… [I]f pro-lifers were to embrace contraception and give it moral sanction—it would prevent more abortions than any anti-abortion law would.
~William Saletan, Abortion Common Ground: A Pro-Life Agenda – What pro-lifers can learn from the Princeton abortion conference, Slate, November 16
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Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Wow, Saletan writes like a typical anti-lifer. Among his “common ground” suggestions: early abortions are better than late abortions. Yes, if you are PRO ABORTION you might think so. If you’re going to kill me, am I going to be less dead if you kill me now rather than next month?
I can’t wait to see tomorrow’s column where’s he’s going to give abortion advocates a bunch of suggestions on how to be more pro-life. How about stop persecuting the crisis pregnancy centers?
It seems that prolifers can’t learn much from this conference at all, since it was attended by people such as Peter Singer and the usual suspects. How can a panel so one-sided bring about any “common ground?”
I have nothing against safe, nonabortafacient contraceptives. But as I’ve pointed out before, liberal New York has the highest abortion rate in the country, and contraception is readily available there, while conservative Salt Lake City, where I would assume, contraception is not as plentiful, has a very low rate. So what is going on here?
How about stop persecuting the crisis pregnancy centers?
Excellent suggestion!
… [I]f pro-lifers were to embrace contraception
There is such irony in using the words embrace and contraception in the same sentence. Apparently he has not studied “The Theology of the Body” (correct me if I’m wrong – is it Christopher West who coined the following phrase?) which discusses, among many things, the life-giving “marital embrace”.
First of all, what do pro-lifers have to do with use of contraception??? It’s not like we’re keeping all the contraception “hostage” or preventing anyone who wishes to use it from getting it. Plenty of contraception available for anyone and everywhere! Don’t blame the pro-lifers for the abortion rates! They are high due to your wonderful contraception, which fails A LOT, which isn’t used properly, or isn’t used at all occasionally. And I’ll have to repeat myself again – no matter how many and what kind of contraceptions a woman ir using, she should still keep in mind that no contraception is 100% effective and she can still get pregnant. That’s why I oppose contraception, it creates a false sense of security, leads to unintended pergnancies and abortions.
Am I really to believe that my opposition to contraception is the cause of abortion? Let’s try and think about this. Basically, in order for this theory of his to be correct, people would need to be listening to us and agreeing with us about not using contraception, but then GO AHEAD and DISAGREE with us about sex only being for marriage. “Yeah, I’ll listen to you and not use contraception, but I won’t listen to you when you say I can’t have sex outside of marriage.” And then worse, are we to believe that these people who agreed with us on contraception, one of teh most difficult issues for anyone to be convinced of, are then going to disagree with us about abortion? “I don’t believe in contraception, but I do believe in abortion.” Nutty.
And I’ll have to repeat myself again – no matter how many and what kind of contraceptions a woman ir using, she should still keep in mind that no contraception is 100% effective and she can still get pregnant. That’s why I oppose contraception, it creates a false sense of security, leads to unintended pergnancies and abortions.
Yes, and that’s really my issue with contraception (that and the fact that there is the possiblity of unintended abortion while using hormonal contraception). It promotes the idea of “consequence-free sex.” I’m not even talking about unmarried sex here. I mean contraception presents this idea that one can completely PREVENT pregnancy from ever occurring unless one WANTS to conceive (ha! Tell that to my friends who contracepted for years and then it took them years to conceive when they were “ready for kids”). Contraception furthers the mentality that kids are “accidents” and “oopsies” if they’re conceived – when in actuality, kids are the natural, normal, and healthy end-result of sex.
First of all, what do pro-lifers have to do with use of contraception??? It’s not like we’re keeping all the contraception “hostage” or preventing anyone who wishes to use it from getting it. Plenty of contraception available for anyone and everywhere!
Seriously. I don’t have moral objections to non-abortive contraceptives, but if I were the only pro-lifer on earth who had that opinion, it still wouldn’t change the fact that getting contraceptives isn’t hard. Like, at all. I walked to a gas station to buy batteries the other day and found condoms (in one of the aisles) before I found batteries (behind the counter).
Isn’t being pro-life and for contraception an oxymoron? It’s my understanding that contraception means opposite of conception/life. So, with all sincerity and respect to those that fight for the sanctity of human life, how can one be pro-life and pro-contraception?
Well, I guess some people don’t have a problem with contraception as long as it doesn’t kill a newly started human life (eg. condoms). I can understand their point, even though I don’t share their view for variety of reasons. Being pro-life, that’s what it means – protecting LIFE, and if the conception didn’t happen (was prevented), that’s it, there’s no life to fight for. Only the medication/devices that disrupt implantation/survival of a new human being should be the issue.
Or at least I think that’s what is behind their resoning, as I’ve said before – I am against artificial contraception as well.
That’s the “comparing apples and oranges” argument, Doe. I am FOR “barrier methods” of contraception that do not involve hormones and do not CAUSE a tiny embryo to die. I am AGAINST anything that KILLS that life once sperm and egg DO come together ( certain forms of “the pill”, IUDs…and ABORTION, obviously). Why is that hard to understand? *Incidently, I meant I am FOR barrier methods for other people who want to use them. I have never used contraceptives myself, as my husband and I are TRYING to have more children*
First of all, what Salentan is referring to as “contraception” is really abortion. Hormonal birth control artificially prevents implantation, so that obviously isn’t going to be common ground.
But what about authentically contraceptive contraception? It might reduce the abortion rate to some extent, but it antithetical to a long-term solution.
Look at the problem of child marriage in foreign countries. It can’t be made illegal immediately. What could be done, though, is condom distribution. We could go into those countries and distribute condoms to men who were married to children. We could implement sex education programs reminding these men to always use a condom, no matter how young she was.
Even if such policies reduced the rate at which young girls became pregnant, would we implement them? Certainly not. While doing so might reduce the rate at which young girls were impregnated, it would give tacit approval to child marriage and adult men having sex with children.
The same is true of distributing contraceptives in our culture: it might reduce the abortion rate, but giving contraception to people who wanted to have sex when they did not want to be parents would give tacit approval to this behavior.
The one thing Saletan and I probably agree on is that abstinence-only sex ed alone is not enough to eradicate our belief that we are entitled to have sex when we don’t want to be parents.
If the ‘dead babies r us’ mob were to embrace reality and recognize the pre-natal child as a fellow member of the human race it would prevent more abortions than any anti-abortion law would.
in all this talk about contraception…abortifacent..etc, has there been a way for people to know that the pill can be an abortifacent? Just like the abortion pictures, people should be educated about this as well. Until I got to this site about a year ago, I did not know the effect of the pill. I simply thought that it was used to prevent pregnancy…not terminate it. Most of my friends, who I know would never abort if they got pregnant use the pill daily. I have tried to tell them what I know but their obgyns prescribe these pills and they would rather believe their doctor than me.
There just needs to be more ‘mainstream’ education about this.
I got off the pill years ago, one reason being its abortive properties.
I checked Slate’s Saletan’s column today and found a couple unexpected concessions. The word “admit” was used twice and even the word “failure.” But, he still fails to get the abortive nature of what pro-choicers call “contraception.” He suggests implanting IUDs in repeat abortion seekers to prevent future pregnancy. Except that the IUD doesn’t prevent pregnancy; it’s a handy personal abortive device, 24/7. It’s encouraging to hear him encourage abortion reduction. But: Pro-choicers have to understand that its a money making business for facilities and they’re not going to go quietly into abortion reduction. As long as PP is making all that walk-in cash, state county and federal money, plus a few bucks from Komen and grants like that, they are NOT motivated to slow down. In fact, as predicted, they have already begun bleating for more money from their minions and supporters. Murder for hire has got to stop.
Everyone… Vita, Bobby and all, you made wonderful comments and I agree 100%.
A lot of pro-lifers are not opposed to non-abortive contraception. I myself use a barrier method, not that I want to but my husband is unemployed so no babies right now. BUT if we got pregnant we would welcome our new child with open arms and thankful hearts. The problem with any contraceptive measures is that they aren’t 100% effective all the time. I was on the pill (didn’t know any better) and took the same time every day and never missed a dose and STILL got pregnant. When people get into the mentality that sex does not lead to babies because I am using this contraception and then conception occurs abortion is the next logical step given their mindset. So more contraception use will not mean less abortions.
And like you all already pointed out, who is stopping women from using the pill or a condom? Idiotic argument if you ask me.
The same is true of distributing contraceptives in our culture: it might reduce the abortion rate, but giving contraception to people who wanted to have sex when they did not want to be parents would give tacit approval to this behavior.
See, I personally don’t have an issue with people having sex when they don’t want to be parents. I don’t intend to use birth control when I get married, but that’s because the hormal ones sound like they’d mess up my moods and the barrier ones sound really unerotic. Do I want to have a baby nine months after I get married? No, I’d really rather not, because I’d like to have a couple of years to just be married and adjust to that without having kids to deal with as well. If I do get pregnant right away, I’m sure as heck not going to have an abortion, but I’m not going to looooove the timing, either. Kind of like how you might be happy to have company drop buy, but you wish you’d had the time to clean the bathroom and dust the living room before they did. Yay! It’s company! Great to see you! Things might be a little hectic around here for a while…
If people want to have sex and never, ever want to have kids, I don’t have a problem with that as long as they don’t conceive any kids and abort them.
I agree with Marauder.
It’s an issue of the heart/attitude towards getting pregnant. I plan to use (non abortifacient) contraceptives when I’m married.
But if/when I do get pregnant, whether it’s planned or not, my husband and I will welcome the baby with absolute joy and view it as a blessing – perhaps ill-timed, but a blessing and a delight nonetheless.
The difference I think is your heart and view of the baby. If you strongly believe it’s a baby and a life and you are using non-abortive contraceptives to delay parenthood if possible, I think unintended babies will be welcomed and accepted -DEFINITELY not aborted.
But if you don’t have a strong commitment to the fact that there is a life growing inside the mother and your view of contraception is to 100% block all pregnancies, then abortion may become an option.
What I’m saying is that I believe it is all about your view of unborn life. If you believe it is a baby, you won’t (or shouldn’t!) abort it, regardless of the timing.