Once again. a radical social liberal myth has been dispelled by a
pro-decency activist.
http://www.lifenews.com/2012/11/14/contraception-may-not-reduce-the-number-of-abortions/
Libby Anne, of Love, Joy, Feminism, recently blogged about �How [She]
Lost Faith in the �Pro-Life� Movement.� Marc Barnes addresses Libby
Anne�s statements in a three-part blog post series.
I won�t speak to his first two posts, but the third, entitled �Does
Contraception Reduce the Abortion Rate? (Rebuttal Part 3),� addresses
the oft-repeated argument that if pro-lifers are unhappy about the
number of abortions taking place in the United States, we should make
sure condoms show up as an item on adolescents� school supply lists and
not complain about the HHS mandate that insurance plans cover
contraception without copay.
Mr. Barnes covers a variety of arguments, including the
apples-to-oranges nature of comparisons of Eastern and Western Europe�s
contraception use/abortion rates, but here�s one reason he argues
contraception may not actually reduce abortion:
As Guttmacher researcher Stanley Henshaw noted in his review �Unintended
Pregnancy in the United States�, �contraceptive users appear to have
been more motivated to prevent births than were nonusers�.
The CDC has consistently reported that the majority of abortions are
performed on women who were using contraception at the time of their
last menstrual cycle, that is, at the time they conceived. If
contraceptive users are more motivated to have abortions than
non-contraceptive users, then it is not ridiculous to posit that the
increased use of contraception in the USA was a major factor in the
simultaneous increase in abortions�
The use of contraception is the attempt to have sex while avoiding
having children. To conceive a child despite using contraception means
that that attempt has failed. If the attempt fails, then that newly
created human life naturally represents a failure. The contraceptive
mentality � a mentality I believe can exist whether or not one uses
specifically uses contraceptive devices while having sex � carries over
into pregnancy. If I want to avoid a child while having sex, chances are
I will want to avoid a child when my partner becomes pregnant.
The author goes on to state that, of course, not all couples who use any
form of contraception will go on to abort their child, should they
conceive. I would argue this is particularly true among Evangelical
Christians, many of whom have not been advised by their clergy to eschew
contraception but most of whom oppose abortion. Regardless, Mr. Barnes�s
point stands: It may be that members of a society lulled into a false
sense of security about its ability to have sex without consequences are
more likely to abort than those not using contraception at all.
--
J Young
jdyo...@ymail.com
http://www.americandecency.org/