Church - Were the catholics right
My parents raised me in the Catholic church. It never meant a lot to me, and as soon as I was no longer forced to go, I stopped going. You see, I have always dealt with reality by trying to understand it, and what that Catholic Church taught me, did not make sense. A prime example was that I learnt that Salvation was achieved by works in the Catholic Church. This made absolutely no sense, as being good to get to heaven is doing it for the wrong reason. One other thing that didn't make sense at the time, was the churches stand on contraception.

But after doing some serious study into the abortion issue, I am seriously considering the possibility that the Catholics were right. Shocking I know, but bear with me as I try and explain my logic.

One line of reasoning draws from the US progression in law. The Supreme court, in the 1965 Griswold case, decided there was a constitutionally guaranteed 'Right to privacy' in the bedroom and overturned a ban on contraceptives because this right entailled letting married people to decide whether and when to have children. This 'right to privacy' was then extended to single people in Eisenstadt v. Baird in 1972. Notice that it was no longer about married people planning their family, and was now a right to 'sexual privacy' in general (and later the right was extended to minors). Then, in 1973 in Roe vs Wade, this right was relied upon heavily in reaching their decision.

I think it is illuminating to look at the progression of thought in terms of sex.
1) Contraceptives are useful for family planning, and so should be readily available to married couples and so Sex does not have to be for reproduction and what people do in their bedrooms is their own business.
2) Contraceptives are useful to prevent pregnancy, so all people should have access and What people do in their own bedrooms is their business, so this should apply to everyone. Sex becomes an activity of pleasure for everyone.
3) The right to plan families and choose when you have children implies a right to reproductive control and Abortion becomes a right, so even sex without contraceptives does not stop a person from planning when they want to have children.

Now whilst I understand that Abortion does seem to necessarily follow from allowing contraception, it does however alter the meaning of sex away from reproduction and expression of love towards self satisfaction. Of moving people away from their responsibilities and towards their 'rights'. Abortion may be a natural progression from this change.

As the vatican put it in the Evangelium vitae

But despite their differences of nature and moral gravity, contraception and abortion are often closely connected, as fruits of the same tree. It is true that in many cases contraception and even abortion are practised under the pressure of real- life difficulties, which nonetheless can never exonerate from striving to observe God's law fully. Still, in very many other instances such practices are rooted in a hedonistic mentality unwilling to accept responsibility in matters of sexuality, and they imply a self-centered concept of freedom, which regards procreation as an obstacle to personal fulfilment. The life which could result from a sexual encounter thus becomes an enemy to be avoided at all costs, and abortion becomes the only possible decisive response to failed contraception.

The close connection which exists, in mentality, between the practice of contraception and that of abortion is becoming increasingly obvious. It is being demonstrated in an alarming way by the development of chemical products, intrauterine devices and vaccines which, distributed with the same ease as contraceptives, really act as abortifacients in the very early stages of the development of the life of the new human being.

The more I look the more I agree.

But I would also like to look at the other consequences of contraception. You only need to briefly look at the many different reports that have come out in the last year that indicate Europe is heading for economic disaster by 2050. The reason... the ratio of eldery dependents to younger productive workers reaching a terminal level. The productive workers will essentially be unable to support the dependent elderly. The reasons are illuminating. Abortion, Medical Advances letting people live longer, high unemployment, welfare states and a very low BIRTH RATE. In some european countries, the birthrate (per female) is only a fraction over 1.

Abortion does not account for all of this low birthrate. But guess what does... contraceptives. By letting people plan their pregnancies, it seems that we shoot our country in the foot, because people have a lot less kids. Even down under in Australia, we see this trend happening as our birthrate is 1.7, still well below replacement levels. In a time when medical advances are enabling are higher proportion of the population to have babies, our birthrate is plummetting.

Contraception, rather than merely letting us choose when to have babies, is making us less inclined to have children. Career and money and 'the easy life' is being put first.

So what is the solution? I don't know. but it certainly seems that we would have been a lot better off if we had heeded the Pope's advice and avoided contraceptives...
- posted by Alan Grey @ Thursday, April 07, 2005