Anti-Contraception

[Thy Geekdom Come]

So I was teaching my class a bit about how contraception is immoral (we're learning social justice, so the foundation of society is the family, just to show you where I'm going). I only barely started to get through to the smartest kid in the class, the others were closed-hearted and just gawked and interrupted the whole time. I'm looking for some explanations from other teachers, but especially from some of our Catholic teens, on how they would teach it. I can usually connect to them on the issues we have to discuss, but to them I seem so backward on this one that I think I could use some help getting it across to them.

[Nihil Obstat]

Hm..... who was that modern Catholic philosopher who wrote that great paper?
Found it. Contraception and Chastity by Elizabeth Anscombe. Have you read it? It's short and sweet. 26 pages on my word processor, and if you read slowly it's easy to understand. Definitely would make sense to a high schooler if you presented it clearly enough.

Anyway, she makes some really good points and generally just presents very logically from a Catholic perspective why contraception is not moral.

[cmotherofpirl]

I try the round-about approach, I ask if they are on a diet - most people are. Then we discuss about keeping our bodies healthy, and staying away from chemicals, transfats etc. Then I start discussing what the pill actually is and does. I also mention that it can chemically destroy the sex drive of women forever, kill babies, and its so toxic in the water supply it can affect the gender of fish, so what do they think its doing to us drinking the water that comes out of the house tap? And women on the pill are putting that chemical in their system every month for years on end...
then I talk about how our bodies are a gift from God and the immorality of contraception.

[Moosey]

You could get into how sex is procreative and not only pleasurable. Contraception also objectifies one's spouse, basically denying their reproductive abilities and looking at it as something to avoid at all costs when we should look at it as one of the most beautiful assets of the opposite sex. You could also mention the adverse affects of birth control on women.

Maybe, you've tried this

[Moosey]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' date='06 January 2010 - 02:57 PM' timestamp='1262804261' post='2030972']
I try the round-about approach, I ask if they are on a diet - most people are. Then we discuss about keeping our bodies healthy, and staying away from chemicals, transfats etc. Then I start discussing what the pill actually is and does. I also mention that it can chemically destroy the sex drive of women forever, kill babies, and its so toxic in the water supply it can affect the gender of fish, so what do they think its doing to us drinking the water that comes out of the house tap? And women on the pill are putting that chemical in their system every month for years on end...
then I talk about how our bodies are a gift from God and the immorality of contraception.
[/quote]
He could also scare the girls by telling them birth control gives them muffin top

[CatherineM]

Take it from a medical position. When I am prescribed a medication, I investigate it thoroughly before filling it. In college, my Catholic roommate was on the pill, and sleeping with her boyfriend. She had one of those pill induced miscarriages, and freaked out. She didn't know how the pill worked, so she was floored. She almost had to drop out that semester. When you are a woman who has cramps, the doctor always wants to prescribe the pill. It took a couple of decades for me to find out that there is a medication just for treating cramps that isn't a contraceptive or a heavy narcotic. I asked my doctor why he didn't prescribe it for me before, and he said that the pill is just easier. People lie about the pill, they hide the side effects. Ask them the question why. Make them defend, on medical grounds, how the "medication" benefits a woman's body.

[Archaeology cat]

[quote name='CatherineM' date='06 January 2010 - 07:03 PM' timestamp='1262804610' post='2030976']
Take it from a medical position. When I am prescribed a medication, I investigate it thoroughly before filling it. In college, my Catholic roommate was on the pill, and sleeping with her boyfriend. She had one of those pill induced miscarriages, and freaked out. She didn't know how the pill worked, so she was floored. She almost had to drop out that semester. When you are a woman who has cramps, the doctor always wants to prescribe the pill. It took a couple of decades for me to find out that there is a medication just for treating cramps that isn't a contraceptive or a heavy narcotic. I asked my doctor why he didn't prescribe it for me before, and he said that the pill is just easier. People lie about the pill, they hide the side effects. Ask them the question why. Make them defend, on medical grounds, how the "medication" benefits a woman's body.
[/quote]
Couldn't agree more. I wasn't told about an alternative that wasn't hormonal or a narcotic from my own doctors - I finally asked my uncle, since he's an OB/GYN, and he told me one. One of my roommates in college had her cholesterol go through the roof when they put her on the pill. Took them awhile to realise the connection, but thankfully her cholesterol went back down as soon as she went off it. And then there are the potential long-term effects.

The green aspect also gets to people, I've found.

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='Moosey' date='06 January 2010 - 01:59 PM' timestamp='1262804367' post='2030973']
You could get into how sex is procreative and not only pleasurable. Contraception also objectifies one's spouse, basically denying their reproductive abilities and looking at it as something to avoid at all costs when we should look at it as one of the most beautiful assets of the opposite sex. You could also mention the adverse affects of birth control on women.

Maybe, you've tried this
[/quote]
I managed to get through to one of my students (a non-Catholic one! lol) by pointing out simple natural law. Sex is an integral part of marriage. Sex has two ends/purposes: union of spouses and production of children. These are the purposes of sex because these are what sex does. To block either of the purposes of sex is to restrict sex and to practice a damaged form of sex.

He raised the question of how NFP is any different. I said there were two reasons:

1. Intention - contraceptive couples usually want to avoid children because they would get in the way of their plans; NFP practicing couples usually want to avoid children at a particular time because of their responsilibities and for the good of the family. It is possible for contracepting couples to have good intentions, however, the ends do not justify the means, which brings us to...

2. Contraception blocks fertility and restricts the ability of the body to do what is natural to it; NFP doesn't block anything, it simply avoids the cause of conception during the times when conception is possible. NFP doesn't involve violating the nature of sex, contraception does.

Then he said, "but doesn't having sex while only one of the purposes of sex (union) is present a sin?" I said, "no, because then women who have passed menopause can't have sex. There's a huge difference between seeking union and being open-to-life while knowing conception can't happen and seeking union while being closed-to-life. In one you're open to God's plan for that sexual act, in another you are not."

Some of the other kids even tried to act disgusted. I told them, "don't act disgusted; you see worse on television every day."

[Moosey]

We were discussing in the chat how it's okay to dress like a hoochy (sp?) but the moment a woman takes out her breast to feed her child it's inappropriate and disgusting.

Also, mention to them how birth control can render a woman barren.

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='Moosey' date='06 January 2010 - 02:16 PM' timestamp='1262805361' post='2030996']
We were discussing in the chat how it's okay to dress like a hoochy (sp?) but the moment a woman takes out her breast to feed her child it's inappropriate and disgusting.

Also, mention to them how birth control can render a woman barren.
[/quote]
I'm considering having them listen to Janet Smith's [u]Contraception: Why Not?[/u].

[StColette]

[quote name='Moosey' date='06 January 2010 - 02:16 PM' timestamp='1262805361' post='2030996']
Also, mention to them how birth control can render a woman barren.
[/quote]

Doesn't hurt to mention the problems it can cause for your future children even if you stop taking them. You can also talk to them about the problems it can cause for children conceived while taking birth control.

[EcceNovaFacioOmni]

I think it's helpful to mention the effects of contraception on fidelity. Contraception has made extra-marital affairs, as well as pre-marital sexual activity, much easier. Separating sex from procreation has created an attitude of inconvenience toward children (leading to a rise in abortion), as well as enabled a tendency on the part of the spouses to see each other as an object of use, without concern for the other's true needs (leading to divorce). I'm thinking along the lines of par. 17 in Humanae Vitae.
John Paul (at the end of the theology of the body, Love and Responsibility, and Familiaris Consortio), also got into the fact that the practice of periodic continence cultivates reverence for the procreative process which God designed. A couple practicing continence really has no choice but to consider the magnitude of their sexual relationship (co-creators!), the needs of the family, and the woman, before each act of intercourse. Such an attitude is possible in a contraceptive relationship, but it is not inherent in it, and the practice of contraception does not promote it.

It's not an easy thing to get your head around, perhaps the most important thing is to convince them they should at least consider it and keep an open heart. After all, a lot of smart people have put time into thinking about it this way. The worst is just having them shut their minds to it right from the start.

[EcceNovaFacioOmni]

There is a lot of interesting information available about contraception and the biochemistry of attraction too. If you have the time and money, there is a DVD by Vicki Thorn called something like "What They Didn't Teach You in Sex-Ed." Great stuff.

[CatherineM]

Make them read the book, "It's Alive." The movie was kind of gross, but the book explains that the mutant killer babies were caused by women being on the pill for years, and then deciding at the last minute that they want to have kids, and going on fertility pills.

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='CatherineM' date='06 January 2010 - 03:30 PM' timestamp='1262809842' post='2031042']
Make them read the book, "It's Alive." The movie was kind of gross, but the book explains that the mutant killer babies were caused by women being on the pill for years, and then deciding at the last minute that they want to have kids, and going on fertility pills.
[/quote]
I'm not sure fiction would be a legitimate argument...interesting plot, though.