Is Contraception Destructive?

[DaisyDay]

Cool. Did they explain why? What was the causation? Was the availability of condoms a direct factor or was it an in indirect factor? And come on man, the National Review? I sense a conflict of interest.

Here is an article in the Washington Post on it: Edward C. Green - Condoms, HIV-AIDS and Africa - The Pope Was Right - washingtonpost.com

Since then, major articles in other peer-reviewed journals such as the Lancet, Science and BMJ have confirmed that condoms have not worked as a primary intervention in the population-wide epidemics of Africa. In a 2008 article in Science called "Reassessing HIV Prevention" 10 AIDS experts concluded that "consistent condom use has not reached a sufficiently high level, even after many years of widespread and often aggressive promotion, to produce a measurable slowing of new infections in the generalized epidemics of Sub-Saharan Africa."

...Don't misunderstand me; I am not anti-condom. All people should have full access to condoms, and condoms should always be a backup strategy for those who will not or cannot remain in a mutually faithful relationship. This was a key point in a 2004 "consensus statement" published and endorsed by some 150 global AIDS experts, including representatives the United Nations, World Health Organization and World Bank. These experts also affirmed that for sexually active adults, the first priority should be to promote mutual fidelity. Moreover, liberals and conservatives agree that condoms cannot address challenges that remain critical in Africa such as cross-generational sex, gender inequality and an end to domestic violence, rape and sexual coercion.

Surely it's time to start providing more evidence-based AIDS prevention in Africa.

 

[mpok1519]

Ya, I don't believe in using any types of birth control or baby killing drugs, birth control is just that, a synthetic man made means of controlling birth when only God should be allowed to control birth. Lots of women fall into the trap thinking that it doesn't actually kill the baby but think about it, it stops that live baby from growing and developing thus, it ends its life.

I don't think birth control is a good idea at all. I can't even imagine the billions of babies its killed.

Condoms kill babies? Diaphragms? Vasectomies? They're all baby killers?

What about masturbation? None of those potential babies ever get to see life. Should we outlaw masturbation?

You really just made a seriously ignorant statement that might have just set back the womens' rights movement ten years. I mean, honestly, you as a woman should be thanking God that He gave us a brain and intellegence so we could make birthcontrol. As far as I'm concerned, God made birth control through us. God knows this earth cannot sustain a population that multiplies exponentially if each and every single man and woman couple on earth had children. And God knows that people are going to have sex bc thats what human beings do since it is apart of our natural and God-given biological function.

God doesn't control things; believe it or not, we, human beings, have free will, and are fully capable of controling our own destinies, lives, fortunes and misfortunes. When you play the "God is in control of everything" card, that totally says its okay for people to not have or maintain accountability and responsibility for their own actions bc, hey, its not their fault, God is in control!

 

[BleedingHeart]

Here is an article in the Washington Post on it: Edward C. Green - Condoms, HIV-AIDS and Africa - The Pope Was Right - washingtonpost.com

Good article, Aisy. One thing I don't like is that the author attributes condoms to "risk compensation", but doesn't really back it up in any way. There's no quotes from additional sources, or from a guy or multiple guys who does engage in risk compensation, or from a doctor who has patients who do it. The author makes it seem like he could be speculating on that potential factor.

 

[mandyangel]

Condoms kill babies? Diaphragms? Vasectomies? They're all baby killers?

Well look at it this way... condoms, diaphragms, vasectomies are all ways that people control life. These methods of controception is putting people in control of when life begins and ends. Its people, objects, drugs controlling life. I believe only God should control life.

You really just made a seriously ignorant statement that might have just set back the womens' rights movement ten years

Why thankyou!

 

[Fantine]

Well look at it this way... condoms, diaphragms, vasectomies are all ways that people control life. These methods of controception is putting people in control of when life begins and ends. Its people, objects, drugs controlling life. I believe only God should control life.

Just a thought...isn't it possible that at this particular juncture of history when the earth is facing overpopulation and wars over limited resources--oil today, water in the near future, that God has given people the knowledge to plan their families so that they can be responsible stewards of his planet?

Nature's method of controlling population--famines, epidemics, plagues, wars over natural resources--are much more devastating, involving massive pain and suffering. And yet they continue to take place even today in the most impoverished parts of our world.

Inspiring inventors and research scientists to develop solutions to these problems--partly by inspiring them to develop wind energy, solar energy, desalinization plants, etc., and partly, perhaps, by inspiring them to find ways to make population growth sustainable on our planet without devastating famines and epidemics--may be part of God's "control."

I'm just throwing that idea out for debate.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Well look at it this way... condoms, diaphragms, vasectomies are all ways that people control life. These methods of controception is putting people in control of when life begins and ends. Its people, objects, drugs controlling life. I believe only God should control life.

By that logic, shouldn't you also object to life-saving medicine, and even IVF and labour-inducing drugs? After all, they are methods of "putting people in control of when life begins and ends", something you believe only God should have control over.

A common retort is that doctors and suchlike are sent by God, they're God's way of controlling life and death, of healing the sick, etc. But the original objection applies again: if God can work through doctors to prevent death, why can't he work through condoms and birth control to prevent life?

On a side note, if he controls life and death, why does he allow the evil to live, if he can and does involve himself in who lives or dies? Why does he allow condoms and things to be used, if they're contrary to his will? Surely a piece of plastic isn't more powerful than the almighty Creator of the universe?

 

[mandyangel]

On a side note, if he controls life and death, why does he allow the evil to live, if he can and does involve himself in who lives or dies? Why does he allow condoms and things to be used, if they're contrary to his will? Surely a piece of plastic isn't more powerful than the almighty Creator of the universe?

BECAUSE this life is a test of sorts and everybody has free will. They have the will to believe or reject God's love. Everything we experience is a part of a plan bigger than ourselves, bigger than everything.

 

[mandyangel]

Just a thought...isn't it possible that at this particular juncture of history when the earth is facing overpopulation and wars over limited resources--oil today, water in the near future, that God has given people the knowledge to plan their families so that they can be responsible stewards of his planet?

Nature's method of controlling population--famines, epidemics, plagues, wars over natural resources--are much more devastating, involving massive pain and suffering. And yet they continue to take place even today in the most impoverished parts of our world.

Inspiring inventors and research scientists to develop solutions to these problems--partly by inspiring them to develop wind energy, solar energy, desalinization plants, etc., and partly, perhaps, by inspiring them to find ways to make population growth sustainable on our planet without devastating famines and epidemics--may be part of God's "control."

I'm just throwing that idea out for debate.

I appreciate the debate my friend

Let me throw these out there to begin...

Gen 1:28, 9:1,7; 35:11 - from the beginning, the Lord commands us to be fruitful ("fertile") and multiply. A husband and wife fulfill God's plan for marriage in the bringing forth of new life, for God is life itself.

Gen. 28:3 - Isaac's prayer over Jacob shows that fertility and procreation are considered blessings from God.

 

[Gishin]

Well look at it this way... condoms, diaphragms, vasectomies are all ways that people control life. These methods of controception is putting people in control of when life begins and ends. Its people, objects, drugs controlling life. I believe only God should control life.

God can be defeated by a pill or a diaphragm?

 

[mandyangel]

God can be defeated by a pill or a diaphragm?

Well, its not a defeat really, its just a choice. In this world, we have control of lots of stuff, we have lots of choices. And God is looking to see if you make the right or wrong choice.

 

[tulc]

Well, its not a defeat really, its just a choice. In this world, we have control of lots of stuff, we have lots of choices. And God is looking to see if you make the right or wrong choice. (emph. added)

...because He doesn't know what choice we're going to make?
tulc(doesn't think that sounds right)

 

[Fantine]

Food and sunshine are also blessings from God. God blesses us in many ways, and giving us children is one of them. But still, just as we can overeat or overexpose ourselves to the sun and become ill in the process, so, too, we can have more children than we can responsibly raise or than our fragile earth and ecosystem can support, which is why we are called to be good stewards. When God told us to be fruitful and multiply, he might have been telling the Israelites to multiply by 8.....and even though that statement could still be true, he might be telling us to multiply by a factor of 1.5, or 1.4, or 1.3, or 1.1...

 

[Gishin]

Well, its not a defeat really, its just a choice. In this world, we have control of lots of stuff, we have lots of choices. And God is looking to see if you make the right or wrong choice.

And choosing to not have children yet is the wrong one?

 

[razeontherock]

YouTube - ‪He chose... poorly‬‏

 

[Chajara]

Well, its not a defeat really, its just a choice. In this world, we have control of lots of stuff, we have lots of choices. And God is looking to see if you make the right or wrong choice.

Because we use contraception now, our children (when we have them) will have parents that can afford them and a mother who stays home to care for them instead of shipping them off to daycare so she can chase another paycheck. How is this wrong?

And don't tell me "God will provide". He's provided us with plenty over the years, but we're still waiting on a decently paying job for my husband so that I can afford to stay home when we have a baby.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

BECAUSE this life is a test of sorts and everybody has free will. They have the will to believe or reject God's love. Everything we experience is a part of a plan bigger than ourselves, bigger than everything.

So the child who burns alive in a building, the child raped for years by an adult, the child starving and dehydrated and diseased in Africa, the children crushed in the Japanese and Haitian earthquakes? These are all examples of God testing us? Even though these children, being perfectly innocent, have made no wrong choice, they get killed? Even though dictators and tyrants, having slaughtered thousands, they don't get killed?

Even if everybody has free will, how does that justify the staggering cruelty that befalls everyone, regardless of their choices in life?

 

[mandyangel]

Even if everybody has free will, how does that justify the staggering cruelty that befalls everyone, regardless of their choices in life?

Heres the thing, I believe that God has a plan for us. We choose to accept to live in his grace or not. There is also Satan's path that we can choose to follow. Which path you choose determines who goes to heaven and who goes to hell.

God wants you to open your heart to him. He wants you to choose life but we can be strayed by Satan.

I believe that I have been an unborn child. I was an unborn child even before my parents were born. I was put here in this moment for a reason, big or small, I don't know, but I know its for a reason. People enter the world for a reason.

And something like contraception, whether its a pill that kills your baby or its a plastic, its still something that is man made, and artifically controls when babies come into the world. I don't believe anybody should control that besides God.

If you don't want a child or feel you can't raise one, you can practice abstience which I am a big believer in, this isn't some artifical means, its just an action that lets you and God decide when you are ready, your in partnership with God when you choose abstinence. When you have sex, you need to be prepared to deal with what comes, otherwise don't have it.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Heres the thing, I believe that God has a plan for us. We choose to accept to live in his grace or not. There is also Satan's path that we can choose to follow. Which path you choose determines who goes to heaven and who goes to hell.

God wants you to open your heart to him. He wants you to choose life but we can be strayed by Satan.

And for those people who have heard of neither? Those who are turned away from Christianity because of the hatred of Christians? Those who simply see no evidence for the existence of God? Those who are born in overwhelmingly Muslim or Hindu countries, with little chance of ever encountering Christianity? These people are all implicitly going to Hell?

I believe that I have been an unborn child. I was an unborn child even before my parents were born. I was put here in this moment for a reason, big or small, I don't know, but I know its for a reason. People enter the world for a reason.

What possible reason is there for creating a child with HIV/AIDS that dies shortly after birth?

And something like contraception, whether its a pill that kills your baby or its a plastic, its still something that is man made, and artifically controls when babies come into the world. I don't believe anybody should control that besides God.

Well, if no one can control it besides God, surely it follows that God is allowing the proliferation of birth control? He allows condoms to stop the spread of STDs, he allows the pill and the ECP to stop young girls from having and discarding innocent babies. If God alone controls life and death, who are you to say that he disapproves of birth control?

If you don't want a child or feel you can't raise one, you can practice abstience which I am a big believer in, this isn't some artifical means, its just an action that lets you and God decide when you are ready, your in partnership with God when you choose abstinence. When you have sex, you need to be prepared to deal with what comes, otherwise don't have it.

Assuming, of course, that sex is consensual. What of rape? If you saw a man raping a woman with a condom, would you berate him for wearing a rubber?

 

[Chajara]

If you don't want a child or feel you can't raise one, you can practice abstience which I am a big believer in, this isn't some artifical means, its just an action that lets you and God decide when you are ready, your in partnership with God when you choose abstinence. When you have sex, you need to be prepared to deal with what comes, otherwise don't have it.

You expect married couples to remain abstinent because they feel they cannot yet grow their family any larger? How is that any different than contraception, come to think of it? You're married, you're supposed to be having sex, but you choose to do something (ridiculously drastic) to avoid getting pregnant because you feel you're not ready. It's the exact same thing as using a condom or getting on the pill. You're taking control, not leaving it up to God.

 

[quatona]

Is Contraception Destructive?

Everything that´s constructive in one respect is necessarily destructive in another.