg is the termination of an individual life, she is also against some forms of birth-control (what she would call "abortive" birth control).
Condoms, barriers, withdrawal, and pills that prevent fertilization she is not against. "The pill", which has a mixture of hormones that typically prevent fertilization, but can prevent implantation in rare cases, she finds acceptable (as do many Christian leaders such as Dobson, Robertson, etc.).
She, however, is against pills with hormones that exclusively prevent a fertilized egg from implanting, as well as IUD's, morning-after pills, etc., which she considers abortive.
Her position is not ill-considered, illogical, or intellectually dishonest -- it simply comes from the unproven premise that life begins at conception. She has done her research. It would be disingenuous to declare that she is against "birth control". She is simply against some forms of birth control which she believes causes an extremely early abortion.
kbz
Her position is not ill-considered, illogical, or intellectually dishonest -- it simply comes from the unproven premise that life begins at conception.
I wouldn't say that your sister's position is "unproven." There's no "proof" of when life begins. When an egg is fertilized? When it implants? When a fetus would be viable outside the mother's womb? When the baby is born? It's a matter of opinion, not science or fact, when a genetic individual should be treated like a person, or at least as a proto-person with some right to exist, or some moral significance.
As folks who prioritized women's rights to control their bodies, we tend to see life as beginning at birth. This position isn't scientifically superior or more "proven" than you sister's, it's just an idea that makes sense to us and fits with our worldviews and priorities.
"It's a matter of opinion, not science or fact, when a genetic individual should be treated like a person"
This. So much. And until people stop pretending it's anything but a personal opinion, we're going to have dopes on either side presenting their belief about it as scientific, or biblical, "fact." A large part of the reason we can't get a consensus on the issue, and that it's so volatile, is that there is NO certitude about the fundamental issue: when "life" begins - because we don't have one definition of "life" that everyone accepts.
Sigh. Just ranting. Never mind.
I'm pretty sure that the only definition of abortion is "end of a pregnancy."
Pregnancy does not occur in the medical sense until implantation.
Your sister can believe that life begins at conception, but a fertilized egg that fails to implant is not an abortion.
She would likely argue that a fertilized egg that naturally fails to implant was simply the will of God, and is no different morally from an individual of any age dying naturally (tragic, but not immoral). But, for a human to deny a fertilized egg the ability to implant is a human intentionally determining whether an innocent individual lives or dies (I say 'innocent' individual, because she is pro-death penalty, so apparently has no problem with intentionally killing the 'guilty').
kbz
I'm trying to say her vocabulary is wrong. She (obviously) has the right to think that not allowing a fertilized egg to implant is immoral and akin to murder on some level.
But it's not abortion.
So your sister do think that murder is okay so long as the state has sanction it and is approve of by the majority.
So she is not against murder, even if that murder is done by human and "not by God's will" such as the death penalty. If she really believe that any acts that was not done by God's will is immoral, then she would be against the death penalty since God did not kill the criminal, men did. That alone shows your sister is a hyprocrite.
I don't believe that your sister is pro life.
If murder by the state and human being is okay so long as there is a justification for it, then who is she to force her "pro life" views on to everyone else. Why is it okay to murder an actual human being though the death penalty but a woman's is a baby killer because she use the birth control pill?
Are the people who sanction and approve of the murder of a convict less guilty then a woman who use the birth control pill to prevent fertilization? I suspect that your sister support the war in Iraq because it was about saving the Iraqis from that evil dictator even if some people got kill.
Either it is wrong to murder people, from the moment of conception to a convict and solider or murder is revelative, and each person has the right to thier own conscious.
Once again, an abortion is when the fertilize egg has already implanted itself to the uterus not before it happen. The morning after pill is not an abortion, repeat the morning after pill is not an abortion, repeat, the morning after pill is not an abortion.
Being pro life means beleiving that every single life is sacred, from an egg to the convict to the soldiers to the humen beings that die from a pro life bombing.
Life doesn't not end at conception nor does it depends on the situation.
Huh? When does the KBZ's post ever say anything about the sister's opinion on the death penalty? Or the war in Iraq?
If you want to talk about the hypocrisy of pro-lifer's positions in general, go right ahead... but don't make wild speculations about what a poster's relative thinks and then shoot down that straw man.
Woah, my bad. I went back and saw where KBZ said that her sister is pro-death penalty in a different post. I'm sorry about that.
I still can't find any reference to the Iraq war, and I stand by my statement that it's more constructive to talk about pro-lifer's statements and opinions in general, or folks who put themselves in the spotlight deliberately, than to make a personal attack somebody's sister.
No, I was very upset at her sister's religious belief that murder is okay so long as that person was guilty and sanction by the state.
My problem is that these devout Christians spend their time protesting at Planned Parenthood but they don't care about the Iraqis that was killed by a Pro Life president, who said that God's told him to invade Iraq.
At what point does one distinguish the difference between God's will and human will? I read an article in People's magazine a few months back, and Meg Steplemen, Sarah Palin spokeswomen said that if Sarah Palin runs in 2012 for President, it is not because she has ambitious but it is a part of God's will? George Bush said that God told him to invade Iraq, therefore the deaths of Iraqis in Iraq is a part of God's will. It doesn't matter that the Pope John Paul II said that it was immoral.
How does one know what God's will is? If Sarah Palin believes that it is a part of God's will that she is to run in 2012, does this means that everyone who vote against her is going to hell for going against God's will?
Is Pope John Paul II burning in hell right now because he went against God's will since God told George Bush to invade Iraq?
How does her sister know what God's will is? Her belief that to use birth control pills to prevent pregnancy is preemptive abortion is no more obscure then Judge Leon Brazile who convicted the Lovings for interracialing marrying because God put people on separate continents for a reason and therefore there is no need to interracially marry because it goes against God's will.
One cannot claim to understand what God's will is, because to do so is to speak for God. John 3:16 said that there is only one way to go to heaven and that is to believe in Jesus. A woman who believes in Jesus can still go to heaven even though she choose to have an abortion because only God can judge her.
In James 4: 11 – 12, NT, it said that one should not speak evil of another nor shall he judge them because he is therefore judging the law of the land instead of being a doer. There is only one law giver, which is God. Who are you that judge another?
Her sister, while entitle to her own opinion has no more right to claim that birth control pills are preemptive abortion therefore going against God’s will and that is why the government must banned them then the southern Baptists claims that it was a part of God's will that Noah curse Ham to become a slave and mark him with dark skin. Therefore it is okay to make African slaves because they were merely following God’s will.
My sincere apology for being so rude and those that had been offended but I was very upset by that statement because of my sister’s choice to have an abortion, the father was a very emotionally abusive man who committed incestual rape, she was in high school and he was 10 years older her. Who is her sister to deem my sister’s abortion immoral, going against God’s will?
My sister is no less Christian then she is, and yes my sister is a catholic. Her sister belief should not be made the rule of the land and it shall be God, not her sister or a fundamental church that shall judge the morality of my sister’s abortion by banning and outlawing safe medical procedures for abortion. My sister got out of that hell hole and she is now happily married to a great man that loves her.
Two comments up from yours.
"(I say 'innocent' individual, because she is pro-death penalty, so apparently has no problem with intentionally killing the 'guilty')."
I guess I was wrong then because I fail to understand how someone can said that intentially killing someone is okay so long as they are guilty.
Why not let God make that judgement, why not let that person stay in prison and God will take care of his death?
My problem with people like Lily and Pro lifers here is that they believe it is immoral to "kill innocent people" but they vote for Pro Life politicans who support the killing of innocent people like the war in Iraq.
I wasn't responding to you.
I agree with you.
So your sister do think that murder is okay so long as the state has sanction it and is approve of by the majority.
So she is not against murder, even if that murder is done by human and "not by God's will" such as the death penalty. If she really believe that any acts that was not done by God's will is immoral, then she would be against the death penalty since God did not kill the criminal, men did. That alone shows your sister is a hyprocrite.
I don't believe that your sister is pro life.
If murder by the state and human being is okay so long as there is a justification for it, then who is she to force her "pro life" views on to everyone else. Why is it okay to murder an actual human being though the death penalty but a woman's is a baby killer because she use the birth control pill?
Are the people who sanction and approve of the murder of a convict less guilty then a woman who use the birth control pill to prevent fertilization? I suspect that your sister support the war in Iraq because it was about saving the Iraqis from that evil dictator even if some people got kill.
Either it is wrong to murder people, from the moment of conception to a convict and solider or murder is revelative, and each person has the right to thier own conscious.
What this video left out, that I think is worth mentioning, is that the Catholic church, while opposed to contraception, does not teach that a woman has to have 20 kids. It promotes Natural Family Planning as an acceptable way of spacing pregnancies.(No, this is not the rhythm method). Couples learn to observe signs of the woman's fertility, such as temperature shift, mucus and cervical changes, and mood changes and if they don't wish to conceive then they abstain from sex that week. I believe NFP is gaining popularity even among non-religious people who are just tired of the side effects of hormonal contraception, as well as some environmentalists who are worried about the large amounts of hormones being dumped into bodies of water and harming ecosystems. http://www.seattlepi.com/local/124939_estrogen04.html
I'm not sure of the accuracy of the statement that contraception reduces the number of abortions. Though it seems completely logical, some studies suggest otherwise. To quote Lino Ciccone, Professor of Moral Theology in Lugano, Switzerland, "Sociological studies on the practice of abortion in individual countries have shown that the ease with which a woman resorts to abortion is noticeably greater for those women who use contraceptives, as compared to other women, especially if they use natural methods of fertility control."
And also to quote a writing of Janet Smith, an associate professor at the University of Dallas: "Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the recent Supreme Court decision that confirmed Roe v. Wade, stated, 'in some critical respects abortion is of the same character as the decision to use contraception . . . . for two decades of economic and social developments, people have organized intimate relationships and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society, in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail.'"
I'm not sure of the accuracy of the statement that contraception reduces the number of abortions. Though it seems completely logical, some studies suggest otherwise. To quote Lino Ciccone, Professor of Moral Theology in Lugano, Switzerland, "Sociological studies on the practice of abortion in individual countries have shown that the ease with which a woman resorts to abortion is noticeably greater for those women who use contraceptives, as compared to other women, especially if they use natural methods of fertility control."
MyFeminineMind, think. Why would people use natural methods of fertility control unless they *already* were pro-life and thought that contraceptives were sinful and abortive? of course they're going to have lower rates of "ease" resorting to abortions that people who do use the pill (what does that even mean? Guilty feelings or lack thereof?)
Why would people use natural methods of fertility control unless they *already* were pro-life and thought that contraceptives were sinful and abortive?
Maybe because they're not crazy about the side effects and costs of hormonal birth control, or the feel and cost and risk of condoms, or the invasive nature of IUDs, etc? Or because they like feeling aware of their body's natural cycles?
There are a lot of reasons that people use FAM and similar methods, many of which have nothing to do with moral objections to other types of contraception.
On average, people who use FAM are probably less likely to want to have an abortion than those who use other forms of contraception because their ranks do include those who object to other forms... but that doesn't mean that all FAM users are using the method for the same reasons.
I know MyFeminineMind is not necessarily advocating NFP but since this is the second time I've seen it mentioned on Feminisitng in two days I feel that I have to chime in.
Because of certain drugs that I take, (not contraceptives) FAMs (fertility awareness methods) are simply not a reliable form of birth control for me. So from an anti-choice perspective should I have to abstain from all sex (unless I want to get pregnant) simply because I have a medical condition that needs to be treated with drugs that make it difficult for me to read FAM signs?
I would like to add that the while Catholic Church does promote Natural Family Planning that doesn't mean that every bishop or priest does. My mom is one of five children in a Catholic family. She was born in the fifties in a very small town in Texas. The priest at my grandmother's parish told her that only God could decide how many children she was supposed to have. I would like to think that things have changed since then and they probably have in a lot of places but there are still a lot of small towns out there where women are being fed misinformation.
This particular breed of pro-lifer is so much fun. They want to outlaw abortion but also want to remove access to the practical tools to prevent pregnancy. Once the baby is born, they are vehemently against social programs that offer support to mothers/parents who had children in difficult financial circumstances. They tell the mother that she should have kept her legs shut if she didn't want a child, ignoring the fact that regardless of what she should have done there is a child that exists here and now.
For them, it's all about punishing women for sex. The only solution in their eyes is "keep your legs closed". Reality check, even people who value abstinence before marriage often fail to meet that lofty goal and what are the option for married couples who don't want children/more children? It's not about saving innocent babies, it's about punishing those jezebels for having sex. Babies are just a consequence.
Jon Kyl is even more fun, since he doesn't believe health insurance should cover maternity care, which helps women and their pregnancies. So here's the logic: Don't have sex, unless you want a baby. And you can't just have one baby. Every time you have sex, it must result in a baby. But we won't make sure that your baby is born healthy, because insurance won't cover that. So if you want a healthy baby, you better be rich, because that's the only way you'll be able to afford the care you need. But how can you possibly be rich, when you've had a baby every year since the year you were married, at age 15, when your father let you?
Just a random thought: I lived with a Franco-American evangelical Protestant in France. What was interesting to me is that she told me she thought the general viewpoint was that there wasn't such an anti-contraception sentiment (I assume) among evangelical Protestants. Now, granted they do prefer the use of contraceptions in a marital context, but I'm wondering if it's a societal view per se rather than a religious one. I'm not sure how evangelical Protestants here feel about it as much as they do in France. Whatever the case, I state this only because I told her how I had made a huge generalization about evangelicals when we would get on these topics.
It absolutely is unique to the US. It started in the 80s. Before that, many evangelical churches had taken no stance on abortion and birth control. It was a deliberate political strategy on the right.
"Before 1980, the Southern Baptist Convention advocated for abortion rights."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-life_movement#History_of_pro-life_movements
Ahhhhhh, Wisconsin. My home state. Thanks to Madison and Milwaukee it appears somewhat progressive, but get out into cow country and it's a whole different story. Madison still isn't perfect - there's some discussion right now of opening an abortion clinic there, but it's meeting massive resistance.
http://www.lifenews.com/state4407.html (A pro-life website, FYI)
So if you are married and having sex but you don't get pregnant and start menstrating, was a child killed? Even without EC there is a chance that an embryo will not attach and be expelled from the body. Did a child die then?
A child did die in that case, but it died a natural death - much like dying of old age in your sleep.
I wish the camera person asked everyone there how many children they have. Something tells me they've used "artificial" birth control before. They just think it was okay for them to use it, because they're amazing, while everyone else is just a dirty slut.
Just for those that are interested, Roe versus Wade said that:
1. In the first trimester, the decision is clearly between a woman and her physician
2. In the second trimester, STATE may if it choose to REGULATE in concern to maternal health
3. In the third trimester, STATE may if it choose REGULATE in concern to fetus viability (the life of the fetus) with an exception to the physical life of the mother
I think that Roe gave too much power to the States, since they can regulate the second and third trimester. If you read the whole entire Roe argument, the Justices gave a historical overview of abortion. Apparently abortion had been happening before the Roman and Greek Era, in fact the Christian, all though they opposed it believe that life did not begin until quicking, so this whole concept of life beginning at conception is a brand new idea, it evolve with the time.
Abortion itself was treated as a property of the father, and did not receive the same jurisdiction as a living person; women too were considered a property of the father. As civilization advances, the English and the USA states didn’t make laws to protect the fertilize egg but because abortion was a dangerous procedure. They believe that it was too dangerous to leave it to the black market, therefore there must be laws legalizing abortion that it is legal, safe, and rare.
“A second reason is concerned with abortion as a medical procedure. When most criminal abortion laws were first enacted, the procedure was a hazardous one for the woman. The State has a legitimate interest in seeing to it that abortion, like any other medical procedure, is performed under circumstances that insure maximum safety for the patient.
The prevalence of high mortality rates at illegal "abortion mills" strengthens, rather than weakens, the State's interest in regulating the conditions under which abortions are performed. Moreover, the risk to the woman increases as her pregnancy continues. Thus, the State retains a definite interest in protecting the woman's own health and safety when an abortion is proposed at a late stage of pregnancy…
The pregnant woman herself could not be prosecuted for self-abortion or for cooperating in an abortion performed upon her by another. 50 They claim that adoption of the "quickening" distinction through received common law and state statutes tacitly recognizes the greater health hazards inherent in late abortion and impliedly repudiates the theory that life begins at conception.
Roe continues:
Texas urges that, apart from the Fourteenth Amendment, life begins at conception and is present throughout pregnancy, and that, therefore, the State has a compelling interest in protecting that life from and after conception.
We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.
It should be sufficient to note briefly the wide divergence of thinking on this most sensitive and difficult question. There has always been strong support for the view that life does not begin until live birth. This was the belief of the Stoics. 56 It appears to be the predominant, though not the unanimous, attitude of the Jewish faith. 57
It may be taken to represent also the position of a large segment of the Protestant community, insofar as that can be ascertained; organized groups that have taken a formal position on the abortion issue have generally regarded abortion as a matter for the conscience of the individual and her family. 58
As we have noted, the common law found greater significance in quickening. Physicians and their scientific colleagues have regarded that event with less interest and have tended to focus either upon conception, upon live birth, or upon the interim point at which the fetus becomes "viable," that is, potentially able to live outside the mother's womb, albeit with artificial aid” (Roe v. Wade)
I think that Roe vs. Wade gave too much power to the states. The States can regulate the second and third trimester in concern to maternal health and in the third, it is about fetus viability. The Justices said that since there is so many conflicting view of when life begins, and then let’s start with the fetus ability to survive outside the woman’s uterus.
Hormonal contraception causes abortions. In fact, some experts think that it's the leading cause of abortion - it is responsible for up to four times as many abortions as induced abortions are.
My point is, "hormonal contraception is abortion" is not an opinion. It often does the exact same thing that abortion does - it just isn't as "icky". Anyone who would never have an abortion would be a complete hypocrite if they ever used any of these forms of contraception. Protesting abortion but not protesting hormonal contraception would make even Graham Priest cringe.
That reads like an opinion piece rather than fact. Do you have any actual source for that 'four times as many' statistic?
Also as already said, abortion is the termination of a pregnancy and pregnancy begins with implantation. Therefore hormonal contraception is not causing abortion.
You're already a parent before you're pregnant, technically. Hormonal/abortifacient contraception do the same thing - they kill your child. The main difference is, contraception kills your child without its death being as gory. Like I said, it does essentially the same thing.
When people say that hormonal contraception does not cause abortion, all they are saying is that it does not terminate a pregnancy, i.e. it does not kill your child after it has implanted itself in your womb. It just kills him or her before you are pregnant. So my point still stands.
Your first sentence makes zero sense, as your failure to define your terms makes it sound like any woman, at any time, is pregnant whether she's even had sex. And hormonal contraception does not and cannot kill what does not exist.
Please go back to your conservative blog and take your ridiculous and unscientific "facts" with you.
My point was, if you have a fertilized human egg inside of you that has not implanted in your uterine wall yet, you are a mother, and the fertilized human egg is your child. While hormonal contraception often does prevent ovulation, it does not always - and since it does not always prevent ovulation and thins the lining of your uterine wall, it does effectively kill said child. So it's really no different from abortion.
Men masturbating kills potential children too because their sperm is not used to impregnate women. Guess we should make that illegal too...
There's no such thing as a potential (human) child. Something is either the offspring of two human beings or it is not.
THIS COMMENT HAS BEEN DELETED BECAUSE IT VIOLATES OUR COMMENT POLICY.
That was just poor. All around.
i wonder, why these pro-lifers actually kill people, like, doctors, or women, who want to have abortion. i wonder, what this blonde, or the teenager guy would have said, if pro-choicer would act aupon pro-lifer hypocrisy, let's say, the interviewer would say, ok, yes, if you have the right to kill me, i would kill you as well. and kill the pro-lifers.
i have never, ever heard, that a pro-choicer had killed a pro-lifer. but pro-lifer kill pro-choicer many times. so who is the actual murder now? i don't think, that it would be the pro-choicers...
A pro life protester was recently shot while protesting in Michigan. If you figure that the nation is just over half pro choice, then killers from either side are not representative. They are just psychos who happen to be on one side or the other of this issue. If they didn't get ginned up and kill someone over this, then it would be some other issue, because they are psycho killers first, activists second.
i wonder, if the killed pro-lifer was actually killed, because of his opinion of pro-life, and protesting (as pro-lifers kill abortion doctors for their activity), and was killed by an actual pro-choicer...
or the killing was just happening during his protest, without any links to the activism.
LOL!
I seriously thought he had said 'usury'. Every time I read a word that has been misused I go back to 'The Princess Bride'; the word 'inconceivable' is more appropriate than ever.
This video makes me proud to be a pro-choice atheist.
the strangest thing was the woman who was saying that using contraception was like 'listening to your husband with earplugs - you can have some of me but not all of me.' that was just ludicrous beyond anything.
it makes this assumption that NO man ever supports his female partner's decision to use birth control, or that no couple's ever just mutually both wanted to not have children, or not have children right now.
yeah, if birth control is used it's 'not a marriage' because of what? can't you still have love, intimacy, sharing of lives and responsibilities and mutual emotional support?
the strangest thing was the woman who was saying that using contraception was like 'listening to your husband with earplugs - you can have some of me but not all of me.' that was just ludicrous beyond anything.
it makes this assumption that NO man ever supports his female partner's decision to use birth control, or that no couple's ever just mutually both wanted to not have children, or not have children right now.
yeah, if birth control is used it's 'not a marriage' because of what? can't you still have love, intimacy, sharing of lives and responsibilities and mutual emotional support?
i thought i posted, but i wanted to say about the woman who compared using birth control to listening to your husband with earplugs in - as if there did not exist any couples where the husband wasn't in agreement on the decision to use birth control.
it isn't a marriage? does using birth control mean that there can be no loving, caring, physical or emotional intimacy, sharing of joys or responsibilities, bonding?