the Contracepted Society

[cmotherofpirl]

THE CONTRACEPTED SOCIETY

by David Prentis


Any discussion on contraception assumes that it is
a purely private matter of an individual or a couple.
However, in modern industrial countries contraception
and sterilization are practiced on a massive scale, so
that we should expect them to have their effect on
society as a whole. In fact, these effects are wider
and deeper than one would expect at first glance.

DEMOGRAPHIC EFFECT

First of all, there is the effect on the number of
babies being born. In previous times we know that
families were larger; families with eight, ten or
twelve children were not unusual. Today we expect a
family to have one, two or at the most three children.
Larger families are the exception. The Englishman
Andrew Pollard was asked to do a survey for an
ice-cream manufacturer. When asked to estimate the
number of people in the 18-34 age range some years
ahead-those most likely to consume the firm's luxury
ice-cream-he discovered that by the requested date
there would be a fall of 20% compared with the time of
the survey. The reasons: a dramatic fall in the
birthrate. Some would assume that the reason was the
introduction of widespread abortion following the
British Abortion Act of 1967. However, even if the 6
million children killed by abortion in Britain since
then had all been allowed to live, the birthrate would
still be below replacement level. Pollard concludes
that the reason for the fall is the widespread practice
of contraception, and formulates what he calls the Iron
Law of Population: "Any country in which the mass of
population practice effective contraception and
abortion will die."

But the influence of contraception is wider and
deeper. It is not simply a matter of statistics.

The practice of contraception leads to the fading
of the perception that the sexual act has anything to
do with the procreation of children. The act is
deliberately manipulated to exclude the possibility.
When contraception fails, the resulting baby is likely
to be aborted. This is particularly true when
conception takes place outside of marriage, in which
case there is no proper provision for the upbringing of
the child.

ATTITUDE TO SEXUALITY

The perception that sexuality is not connected to
reproduction, gives rise to the concept of
"recreational sex." Sexual intercourse is regarded
primarily as a source of pleasure. Since "nothing can
happen," i.e., no baby can be conceived, sexual
activity is not confined to marriage. This leads to
increased promiscuity, adultery and prostitution, and
to perverse sexual practices, including homosexual
practices, which are even proclaimed as ideal because
they are 100% sterile. All these practices lead to the
spread of sexually transmitted diseases, including
AIDS.

ARTIFICIAL REPRODUCTION

If there can be sex without babies, there can be
babies without sex. The separation of the procreative
from the unitive aspects of the sexual act through
contraception has prepared the way for artificial
reproduction. The first step was IVF. Further steps
followed quickly-selective reduction (the selective
killing of embryos when IVF is more successful than
expected and the mother is carrying several children at
once), the implantation of embryos from third person,
surrogate motherhood, experimentation with surplus or
deliberately produced embryos, pre-implantation
diagnostics and cloning.

Abortion and artificial reproduction leads to
contempt for life, which opens the way for euthanasia.

In the practice of contraception the spouses do
violence to one another in that they tend to regard
each other merely as a source of pleasure. The mutual
rejection of fertility implies a (subconscious)
personal rejection of each other. This burdens the
marriage and often leads to divorce, which in its turn
means suffering for the children. Society becomes
dysfunctional and violence proliferates.
Non-traditional "families," such as single and divorced
women with children, families with children from two or
even three sets of parents, and same-sex unions with
children, become acceptable, hence weakening the
traditional family.

LOSS OF FAITH

Husband and wife no longer regard each other with awe
as a gift of God, entrusted to one another for life,
but as a source of pleasure, which can be manipulated
as required. Children are no longer seen as gifts and
blessings of God, but as objects, which we have a right
to destroy. It is presumed that children can be
produced, selected, rejected, killed, cloned and
designed to order. The Creator is rejected and man
arrogantly arrogates to himself the place of God. It is
blasphemy, which cries to high Heaven and which will
one way or another lead to disaster.


THE WAY FORWARD

The healing of society requires the abolishing of
the widespread practice of contraception and
sterilization. The Catholic Church is the only body
which consistently opposes contraception, so it should
be a priority for bishops and priests to promote
chastity both outside and within marriage. If this is
done consistently it will eventually have an effect on
society as a whole. Account should be taken of the fact
that contraception is being vigorously promoted for
commercial and ideological reasons.

The regulation of conception can be achieved by
means of the natural methods, which are highly reliable
and have none of the above-mentioned disadvantages, and
on the contrary foster a positive attitude towards
children, build marriages and preserve faith. All this
is the reason for the apostolate of our organization,
the Couple to Couple League, in promoting marital
chastity by means of natural family planning.


Talk given at the Marriage, Family and Ethics
Conference, Brno, Czech Republic. David Prentis works
in the promotion of NFP in the Czech Republic.
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[toledo_jesus]

he talks on and on about how lower birth rates spell the death of a country and then advocates what is essentially birth control. How does NFP solve that problem?

[tojo]

By not being so effective that most people don't have at least 3 or 4 kids, which is above the replacement level.

[Sojourner]

[quote name='tomasio127' date='Nov 20 2005, 10:25 AM']By not being so effective that most people don't have at least 3 or 4 kids, which is above the replacement level.
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[/quote]
Actually, if practiced properly, NFP can be as effective as birth control.

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='toledo_jesus' date='Nov 20 2005, 11:18 AM']he talks on and on about how lower birth rates spell the death of a country and then advocates what is essentially birth control.  How does NFP solve that problem?
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[/quote]
Those who practice NFP instead of contraception generally fall into two camps:

1. The first of these camps wants legalistically to avoid any trouble with the Church. If they could, they would contracept, but since that's not allowed, they "compromise" by using NFP as if it were contraception.

2. The second wants children and lots of them, but recognizes their own limits and does not want to engage in sexual intercourse whenever they please because they do not want to presume that God is calling them to have that many children. Because our actions should be the response we make to a vocation, it would be wrong for a couple which is reasonably unable to handle any more children to go ahead and have them, insisting that God will provide. This would be making our actions and then trying to force the hand of God, as opposed to listening to our vocation and responding trustingly in God.

The difference is that group number one will only willingy have as many kids as they would if they were on contraception. Group number two, on the other hand, will have as many children as they believe God is calling them to have, not only as many as they selfishly feel the need to limit.

Couples practicing NFP for the right reasons will still have many children. NFP is not contraception or anything close to contraception. Neither is it "birth control" technically. Birth control's direct target is to make the otherwise fertile sexual act infertile. It makes the act infertile. NFP simply does an act which is already by its nature infertile.

It is the abuse of NFP which makes a difference, and that's not what the speaker is advocating.

[JP2Iloveyou]

great points, Raphael. There was a young woman in my astronomy class the other day advocating something called the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. Ironicly, I later heard the same movement mentioned on the Rush Limbaugh Program, but that is neither here nor there. Anyway, this woman was explaining about human beings are overpopulating the planet and we are destroying our environment, yada, yada, yada, and the only way we can solve the problem is to literally make the human race become extinct, apparently. Sorry, but that is literally throwing the baby out with the bathwater. No reasonable person, when presented with the scientific evidence, we deny that human beings have an effect on the environment, but that does not entail that we should pledge to never have any children, which is what this movement is all about.

There are basicly two things that will come out of this contraceptive mentality, one good, one bad. First, the bad. People will continue to contracept leading to an increase in abortions and STDs because contraception is not 100% failproof. Beyond that, more people will be hurt by the burden of sin and from unfaithful spouses. (I mean, what's the big deal? It isn't cheating if you don't get caught, right?) Also, many people will sadly find themselves on the wrong side of heaven after this life. The Church does still teach that having sex outside of marriage is a mortal sin and anyone who dies in an unrepentant state of mortal sin has banished him or herself to hell. That is the most unfortunate result of all of this. Certainly, God can pour out his graces on people, and I sincerely hope that anyone who has ever fallen into ANY mortal sin, not just sexual sin, will seek out the sacrament of Confession, or at the very least make a perfect Act of Contrition before death, but how very dangerous of us to count on that.

The second result, this one is good, is more evidence that God can bring good out of evil. Consider this, all of these families are having one, maybe two children. Let's be generous and say that it is two. As will probably be the case, they will pass their values on to their children, and their children will then have two children each. That means that two generations removed, the original contracepting couple will have four grandchildren. Now, take the good Catholic pro-life couple. Suppose they have five kids. Being in seminary, I see the kind of men God is raising up. Believe me, they are men who will not be afraid to preach this from the pulpit, so an average size Catholic family of five kids each is certainly feasible. Suppose that one of their children has a religous vocation, and that leaves four that will have families of their own. If they each take the values that their parents hopefully passed on to them and have five kids of their own, this original set of parents has 20 grandchildren. This will have a major impact on politics as well as the culture. The pro-abortion, pro-contraception crowd is quite literally killing their own movement.

[Norseman82]

[quote name='Sojourner' date='Nov 20 2005, 10:50 AM']Actually, if practiced properly, NFP can be as effective as birth control.
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[/quote]

Actually, MORE effective......

Anyway, lately I've been hearing about the worker shortage that businesses will face when the baby boomers start retiring in the next ten years and how there already is an effort underway to retain and hire older workers and placing a value on them for their expertise instead of regarding them as overpaid with too much vacation time due to seniority and who drve up the health insurance costs.

[Sojourner]

[quote name='Norseman82' date='Nov 20 2005, 01:24 PM']Actually, MORE effective......

Anyway, lately I've been hearing about the worker shortage that businesses will face when the baby boomers start retiring in the next ten years and how there already is an effort underway to retain and hire older workers and placing a value on them for their expertise instead of regarding them as overpaid with too much vacation time due to seniority and who drve up the health insurance costs.
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[/quote]
I've been hearing the same thing. People tell me it's going to be particularly bad in scientific communities. There aren't enough youngins getting into the hard sciences, which means pharmaceutical companies (such as Lilly, for example) are getting a bit nervous.

Companies are also becoming more flexible with allowing older workers to quasi-retire -- cut back their hours significantly, but still work from time to time while retaining some benefits.

[jezic]

i can't really say i am surprised.

Though it would be good if the Catholic people weren't part of the whole, so that as the rest of society kills themselves off, there will be a higher percentage of Catholics.

This is really creating a vacuum for the Muslims to fill and think they are going to do that soon.

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='Sojourner' date='Nov 20 2005, 02:28 PM']I've been hearing the same thing. People tell me it's going to be particularly bad in scientific communities. There aren't enough youngins getting into the hard sciences, which means pharmaceutical companies (such as Lilly, for example) are getting a bit nervous.
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[/quote]
Quite ironic, isn't it?

[homeschoolmom]

yep

[Norseman82]

[quote name='jezic' date='Nov 20 2005, 02:19 PM']This is really creating a vacuum for the Muslims to fill and think they are going to do that soon.
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[/quote]

They already are in Europe. I've said this time and time again: what the Muslims failed to do 1000 years ago by jihad, they can do within the next 100 years by demographics.

[toledo_jesus]

[quote name='Norseman82' date='Nov 20 2005, 02:34 PM']They already are in Europe.  I've said this time and time again:  what the Muslims failed to do 1000 years ago by jihad, they can do within the next 100 years by demographics.
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[/quote]
Hey, that's MY quote!

[toledo_jesus]

[quote name='Raphael' date='Nov 20 2005, 12:16 PM']Those who practice NFP instead of contraception generally fall into two camps:

1.  The first of these camps wants legalistically to avoid any trouble with the Church.  If they could, they would contracept, but since that's not allowed, they "compromise" by using NFP as if it were contraception.

2.  The second wants children and lots of them, but recognizes their own limits and does not want to engage in sexual intercourse whenever they please because they do not want to presume that God is calling them to have that many children.  Because our actions should be the response we make to a vocation, it would be wrong for a couple which is reasonably unable to handle any more children to go ahead and have them, insisting that God will provide.  This would be making our actions and then trying to force the hand of God, as opposed to listening to our vocation and responding trustingly in God.

The difference is that group number one will only willingy have as many kids as they would if they were on contraception.  Group number two, on the other hand, will have as many children as they believe God is calling them to have, not only as many as they selfishly feel the need to limit.

Couples practicing NFP for the right reasons will still have many children.  NFP is not contraception or anything close to contraception.  Neither is it "birth control" technically.  Birth control's direct target is to make the otherwise fertile sexual act infertile.  It makes the act infertile.  NFP simply does an act which is already by its nature infertile.

It is the abuse of NFP which makes a difference, and that's not what the speaker is advocating.
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[/quote]
The point of NFP is not to have children, correct? Therefore the proper practice of it will result in less children. And Sojourner has said it can be at least as effective as birth control. What's the difference then?
Your comparison of the two groups doesn't address the bottom line. Regardless of intent, the end result is fewer babies. Your final paragraph denies this without providing any kind of basis for it. Or, perhaps you mean that they will still have [i]many[/i] children, just fewer than if they hadn't practiced NFP.
How, if NFP is effective, will it result in many children? Should we strive for the [b]most[/b] children in this day and age? Or, as someone else brought up, should we let the Muslims have that particular honor? Is the sin birth control or artifical birth control? If the sin is birth control then I don't see how the sin of raising poor kids is the greater of the two evils here.

The issue is that there aren't enough kids being born, so when we're old and need someone to pay our Social Security we'll be out of luck.

There's a real disconnect here, and it has to do with the bottom line. Bottom line = How do we solve this [u]problem[/u] of fewer children?

[Ash Wednesday]

One of the priests on the EWTN Experts forum wrote that NFP normally fosters generosity among couples -- and in the cases where it doesn't (the ones that "don't want trouble with the Church") will drift to artificial contraception (I suppose in the end if they see it as just an inconvenient matter of "dos" and "don'ts" that is what happens)...

Being in London I can tell you that I tend to see more Muslim families with small kids and strollers (along with other minorities) a lot more often than I do whites. Sometimes I want to scream, "Wake up, Europe! You're dying!! You're going to completely lose your culture!"

Of course the index of what is "acceptable" is of concern for me -- I've wondered how many kids I would physically be able to handle -- my health isn't the greatest.

The only bone of contention I have with some Catholics were some very VERY traditionalist ones online that seemed to place themselves "above" other Catholics because they didn't believe in supporting NFP and it's almost as if they were themselves having bit of a snobbish "who can have more kids" contest. But I think this was a very traditionalist forum I ran into.

[homeschoolmom]

[quote name='Ash Wednesday' date='Nov 20 2005, 07:19 PM']The only bone of contention I have with some Catholics were some very VERY traditionalist ones online that seemed to place themselves "above" other Catholics because they didn't believe in supporting NFP and it's almost as if they were themselves having bit of a snobbish "who can have more kids" contest. But I think this was a very traditionalist forum I ran into.
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[/quote]

I've run into this, too. As if procration has become an idol...

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='toledo_jesus' date='Nov 20 2005, 08:04 PM']The point of NFP is not to have children, correct? [right][snapback]796082[/snapback][/right]
[/quote]

Incorrect. The point of NFP is to take better care of the family by spacing the births of children in such a way as to reflect responibility on behalf of the parents. The family must still desire children, as many of them as God is actively willing to give them.

[quote]And Sojourner has said it can be at least as effective as birth control. What's the difference then?[/quote]

Semantics. What she meant was that the percentage at which NFP, used properly, results in what it is supposed to result in is the same percentage which ABC operates "effectively." It does not mean that they have the same intention.

[quote]Your comparison of the two groups doesn't address the bottom line. Regardless of intent, the end result is fewer babies.[/quote]

Toledo_Jesus, are you a consequentialist?

[quote]Your final paragraph denies this without providing any kind of basis for it. Or, perhaps you mean that they will still have many children, just fewer than if they hadn't practiced NFP.[/quote]

My final paragraph states quite clearly that the direct intended object of contraceptive use is to make a fertile act infertile, while the direct intended object of NFP is to commit an act which is already fertile or infertile regardless of human tinkering.

[quote]How, if NFP is effective, will it result in many children? Should we strive for the most children in this day and age?[/quote]

Last time I checked, we were called to have the most children God wanted to give us, not the most children we could possibly get. Sexuality can be abused either way. Stick to the [i]media res[/i].

[quote]Or, as someone else brought up, should we let the Muslims have that particular honor?[/quote]

I was not aware that it was a doctrine of the Catholic Church that we had to strive to outnumber the Muslims.

[quote]Is the sin birth control or artifical birth control? If the sin is birth control then I don't see how the sin of raising poor kids is the greater of the two evils here.[/quote]

It depends on how you define birth control. I don't define NFP as birth control at all and so, in my definition, birth control is all wrong. Birth control has the connotation of trying to render fertile acts infertile, and thus, I don't use it for NFP. However, because you consider NFP a form of birth control, I will use your terminology.

The sin is the direct intended object of rendering a fertile act infertile. ABC is the means used to achieve that object. Because NFP does not seek to render a fertile act infertile, it cannot be judged in that regard as an evil act. However, it does have bad effects. Given the Principle of Double Effect, if those bad effects are not more immediate than the good of NFP AND if those bad effects are not worse than the good, then NFP in such circumstances is fine.

The raising of poor kids isn't all that's at stake. However, when one is so poor that one cannot provide basic essentials to the children, then there is something at hand. Now, there are also mental and physical health issues as well as spiritual, so don't oversimplify.

[quote]There's a real disconnect here, and it has to do with the bottom line. Bottom line = How do we solve this problem of fewer children?[/quote]

The problem of fewer children is caused by contraception and use of NFP with a contraceptive mindset. Both are evil. Therefore, the problem's solution is in getting rid of contraception and in using NFP responsibly. To get rid of NFP all together is to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

[Ash Wednesday]

A good way to describe NFP is fertility awareness. Many use it when they are trying to conceive, as well.