What's behind the attack on abortion? Opposition to contraception

[Liberal_in_LA]

..... people have been wondering why the two sides can’t just join hands and agree to work together to reduce the number of abortions by expanding the availability of family-planning services and contraception.

The answer is that a large part of the anti-abortion community is also anti-contraception.

“The fact is that 95 percent of the contraceptives on the market kill the baby in the womb,” said Jim Sedlak of the American Life League.

“Fertility and babies are not diseases,” said Jeanne Monahan of the Family Research Council’s Center for Human Dignity, which has been fighting against requiring insurance plans to cover contraceptives under the new health care law.


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Beyond the science, there’s the fact that many social conservatives are simply opposed to giving women the ability to have sex without the possibility of procreation.

“Contraception helps reduce one’s sexual partner to just a sexual object since it renders sexual intercourse to be without any real commitments,” says Janet Smith, the author of “Contraception: Why Not.”

The reason this never comes up in the debates about reproductive rights in Washington is that it has no popular appeal. Abortion is controversial. Contraception isn’t. A new report by the Guttmacher Institute found that even women who are faithful Catholics or evangelicals are likely to rely on the pill, I.U.D.’s or sterilization to avoid pregnancy. Rachel Jones, a lead author of the report, said the researchers found “no indication whatsoever” that religious affiliation has any serious effect on contraception use
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/opinion/14collins.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=general

[mrcheerful]

1. Yeah because if it weren't for contraceptions women would never ever have sex outside of marriage

Unwed mothers were unknown before the pill, just ask anyone who is born 4 or 5 months after mom and dad got hitched. Or how about those family members who went away for 6 months to visit a family member that no one ever knew or heard of before or after for that matter. Stupid nit wits.

[Tansy_Gold]

8. "Unwed mothers were unknown before the pill."

:rofl: :rofl::rofl: :rofl::rofl: :rofl::rofl: :rofl::rofl: :rofl::rofl: :rofl::rofl: :rofl::rofl: :rofl::rofl: :rofl::rofl: :rofl::rofl: :rofl::rofl: :rofl::rofl: :rofl::rofl: :rofl::rofl: :rofl::rofl: :rofl::rofl: :rofl::rofl: :rofl::rofl: :rofl::rofl: :rofl::rofl: :rofl::rofl: :rofl::rofl: :rofl::rofl: :rofl::rofl: :rofl::rofl: :rofl::rofl: :rofl::rofl: :rofl::rofl: :rofl::rofl: :rofl::rofl: :rofl::rofl: :rofl::rofl: :rofl:

[mrcheerful]

9. Yeah I actually had a fundie aunt say that to me after I stoped laughing I asked her

if she had any working brain cells. Her thinking was the pill didn't work 100%, she put the number at 48% of pill prevented pregnancies which was the number her preacher gave her as fact.

edited to add the last sentence

[Tansy_Gold]

12. Now that I've stopped laughing (two hours later)

I think -- just my very very humble opinion, of course -- what you really meant to say was that most women who found themselves pregnant and unmarried either got married (the old shotgun wedding) or they went off somewhere out of the immediate vicinity of family and friends, had the baby in secret (the old Florence Crittenden homes), and gave it up for adoption. They were still "unwed mothers" because they had given birth out of wedlock (emphasis on the lock), but they did not remain as single women raising their children.

The oral contraceptive didn't entirely change that, and its effective rate was much much higher than ~50%, provided it was taken properly. Lack of adequate and accurate sex education led many a 1960s teenager to believe that the pills operated like what we'd call today EC - Emergency Contraception or the morning after pill. It wasn't that the pills weren't effective but rather that the women weren't taking them as they were supposed to be taken. (And the early pills had some severe side effects, too, which were partly due to the high dosages. My mother, taking them in 1961/2, experienced some of the side effects, only to have her doctor tell her she could get the full benefit of the pills and eliminate the side effects if she only took the pills every other month. My sister was born in late 1963.)

Condoms, however, had been around for a long time, even if they were sold "for the prevention of disease only" and not as contraceptives. They still functioned that way, and they, too, were effective most of the time, just as they are today.

The primary reason there were fewer single mothers raising children without benefit(?) of marriage had less to do with contraception than with the lack of living-wage jobs for women and other financial/economic advantages. As recently as the 1980s, some employer health care plans did not include pregnancy/maternity benefits for unmarried women or even for those who had not been married at least nine months prior to the expected delivery date. Even today, with women making somewhere around 75 cents to the dollar men make, it's difficult for a woman with a child or children to support them; and the current economy makes it even more so.

But of course that's only one aspect of a much much larger issue. You really don't want to get me started.


TG

[mrcheerful]

13. I think my aunt was refering to there was no sex before marriage before the pill came out and

women could enjoy casual sex without having to worry about pregnancies, she was very anti sex for everyone else but seeing as she had 14 living kids,2 kids died soon after birth, I always found her amusing. What was really funny is after her death the family found out that the last 3 marriages weren't legal because her first husband didn't bother to divorce her, he just disappeared while getting a pack of cigarettes one night. The 4 marriages always got me because she was such a holier then thou type chirstian. She would have been a tea bagger if she were alive today, she constantly complained about people not paying their bills yet she would order stuff through the mail and refuse to pay. Same with people who were on welfare, her reasoning was the more people on welfare meant less aid for her.

[Aerows]

16. And we are also seeing an attack on professions

that are generally held by women (teaching, nursing), too, in an attempt to devalue them.

Life was much easier for some of these gas bags when they had plenty of desperate women that they could exploit (and exploit their children, too) and they long for those days to return.

It's this whole idea that there is an attack on masculinity by women, when the problem is the wealthy wanting to exploit everyone that is poor. If men think their manhood is threatened because women can earn a living now, just wait until the entire middle class is destroyed and then they can discuss being emasculated.

I can't think of a single thing more emasculating and demeaning that being what is essentially a slave. That won't be the fault of women - that will be the fault of everyone that is hoodwinked into supporting all of these ideas that seek to return us to feudal times.

[tammywammy]

11. That's the silliest thing anyone could say

"Unwed mothers were unknown before the pill"

:rofl:

[Mojeoux]

2. This is what happened when they tried to condemn in-vetro

The argument is MOOT because you CAN NOT argue with Mothers and Fathers who desperately want to have babies. (Multiply the power of that last sentence by the power of infinity)

The Oct-mom and Kate and her 8 are the trail ends of this old busted meme.

[Ilsa]

3. Sometimes we might want to enjoy sex without fear of pregnancy, even in committed

Relationships. Fear of getting pregnant, even within marriage, is enough to hamper enjoyment. Not everyone wNts another mouth to feed or another child to raise.
Screw them.

[elias7]

4. Mr Sedlak needs to be edumacated

Again:

Barrier methods prevent the sperm and egg from meeting, look as they may...
Spermicides prevent the egg from meeting any live sperm, some of which could have been gay...
The pill (and shot) prevents the egg from being laid, so not sure it counts as a lay...

No babies killed in the womb any way I know of...

[CC]

5. Get rid of contraceptives

you get rid of the freedom to choose how you want to live your life if you are a woman. Contraceptives gave women more freedom over themselves and more choices. Some (mostly)men that never evolved think that they could control women through reproduction and children again. Most know you can't put the genie back in the bottle but the few are awful loud.

[Sonoman]

6. "Attention, WalMart shoppers!"

"We need all of you that we can force to be born!"

Sonoman

[no_hypocrisy]

7. Get out your Scarlet "A"s.

[moondust]

10. Crusaders. n/t

[BrendaBrick]

14. What's REALLY behind it....I think just another wedge issue to keep us distracted! n/t

[Aerows]

15. Two reasons

But first an observation: NONE of the opponents of contraceptives or abortion ever come out against Viagra.

Think about it - they say nothing about men getting erections or taking medications to *encourage* erections, but do nothing to deal with the consequences of those erections. It's an inherently patriarchal viewpoint. Women are only allowed to have sex within the context of marriage and produce children, and if they DO have sex outside of marriage, she's a "fallen woman" and deserves no sympathy whatsoever. The catch is that wealthier women will always find ways around this (and have for centuries).

It's a way to create an impoverished class. You don't allow contraceptives, or abortions, and provide NO support for women who have pregnancies out of wedlock. You virtually insure a class that is in dire poverty and thus easily exploited.

That's what it's about and what the attack on social programs is really about. It creates desperate, powerless people that are easily exploited by the wealthy and the powerful. That's the bottom line.

[apnu]

17. “The fact is that 95 percent of the contraceptives on the market kill the baby in the womb,” WTF?

The two most popular forms of contraception, rubbers and the pill, halt reproduction before either a sperm or an egg enters the womb.

This is what I can't stand about the anti-choice crowd, they're so fucking dumb it embarrasses me as an American.

[demigoddess]

18. modern version of the Scarlet letter!!

Also the real reason is they do not want BOY babies aborted or prevented. It is believed that BOYS will be more prevalent if there is no contraception. And women will die off in childbirth leading to more males than females.

[demigoddess]

19. also I heard Pat Robertson say one time that the problem

with abortion was "all the WHITE babies" who were aborted.

[MountainLaurel]

20. Trying to resist an "I told you so"

I've been told time and time again by the pro-forced birthers that they and, more importantly, the movement as a whole, didn't care a whit about contraception, that abortion was the evil they wanted to eradicate. No matter how many quotes I gave them from the wrinkly white men who are their leaders, they refused to admit that banning contraception was the ultimate goal.