Anti-Contraception

[zunshynn]

It's been awhile since I've gotten into a discussion about the immorality of contraception with someone my age but in high school, I often asked how it was logical to engage in the most intimate relationship that it is possible to have with another person, that you felt you need to "protect" yourself from. I didn't usually get much of an answer though... and of course, that was me talking to my peers... I don't know how you would best phrase that reasoning for a classroom discussion or lesson...

I would highly recommend Jason Everts talks... you can get many free mp3s on his website: [url="http://chastity.com/node/38"]Jason Evert Audio[/url]

Although... it may be more effective to present an argument similar to his yourself. As good as his talks are, there's something kind of cheesy about listening to tapes related to sex ed... it almost sometimes conveys this impression that, it's just a tape, the teacher obviously doesn't really believe this anyway, so we can just ignore it. Enthusiasm is key.

Edited January 6, 2010 by zunshynn

[zunshynn]

Also, if the vow to be accept children is not binding in every sexual act, then why would the vow to be faithful to the other person be binding every time? If it is alright to contracept sometimes, then why is it not also alright to commit adultery sometimes?

[tinytherese]

I find this link helpful, especially the Q and A at the bottom marked "Natural Family Planning (NFP."
But don't just read it off to them. Read it for your own understanding and paraphrase them so it doesn't look like you're relying on a website to teach them. Its just a resource. You're the teacher.

http://www.chastity.com/node/54

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='Varg' date='06 January 2010 - 04:38 PM' timestamp='1262813927' post='2031105']
[img]http://filipspagnoli.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/overpopulation-scales.jpg[/img]
[/quote]
Wow, the size of the earth is really disproportionate to the size of the people in the scales.

You should read Janet Smith's [url="http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/sexuality/se0002.html"]Contraception: Why Not?[/url] It addresses the overpopulation myth, although not in depth.

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Varg' date='06 January 2010 - 04:38 PM' timestamp='1262813927' post='2031105']
Insert "'Too many people' bad" photo here[/quote]

Varg, why do you not like people? The standard of living now is infinitely better than it ever was when there were only 10 million, or even two billion people on the earth. And it's taking fewer resources to achieve that standard. We don't chop down forests for firewood any more. We got coal. Then natural gas. Then oil. Then nuclear power. Now, solar power is coming into its own. Even fresnel lenses can be developed to provide efficient heat, hot water and electricity.

Most people in the West literally live much better than Medieval Kings. Housing, sanitation, caloric intake, education for the common man. All of these things have improved. Some of the most densely-populated places on earth (Hong Kong, Singapore) have very high per capita incomes, due to the lack of regulation compared to socialist States like the one that dominates the people of India. Hong Kong, if I need to remind you, was a cluster of barren, bird-dung-encrusted rocks before [i]people[/i] got there. Perhaps you'd be happy sitting there on those rocks, totally alone. So alone. All alone, head down and rocking back and forth with your arms around your knees, and being a target for the tactically-applied, oily, fishy excretions of seabirds. I happen to like its current configuration.

I don't know what you have against people, Varg. We're a part of nature, just like every other species. You want to claim we're no better, but you seem to hypocritically hold humans to some sort of higher standard. If we're no better than animals, then you're obviously not trusting nature to take its course, because nature does a fine job of preventing "overpopulation." If we [i]are[/i] better than animals, then why are you constantly saying there are "too many" humans? Who decides how many is "too many?" You? Rubbish. The earth itself? Good. Let it.

I happen to like people. I don't consider them lice burrowing into the skin of the earth. I believe each individual human being has a tremendous intrinsic value. So step up to the plate, come up with an objective number of how many people there should be, and start culling the parasites, or man up and realize that every human in existence is here for a reason beyond your mortal understanding, and that they have an incredible intrinsic value.

~Sternhauser

Edited January 7, 2010 by Sternhauser

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='Sternhauser' date='07 January 2010 - 10:02 AM' timestamp='1262876572' post='2031734']
Varg, why do you not like people? The standard of living now is infinitely better than it ever was when there were only 10 million, or even two billion people on the earth. And it's taking fewer resources to do so. We don't chop down forests for firewood anymore. We got coal. Then natural gas. Then oil. Then nuclear power. Now, solar power is coming into its own. Even fresnel lenses can be developed to provide heat, hot water and electricity.

Most people in the West literally live much better than Medieval Kings. Housing, sanitation, caloric intake, education for the common man. All of these things have improved. Some of the most densely-populated places on earth (Hong Kong, Singapore) have very high per capita incomes, due to the lack of regulation compared to socialist States like the one that dominates the people of India. Hong Kong, if I need to remind you, was a cluster of barren, bird-dung-encrusted rocks before [i]people[/i] got there. Perhaps you'd be happy sitting there on those rocks, totally alone. So alone. All alone, head down and rocking back and forth with your arms around your knees, and being a target for the tactically-applied, oily, fishy excretions of seabirds. I happen to like its current configuration.

I don't know what you have against people, Varg. We're a part of nature, just like every other species. You want to claim we're no better, but you seem to hypocritically hold humans to some sort of higher standard. If we're no better than animals, then you're obviously not trusting nature to take its course, because nature does a fine job of preventing "overpopulation." If we [i]are[/i] better than animals, then why are you constantly saying there are "too many" humans? Who decides how many is "too many?" You? Rubbish. The earth itself? Good. Let it.

I happen to like people. I don't consider them lice burrowing into the skin of the earth. I believe each individual human being to have a tremendous intrinsic value. So step up to the plate, come up with an objective number of how many people there should be, and start culling the parasites, or man up and realize that every human in existence is here for a reason beyond your mortal understanding, and that they have an incredible intrinsic value.

~Sternhauser
[/quote]

+1. Best. Response. Ever.

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Raphael' date='06 January 2010 - 01:47 PM' timestamp='1262803668' post='2030965']
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.
[/quote]

Raphael, I agree with Zunshynn. Your own enthusiasm for the topic is key. I would recommend using the best parts of Janet Smith's "Contraception: Why Not," and tailor them for presentation to your class. She does a phenomenal job of promoting the [i]positives [/i]of not using contraception, not just the negatives. You sure don't want to come across as the wet blanket saying, "Don't do this, because it's bad, mmkay?"

Kids love distinctions between terms. They need them. And they need them to be concrete and precise. Drill in the fact that contraception is not "medicine." Medicine is the science of diagnosing and treating [i]pathologies[/i]. Medication is a substance that is used to correct an actual physical problem with the human body. Fertility is not a disease. Children are not pathologies. They are the natural signs that everything is going [i]right[/i] in the body.

Make them laugh. (Bitterly, if you need to.) Show them that it's hypocritical that we live in an age where everyone is buying milk that comes from natural, organic, free-range cows, but we want to put chemicals in the women. Hormones are considered "horrible" in raising beef cattle quickly, yet we demand that "our" women are put on hormones. You might point out that this is done for the same reason: to keep the cost down and facilitate their being used as pieces of meat.

Show that contraception is an objectification of women (and men!)

Ask the kids who the parents are going to leave their worldly possessions to. The morbidly-obese Yorkshire Terrier that has pathetically been given a human name in order to assuage the real purpose of marriage? A nice modern and secular name like "Bailey," "Skylar," "Cheyenne" or "Connor?" That has pretty ribbons in its fur and its nails painted every other day? It will be dead a year after they're both gone. It may get a rock placed over its grave to keep the foxes from digging up its corpse. Kids live on.

I don't know how old your students are, and I'll wager you don't do this, but remember to never underestimate their capacity to understand. Don't talk down to them, because they'll recognize it and dismiss you. As Fulton Sheen said, a philosopher who can't teach his subject to a small child isn't much of a philosopher at all.

~Sternhauser

Edited January 7, 2010 by Sternhauser

[Varg]

[quote name='Sternhauser' date='07 January 2010 - 10:02 AM' timestamp='1262876572' post='2031734']
Varg, why do you not like people? The standard of living now is infinitely better than it ever was when there were only 10 million, or even two billion people on the earth. And it's taking fewer resources to achieve that standard. We don't chop down forests for firewood any more. We got coal. Then natural gas. Then oil. Then nuclear power. Now, solar power is coming into its own. Even fresnel lenses can be developed to provide efficient heat, hot water and electricity.

Most people in the West literally live much better than Medieval Kings. Housing, sanitation, caloric intake, education for the common man. All of these things have improved. Some of the most densely-populated places on earth (Hong Kong, Singapore) have very high per capita incomes, due to the lack of regulation compared to socialist States like the one that dominates the people of India. Hong Kong, if I need to remind you, was a cluster of barren, bird-dung-encrusted rocks before [i]people[/i] got there. Perhaps you'd be happy sitting there on those rocks, totally alone. So alone. All alone, head down and rocking back and forth with your arms around your knees, and being a target for the tactically-applied, oily, fishy excretions of seabirds. I happen to like its current configuration.

I don't know what you have against people, Varg. We're a part of nature, just like every other species. You want to claim we're no better, but you seem to hypocritically hold humans to some sort of higher standard. If we're no better than animals, then you're obviously not trusting nature to take its course, because nature does a fine job of preventing "overpopulation." If we [i]are[/i] better than animals, then why are you constantly saying there are "too many" humans? Who decides how many is "too many?" You? Rubbish. The earth itself? Good. Let it.

I happen to like people. I don't consider them lice burrowing into the skin of the earth. I believe each individual human being to have a tremendous intrinsic value. So step up to the plate, come up with an objective number of how many people there should be, and start culling the parasites, or man up and realize that every human in existence is here for a reason beyond your mortal understanding, and that they have an incredible intrinsic value.

~Sternhauser
[/quote]
There's something seriously wrong with you if you think overpopulation is a good thing. What you're doing is fooling yourself into thinking it is to keep your illusion that contraception is "OOOOH EVIL" intact. I have nothing against people...The difference between and us and other animals is that we have no natural predators and advanced healthcare leading to a longer lifespan. This means that our population is going up instead of staying steady like it should. We are an exception in nature because we have developed technology. In that respect, we ARE more than animals. We can't just let nature take its course. Increasing population means less space and less resources...At the moment we live like kings but in the future we won't. We'll all be crammed into tiny spaces. We need to stop creating so many people and the most practical way to do this is contraception. We have to leave old, backward superstitions behind to advance. I like people too, but I think you'd think differently if you were forced to live in apartment with strangers because there isn't enough room for everyone.

Too much of anything is bad.

Edited January 7, 2010 by Varg

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='Sternhauser' date='07 January 2010 - 10:15 AM' timestamp='1262877325' post='2031738']
Raphael, I agree with Zunshynn. Your own enthusiasm for the topic is key. I would recommend using the best parts of Janet Smith's "Contraception: Why Not," and tailor them for presentation to your class. She does a phenomenal job of promoting the [i]positives [/i]of not using contraception, not just the negatives. You sure don't want to come across as the wet blanket saying, "Don't do this, because it's bad, mmkay?"

Kids love distinctions between terms. They need them. And they need them to be concrete and precise. Drill in the fact that contraception is not "medicine." Medicine is the science of diagnosing and treating [i]pathologies[/i]. Medication is a substance that is used to correct an actual physical problem with the human body. Fertility is not a disease. Children are not pathologies. They are the natural signs that everything is going [i]right[/i] in the body.

Make them laugh. (Bitterly, if you need to.) Show them that it's hypocritical that we live in an age where everyone is buying milk that comes from natural, organic, free-range cows, but we want to put chemicals in the women. Hormones are considered "horrible" in raising beef cattle quickly, yet we demand that "our" women are put on hormones. You might point out that this is done for the same reason: to keep the cost down and facilitate their being used as pieces of meat.

Show that contraception is an objectification of women (and men!)

I don't know how old your students are, and I'll wager you don't do this, but remember to never underestimate their capacity to understand. Don't talk down to them, because they'll recognize it and dismiss you. As Fulton Sheen said, a philosopher who can't teach his subject to a small child isn't much of a philosopher at all.

~Sternhauser
[/quote]
Thanks, I appreciate that. I think I was teaching it on their level, but the very thought of no contraception was so strongly against their worldview that they had to shout over me. That's essentially what they did. It was the same basic tactic we see on the debate table all the time. They'd speak over me, interrupt, ask 20 questions and think they'd won when I couldn't answer them simultaneously.

What I need to do is develop an approach that sets up an analogous system without the emotional weight they attach to the issue of contraception. I need to be able to talk about the importance of health and the danger of artificial hormones, etc., getting them all nodding in agreement, and say, "so since you all agree..." I also need something on the moral level. What situation is logically analogous to contraception but doesn't bring up emotional responses?

[Varg]

You're not going to convince them that contraception is bad. Face it.

Do you actually have any arguements against contraception that don't involve the Catholic faith?

Edited January 7, 2010 by Varg

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Varg' date='07 January 2010 - 10:29 AM' timestamp='1262878177' post='2031742']
There's something seriously wrong with you if you think overpopulation is a good thing. What you're doing is fooling yourself into thinking it is to keep your illusion that contraception is "OOOOH EVIL" intact. I have nothing against people...The difference between and us and other animals is that we have no natural predators and advanced healthcare leading to a longer lifespan. This means that our population is going up instead of staying steady like it should. We are an exception in nature because we have developed technology. In that respect, we ARE more than animals. We can't just let nature take its course. Increasing population means less space and less resources...At the moment we live like kings but in the future we won't. We'll all be crammed into tiny spaces. We need to stop creating so many people and the most practical way to do this is contraception. We have to leave old superstitions behind to advance.

[/quote]

Old superstitions. Yes. Go read "Population Bomb" by Robert Ehrlich. He made a lot of dire complaints just like you, back in the groovy and hip '60s. All the cool scientists believed him. Everyone was mewling about the imminent end of the earth due to the plague of human cockroaches. All proven wrong. We were supposed to have starved to death in the 1980's. Ungroovy.

Old. Just like the old, old ideas of the old misanthrope Malthus. Old ideas. Old as the sin that gave birth to them, to use an apt metaphor.

Humans, on the other hand? Humans are the bearers of innovation, of improvement, of cultivation and progress. In a world of scarce resources, we are driven toward conservation and reuse. We thrive on the challenge. We are, as Julian Simon, economist and anthropologist wrote, "The Ultimate Resource." I suggest you read both of his books, "The Ultimate Resource" and "The Ultimate Resource II." It will allay your vague and unfounded concerns.


[quote]
Too much of anything is bad.
[/quote]

Again, who decides how many is "too many?" You? Again, [i]rubbish[/i]. Don't have children if [i]you[/i] don't want to. As that war-monger Teddy Roosevelt once wisely said, "You will have proven yourself [i]unfit to cumber the earth[/i]."

Trust mother nature, Varg. If Gaia can't snuff as many people as she wants, she's pretty weak, eh?

Man up and start culling, or accept that human beings each have intrinsic value and a purpose for being here, Varg.

~Sternhauser

Edited January 7, 2010 by Sternhauser

[Varg]

Old ideas? YOU'RE the one who uses arguements from a two thousand year old book, not me.

Why bother creating people just to let mother nature kill them? Why not just not create them in the first place?

Contraception isn't technically culling.

Edited January 7, 2010 by Varg

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Raphael' date='07 January 2010 - 10:31 AM' timestamp='1262878306' post='2031744']
Thanks, I appreciate that. I think I was teaching it on their level, but the very thought of no contraception was so strongly against their worldview that they had to shout over me. That's essentially what they did. It was the same basic tactic we see on the debate table all the time. They'd speak over me, interrupt, ask 20 questions and think they'd won when I couldn't answer them simultaneously.

What I need to do is develop an approach that sets up an analogous system without the emotional weight they attach to the issue of contraception. I need to be able to talk about the importance of health and the danger of artificial hormones, etc., getting them all nodding in agreement, and say, "so since you all agree..." I also need something on the moral level. What situation is logically analogous to contraception but doesn't bring up emotional responses?
[/quote]

You need to ask them some hard questions. "Anyone here believe in organic foods? Why? Why would you put [i]some[/i] artificial hormones in your body while avoiding others?"

Bring up some similar substances with unacceptable side-effects. The morning sickness medication thalidomide, for example. Horrible teratogenic effects. Left kids with nubbins for limbs.

Get a copy of the Physician's Desk Reference from the library. Show them the part where it says the secondary method of action for all hormonal "contraception" is to harden the endometrium to prevent the implantation of an already formed, already growing blastocyst. Early abortion.

I'll think on the comparison to contraception. Perhaps something like, "I won't have sex with you until you change the color of your skin?" Skin color is a part of who they are, like fertility.

~Sternhauser

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Varg' date='07 January 2010 - 10:40 AM' timestamp='1262878831' post='2031750']
Old ideas? YOU'RE the one who uses arguements from a two thousand year old book, not me.

Why bother creating people just to let mother nature kill them? Why not just not create them in the first place?

Contraception isn't technically culling.
[/quote]

Which arguments from the New Testament have been discredited? The Golden Rule? "Take the beam from your own eye before taking the splinter from your brother's eye?" "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone?" I don't think any of us said anything about contraception that had its roots in the New Testament.

You use arguments from 200-year old books that have already been completely discredited, but you don't even know it.

[img]http://www.pachs.net/images/dwd_images/sA.08_-_malthus1.jpg[/img]


~Sternhauser

[Varg]

[quote name='Sternhauser' date='07 January 2010 - 10:58 AM' timestamp='1262879927' post='2031754']
Which arguments from the New Testament have been discredited? The Golden Rule? "Take the beam from your own eye before taking the splinter from your brother's eye?" "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone?" I don't think any of us said anything about contraception that had its roots in the New Testament.

You use arguments from 200-year old books that have already been completely discredited, but you don't even know it.

[img]http://www.pachs.net/images/dwd_images/sA.08_-_malthus1.jpg[/img]


~Sternhauser
[/quote]
I wasn't talking about only contraception arguements.

Edited January 7, 2010 by Varg

[Varg]

[quote name='Sternhauser' date='07 January 2010 - 10:54 AM' timestamp='1262879675' post='2031751']
I'll think on the comparison to contraception. Perhaps something like, "I won't have sex with you until you change the color of your skin?" Skin color is a part of who they are, like fertility.
[/quote]
Feeling the need to kill is part of who some metally unstable people are, should we let them kill?

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Varg' date='07 January 2010 - 11:06 AM' timestamp='1262880386' post='2031757']
Feeling the need to kill is part of who some metally unstable people are, should we let them kill?
[/quote]

Varg, that's where that ol' 2000-year book helps us. We believe in an objective human nature.

The pathological feeling of a need to kill is no more a part of you than a [i]leech[/i] is "part of you."

Such a pathological desire would be an unhealthy human weakness. It would be a [i]lack[/i] of humanity. A [i]lack [/i]of love for one's fellow man, not a part of what it is to be human. We try to [i]fix[/i] a wall when there are some bricks missing. We don't say, "the absence of bricks is part of what it is to be a wall."

~Sternhauser

Edited January 7, 2010 by Sternhauser

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Varg' date='07 January 2010 - 11:04 AM' timestamp='1262880285' post='2031756']
I wasn't talking about only contraception arguements.
[/quote]

Then which arguments? Specifics, man, specifics! You can sling mud randomly from behind a rock, or you can come out and target actual topics. I'd be happy to discuss specific topics with you, but I'll not debate someone who splatters ink on a piece of paper and calls it an "argument."

~Sternhauser

Edited January 7, 2010 by Sternhauser

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='Varg' date='07 January 2010 - 10:29 AM' timestamp='1262878177' post='2031742']
We need to stop creating so many people and the most practical way to do this is contraception. We have to leave old superstitions behind to advance.
[/quote]
Hold on...people are having sex too often and sex produces children, so the most logical way to stop it is to keep sex from producing children? It would be more direct, logical, and practical to practice abstinence and remove all chance of overpopulation.

But that's not an option for over-population folks, is it? It's too difficult to be virtuous. We should just find a way to live in our hedonism without consequences. It's not the stupidity of all the irresponsible sex and fornication in the world that's the problem, its the dang consequences of all the stupidity in the world. If only we could cut out those consequences, we could be as stupid as we want.

Speaking of fornication, I wonder how much the population would level off if the nations of the world would stop encouraging fornication, adultery, divorce, living beyond one's means, selfishness, and a total lack of self-control. What percentage of children born today are born to families out of wedlock that will be significantly more likely to break up and further the cycle of self-destructive sexuality and reproduction of children irresponsibly? If people actually tried abstinence and virtue, how many of those children would not have come into existence?

I, on the other hand, would like to see the virtues of selflessness and love applied to producing more children in a responsible way. Right now, we're looking at a US president who wants to redistribute the wealth. He's said it in those words. We want to take money from the rich, many of whom (but not all) have shown that they know how to manage money wisely, and we want to give it to the poor, many of whom (but not all) have shown that they do not know how to manage money wisely. We're redistributing the wrong thing. Now I'm not in favor of actually taking children away from the poor, or sterilizing the poor or any other unthinkable thing of that sort, but let's take a look at the reality of the situation. If people actually followed Humanae Vitae, the papal teaching on contraception, they would be acting virtuously. We might have the same population, but the wealthy would be having a great many children instead of those one or two they want to spoil. A higher percentage of people, therefore, would be able to get a decent education, live with the necessities of life, be inspired by culture, and hopefully rise to help create a society for the next generation where the wealth is spread not by socialism, but by conservative capitalism. The poor would be having fewer kids (practicing NFP, of course), although not so few that they could be called selfish; they would simply be spacing them according to their means. Those who truly cannot afford children (children are much less expensive than the statistics say) would be required to practice enough virtue to keep themselves in their pants, this is true, but it would simply be against virtue to bring children into the world irresponsibly (of course, keep in mind, that killing them in the womb is against a higher virtue).

Ah, virtue...the one thing we haven't ever tried. There are plenty of statistics on how abstinence education doesn't work, but the truth of the matter is that abstinence has been taught in those schools while completely disregarded everywhere outside of school. Students of abstinence education don't get a lesson in abstinence, they get a lesson in hypocrisy, and after they are vaccinated against virtue by being injected with a dead strain of it, they follow the crowd and practice the same hypocrisy. We can't say that abstinence has been tried. For it to work, it would require the authentic conversion of the whole culture to abstinence, but unfortunately, those people who want the population to decrease also happen to be the very same people who don't believe in virtue and scoff at consequences.

Now as for me, I want to see the population increase, based on the ethic of my paragraph just a bit above here. I want to see more children, because let's face it, ever since over-population was predicted, the world head-count has boomed and the technology has likewise boomed to sustain it and even surpass it. The food produced by the United States alone could feed the population of the world, but no, those crazy people-hating hedonists would rather we waste our leftovers. We have the medical technologies to cure hundreds of illnesses in third-world countries, but again, hedonism reigns...we must make a profit, after all! The cure to AIDS - virtue - the hedonists scoff again. "They're starving, let's give them a condom! They're naked, let's give them the pill! There's genocide, abortions should cure that!" We have hedonists, lest we think that the cure to starvation is prudence and charity, the cure to nakedness is generosity, and the cure to genocide is justice and education. Christianity promotes virtue, but we can't teach it in schools and can't even allude to it with our "holiday trees," because it might offend (shocker!) a hedonist! The hedonist argues, "but Christianity is the fall of civilizations, it's responsible for the dark ages!" Really? Where in the Bible does it say that masters should mistreat their servants (Mark 10:42-45, Col 4:1)? Where does the Bible say to horde money (Matt. 6:24)? Where is the Bible against education (Proverbs 1:20-33)? Neither Christianity nor virtue brings down civilizations, but a lack of Christianity, a lack of virtue.

"Christianity has not been tried and found wanting, it has been been found difficult and left untried." -G.K. Chesterton

God bless,

Micah

PS - I owe Janet Smith a bit of credit for some of my rant.

[Varg]

Then why don't you try and "fix" the population problems?