Tag: Contraception

Contraception and Erectile Dysfunction

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Another day, another meme… Here’s a picture which a friend posted last week:

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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.

Friday Frivolity: Cecile Tweets

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In the past I’ve covered some of the breathtaking marketing programmes from Planned Parenthood and their tendency to shoot themselves in the foot. For today’s “Friday Frivolity”, I wanted to share a tweet put out by Cecile Richards, the President of the abortion provider:

Here’s how my friend Katie responded…

I was about to close the browser tab, but then I decided to peruse some more of Ms Richards’ tweets as I drank my tea. I then came across this tweet…

I first noticed the comment. The phrase “Birth control is good for business” pretty much translates into “Sterilize your workforce and their family won’t get in the way of their productivity”. However, then I noticed the graphic used in the tweet. It looked so familiar… they didn’t, did they? I clicked on the link…

NFP

Yup, Planned Parenthood had used a graphic of an NFP chart! Apparently they do know what is! Maybe they could consider this a better way to plan parenthood?

The Orthodox Position on Contraception

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OCMCI’m reading a few books at the moment, but the one I’d like to mention today is Orthodox Christianity, Marriage & Contraception by Anthony Stehlin. I’m only about a third of the way through it so far, but I really wanted to do a short post concerning something mentioned in the first chapter….

A few months ago I decided to join an Eastern Orthodox online forum to try and soak up some more eastern knowledge. I actually found the group incredibly hostile to Catholics (especially Eastern Catholics), but that’s a post for another time.

Members of the group stated again and again that teaching in Eastern Orthodoxy has never changed, something which they contrasted to the supposed deviations of Catholicism. In response to this, I asked the group about the Eastern Orthodox position concerning contraception…

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Protestants Reformers on Contraception

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When Catholics argue against contraception from Scripture, they typically cite Genesis 38:9, where a man named Onan chooses to consummate his marriage, but purposefully prevents conception when he “spilled the semen on the ground”.

Since contraception is virtually universally accepted within Protestantism, most Protestants strongly criticize the Catholic analysis and use of this passage. However, in so doing, they must also reject the exegesis of some of the founding members of Protestantism…

Martin Luther: “Onan must have been a malicious and incorrigible scoundrel. This is a most disgraceful sin. It is far more atrocious than incest or adultery. We call it unchastity, yes, a Sodomitic sin. For Onan goes into her; that is, he lies with her and copulates, and when it comes to the point of insemination, spills the semen, lest the woman conceive. Surely at such a time the order of nature established by God in procreation should be followed.”
– Luther’s Works 7, 20-21

John Wesley: “Onan, though he consented to marry the widow, yet to the great abuse of his own body, of the wife he had married and the memory of his brother that was gone, refused to raise up seed unto the brother. Those sins that dishonour the body are very displeasing to God, and the evidence of vile affections. Observe, the thing which he did displeased the Lord – And it is to be feared, thousands, especially single persons, by this very thing, still displease the Lord, and destroy their own souls.”
– Wesley, Notes on the First Book of Moses, comment on 38:7

John Calvin: “I will content myself with briefly mentioning this, as far as the sense of shame allows to discuss it. It is a horrible thing to pour out seed besides the intercourse of man and woman. Deliberately avoiding the intercourse, so that the seed drops on the ground, is doubly horrible. For this means that one quenches the hope of his family, and kills the son, which could be expected, before he is born.

The wickedness is now as severely as is possible condemned by the Spirit, through Moses, that Onan, as it were, through a violent and untimely birth, tore away the see of his brother out the womb, and as cruel and shamefully was thrown on the earth. Moreover he thus has, as much as was in his power, tried to destroy a part of the human race. When a woman in some way drives away the seed out the womb, through aids, then this is rightly seen as an unforgivable crime*. Onan was guilty of a similar crime, by defiling the earth was his seed, so that Tamar would not receive a future inheritor.”
– Calvin, Commentary on Genesis

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* Don’t worry John, there’s always the Sacrament of Confession 🙂

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