Contraception and Abortion

The firestorm over Obama's controversial mandate forcing institutions to provide services they object to provides a teachable moment. Specifically, Obama has mandated that all employers, including religious ones, provide health care coverage that includes sterilization and abortion-causing drugs.

Besides the very important issue of the mandate's violation of the freedom of religion-that is, government's forcing institutions and individual businesses to pay for things they object to-and besides the very important issue of calling abortifacient drugs "contraception"-when in fact these drugs cause the death of newly-conceived human beings-let us address the important issue of contraception's connection to abortion. Does widespread access to contraception lead to fewer abortions? Is it true, as Democrat abortion-supporting USA senator Barbara Boxer says, "broadening access to birth control will help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and abortions"?

Logically, one would think "Yes". If a couple, or sexually-active partnership (not much love in that phrase, is there?) were not ready for a child, contraception would prevent the conception of a baby that the not-yet-ready couple might otherwise abort.

But the lived experience of several decades indicates otherwise. As the availability of contraception increases, adolescents and others not ready for children have more sex. Because contraceptives, like every other man-made object, occasionally fail, some couples find themselves with unplanned pregnancies. And as children were never a part of such couples' plans, abortion is the next option.

Here is what the Supreme Court of the United States of America said in 1992: "in some critical respects abortion is of the same character as the decision to use contraception...for two decades of economic and social developments, people have organized intimate relationships and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society, in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail."

Consider these demonstrations of the contraception/abortion link:
"In Sweden, between 1995 and 2001, teen abortion rates grew 32% during a period of low-cost condoms, oral contraceptives and over-the-counter emergency contraception."

In Spain, a ten-year study found "[C]ontraception use increased by about 60%, the abortion rate doubled. In other words, even with an increase in contraception use, there weren’t fewer unwanted pregnancies, there were more."

The Guttmacher Institute, the research arm of Planned Parenthood, found "simultaneous increases in abortion rates and contraceptive use in the United States, Cuba, Denmark, the Netherlands, Singapore, and South Korea."

Witness these prominent individuals in family planning institutions on the contraception/abortion link:

Malcolm Potts, director of Planned Parenthood in the 1970s: "As people turn to contraception, there will be a rise, not a fall, in the abortion rate…"

Alfred Kinsey, famous sexologist, in 1955: "At the risk of being repetitious, I would remind the group that we have found the highest frequency of induced abortions in the groups which, in general, most frequently uses contraception."

Judith Bury, British abortion advocate: "“…women…have come to request [abortions] when contraception fails. There is overwhelming evidence that, contrary to what you might expect, the provision [availability] of contraception leads to an increase in the abortion rate.”

Lionel Tiger, sociologist, in 1999: "With effective contraception controlled by women, there are still more abortions than ever…[C]ontraception causes abortion.”

Contraception would seem a good way to prevent unintended pregnancies and the consequent tragedy of abortion. Empirical data indicate just the opposite. What, then, should be done? Let couples in love save their sexual debuts for their wedding night, so that all their children may enter the world within the bond of a loving marriage. Let these couples practice Natural Family Planning, a method which allows a husband and wife to space the births of their children without any sort of artificial intervention (visit ccli.org for more information). Let faithfulness, love and life prosper.

Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com

Obama's Contraceptive Push

Monday's fair treatment of Obama's controversial contraception edict ("US Catholic Bishops oppose Obama birth-control plan") needs just a few clarifications. First, the context: the US government is, for the first time in its history, making a list of services that must be included in every health insurance policy. The Obama administration's list mandates 100% coverage for birth control methods and "Plan B" and "ella" drugs, which cause newly-conceived children to be expelled from the womb. As these drugs cause abortions, it's no wonder the Catholic Church does not provide them to employees. The Catholic Church teaches that abortion is a very serious sin. It also teaches that it is a very serious sin to assist in an abortion. Obama's ruling insists that religious institutions provide a "service" that the church believes puts the user and the provider in danger of damnation. Moreover, many non-Catholic Americans perceive Obama's move as trampling Constitutionally-protected religious freedom-a freedom defining American civil life since its founding. Even if Obama did exempt religious organizations from his edict, nothing protects the conscience rights of business owners who object to supplying abortion-causing drugs to their employees via health care coverage.

Second, the article says "his compromise [means] religious employers would not have to offer free contraceptives for workers, shifting the responsibility to insurers." But in fact, insurers are business people; they do not provide goods or services for free. They will, as any good business would, respond to Obama's demand to provide "free" contraceptives by raising the fees those religious employers pay to the insurer for coverage. Congressman Chris Smith explained Obama's "compromise" this way: "It states, for example, that religious employers 'will not' have to pay for abortion pills, sterilization, and contraception, but their 'insurance companies' will. Who pays for the insurance policy? The religious employer."

The end of the article says "The regulation at the center of the controversy requires religious-affiliated groups such as charities, hospitals and universities, not churches themselves, to provide employees with coverage for birth control as other health insurance providers must do." One must assume that the author meant that religiously affiliated groups must provide the same coverage as other EMPLOYERS must, since religious-affiliated groups are employers but not health insurance companies.

Throughout the world, church-affiliated hospitals and clinics on university campuses offer health care services as part of their ministries. Many churches, including the Catholic Church, believe their health-care outreaches are a way of extending Christ's healing hands to the sick, injured, and poor. Catholic hospitals and university clinics wish to retain this healing outreach. Forcing Catholic institutions to provide life-denying and sometimes killing drugs opposes this Christ-like outreach.

Americans have traditionally insisted that the Federal Government keep its hands off of religious charities so that charities can serve people while following the dictates of their consciences. We don't know the outcome of this battle, but let us hope that freedom and tolerance prevail.

Rudy Poglitsh
more letters at www.letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com

Journalistic Integrity

Monday's "news" article about US President Obama's current political fortunes was a source of amusement and sadness. Amusement, because one could easily believe his re-election campaign team wrote it; and sadness, for the very same reason. Journalism's highest and noblest calling lies in its objective treatment of individuals and events. Such treatment allows readers to see two or more sides of an issue and then draw their own conclusions. The international news page of the Times has, sadly, preferred full-throated boosterism to objectivity when it comes to Obama. The Times, and journalism generally, suffers for it.

The Times could have, over the past five years, mentioned things like:
*Obama won his 1996 campaign to be the Democrat candidate for Illinois state senator by having all the other candidates removed from the ballot;
*Obama pushed his 2010 health care reform act through Congress despite the fact that a majority of Americans opposed it;
*Obama's spending habits have amassed a federal debt of $15 trillion, a amount of money almost equal to the gross domestic product of the country and putting every American household in debt to the tune of $128,300 (about one million Emalangeni);
*Obama's Democrat party took a "shellacking" (his own word) in the November 2010 mid-term elections, a defeat generally attributed to voter dissatisfaction with Obama's first two years;
*Obama recently denied permission to build a pipeline to carry Canadian crude oil across the United States-a job that would provide thousands of US jobs in a job-starved time;
*Time magazine's Mark Halperin, commenting on Obama's pipeline decision, said "I think it is reflective of the fact he has not brought the country together on controversial issues which he promised to do.”
*ABC News reported on-line that the "tick off" between Arizona governor Brewer and Obama ran the other direction-with Brewer pointing a scolding finger at the president. Brewer was reportedly annoyed at the president for not taking seriously her concerns about border control (Arizona is a border state) at an earlier meeting between them.

Instead of mentioning such newsworthy details, Monday's Times gave us the headline "President Obama More Popular". Readers of Swaziland's "newspaper of record" will recognize this pattern in the Times. Expressing enthusiasm for a candidate or elected official is part of the election process, and has its place in the opinion section of a newspaper; but the news sections of a journal like the Times should carry clear-eyed reports and balanced analysis, not endorsements.

Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com