Birth Control

[desmalia]

You are quite a judge of people? You knew them personally then?

People who use birth control have been labeled that much and worse in this thread.

 

[icedtea]

So that makes it okay for more?

 

[desmalia]

So that makes it okay for more?

Both are gross generalizations (which is rarely a good idea!). And the first to make them were those who are anti-contraceptive. Do you disagree with their judgement on us?

 

[Chajara]

So. No response on whether I'm sinning by taking birth control for hormonal reasons. Considering that even on the pill I still have a horrible time every month, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to ever go off it even when I marry, except for periods where my husband and I are trying to conceive.

What would you who are anti-BC have me do? Suffer every month, taking off work and loading up on ibuprofin to take the edge off the pain? They let me go an hour early today at work because I forgot my bottle of ibuprofin and kept having to stop and grimace while having a bad cramp, and if not for the pill it'd have been so bad I wouldn't have made it into work at all. My periods are seriously that bad. I don't know how many of you other women have dealt with this, but it's really awful and the birth control pill has been a huge blessing for me.

 

[Dannager]

who says I can't support them? Are you dictating to me that I am not able to provide for my children? Yes, I may have a dozen kids and I even have a greater chance of having another set of twins, but each one of our children will be a welcome even if we were not wanting anymore. My husband and I have figured out that we get pregnant every 2 years in January(except for my middle daughter who was concieved two weeks after I had a miscarriage and we consider her a true miracle) so now we know to avoid any contact with each other during that period. There are ways around it and celibacy does work

...you've discovered that three of your four children were conceived in January and are using that as evidence that you will continue to conceive in January in the future? You realize that's not sound science, right? Nor is it supported by outside study?

As for celibacy working, sure it works. It's not any fun, though.

Perhaps you would be able to support a dozen children. Most families cannot. Even those that are able to financially often lack the ability to support their children emotionally. If it works for you, great. Don't you assume for a second that it's a good rule for others to live by, though.

 

[TwinCrier]

I've always thought people who bring their children and go on missionary work to be lousy, selfish people.

People who devote their life to full time Christian service are selfish but people who pop horse urine pills, stick pieces of plastic in their uterus to abort their children on a monthly basis or have themselves surgically sterilized like a common house pet so they don't have to face the responsibility and expense of bringing a precious soul into the world aren't? What a backwards view.

 

[tulc]

People who devote their life to full time Christian service are selfish but people who pop horse urine pills, stick pieces of plastic in their uterus to abort their children on a monthly basis or have themselves surgically sterilized like a common house pet so they don't have to face the responsibility and expense of bringing a precious soul into the world aren't? What a backwards view.

Uhmmm I think both views have little of Christs love in them.
tulc(and both would be wrong)

 

[Lotar]

...you've discovered that three of your four children were conceived in January and are using that as evidence that you will continue to conceive in January in the future? You realize that's not sound science, right? Nor is it supported by outside study?

As for celibacy working, sure it works. It's not any fun, though.

Perhaps you would be able to support a dozen children. Most families cannot. Even those that are able to financially often lack the ability to support their children emotionally. If it works for you, great. Don't you assume for a second that it's a good rule for others to live by, though.

It is just funny how people make baseless assumptions like this. I know quite a few large families, and they do just fine on modest single incomes and the children are more emotionally cared for than most daycare raised single and double children.

 

[tulc]

at some point it really does need to be pointed out: every family is different and wants different things, so why try and fit us all into the same box? You don't want to have a bunch of kids? Use BC. You want kids every where? Have fun. Seriously there are no hard and fast rules that covers every family.
tulc(just a thought)

 

[Lotar]

who says I can't support them? Are you dictating to me that I am not able to provide for my children? Yes, I may have a dozen kids and I even have a greater chance of having another set of twins, but each one of our children will be a welcome even if we were not wanting anymore. My husband and I have figured out that we get pregnant every 2 years in January(except for my middle daughter who was concieved two weeks after I had a miscarriage and we consider her a true miracle) so now we know to avoid any contact with each other during that period. There are ways around it and celibacy does work

Isn't it funny how people always act like you are going to have a billion kids if you don't use BC?

I know people who didn't use it and never had more than 4 or 5. My aunt and uncle never used it and all they have is one set of twins.

Most women, it seems, tend to naturally space them out by at least 2 years, if they breast feed. And that rate drops as they get older, esp. past 35.

 

[Lotar]

...really? I remember looking and I can't find it. Any idea what number it was? I do remember you saying it was wrong but proof? I'd love to see it.

That's is what I'm trying to find. Proof of that.

I explained it when I explained the purposes of sex. Scriptural proofs are found in commandments to multiply, the extoling of the virtue and blessing that children are, and the punishment exacted on Onan. The proof in Tradition is found in the writings of the Church Fathers (of whom none spoke in favor contraception) and the Church canons. Even the Jews considered the use of contraception to be sinfull. To this day Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox Jews teach against BC.

Define "recent" and "sects"?

As in the last half century, starting with the Anglicans, then spreading among much of the rest of Protestantism. Though the Traditional morality on contraception is making a small resurgence among the more orthodox Mainliners and with the Full Quiver movement among the Evangelicals.

...uhmm what sort of proof do you want? It seems more like something a couple would decide for themselves, but you've sort of made it sound like a conspiracy.
tulc(needs another cup of coffee!)

Indeed, a couple must decide what to do for themselves. They must choose to do right or to do wrong. Morality is not a question of choice.

 

[Dannager]

It is just funny how people make baseless assumptions like this. I know quite a few large families, and they do just fine on modest single incomes and the children are more emotionally cared for than most daycare raised single and double children.

I don't think you quite understand what we're saying here, Lotar. It doesn't matter what your personal examples are. There is a statistical likelihood that, if a healthy sex life is maintained, a family will have many, many children over the course of their lifetime. In today's society, it is likely that they will have more children than they are capable of supporting. You may know a family, or three families, or ten families that are doing just fine with a dozen children that are doing adequately. That is not the norm for large families.

 

[Lotar]

I don't think you quite understand what we're saying here, Lotar. It doesn't matter what your personal examples are. There is a statistical likelihood that, if a healthy sex life is maintained, a family will have many, many children over the course of their lifetime. In today's society, it is likely that they will have more children than they are capable of supporting. You may know a family, or three families, or ten families that are doing just fine with a dozen children that are doing adequately. That is not the norm for large families.

What you don't get is this a bunch of bull that is baseless in its assertion.

1.) Most women do not ovulate when they breast feed.
2.) On average, sex during a health woman's fertile period will only result in pregnancy 20% of the time.
3.) As a woman ages, the likelyhood drops, and the chance of miscarraige increases.

Furthermore, it is not exceedingly hard to raise a large family. You aren't going to have a $50k car, a plasma tv and cellphones for all the kids, but they aren't going to starve and go naked either.

 

[Dannager]

What you don't get is this a bunch of bull that is baseless in its assertion.

1.) Most women do not ovulate when they breast feed.
2.) On average, sex during a health woman's fertile period will only result in pregnancy 20% of the time.
3.) As a woman ages, the likelyhood drops, and the chance of miscarraige increases.

Furthermore, it is not exceedingly hard to raise a large family. You aren't going to have a $50k car, a plasma tv and cellphones for all the kids, but they aren't going to starve and go naked either.

I live in Southern California. Tell that to the first-generation immigrant families in Santa Ana with ten kids, half an income, and an aversion to birth control because of their staunch Catholic faith.

 

[Lotar]

I live in Southern California. Tell that to the first-generation immigrant families in Santa Ana with ten kids, half an income, and an aversion to birth control because of their staunch Catholic faith.

I live in So Cal too. In one of the three cities that had home prices actually increase this year.

Over half of our parish is under 18. Even here it isn't an impossibility or a sentence to poverty.

 

[Dannager]

I live in So Cal too. In one of the three cities that had home prices actually increase this year.

Over half of our parish is under 18. Even here it isn't an impossibility or a sentence to poverty.

Again, your personal experiences to the contrary are irrelevant. If even one family becomes unable to care for their children because of this, it isn't right.

 

[Lotar]

Again, your personal experiences to the contrary are irrelevant. If even one family becomes unable to care for their children because of this, it isn't right.

Is that so? But your experience with this one family is relevant? Because they don't have a standard of living up to par with your expectations?

 

[Dannager]

Is that so? But your experience with this one family is relevant?

Yes, yes it is. Though it's not one family. It's hundreds of families.

Because they don't have a standard of living up to par with your expectations?

I sincerely doubt that their standard of living is up to par with anyone's expectations.

 

[Lotar]

Yes, yes it is. Though it's not one family. It's hundreds of families.

I sincerely doubt that their standard of living is up to par with anyone's expectations.

Cite?

I hear these claims, but I don't see it with my eyes.
Sure there are poor big hispanic immigrant families, and there are also poor small hispanic immigrant families as well.

Raising 8 children isn't terribly more expensive than raising 2. Or so I have been told. Many of the costs stemming from children are non-reoccuring, if well mannaged.

 

[Lotar]

This is amusing:
Nearly every family in my parish is considered "large" by today's standards, I live in an area of the country where it is supposively almost impossible to raise a large family, and yet none of these families are living in poverty. Still, I guess that my experience is inapplicable. It is some fluke that people like my priest can support a wife, 8 children and an elderly mother on an average salary, without going into poverty.