Remember those Culture of Life folks who tell us that the “contraceptive mentality” leads to abortion, that emergency contraception and the pill kills babies, and the only ok way to prevent pregnancy is natural family planning?
Well.
The range of birth control choices may have become narrower for couples that believe the sanctity of life begins when sperm meets egg. The rhythm method, a philosopher claims, may compromise millions of embryos.
“Even a policy of practising condom usage and having an abortion in case of failure would cause less embryonic deaths than the rhythm method,” writes Luc Bovens, of the London School of Economics, in the Journal of Medical Ethics.
With other methods of contraception banned by the Catholic church, the rhythm method has been one of the few options available to millions.
In using the rhythm method, couples avoid pregnancy by refraining from sex during a woman’s fertile period. Perfect adherents claim it is over 90% effective – i.e. one couple in 10 will conceive in an average year. But, typically speaking, effectiveness is estimated at closer to 75%.
Now Bovens suggests that for those concerned about embryo loss, the rhythm method may be a bad idea. He argues that, because couples are having sex on the fringes of the fertile period, they are more likely to conceive embryos that are incapable of surviving.
Now, as someone who doesn’t believe that a fertilized egg or an embryo is the equivalent of a human being, I could care less which contraception method kills more of them. But since the anti-choice movement has premised its attack on birth control on the very idea that life begins at conception, this information is useful.
It’s worth reading the article to see why natural family planning actually results in more embryonic death than the birth control pill. Lindsay explains it in more accessible terms.
But I would love to see proponents of NFP justify this one.
My money’s on “It makes you be abstinent for periods of time, and doesn’t rely on those evil contraceptives, so any embryo deaths due to this are purely the work of God.”
I don’t think a fertilized egg or an embryo is necessarily “life” either, but actually, this form of “embryo death” is at least the result of natural biology rather than from medication or other foreign … materials.
In other news, abstinence-only education may now credibly suggest that pre-marital sex, aside from making them prone to std’s and guaranteeing a spot for them in hell, also kills babies.
In other news, abstinence-only education may now credibly suggest that pre-marital sex, aside from making them prone to std’s and guaranteeing a spot for them in hell, also kills babies.
Yeah, but so does post-marital sex. Seems like the only truly Godly thing to do is to declare lifelong celibacy.
If I ever decide to kill someone or put someone in danger, remind me to push them off a cliff rather than shoot them, so that the natural physics of gravity will be the cause of death rather than bullets or other foreign materials. The reduced sentence could really be helpful to me. I’ve heard that if one stays in prison for too long, you tend to get attached to the place.
In other news, belief in abstinence, belief in Jesus Christ as God, and being pro-life are three distinct, independent concepts. Pro-lifers, however, may now credibly suggest that all sex kills babies, except for gay sex, the only type of sex that carries with it no risk of destroying the embryo. Given that even most fundies consider murder to be worse than gay sex, perhaps heterosexual sex should be banned.
Unless you’re white. And female. Then it makes you a selfish feminazi and a race traitor, apparently.
Nice post … Buffy.
;)
Wait, I’ve got it: sex kills babies!
Snarkiness aside, you don’t have to be a wingnut–or even a believer in God–to see a moral difference between a fetus dying of natural causes and being killed by human action.
Yeah, but most pro-lifers I’ve seen like to ignore the fact that many fertilizations do not implant. I saw an article about working toward a future where all fertilized eggs do implant and all pregnancies do succeed, and wondered at the crazy. Because, seriously, there are damn good reasons why implantation may not occur, and miscarriage numbers are high before 12 weeks, and in most cases, you’re not doing the mother or fetus any good by preventing those natural actions.
Bwahahahaha!
I’d liek to thing this would force the crazier to accept contraceptives and birth control, but I fear it will only be a larger drive to more wide spread abstinence only policies, like sex once a either right when you ovulate or else only during your period.
sorry I mean to say sex once a month. I also meant to spell everything right.
if catholics and evangelicals were anywhere near living by the standards that they think the state should set for all of us you would see a huge difference in their behavior. so let them start with their own faithful, and leave the secular laws of the state alone. then we can see the results of their practice of faith, and if it’s all they say it is they can persuade by example.
back in my part of the country, we had a religious state with the the puritans. church was mandatory even if you were going to hell, and they hanged anyone whose beliefs were different. they might have hanged catholics too if the issue came up. a state religion is no fun if it’s not your relilgion.
Idiocy generally contains its own punishment.