I have spoken in recent posts about some sensitive and tough
teaching of the Church in several areas.
These have included the issues of abortion and contraception.
There are many people of faith, Catholic and Protestant, who
are against abortion, but who are ambivalent about contraception. Yet, if you recall from a previous post, the
Catholic Church teaches that contraception, like abortion, is an “intrinsic
evil” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, p. 2370) Contraception is just
as serious as sin as abortion is. I know
that will be tough for many to hear, but it is the truth. Keep in mind, though, that not so long ago,
people did indeed view contraception as an evil. Here is a quote from Teddy Roosevelt: Contraception
is the one sin for which the penalty is national death, race death; a sin for
which there is no atonement.
It is important to note that until 1930, every mainline
Christian church taught that contraception was a sin. From the time of Our Lord, until then, every
Catholic and Protestant believed that using contraception was a sin. The Anglican church broke with tradition that
year, and other soon follow. This,
and not the Roe v Wade decision of 1973, is when the “right” to abortion truly
began to take root. We need to stop
speaking of Roe vs Wade as the beginning of the slippery slope. No, the seeds
for that took root much earlier in
the 20th century.
It is with contraception, and not abortion, that the slippery
slope begins. When one contracepts, one
wishes to enjoy the sexual act without all the responsibility that comes with it. If the contraception fails, then the child is
not seen as a gift from God, but rather as an inconvenience, or even a “failure”. Then, abortion is seen as the back-up to the
contraception not working. Abortion,
when you think about it, is really the ultimate
form of birth control.
A misguided notion today is that using contraception should lead
to fewer abortions. However, the more
contraception is used, the more sexually active people are, and therefore, the
more contraceptive failures there will be, and so, therefore, there will be
more “need” of abortion as a backup plan.
Some forms of contraception are actually what are called abortifacients.
Abortifacients do the same thing as
medically induced abortions do, they end the life of a fully realized human
person. Some, like IUD, prevent a
fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus. (When an egg is fertilized, that is
conception, and this when human life begins.) Some, like RU 486, actually abort an intact
fetus inside the woman’s body. So,
really, if we wish to speak about the evil of abortion, we have to talk about all forms, including ones fostered by
various forms of contraceptives.
The majority of abortions are not incurred because one fears
for the health and life of the mother.
Nor are the incurred because of rape or incest. No, they are incurred because men and women,
who are not looking to have children, are having sexual intercourse and are
facing a pregnancy they did not plan or want.
Again, the child is viewed as a “failure” or “inconvenience”. It is frightening we think that way.
Contraception fosters attitudes and behavior that lead to
abortion. The sexual revolution would
not be possible without contraception because the sexual revolution has no room
for babies. If there are no
contraceptives, there is no sexual revolution.
This revolution was all about the men and women who have sex, and when
and how they have it. . It was definitely not
about the fruits of sex, the babies. The
revolution teaches that we, not God, are the masters of sex. The
sexual revolution stated we could have sex whenever we wanted. It was disassociated with love and
responsibility. It became “casual” or “recreational”. The
deep meaning of sex, ingrained by the Creator, was lost. No longer was sex a result, or a deepening, of
true love, but rather, sex was used to try to create love, or maybe not even
love, but maybe some kind of high feeling, like a drug. That is not what sex was designed for.
This lack of a realization and/or education of the
connection between abortion and contraception is one of the biggest reasons, I
feel, why the pro-life movement, over the many years since the Roe v Wade
Supreme Court decision, despite the isolated successes here and there with
saving babies (which we thank God for), has, in the big picture legislative
wise, not been very successful. The
abortion laws remain pretty much the same since the movement started. The pro-life movement must begin speaking of
the damage and sin of contraception, and tie the abortion issue into the larger
realm of Church teaching of sexual ethics in general. Only with the full force of Catholic truth
can the good people of the pro-life movement have a chance of succeeding in
overcoming the evil of abortion in society.
Until we can more clearly see the thread between
contraception and abortion, as long as we continue to try to fight abortion
with one hand behind our back, we cannot expect to bear fruit. If we wish to defeat abortion, we must also
defeat contraception. Everything that
the Church teaches as intrinsically evil must be defeated. We have to fight against all evil, not just
some. When the evil of contraception is
finally realized, many of us will see that the forces of evil are much more
prevalent in our lives than we realized before. Those who thought they were OK because their
contraception “worked”, and/or for other reasons, have never had to have an
abortion, will realize they still sinned.
Sin is not just on the nightly
news, it is in our bedrooms. Sin can exist
just as easily in a quiet suburban home as it can in the inner city, or in a
rich person’s mansion. With this conviction of sin, we can then repent,
receive the grace of the mercy of God, and be given the strength to fight the
battle, so that others are not led down that same path.
If you wish to learn more, simply google the connection
between abortion and contraception (or birth control), and you can see articles
and quotes from people who have studied this issue in depth. Hopefully, before it is too late, our hearts
and minds are opened to this truth, and we see more clearly how the sin of
using contraception is closely connected with the sin of abortion, and how we
cannot stop abortion until we stop contraception.
To help us in this battle, both in the public arena, and in
our own individual lives, we can turn to Saint Joseph, whose most chaste heart
is often venerated
Joseph most chaste, pray for us.
No comments:
Post a Comment