JOHN PURDY writes:

First let me thank you and your participants for some very fine, well-argued writing in the post “Contraception and the Culture War.”

Speaking as someone who, regrettably, was never able to have children (though not for wont of trying) I have a hunch that, as society ages, we’re going to see a lot of rather sad and despondent seniors. I, myself, will most likely die alone and have very few people at my funeral. I feel cheated out of something. I, of course, took many actions myself but rejecting marriage and family, after I had grown up a bit, was never one of them. I believed for too long that the secular model of dating could still function as it had for some time previously. You meet someone at work or the squash club or in class, strike up a conversation and three years later you’re married! But in fact no, in the go-go 80’s and 90’s, in a major metropolitan area, this model had degenerated considerably in the time since it had worked for my older brothers. (Even my father and grandfather actually met their wives in a secular context though, needless to say, in a much more religious community over all.)

It is contraception that made this development possible and, indeed, inevitable. By the way, my longest and most successful relationship involved no use of contraception but, alas, by the time I found her we were already in our late thirties so, no luck.

Thanks again for the fine discussion.

Jesse Powell writes:

On the issue of contraception and abortion, first of all I would like to say it is much more “the woman’s” choice than it is “the couple’s” choice. To say it’s “the couple’s choice” to not have children and that it is “a personal decision” may sound nice but the discrimination against men explicit in abortion and implicit in birth control is ignored and pretended to not exist when people talk about “the couple’s choice” in relation to family planning. I feel this is important to bring up because “the woman” having the much larger say in regards to the number of children tends to send the message that men don’t count and that a man’s desire for children is “oppressive” or illegitimate. This cultural attitude reinforced by legally mandated discrimination then separates men from the identity of “fatherhood” and serves to drive men away from family responsibilities and family involvement. 

Another thing about procreation being a “personal choice” in the feminist context of today is that people will actually choose on their own initiative to have fewer and fewer children over time once the moral meaning of children has been devalued, and of course nothing is more demeaning to the value of children than to characterize children as being merely “a personal choice”. Fertility rates used to be very high worldwide, like four or five children per woman. On a global basis fertility is now declining very rapidly being under replacement level in the United States among whites, in Europe, in Brazil, in China and in East Asia. Fertility is severely below replacement level in Central Europe, Russia, China, and East Asia where according to current fertility the next generation will be 30 percent smaller than the current generation. Taiwan actually has a fertility rate of 1 child per woman, half of what is needed to sustain the population. 

In a feminist culture where children are seen as a nuisance and a burden the fertility rate tends to endlessly decline; each generation becomes more hostile to children than the generation that came before. Just as marriage relentlessly declines under feminism it needs to be recognized that fertility has a tendency to relentlessly decline as well. 

The “personal choice” idea is simply incompatible with a culture sustaining itself over the long term; it not only is destructive to the orderliness of society but is contrary even to the society’s continuing physical existence.

James N. writes:

Congratulations on the thread, it may be the best ever on the site (and that’s saying a lot).

I think the key concept is Mary’s: “there has never been a nation more sexually dissatisfied, malcontent and ornery than the one we currently live in. We are completely dependent on outside help for our sex lives for the first time in history. Our entertainment culture, from books to radio, TV and movies and right down to the advertising, provides constant stimulation and cannot hold our attention unless it is loaded up with a range of sexual references from innuendo to borderline pornography. Our men’s and women’s magazines are full of tips and advice toward greater satisfaction, indicating that many readers feel there is room for improvement.”

The twenty-somethings who smugly believe that this is the best of all possible worlds in terms of freedom and personal satisfaction are aware, on some level, that…SOMETHING IS WRONG. They don’t know what it is, and their spiritual and moral miseducation makes naming the problem crimethink, so it is impossible for them to arrive at a proper conclusion unaided.

It is very hard for them, however, to explain that the use of Viagra skyrocketed 312 percent among men aged 18-45 between 1998 and 2002. Ads for artificial sexual enhancers are everywhere. It is very hard to explain that 60 million prescriptions for Prozac and related drugs were filled last year, more than 3:1 by women. The covers of popular women’s magazines, unavoidable when buying food, are full of advice about sexual strategies (secrets about what turn men on). This must be the first group of young females in the history of the human race who find male sexual wishes obscure.

The denial among our compatriots about the status quo is very strong, impervious to direct attack. But the facts about the status quo are well known, and undeniable.

Every discussion about this needs to start with “something is wrong.” Once attention is gained, it’s possible to move on to the specifics.

Josh F. writes:

It’s interesting when we talk of the “invisible” suffering and pain. We go from discussing “nondiscrimination” as the liberal’s highest value and the very thing that has led to the pain and suffering to
talking about the liberal’s other highest value:  Tolerance — the ability to make the pain and suffering invisible. This is what liberal tolerance really means. An acceptance of the inevitable pain and
suffering to be had by existing indiscriminately and the conscious effort to appear totally unaffected.

Laura writes:

That’s an important point. Ordinary people are expected to assume total nonchalance in the face of the inhuman effects of our sexual standards.

Katherine writes:

Bless you for having the courage to tackle this issue. 

My observation may be a little off the wall, but here goes: I have always been puzzled by the “double thinking” about contraception and bulimia. Contraception is good, but bulimia is bad. When a person indulges in binge eating and then induces vomiting or diarrhea in order to avoid the consequences of eating, that’s called “an eating disorder.” Somehow it’s good to be able to divorce sex from its biological purpose, but it’s bad to separate eating from its biological purpose. 

Maybe when BigPharma comes up with an “eating control pill,” things will change, and we will hear the cry for “digestive freedom” to match “reproductive freedom.”

Laura writes:

Thank you.

David S. writes:

Mary wrote: “So deciding that other married people will be responsible for populating civilization while you travel is not selfish?”

This presupposes a lot. It presupposes, for one thing, that the hypothetical couple’s only reason for not having children at all is that they want to travel. More likely, such a couple does not want children, does not think it will be good parents to children. So if they had children anyway, they would be doing a lot less of a service to civilization then having children that they would bring up reluctantly.

 [Laura writes: Mary was responding to Bruno’s example of the couple who wanted to travel and defer having children. It was not meant to be an all-encompassing example. If people don’t want children, they shouldn’t marry or have sexual relations.

If a couple doesn’t think they will make good parents, they should try to change themselves and become good parents. Your point is similar to a teenager who, when asked to clean up his room, responds, “No, I’m not going to do that because I don’t think I’d be very good at it.”]

As Laura failed to notice in your response, I also considered the case where a couple has some children, but doesn’t want any more. What exactly is your problem with that?

[Laura writes: Again, we are so used to assuming that children should proceed from the desire for children. But, having children should not be a consumer choice. It is not necessary for it to be convenient or desirable. It is not necessary to want more children to bear and raise more children, although it is absolutely necessary to treat the children we have with love and respect.

Natural Family planning is an alternative, however,. It helps a couple remain conscious of the power they have in the relatively short period in which they are fertile.]

Mary wrote: “David S. apparently doesn’t understand that if everyone made this decision the human race would simply end.”

Yeah, and if everyone made the decision to go into law enforcement, we’d have no doctors. If they all became doctors we’d have no military. Yet you do not denigrate someone for choosing either one of those professions.

The argument is the same. You can’t condemn an action, or lack thereof, because of what would happen if everyone behaved that way.

[Laura writes: Obviously, everyone is not going to become sterile. However, Mary’s point is valid in that there are serious consequences, as we already see, when many people view children as simply a personal choice.] 

Mary wrote:

“Let’s look at China’s interest in the individual’s personal freedom and happiness. This is a story of reproductive freedom turned on it’s ear. They have dictated to families a one-child policy, and then it’s government-enforced abortion for you if your contraception fails”

I’m sorry, what? In what way is this “reproductive freedom turned on its ear”? It’s not reproductive freedom at all. I know you think you’re being ironic here, but there is no irony. China never said it was protecting freedoms. You can’t be saying that anyone who values reproductive freedom would approve of such a policy.

“A women’s right to choose, indeed. “

Again, who ever said China was supporting a woman’s right to choose?

[Laura writes: I think Mary was expressing revulsion at the effort to improve society by manipulating reproduction. In China, it is state-engineered. In the West, hedonism and the exaltation of “reproductive freedom” imposes a soft tyranny over people’s lives.]

Mary wrote: “One of these is that marriage is established for procreation;”

Okay, so what if someone doesn’t marry? Do you excuse them then for not having children? What if they tried to find someone to marry but couldn’t find a partner? How about then?

 [Not everyone is meant to marry. The unmarried people often make important contributions. But they shouldn’t violate and publicly demean the sexual standards that help those who are bearing and rearing children.]

Bruno responds to Laura’s comments to him in the previous entry:

The problem with claims to “objective morality” is that they are not helpful at all, and a major source of unsolvable disagreement. We have laws and mores. That’s all we actually have, if you think about it.  Mere appeals to “objective morality” never helped anybody or any society in any recognizable way. It is a pretense of law without any guarantee of enforcement. Moreover, no one can surely say what it consists of, whereas, concerning the law, and the mores, one can, in most cases, almost be sure of their content. But, if what you are referring to by “objective morality” would only contain those minimal things necessary for the mere continuance of the individual and of society, then I’d happily agree with you that it actually is useful and necessary. However, I’m sure that in this minimal content there possibly isn’t a single line concerning contraceptives. Try to think about it, for a moment, from the point of view of a non-believer. To a non-believer, Catholic claims concerning  contraceptives are nothing but part of a system based on a fiction. It  is the same thing to Catholics, concerning Jehovah’s Witnesses’ claims  that blood transfusion is sinful and evil, for example. But surely there must be at least one point concerning which we could  all agree on, right? That’s why I say, to non-believers and to  Christians: let each one of you live in accordance to the system of  values, or lack thereof, one is most fond of, or believes to be true, and let both of you obey the laws and respect the mores of society.

There is but one test that should be accepted by all, and that test is happiness (or is somebody going to claim that a man is obliged to live his life in perpetual unhappiness?): if the smiles I see in a
Christian and in a non-believer faces are both true and for real, then both lifestyles are good enough for me. However, if what one is hiding behind a facade of happiness is but a severe internal misery and a high degree of contempt for others, and maybe even for himself, then let all know that the king is naked. And this is what I see concerning the livelihood of many Christians, and precisely what I believe that the introduction of contraceptives have helped to diminish and to avoid: the hypocrisy and the shame of having to choose a lifestyle one actually believes to be a farce, or wrong, or evil, or antithetical to oneself.

Laura writes:

I don’t follow you. 

On the one hand, you say society’s customs and laws should not be based on any claims to objective morality. You then turn around and say these laws and customs should be based on a claim to objective morality: “There is but one test that should be accepted by all, and that test is happiness.” That should be the guiding principle. Even those who do not accept this claim should be forced to live by it. You demand that others accept “happiness” as the highest good. And in your mind “happiness” is heavily correlated with childlessness.

Your point about the similarity between the Christian rejection of artificial contraception and the prohibition against blood transfusions among Jehovah’s Witnesses is idiotic. One doesn’t have to be a Christian to see the harmful practical consequences of contraception or to believe that these consequences are injurious to society. Not everyone who has spoken against contraception in this discussion is a Christian. One doesn’t have to accept the theological claims of Christianity to see that artificial contraception interferes with the bond between the generations, devalues children, and changes the meaning of marriage making children a matter of personal choice.

As for your point about a “high degree of contempt for others,” you apparently believe that anyone who thinks artificial contraception has caused more misery than good holds contempt for those who don’t agree.  I doubt anyone is ever going to force you to have children.

Bruno also writes:

I’m also 26 (as is Kimberly), unmarried and childless, and going to remain single for quite some time. I do not want children anytime in my life; and I certainly do not wish to get married until I’m at least thirty or something. While it is not that easy to find a woman that share those goals, it is not impossible either, and I’m actually dating a woman who shares my lifestyle goals.
I did not recounted that personal account for my own amusement, though. I want to make a point. Do you think people like me should be forced not to use contraceptives, and be parents (or celibates), for the sake of a so-called “public good”?

Sometimes, I don’t really see the difference between Communists and Christian conservatives – both wish to control people’s behavior for the sake of their most esteemed ideals, be they the classless society or a society devoted to their Lord Jesus Christ, or whatever. In any case, they do not feel obliged to simply respect people’s rights, specially the right to live one’s life the way one’s wants to.”

Laura writes:

This is a sick statement.

In less than 100 years in America, we’ve gone from prohibiting the sale of artificial contraception (contraception use was never illegal) to mandating that Christian hospitals subsidize contraception use among their employees. Disapproval of contraceptive use even by religious institutions is now officially forbidden. What a breathtaking revolution. Contrary to Bruno’s fantasy that Christians are lurking behind every bush ready to pounce on him and his girfriend and force them to procreate, it is Christians who are being forced against their consciences to subsidize and support contraceptive use. They are no longer left with the freedom of dissent. Our public schools already teach children about contraception and we pay for this indoctrination.

Fear not, Bruno. You are free. You are utterly free to remain childless for the rest of your life. You obviously know this, but what bothers you is that anyone, even in an isolated blog discussion, should express disapproval of contraception. And so you insult those who express these opinions and are somehow gratified by the preposterous idea that your freedoms are threatened.

Gail Aggen writes:

If it would not be a sin, I personally would be happy that Bruno isn’t going to procreate. But if and when he changes his mind, he as so many of his generation will probably find it extremely difficult to produce children. I am hearing of more and more people I know who cannot have them naturally, and so are going through expensive and often traumatic in vitro treatments. I know of one couple who were on their second and final try with in vitro (for 20K or thereabouts, you get two or three tries, I think), and opted to have three eggs implanted. All eggs “took”, and they had triplets, only to lose the smallest one a month later, which devastated them.

The only people I know who have had babies easily this last year or so have been about a dozen young folks who range in age from 16 to 21. None of them are married, which is another issue, but ironically they have succeeded in the prime directive of all life, which is to reproduce. Hence, their bloodlines live on, and they get to be someone’s ancestors.

I think our modern world is having a deleterious effect on the health and fertility of people, and those who decide to postpone marriage and wait and/or limit the number of children they will “welcome” may find themselves on the bad end of that immortal line from Bobby McGee, in that “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose…”

Ever see “The Children of Men”? I thought the movie was prophetic.

Laura writes:

We don’t know what all of the effects are of the massive amounts of synthetic hormones in our water supply, excreted by those who are taking birth control pills. That’s an additional issue. Voluntary infertility in some may be causing involuntary infertility in others.

Mary writes:

Laura’s right, of course. The turnaround is breathtaking. One of the triumphs of modernism was severing us from our past and then convincing the populus that history really started only 50 years ago. 

But something is pricking Bruno’s conscience – that is why he is arguing so vehemently and saying silly things. He is hoping that his own words will convince him for good that he is correct; they never will because the moral truths are written on our souls. As a young person in today’s world, a virtual minefield of moral conundrums, Bruno should be giving real thought to what he’s reading here and not just say “Oh, it’s Christian and I’m not a Christian so it doesn’t apply to me”. It is actually heartening that he keeps coming back for more. I’m not being condescending, Bruno, you’ll understand more when you’re a parent. 

Thanks to Laura for responding to David S. Just one point I want to clarify. David wrote: “I’m sorry, what? In what way is this “reproductive freedom turned on its ear”? It’s not reproductive freedom at all. I know you think you’re being ironic here, but there is no irony. China never said it was protecting freedoms. You can’t be saying that anyone who values reproductive freedom would approve of such a policy.” 

On the contrary, the irony is thick. I’ll try to clarify. Contraception was developed to offer reproductive freedom, no? (and for eugenic purposes, but that’s another subject). Abortion as well was developed ostensibly to allow for more reproductive freedom (again, and for use in eugenics programs). Roe v. Wade was considered an absolute triumph for women’s reproductive rights. China took something that was considered a good by everyone who supports feminism, i.e. reproductive freedom, and turned it against the very women who were supposed to be benefiting from it. In a mind-bending twist, many Chinese women then turned around and aborted their baby girls in an effort to ensure their one child would be a male, in effect killing off the future women who would have grown up to be denied their reproductive rights – you know, the ones that are considered wonderful freedoms – by the Chinese government. Now do you see the irony? (By the way, do you consider Planned Parenthood an organization that values reproductive freedom? Yes? Well, PP International plays a significant role in the “reproductive freedom” of Chinese women).

A mother writes:

I would like to add a fascinating statistic to your thread on contraception. This study shows that the divorce rate for couples who practice NFP, regardless of their religious affiliation, is 0.2%.. 

I think it is also important to point out that those who promote artificial contraception to begin with claim that it reduces “unplanned” pregnancies (whats so wrong with it being unplanned?) and abortions. However, the numbers show otherwise.

Janet Smith’s talk, “Contraception Why Not?” is an excellent resource on this subject. I highly recommend it

Oh, and my babies are way better than a trip to Paris.

David S. writes:

Laura wrote: “It is not necessary for it to be convenient or desirable. It is not necessary to want more children to bear and raise more children, although it is absolutely necessary to treat the children we have with love and respect.”

What exactly do you think the chances are that they’ll be treated with love and respect if they were born to people who didn’t want them, or for whom they weren’t convenient?

Laura writes:

I think the likelihood that they will be loved is very strong.

Mary writes:

David wrote: “What exactly do you think the chances are that they’ll be treated with love and respect if they were born to people who didn’t want them, or for whom they weren’t convenient?”

David S. is begging the question. The point is that before contraception/abortion married people didn’t think of children as optional and understood that sexual activity had a good chance of producing them; hence, when the children came it was no surprise and it didn’t occur to people to be disappointed, to not love or respect their children or anything of the kind. If they wanted to guarantee they didn’t produce children, they simply refrained from sexual activity. And it wasn’t a huge sorrow for them because they knew no better; they were innocent; they hadn’t isolated the lovely pleasure of sexual relations and put it aside as an enjoyable activity to be pursued randomly, like going out to dinner or the movies. They hadn’t separated it from it’s intended purpose. For thousands of years, by the way, this was the norm. Contraception/abortion were for prostitutes and women in deeply unfortunate circumstances (which there are many more of today – more irony for you). Human nature doesn’t change; our mistake is in trying to change it. The damage is all around you, David S. Open your eyes and your mind.

Laura wrote: “We don’t know what all of the effects are of the massive amounts of synthetic hormones in our water supply, excreted by those who are taking birth control pills. That’s an additional issue. Voluntary infertility in some may be causing involuntary infertility in others.”

Absolutely. Also, the symtomless STD’s they are asking us to vaccinate our 12 year old girls and boys against – they can cause infertility, too. Fertility problems also arise from delaying childbirth too long, and from multiple partners before marriage; abortion can also cause problems in this area.

Laura writes:

David argues that it is wrong for parenthood to be foisted upon – through utterly natural processes – an adult who does not want a child. But any adult who does not want children has the option of refraining from sexual activity. There has always been a way to avoid parenthood.

At the same time, David S. believes, as he has argued before, that it is perfectly okay for adults who don’t want children to father offspring through artificial insemination for homosexual couples. He has no objections in this instance to a child having a parent who makes his alienation from his offspring perfectly explicit. A child who is unwanted  is okay.  The parent-child bond as it exists from the child’s perspective is not of concern. His sympathies are entirely with the selfish desires of adults.

Clem writes:

Great thread! Thanks to you and all your contributors.

As to Bruno and his statement suggesting that ‘people’s rights’ specially the right to live one’s life the way one’s wants to somehow exist in a vacuum I am reminded of this dialogue between Humpty Dumpty and Alice in Alice and Wonderland: 

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – – that’s all.”

David S. writes:

Laura writes: “At the same time, David S. believes, as he has argued before, that it is perfectly okay for adults who don’t want children to father offspring through artificial insemination for homosexual couples. He has no objections in this instance to a child having a parent who makes his alienation from his offspring perfectly explicit. A child who is unwanted is okay.”
 
Yes, I have said that, though not in this thread. As far as I know, it’s not necessarily men who don’t want children that donate, but any man who wants to help out couples who can’t have
children between the two of them, whether the donor has children of his own or not.

Such a child is indeed wanted. The alienation from the donor is not out of malice, but to preserve the adoptive parents’ status as the child’s family.

[Laura writes: You are not arguing in good faith. You know what I meant. These fathers do not want to be fathers of their children. Their children grow up with father-hunger and despair over being rejected. See the organizations and websites that have formed to represent the interests of the new parentally dispossessed.  It matters little whether the father has done such a thing out of malice, pseudo-charity or cold-blooded indifference.]

Laura writes: “The parent-child bond as it exists from the child’s perspective is not of concern.”

That presupposes that the child systematically fails to form the same kind of parent-child bond with his/her adoptive parents, and always longs for his/her biological parent. There is no evidence
that that is systematically the case. Yes, you’ve linked to some stories of children who felt that way when they grew up, but there are plenty of other cases where nothing of the sort happened.

[Laura writes: I stand by my point. David is indifferent to the psychic pain of being the offspring of a man who jacked off in a room, left his sperm in a lab and never had anything to do with his child again. That’s where the wholesale approval of artificial contraception has gotten us, folks. We are living in a nightmare.]

And remember, these children would not have been born if the adoptive couple hadn’t wanted a child. [Laura writes: “Adoptive couple?” We’re talking homosexuals who deliberately deny children a mother or father. You say these children might not have been born. Certainly, anyone’s life is valuable once they have been born but that does not negate the evil of what has been done. Instead, children might have been born in more normal circumstances and not forced to live in a home with perverts.] These are situations where that couple initiates the request. The donor might have had a child of his own anyway, but it would not have been that particular child. So the choice for the child is nonexistence or being raised by an adoptive couple, whatever risks of longing for biological parents that might incur. Since you are so much in favor of existence for children in other cases, I’d think you’d be for it here as well.

Laura writes: “His sympathies are entirely with the selfish desires of adults.”

The couples in question are no more (or less) selfish than heterosexual couples who desire to have children by each other. [Laura writes: They are monstrously selfish, depriving a child of one of the two things he wants more than anything else: his mother or father.] They simply want to raise children. [Great. And I simply want to be rich. Does that entitle me to steal?] It’s the same motive. [No, it’s not. It takes place outside the context of the marital bond. It denies a child the primary ingredients of psychological formation. It is atrociously sick, selfish and perverse.] So if you want to call the adoptive couple selfish, you have to call any couple who actually desires to have children selfish.