It has always made no sense to me that the only thing conservatives can come out with to stop teen mothers, out of wedlock babies etc. is to tell the girls and women…just don’t have sex. Then they say that they don’t approve of contraception. They really think all those girls and women are going to stop having sex? Be real. They haven’t put together the fact that contraception stops the rate of abortions, something else they disapprove of. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the equation…contraception use = less abortions.

I don’t think it’s a purely practical-pragamatic problem, it’s moral of a social accptability problem.
Feminists and their male counterparts tend to devalue the whole notion of motherhood and family, explaining that love and sex are the same thing, and saying that only babies who are ”desired” can really be accepted by society.
The final question is : ”can society accept this baby” ? Women are unforunately being told no, in part because political leaders have favoured a neo-malthusian approcah to demographics, which produces dramatic issues such as huge female abortion in India.
It’s obvious that contraception is part of the same issue ; which is ”does fertility imply responsibility ?”. Women’s fertility can simply not be challenged by the laws of men, and neither is abortion ”sacred” in any sense, being a violation of the commandments.
There is more to it than simply chastity, which remains a religous teaching. It is also about human life and its whole sacrality, which is terribly defamed by the so-called ”culture of death”.

You are right on here, Steven. I wish the Christian conservatives would realize that MORE CONTRACEPTION=LESS UNWANTED PREGNANCIES=FEWER ABORTIONS. They constantly trot out the old argument that more contraception would lead to more sex outside of marriage, and ALL sex outside of marriage is wrong. This may be true, but no matter how much they may preach that “abstinence is the only way”, humans will continue to sin no matter how much they try not to, according to their own doctrine. According to their own theology, even the most devoted Christian who tries very hard to avoid all sinful activities will commit sins nonetheless, because ALL human beings (who are imperfect) are susceptible to committing sin. Even if every single human being tried their hardest to abstain from sex outside of marriage, premarital (and extramarital) sex would still occur because we are imperfect, sinful human beings. Therefore, we need to take the proper precautions to prevent unwanted pregnancies and thus, prevent abortions, because sex outside of marriage is a reality (and will always be a reality), no matter how much we may condemn it or try to avoid it.

I would like to note that I believe the Bible does NOT condemn premarital sex (i.e. sex between two unmarried people). There is no passage in the Bible that outright condemns sex between two unmarried people who are not related to each other (ex. Leviticus prohibits us from having sex with a married person or a family member, but it does not prohibit us from having sex with an unmarried person who is not in our family). However, the Bible DOES condemn extramarital sex (i.e. a married person having sex with someone other than their spouse).
My last post was merely operating on the premise that the Bible DOES condemn sex between two unmarried people who are not related to each other, as many Christian conservatives seem to believe it does.

A good analogy to this whole thing is: If increased contraception encourages people to have sex outside of marriage, then equiping cars with airbags encourages people to get into car accidents.

PheonixOrion stated:
“A good analogy to this whole thing is: If increased contraception encourages people to have sex outside of marriage, then equiping cars with airbags encourages people to get into car accidents.”
QFT. (Quoted For Truth).

“There is no passage in the Bible that outright condemns sex between two unmarried people”
That’s fornication that you described, and it is condemned in the scriptures, Old Testament and New. See link below..
http://www.christiananswers.net/dictionary/fornication.html

“A good analogy to this whole thing is: If increased contraception encourages people to have sex outside of marriage, then equiping cars with airbags encourages people to get into car accidents.”
That’s an awful analogy. There’s no inherent physical or emotional pleasure present in a car accident which would incite someone to purposely cause one. Sex, however…..

Mr. Waldman,
On a totally different issue, I’m enjoying your book “Founding Faith.” Thanks for writing it. Am especially enjoying your perspective on Madison and your balanced treatment of the rest of our Founding Fathers. I recently completed reading D.G. Hart’s “A Secular Faith,” and your work has been a help inconfirming some of his concepts.

Isn’t it likely that if contraception use were higher that the incidence of abortion would be lower? Not if you’ve been paying any attention to the culture for the past forty years: apparently, in the real world, the two move in tandem.

Perhaps contraceptives for teens as a means to avoiding pregnancy would be a terrific idea if not for the fact that given the fact that as of May 2008 1 in 4 females between the ages of 14 to 19 are infected with one form of STDs or another. So yes teens may on The Pill to prevent pregnancy however they are spreading STDs at an alarming rate; it would appear the condom is staying on the cucumber while the STDs rate is spreading.
In the real world, having multiple, unprotected sexual experiences spreads sexually transmitted diseases; the two move in tandem.
Further, so many of these young females infected with one STD or another is going to be a problem for them when they reach a level of maturity and decide they want children.

“Specifically, isn’t it likely that if contraception use were higher that teen pregnancy, out of wedlock birth and, most important, abortion would be lower?”
It is a fact that contraception use is higher now than it was 30 or 40 or 50 years ago, yet teen pregnancy, out of wedlock birth, and most important, abortion have increased–dramatically.
Care to explain that?

Decrease the use of contraceptives? Did someone fall off the turnip truck on his head to come up with that as a possibility?

“Decrease the use of contraceptives? Did someone fall off the turnip truck on his head to come up with that as a possibility?”
How can something which is not being used be decreased in use? People who believe people are using condoms are not having sex. Romanticise sex for teens all you want but the fact remains teens are infecting one another at an alarming rate.

“But Mohler then goes the next step of criticizing Hollywood for glamorizing premarital sex. In other words: want to stop teen pregnancy? Avoid premarital sex.”
Like that’s gonna happen. Laff!
But then again, you are referencing Al Mohler, so I shouldn’t have expected logic.
Joke: if you have no intention of marrying her, can it still be considered “premarital sex”?

To make this clear, I totally support more education about contraceptives.
But to call this “rarely discussed?” Please. This is a well-worn argument that conservatives have heard a billion times before. It isn’t going to stick with people who disagree with you — it will only affirm those who already agree.
Your most flawed argument: “But if it could be proven that contraception led to even fewer abortions, wouldn’t you have to become aggressive advocates of contraception use?”
Fewer abortions than what? Not having sex? That’s not possible — and that’s what conservatives are aiming for for our teens.
Conservative Christians aren’t going to buy the “ends justifies the means” argument if “the means” is something they consider to be a sin. They morally simply cannot fully support it.
I have to commend conservatives here for attempting to go to the source of the issue rather than just sticking a bandage (or condoms) over the gushing wound as it were. Just because children will be getting pregnant less and have fewer STDs if they use protection doesn’t mean there aren’t different kinds of scars forming through sexual encounters that come too early and too often in their lives. And this worries many Christians (and parents in general!)as much as prenancy and abortion rates. These are the issues that can’t be labeled with nice, neat statistics or solved by adoption or abortion or STD medicines.
Here is the real pro-contraceptive education argument:
The reality is, we live in a fallen world. And if we can come at our children from both angles (emphasizing the spiritual and physical benefits of abstinance while making condoms and contraceptive education available) maybe we’ll have a chance at fighting this and getting it under control.
I’ll be proud to tell my teens that I never had to use a condom because I have only had one partner and I married him. It’s an amazing thing that I hope they too can experience.
But I’ll also tell them how glad I was that I knew about contraceptives and had access to them as I was trying to figure out who I was and what I believed. I felt I had choices and I understood those choices and that is empowering.
Is it so surprising that when given the choice between sex with a condom and no sex that many teens will still pick no sex on their own? If that’s really the “best” choice, do we think so little of our kids that they will not be able to figure that out if both options are laid out before them? Are we so scared of the appeal of sex that it can trump all other sensible decisions? Sure their hormones are out of control — and that’s where parental supervision needs to come into play. And for the teens who don’t have parents that will watch over them and guide them to the extent they need — for them I hope that contraceptive education can help protect them from the unsupervised decisions they make as hormonal teens and will help end a nasty cycle.
Give our teens all the tools they need to make a decision — don’t force the decision upon them by not teaching the other side. Isn’t that what God does for us? Aren’t we just a bunch of teens fumbling around in God’s eyes? Making dumb choices and learning from them each day? Yet God still gives us the choice and all the tools we need to make that choice. Let us follow that example.

Bob,
Honestly, “fornication” was incorrectly translated in the Bible to mean “sex outside of marriage” when it really means “any illicit sexual activity”. Sex between two unmarried persons is not listed as a prohibited sexual activity in Leviticus, therefore it cannot be “fornication”. And the passage in Deuteronomy about how a man is required to stone his non-virgin bride to death on her father’s doorstep-that is about the father being deceitful and selling the groom a faulty (i.e. non-virgin) bride, not about the immorality of premarital sex. See this link: http://elroy.com/ehr/fighttheright.html#sex
And also, should we really be looking toward such passages for moral guidance? I can’t think of a single Southern Baptist or Orthodox Jew who would advocate that a woman who has sex before marriage be stoned to death on her father’s doorstep.

Phoenix hits on an interesting point that also bothered me about this blog. It tries to lump pre-marital sex and teen sex in the same category. And they are simply not the same thing at all. A woman with a solid career and independence who gets pregnant out of wedlock but is able to support her child is an entirely different thing than a 16-year-old who gets pregnant by her high school boyfriend.
Perhaps on a moral level they are the same to you … but there clearly are more complex social issues going on when discussing teen pregnancy that need to be addressed regardless of what the Bible says or doesn’t say on pre-marital sex.

Dana, you bring up an important point. There is a big difference in teen sex and pre-marital sex. I agree.

A woman with a solid career and independence who gets pregnant out of wedlock but is able to support her child is an entirely different thing than a 16-year-old who gets pregnant by her high school boyfriend.
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