Contraception and Abortion: Common Ground and the Protestant-Catholic Divide
Wednesday July 15, 2009
Efforts to achieve common ground on abortion often stumble over the role of contraception. For pro-choicers, it's a no brainer: if you want to reduce abortions, reduce unintended pregnancies - and the best way to do that is through...
Filed Under: abortion, Catholic, Christian, contraception, family planning, Pope Benedict XVI, Protestant, Vatican
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You're not talking about finding common ground between supporters and opponents of abortion. You're talking about finding common ground between supporters and opponents of family planning. That's fine if that's what you want to do, but I wish you wouldn't continue to conflate the two.
Sex education is bad because, "That's giving people permission to have sex." I don't NEED your permission! MY CHILDREN don't need your permission. NOBODY needs your permission.
So give with the education BEFORE it's needed and keep your permission. It's not like that's something of value, after all.
An interesting proposal.
Especially your reference to the inevitable return to power of the christianists.
Unfortunately, they have already shown that they have no respect for the Constitution, the Judiciary system and the legislative bodies (except when they control them).
After 18 months here at beliefnet., I've come to the conclusion that it is pointless to seek compromise with them. Let's teach our children how to value themselves, respect others and use contraception properly.
Make contraception freely available to all without parental approval.
Provide women with the alternative of abortion the first 12 weeks for medical reasons.
And stop wasting our time trying to work with the christianists.
I am an evangelical who has worked for 30 years promoting abstinence and fidelity. The education methods and atmospher are very different from promoting services and devices. The real danger of this compromise for sex education is that the deal is with a group that has different motivations. The goal is sex with no holes barred. This is much like bargaining w/a large hungry snake sitting in the sun. It looks beautiful, seems harmless and slow but the moment the prey is close, death is inevitable. Sex educators are not the same as those teaching abstinence and fidelity especially to children who are under the age of legal consent. Society can condone sex but will condemn STDs and pregnancy. This is a hurtful double standard. Also, they lie about the effectiveness for contraception for pregnancy and STD prevention. Once abstinence funding is gone the focus will be gone. Beware Do not provide for the occasion of sin.
Absolute nonsense.
Proper education in both the joys and responsibilities of sex - including contraception for heterosexuals - is the only sane approach to preparing our children and youth to approach their sexuality responsibly.
Anything else is simply the attempt of hateful christianists to force their perverted world view on the rest of us.
I see most of the lies about contraception coming from so-called pro-life people.
I don't like this Beliefnet website to begin with. It is not a worthy forum for discussing religious belief issues. Mr. Waldman's views (epistemological in particular) are the "religous" side of the Progressive view. His glib modern assumption is that one cannot know truth in any form to any degree. But the search for truth is as old as the human race. And the belief that truth is knowable to some extent even in this world... and that we are responsible to the Creator as human beings both to seek after truth and to follow it... this is also is the epistemological view human beings have held time immemorial. The question to be asking is: "What are God's desires regarding social norms and in particular sexuality for the human race? How can we inculcate this in our citizens?" We in America have the worst record in the world regarding sexuality and relationships. See the current Time magazine for a good article making this point.
Regarding this web site one has only to read the comments offered above. I see one thoughtful evangelical and several emotional reactions to the question from a Progressive view point.
A culture's inability to discipline its common sexual life has destroyed countries and cultures from the beginning. It is in the process of happening in America I am sad to say.
christians who think sex is for procreation need to read, or re-read the song of solomon. whoo-boy! that is quite some steamy stuff there! also, there was this non-christian movie called 'opposite of sex', and in it is my favorite depiction of sex: "what if sex wasn't about procreation or recreation? what if sex was about concentration?" also, i'm a gay man and a christian and sorry, but neither of those seem to change over time although i'm sure god could turn me into a penguin, but he seems to point me to the little section about paul's thorn in the flesh and say "you need to read that again". and also, i'm kind of sort of dealing with full blown aids. lemme tell you, it's not the disease, it's the meds! i'm the most liberal person you could meet, or so i thought, and i'm the world's number one abstinence advocate. first, the non-aids diseases. second, the non-disease emotional mess. third, going to the bathroom in your pants with no warning because of the aids meds. fourth, oh, the virus. i almost died from it last year. it was actually the most peaceful time in the past few decades of my life. and it was also the first time in over a decade i have slept fitfully and comfortably (after a lot of tossing and turning) without taking pills or having horrifying dreams. i had good nice cozy warm dreams, i got some of the best quality rest in years. i actually was kind of mad at god when i didn't die and "got better" and now it's back to the drugs and the bills and the reality shows and the traffic and the christians telling me i'm going to hell and the gays telling me there is no god and the christians saying i have to marry a woman and the gays telling me i have to marry a man, when i really don't want to get married or have sex or even look at my naked rear in the mirror, much less anyone else's. yeah, i kind of was mad at god for a while for not taking me when *i* was ready and had made my peace and all. but then again, god doesn't exactly do what we want when we want it. and sometimes i suspect it's intentional, just to out-stubborn me. as for me, i don't know heaven-etiquette in front of the almighty, but the first thing i do when i see god is, i'm gonna jump in his lap and hug him. and i hope i see all the people i love, and i even hope i see all the people i hate, because i used to love them until they hurt me. and i think it was james who said mercy wins over judgement, so eventually god will fix me and i won't be gay or straight or male or female or anything in between, and i won't have to take pills every day, and more pills to help the side effects of the other pills. he will fix my inabilities to love and forgive, he will fix me. and no more pills! until then, this big ole homo wants to tell every teenager, sew it up, cut it off, it's just not worth it.
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