Self-Control or Birth Control: Contraception is the Wrong Mandate

Contraception is not the antidote to abortion because fertility is not the problem

Contraception is not the antidote to abortion because fertility is not the problem.  The problem is we've buried the law of cause-and-effect, along with the moral laws of responsibility, accountability, fidelity, and the code of honor that used to exist among men under a steaming mound of self-indulgent relativism. Birth control will never, ever, replace self-control.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Catholic Online) -  The mandate has come down from on-high, and the pundits and political operatives are gushing as though it's the greatest gift to women since suffrage or waterproof mascara.  They cheerfully tell us that beyond preventing those pesky "unwanted" pregnancies, this new birth control mandate will finally provide women with the counseling they need to prevent STD's.

We must be really stupid.  Do women in 2011 really not understand how STD's are spread or how babies are made?

If it's information that's needed, let's take care of that right now.  Here's the deal:  Sex makes babies.  Sex often makes babies despite the birth control you're using.  Very often, sex also passes icky diseases between partners, like an extra little "gift" that may stay with you for life.  You could get a whole lot more than you bargained for from what's-his-name.

The good news is all of this is completely preventable.  You needn't risk your health or your future as though you're playing the wheel in Vegas.  It is amazingly simple to avoid getting a nasty STD or becoming pregnant when you don't want to be pregnant:  don't have sex.  (If you're married, be faithful.)

If you choose to have sex, you are throwing the dice by your own volition and you could very well lose your bet.  Birth control will never, ever, replace self-control.  Birth control can never, ever, compensate for bad judgment.  Birth control is no substitute for respect and restraint.

As to the inane argument that contraception reduces the number of abortions, thereby making it the only truly acceptable paradigm for society, reality says otherwise.  Abortion statistics reveal that the majority of women having abortions were using birth control when they got pregnant.  (Never mind the fact that many contraceptive drugs are abortifacients, and never mind the fact that abortion zealots will admit they consider abortion itself "birth control" of the last resort.  Whatever it takes to make sure no baby is born!)
 
Contraception is not the antidote to abortion because fertility is not the problem.  The problem is we've buried the law of cause-and-effect, along with the moral laws of responsibility, accountability, fidelity, and the code of honor that used to exist among men.

All these things have been buried under a steaming mound of self-indulgent relativism.  Thanks to this infantile fertilizer, we're growing a nation of people who believe wishes are rights, freedom is license to do anything you please, and all that matters is what you want, think, and feel.

Think of it this way:  It's like selling a pill that eliminates 75% of the alcohol from your blood so it's "safer" to drive. You're still not exactly sober, not guaranteed not to crash and hurt someone, but you're more protected than if you didn't take the Alcohol Control pill.

Of course, the only right thing to do is to never get behind the wheel when you're intoxicated, but for heaven's sake, you can't expect people to do the right thing!  So instead of requiring people to be responsible and respectful of human life by not driving drunk, you teach them they can have their drinks and car keys, too, with the Alcohol Control pill!  So it's not as good as sobriety, but it's better than drinking without it.  It's protection against car accidents and deaths that is necessary because people are going to drink and drive anyway, so we should provide them with a way to do it more safely.

And when the Alcohol Control pill fails or someone forgets to take it and somebody dies in a car crash, it will surely lead to demand for a more effective Alcohol Control pill and greater access to it.  Then activists groups will be picketing for free distribution of the Alcohol Control pill, along with education about how the A.C. pill works so "user failure rates" go down.

Meanwhile, young people grow up drinking more alcohol more often, caring less and less about the consequences or how their drunkenness might affect someone else.  They damage their livers, kidneys, hearts and brains; they gamble with their health and future; they regard another person's life with cavalier indifference but as long as they're not arrested for DUI's, it's all good and victory is declared.

Rather than treating alcohol with due caution and respect for its power to harm, people are trained to complain that they can't drink whatever they want without getting wasted.  Even worse, some party-pooper has the nerve to say they can't get wasted and drive.

There's no burden on them anymore to think or act as a mature adult.  The expectation of self-control and accountability are all but wiped out.  Generations are raised to think society has the burden to remove every and all unwanted, unintended outcomes from every activity they choose to indulge in.

That's exactly where we are with sex and birth control.  The idea that more birth control will reduce "unwanted" pregnancies is a fairytale.  It's the sexual equivalent of crack cocaine to a sex-addicted culture.  Just gimme more and more sex, and delude me into thinking it's safe, I'm safe, and nothing bad will happen.

But the people growing up on top of the steaming mound of self-indulgent relativism don't want to hear any of this.  It's not that they're stupid - they just want what they want when they want it with no strings, no consequences, no obligation, no demands. 

They refuse to hear that sometimes not doing what they want is the only responsible choice.  They reject the reality that their actions have consequences.  They are downright indignant at the idea that they have to exercise self-control and say "no" because the choice at hand literally involves life and death.

Just as alcohol has the nerve to intoxicate the person who drinks too much, sexual intercourse has the nerve to transmit diseases and worst of all, the unmitigated gall to make babies.  The audacity!  (Why, in this day and age, we just shouldn't have to put up with that!)

And so, sadly, we now celebrate the victory of entrusting our lives and our children's lives to latex and chemicals rather than modeling a real respect for the beauty of sexual love and marriage, and a sense of honor and modesty.  And when the latex and chemicals fail, we don't learn our lesson and modify our behavior.  No, instead we head over to the human butcher shop to have our babies exterminated.  We toss aside any reverence for human life.  We attack our children when they show up uninvited (as though they created themselves out of thin air).

There's no pill for what ails us.  We've been given a mandate from on-high, alright, but not a contraceptive one.  It's a mandate of chastity and Love.  We ignore it at our peril.

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Jennifer Hartline is a grateful Catholic, a proud Army wife and homeschooling mother of three.  She is a contributing writer for Catholic Online.  Visit her online at MCH and Wake Up, Deborah!

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