Monday, January 30, 2012
Abortion The Republican fight against birth control
Posted by Max Brantley on Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 6:17 AM
Catholic institutions will resist the Obama administration decision that birth control is preventive medicine and thus must be covered by group health insurance plans. The institutions will fight this as an incursion on religion.
This is a tough issue. It is also a poor proxy for a fundamental difference in the political parties. Republican candidates, including Mitt Romney, the likely nominee, say they want to roll back federal support for family planning. Medical opinion is firm: family planning prevents unwanted pregnancy and thus discourages abortion and the poor pre-natal care that often accompanies unwanted pregnancies. Women, who are the ones who get pregnant, understand this. 98 percent of women have used contraception and the percentage is the same for Catholic women, despite the church's firm position against it.
Do women really agree with the archbishop quoted in this New York Times summary of the debate who describes use of condoms and birth control pills as the "culture of death"? Is there political gain in supporting a position that forces this medical outcome?
One recent Georgetown law graduate, who asked not to be identified for reasons of medical privacy, said she had polycystic ovary syndrome, a condition for which her doctor prescribed birth control pills. She is gay and had no other reason to take the pills. Georgetown does not cover birth control for students, so she made sure her doctor noted the diagnosis on her prescription. Even so, coverage was denied several times. She finally gave up and paid out of pocket, more than $100 a month. After a few months she could no longer afford the pills. Within months she developed a large ovarian cyst that had to be removed surgically — along with her ovary.“If I want children, I’ll need a fertility specialist because I have only one working ovary,” she said.
ICYMI: The Catholic Diocese of Little Rock is fully committed to the fight against contraception. News release last week:
Bishop Anthony B. Taylor is asking people of faith to get involved in fighting a recent ruling by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that will require most private health care plans to cover sterilization and contraception free of charge.
He said the religious liberty of Catholics will be violated if the ruling is implemented. The Catholic Church believes sterilization and contraception, some of which can cause abortions, are immoral because they sever the inherent link between sex and procreation and limit the spouses’ total gift of self to one another. Furthermore, direct sterilization involves intentional damage to a healthy part of the body that is not a threat to the patient’s life.
While there is a narrow religious exemption, Catholic hospitals, charities and colleges would not be exempt. Business owners, insurers or individuals would also be forced to comply with the ruling even though they might believe contraception and sterilization to be morally wrong.
In a Jan. 25 letter, Bishop Taylor said, “We cannot — we will not — comply with this unjust law.”
Bishop Taylor said the ruling is a violation of the First Amendment.
“In so ruling, our government has cast aside the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, denying to Catholics our nation’s first and most fundamental freedom, that of religious liberty. And as a result, unless this rule is overturned, we Catholics will be compelled either to violate our consciences or to drop health care coverage for our employees (and suffer the penalties for doing so).”Letter from Bishop Taylor, dated January 25, 2012
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I write to you concerning an alarming matter that strikes at the fundamental right to religious liberty for all citizens of any faith. The federal government, has just dealt a heavy blow to almost a quarter of those people — the Catholic population — and to the millions more who are served by the Catholic faithful.Last year the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued rules requiring all health care plans to cover sterilization and contraception, including abortifacients. The only Catholics who would qualify for the so-called "religious exemption" allowed under these rules would be only those Catholic employers who hire mainly Catholics, serve mainly Catholics and exist mainly to inculcate religious values. All these conditions would have to be met in order to qualify for the exemption. Catholic hospitals would not qualify, not to mention ordinary businesses owned by Catholics. Moreover, there was no conscience protection whatsoever for insurers or individuals with religious or moral objections to being forced to help pay the cost of these abortions and sterilizations. This is a direct attack on religion and our First Amendment rights.
In so ruling, our government has cast aside the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, denying to Catholics our Nation’s first and most fundamental freedom, that of religious liberty. And as a result, unless the rule is overturned, we Catholics will be compelled either to violate our consciences, or to drop health coverage for our employees (and suffer the penalties for doing so). The Administration’s sole concession was to give our institutions one year to comply—what Archbishop Dolan of New York correctly describes as "a year to figure out how to violate our consciences."
We cannot — we will not — comply with this unjust law. People of faith cannot be made second class citizens. We are already joined by our brothers and sisters of all faiths and many others of good will in this important effort to regain our religious freedom. In generations past, the Church has always been able to count on the faithful to stand up and protect her sacred rights and duties. I hope and trust she can count on this generation of Catholics to do the same.
And therefore, I would ask of you two things. First, as a community of faith we must commit ourselves to prayer and fasting that wisdom and justice may prevail, and religious liberty may be restored. Without God, we can do nothing; with God, nothing is impossible. Second, I would also recommend visiting www.usccb.org/conscience, to learn more about this severe assault on religious liberty, and how to contact Congress in support of legislation that would reverse the administration’s decision.
Sincerely in Christ,
Most Rev. Anthony B. Taylor
Bishop of Little Rock
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Doonesbury gets tough on Republican abortion bills
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Comments (33)
Showing 1-33 of 33
"Remind you of anything?"
"Why, yes, Daphne, it does."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16787…
like
dislike
I wonder about the strategy of the Catholic church's fight against contraceptives. The guilt women feel for having used contraceptives against the wishes of the church may be what drives them to seek forgiveness in church. It could be a fight the church wants to wage but doesn't really want to win because it would kill the goose that didn't lay the golden egg.
"Remind you of anything else?"
"Why, it's the weirdest thing, Daphne, but yes."
'Romney avoids mentioning it, but [Mormon founder Joseph ] Smith ran for president in 1844 as an independent commander in chief of an “army of God” advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government in favor of a Mormon-ruled theocracy.'
http://www.salon.com/2012/01/29/mitt_and_t…
Bugeye, I have only anecdotal evidence but I seriously doubt if many American Catholic women feel guilt about using birth control. The number of guilt ridden European birth control users probably approaches zero. It amazes me that the Catholic church has anyone in the pews at all. I've questioned Catholic friends about this and the answer I got was "it's a social thing, all our friends go there." Perhaps my promiscuous religious up-bringing led to my questioning of religious beliefs----thank God for that. If a high mass is your cup of tea, that can be found in an Episcopal church along with a humane and life embracing theology re gays, etc. It's a mystery.
Grinch-ich was on the CBS Morning Show with his diatribe aginst Washington elites attacking religion while forgetting to mention that he wants the Catholic Chuirch theology to become law, attacking everyone who doesn't believe as he and the Catholic bishops want. Sounds like the rest of us are being attacked by the religious far-to-the right right. I think there needs to be a penalty against the male since the woman is being sentenced to 9-months labor. How about removal of that small appendage that causes the issue?
And Outlier, I second the comment about the fact that you are welcome in the Episcopal Church who recognizes the value of women and doesn't still adhere to a 1st century rule on the role of women in society.
And yes, I am a male!
Norma - thanks for the links. Interesting read that salon article.
The real issue is when does life begin. My good friend Dr. Kevin Henke is an atheist but he is pro-life because the unborn baby has all the genetic code at the time of conception that they will have for the rest of their life. People can talk about all these other issues till they are blue in the face, but the central issue is "When does life begin?" http://haltingarkansasliberalswithtruth.co…
Saline, a skin cell has all of the genetic code too. Shall we stop using a loofah in the shower, lest we inadvertently slough off a living cell along with the dead ones?
Somebody's dropping names on the blog like so much monkey poo!
Saline has never answered the question I posed to him on a thread a week or so ago. He did state he is NOT against birth control, but he did not answer my question about how he squares that position with his belief that "life" begins at conception since most birth control methods do not prevent conception, but only prevent implantation.
Actually the issue being discussed is birth control, which if used properly ensures that life does NOT begin, so when life begins is NOT the real issue here.
During the 20 years that I followed the dictates of the Catholic Church and bore 9 children, most of my friends were having emergency hysterectomies. When the pill became available we knew it was not for us. When my doctors said no more, I asked permission, was denied, and walked away from the church. I look at Catholic families today and see 2 or 3 children. Absolute miracles!
Jbh, you're right: the issue here is not the philosophical-biological question of when human personhood begins.
But the right wing--e.g., SalineRepublican--deliberately wants to CONFUSE the issue by implying that contraception is a form of abortion. In that way, they can take a word they've fetishized in political discourse to frighten people and make them vote "right"--the word "abortion"--and illicitly use it to refer to contraception.
Which, as Outlier notes, is all about PREVENTING conception. So that abortion isn't even on the table here, because there's not even a conceptus to consider. Contra-ception is technology that is CONTRA-conception: it prevents conception from occurring.
The current rhetorical tactic of the political and religious right--the Catholic bishops of the U.S. included--is deliberately to confuse the distinction between contraception and abortion, to argue (as the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Timothy Dolan did last week) that the Obama administration has just approved abortion with taxpayer dollars, and to ignore completely the considerable evidence that in making contraception more widely available, you actually PREVENT abortion.
The goal here, in short, is to lie. In the name of God. In the hope of peeling off just enough frightened and confused voters of the religious right--especially Catholic ones, who have not ever become a predictably Republican voting bloc--to swing the coming elections.
By lying, frightening people, ignoring scientific information or outright disputing it to create confusion, and peeling off enough Catholic swing voters for the Republicans while suppressing many minority voters, they hope to see a Republican elected.
Since the Republicans are, you know, pro-life.
For the evangelical, life begins at baptism.
"That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going."
And William, the party of life also does all the saber rattling and warmongering, aka "American exceptionalism", and most of them never pay the price which was so horrifically and accurately described by Wilfred Owen in WWI.
http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/owen1.html
The last lines of the poem:
"My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori=it is sweet and right to die for your country.
Just like the warmongering American exceptionalists never pay the price, the old men of the Catholic Church, and other churches as well, never pay the price enacted by limiting access to birth control.
Women pay---your wives, sisters, mothers---just like the grunts in war theaters throughout history have paid.
They are really no better than the Afghan woman, in the article linked by Norma, who strangled her daughter-in-law for producing yet another girl. She at least has the excuse of extreme ignorance. Not so our republican voting friends in 21st century America.
"William Lindsey" said of me that I "deliberately want to CONFUSE the issue by implying that contraception is a form of abortion.." Nothing could be father from the truth. I remember one time when a friend of mine said just that in our Sunday School class and I personally knew that he held the view that you mentioned. That Sunday the lesson was on Psalm 139 and I knew the subject would come up. When he asserted that contraception was the moral equal to abortion, I handed my Bible to him and asked for scripture. He lowered his head and said he could provide none.
If life begins at conception, Saline, then on your planet, it is the moral equivalent of abortion. You can't weasel out of it.
I scanned your blog. Almost every thing you post has zero comments, although you did manage to stir your readers to 8 whole comments on your Tebow/SNL skit post. You are flogging a dead horse over there Saline.
Response to Outlier's comment: "You are flogging a dead horse over there Saline."
I have been very pleased with the traffic on my blog. I have had over 150,000 views in 13 months and in Dec I had 12,223 views and this month I will have more than that. Also I have been quoted on an national article by ESPN MAGAZINE concerning Tim Tebow http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/page/hotrea…
It has been a great ride and I have enjoyed every minute of it. The Arkansas Times is the best blog in Arkansas in my view and I hope to do half as good while representing the conservative view.
Join me for Schaeffer Sunday, Music Monday, Tennis Tuesday, Woody Allen Wednesday, Thirsty Thursday (Mark Pryor), Friedman Friday (Milton Friedman) or Soccer Saturday. My 15 yr old son Wilson helps me out some with Music Monday, Tennis Tuesday and Soccer Saturday.
"Saline," my name actually IS William Lindsey. The quotation marks are meretricious.
And I'm sorry you find what I wrote "father" from the truth.
I find it rather hard to follow your point, but I assume you're attempting to ground an anti-abortion theology in the text of Psalm 139:16 which says that God knew us in our mother's womb before we were formed.
But as you yourself seem to recognize, the Jewish and Christian scriptures don't speak explicitly of EITHER abortion or contraception. They definitely want to affirm that life originates with God the creator.
But they don't address precisely when a human person is present in the womb. They CAN'T possibly do so, since those writing these texts did not have access to the scientific technology available to us today to understand these issues.
You seem not to be understanding a central point under discussion in these debates: this is that there's a difference between recognizing that a zygote has the potential to be a human being, and identifying that fertilized zygote as a fully formed human being with the ontological status of a human person.
There has been a diversity of opinion throughout Christian history about precisely when the zygote attains the status of a person, and major Christian theologians, including the classic Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas taught that the zygote is not a person until it reaches the stage of uterine implantation.
About one thing, there is little doubt, however, since abundant well-conducted studies demonstrate this: making contraceptives widely available PREVENTS abortions. To me, it seems like a no-brainer that anyone who wants to diminish abortions should promote the wide availability of contraceptives.
Like the huge majority of my fellow Catholics, I have long disagreed with Catholic teaching about contraception. It's wrong-headed. And it does not serve the pro-life values the Vatican and bishops claim they want to serve very well at all.
Life begins when the fetus is viable outside the womb, prior to that it is parasitical and lives at the discretion of the host.
Isn't it nice that the liberal Ark Times/blog was the base used to launch Saline Republican's blog on anti abortion issues?
God works in mysterious ways, like money.
I love fighting for or working with countries that kill people for things, such as the sex of a child. Makes you feel warm and fuzzy all over!
>>He still never answers the question.<,
Have you ever tried posting anything on that lame-ass blog of his? To even call it a blog is insulting to those who make it easy to post and where there is an exchange of opinions and display of fact. He does hit pieces then when one attempts to refute the comments don't get displayed.
It's still like picking up a dog turd by the clean end.
.
Now comes the Devos-Amway-Heritage Foundation's assault on abortion, cleverly called "gendercide" found in yesterday's ADG:
"Gendercide,” as it’s been called, should worry women. Even in America. Feminists told us abortion would empower women. Instead, in some places around the globe, abortion disproportionately is used against women. A tsunami of social problems is swelling as a result.
The natural ratio of males to females at birth is 105 to 100. Stats that deviate mean something unnatural is at work-and what’s happening in places like China and India today is anything but natural.
In China, abortion is often a means of compliance with the government’s policy of one child per family. Combined with a Chinese cultural preference for boys to carry on a family line, sex-selective abortion has become particularly prevalent.
The result is a ratio of boys to girls that tops 120 to 100, with some provinces of China reporting an unprecedented ratio of 130 to 100."
-------------------------------------------
As one reader pointed out if you have 1 woman and 100 men you will get one birth per year. If you have 100 women and 1 man you will get 100 babies per year. China means to control its population growth. They remember well the years of starvation and the Chinese proclivity for unrestrained reproduction, many hands to work the farms.
I did not fact-check the 105:100 stat for accuracy.
http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2012/ja…
Since spontaneous abortions (miscarriages) are the most common kind of loss of fetuses, who does the "church" propose to have charged with this "crime"? You already have a prospective mother who is upset and may need counseling in some cases.
I grew up catholic. I was aware that the church doesn't approve of contraception but I never thought anybody took this seriously. It is well-known that Catholics use birth control as much as anybody else. I can't fathom what the point of seriously fighting contraception, here and now, in 2012, might be. What does the church hope to gain from such an absurd fight? More to the point, what do presidential contenders hope to gain from joining that fight? Even the most extremist among Republican voters are more likely than not to use or have used contraception.
What's next, a presidential campaign based on demonizing masturbation?
Pope--demonizing masturbation was whole-heartedly endorsed even after Clinton's appointment of a Health Official who used the word aloud--a scandal itself.
My oldest two children attended Catholic schools through high school--is that what you meant by "growing up catholic"? Of my 20 grandchildren, 3 may still lean that way, one because she wants that story book march down the aisle--but I expect she bends the rules a bit.
As for true believers--and there are still some old timers out there--how do they reconcile their belief in the great hereafter, and still prolong the dying process for those they love?
Elwood asserted, "Have you ever tried posting anything on that lame-ass blog of his? To even call it a blog is insulting to those who make it easy to post and where there is an exchange of opinions and display of fact. He does hit pieces then when one attempts to refute the comments don't get displayed."
As far as I know I have only rejected one person's comment on one ocasion and it was because of profanity. If I have rejected any other person's comments then it was because it was an accident. Spam sends me 20 comments a day and it is easy to eliminate them daily but if I ever eliminated a sincere comment that did not include profanity then I sincerely apologize. Bring it on and I will take all comers. Below is my response to "Hackett" from above. He rightly addressed the central issue in the debate. http://haltingarkansasliberalswithtruth.co…
Just about everything reminds me of a song, Verla. I went to youtube looking for the song from "Hair" with the lyric, "masturbation can be fun" and stumbled on this. I didn't see the movie version, but saw the stage play in 1969 at the Aquarius Theater on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. I think it was produced by the Smothers Brothers. I'm really dating myself!
For those of you born after 1980 or 90, the sound track will tell you what the 60's were all about. Yes, there was plenty of excessive behavior, although I don't think it was as excessive as the conservatives would have you believe. Fifty thousand names on a wall in D.C. bear witness to another kind of excess that conservatives ignore.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhNrqc6yvTU…
"Hair" was presaged by "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit". The first line in the wiki entry is this:
"The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, by Sloan Wilson, is a 1955 novel about the American search for purpose in a world dominated by business."
It's no surprise to me that the fictional children of Tom and Betsy Rath became the long-haired, counter-cultural kids portrayed in "Hair". Now, here we are in 2012 having come full circle, and the young are again leading the way in the search for purpose in a world dominated by business.
Don't you give up like my generation did, OWS. Stay the course and Godspeed.
Life does not begin at conception, it began long long ago with the first living organism.
Both the egg and sperm are living. Life CONTINUES at conception. Birth control prevents conception or implantation. To force someone to be the host of another entity is to enslave them.
I am a Catholic but have not been to church in a long time. When I was younger I questioned my Priest on Birth Control, I had a C-Section and wanted to spread my children out. I said to him that God wanted us to replenish the Earth but he did not say for 1 person alone to do it, he gave me his blessings for Birth Control. The church is using mans words not Gods, it is our bodies we need to do what is right for us. Birth Control stops unwanted pregnancy's I would much rather have woman using that then Abortions.
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