Chastity and Pro-Life Movement
It was written a while ago, but I came across again an article on the Chastity Project which was written by my friend Adrianna:
"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
It was written a while ago, but I came across again an article on the Chastity Project which was written by my friend Adrianna:
It is certainly true that pushing contraception is not an effective means of preventing abortions. The increase of abortions in proportion to increased access to contraceptives is staggering. I’ll get to the reason why using the term birth control as well as the use of the term pro-choice, is unwise in a bit. When you give the illusion that you can mitigate the negative consequences of something like sexual behavior, you will get more of the behavior and the negative consequences of that behavior. This has borne out in fact as well as being true in theory.
On that note, I disagree with the assertion that telling people to not engage in sexual behavior to avoid pregnancy or any other negative consequence is ineffective. To be sure, one ultimately has to have purer motives in the long run. But emphasizing negative consequences for starters is actually the most effective. Why? Simple. It is human nature to want to avoid pain more than to gain pleasure. Even the most saintly among us fear the pains of hell more than they desire the joys of heaven.
The other side is not only light years ahead of us in understanding how the use of terms frames the debate, they get us to do their heavy lifting. That is why using terms birth control as a means to describe contraception and pro-choice to describe a pro-abortion position is counterproductive. You will never, or almost never, see Church documents use the term birth control to describe contraception. That’s because birth control is not what the Church has a problem with. She has a problem with contraception. After all, so-called NFP, when it is used to either achieve or avoid pregnancy, is a form of birth control. It is not contraception. But it is birth control. A morally licit means of birth control, but birth control nonetheless. The other side uses that term knowing it is much more broad than just contraception. And as to pro-choice? I mean, who isn’t in favor of choice as a thing in itself? But choice is not what we are talking about when it comes to abortion and pro-abortion advocates know it. Anyone who has debated someone who is “pro-choice” knows that is not usually easy to get them to even use the word abortion. If we are going to be not only effective in the debate, but truly charitable, we have to make them admit what they are really for. Using the term pro-choice only undermines that effort.
The late moral theologian Monsignor William Smith used to say, “All social engineering begins with verbal engineering.” He was absolutely right about that. And the use of terms is something we need to pay closer attention to.