Contraception and Erectile Dysfunction
Another day, another meme… Here’s a picture which a friend posted last week:
As with all memes, before clicking “Share”, it’s worth taking a moment to fully-articulate the argument which is being made. So, what does this meme claim?
The meme draws an equivalency between pregnancy and impotence. We are told that if pregnancy is God’s will, then so is impotence. It implies that Christians are inconsistent if they’re okay with tax dollars being available for the purchase of viagra, but not for contraceptives or abortions.
So…does this argument hold water? There are three points which I think are worth making.
1. Ordained or “ordered towards”
Is it true that “pregnancy is God’s will”? My suspicion is that what we have here is a misunderstanding (or, at worst a caricature) of the Christian understanding of sex. Sex has two ultimate purposes: the union of the spouses and the the siring of children. We would say that the sexual act is ordered towards procreation. By this, we mean that a natural consequence of the sexual act is the conceiving of children.
So, we can say “pregnancy is God’s will” insofar as God invented sex and children are the natural result of sex. However, the very fact that women have periods of infertility during the month shows that God does not will that every sexual union result in the conception of a child.
2. Both diseases?
Now that we’re spoken a little bit about sex in the natural order, it can hopefully be seen how ridiculous it is to compare pregnancy and impotence. Pregnancy is not a disease! If a couple has sex and the fruit of this union is a child then everything is working as it should! It is a natural consequence of the sexual act.
Impotence, in contrast, is a malfunction, a disruption of the intended sexual union. A better parallel would be to compare impotence with ovarian cysts, since the presence of these cysts prevents a woman’s body from functioning properly.
3. Different consequences
Finally, if this meme is being used as an argument in favour of abortion, it is hopefully clear to see the massive disparity between the moral consequences of paying for medication to allow a couple to have a heathy sex life and paying for medication which causes an unborn life to be snuffed out.
You speak of couples. So uncle Joe getting his 12 year old niece pregnant is ok? Uncle Joe is using his new found erection along with his diseased mind to get a little girl pregnant. Why is she being punished for his diseased mind? Once again, the infamous double standard. So, why isn’t E.D. not God’s way of birth control? Just maybe, God knows that your so called, sex act, isn’t all that pleasurable.
Just maybe E.D. is a punishment for Uncle Joe raping his niece. Or maybe E.D. is a punishment for the little hotty that you took to the hotel last week. Please Do Not think for one minute that your erection is meant only for your Wife! Women are not that stupid. Women should not be punished for your need to get your rocks off. So, accept God’s punishment. Accept your E.D.
If, and I say “if” your E.D. is a “disease”, have surgery to get it fixed. As a women has to have surgery to get her “cyst” removed.
Once again, the good ol’ double standard.
Please do not expect Women to feel sorry for you because you couldn’t get is up while with your secretary. Oh, and if you did get “it” up and your secretary gets pregnant, she is expected to have your bastard child, while you go home to your wife.
Heaven forbid she should use contraception to keep from getting pregnant by you.
Please explain this act of Love that you talk about, to me, again.
Don’t forget your double edge sword. Maybe you should have been snuffed out instead of having a birth day.
Who ever suggested that? Of course this isn’t okay. It’s incest and abusive.
Do you not believe that people misuse their free will to do horrible things?
You’re going to have to explain to me what the double standard is, because it’s not clear from your comment.
For a start, you’d have to present some evidence to support that claim.
Biblically speaking, it necessarily is only for one’s wife.
By this logic, would eye trouble be God’s punishment for seeing things you shouldn’t? So does this mean that every malady is a punishment from God and we shouldn’t accept medical treatment?
I’m not really sure you understand what a double-standard is. A cyst can only be removed by surgery, but it can only help with certain kinds of ED.
Would I be correct in assuming that someone you loved cheated on you?