Tuesday, December 4, 2007

The Problems with Contraception

The Problems with Contraception



In the 1960's, the pill became available and that's really when the revolution in contraceptives began.

The condom has a failure rate that is estimated to be between 10-30%. Electron micrographs which are pictures taken with a microscope reveal condoms are porous and these pores are up to 50 times bigger than the HIV particle. This is shown in Cameroon, where annual sales of condoms increased from 6 million in 1992 to 15 million in 2001 -- while the prevalence of HIV rose from 3 percent to 9 percent of the total population.

Problems with IUDs include uterine perforation, which may lead to a hysterectomy, and infection, such as a pelvic or tubo-ovarian abscess. Use of all IUDs has been associated with an increased incidence of PID (Pelvic Inflammatory Disease) and of ectopic pregnancy. If conception occurs with an IUD, the IUD then makes the uterus inhospitable for the embryo and thus kills the newly forming child.

Problems with Bisect amines are about 50% of men who undergo a vasectomy will develop anti-sperm antibodies. In essence, their bodies will come to recognize their own sperm as “the enemy” because the body is still is producing millions of sperm. This could lead to a higher incidence of autoimmune disease and there can be blowouts. If the bisect amine is fixed there is still 70% men who continue to have the antigen response. Several studies have noted that men who undergo a vasectomy have a higher incidence of developing prostate cancer as well. Women’s Tubal Ligation is not free from its problems either. They can get PTLS syndrome and some have had theirs reversed to free themselves from the problems involved.

The birth control pill increases the risk of breast cancer by over 40% if it is taken before a woman delivers her first baby.

A study done by Lionel Tiger found that chemical contraceptives changed relationships. The certainty of faithfulness was not always there. The study consisted of a colony of monkeys with one male and a dozen females. The control showed that the male was very faithful to 3 females and didn’t pay attention to the rest. When those 3 females were put on contraceptives the male lost interest and found other females. When all of the females were put on contraceptives the male started to masturbate, rape violently, and his sperm count dropped hugely. When the females came off contraception the male went back to being faithful to the first 3 females.

Women on the pill when show pictures of guys they picked Mr. high testosterone which is Mr. one night stand. Women not on the pill picked men with softer faces. They are the better providers and they stay. Mr. Testosterone doesn’t stay.

The pill is also the biggest water pollutant. In Boulder, Colo. (National Catholic Register) – When EPA-funded scientists at the University of Colorado studied fish in a pristine mountain stream known as Boulder Creek two years ago, they were shocked. Randomly netting 123 trout and other fish downstream from the city’s sewer plant, they found that 101 were female, 12 were male and 10 were strange “intersex” fish with male and female features. In 2004, for example, researchers on the Potomac River, downstream from Washington, D.C., found large-mouth bass that in most respects were males, but who had eggs in their sexual organs.

The hormones in the Pill do not get filtered out in water processing and this is what is happening to our ecosystem. Think of the catastrophe that is about to happen in the food chain if it doesn’t get stopped. This is not just in rivers this is in our drinking supply. Since the pill has come out the sperm count in men has dropped 50%.

The Pill primarily prevents ovulation but it has a back up incase ovulation occurs. It makes the uterus an inhospitable environment thus aborting any embryos that attached to the uterine wall with out the person even knowing it. That means millions of human beings are unknowingly being killed because of taking the Pill
Think of all the money that is being spent on contraceptives and all the money spent to fix the problems caused by them. There is however a way that costs nothing and has a less than .3% failure rate. It is called Natural Family Planning (NFP). It works with the natural rhythm of the body. This is done by be being trained to recognize the cervical mucus and temperature to recognize which days are fertile and which days aren’t. There is really only 1200 days in a women’s lifetime when she can get pregnant which amounts to a couple days a month.
The passing of seminal fluid during the marital act is not just for getting pregnant. When women absorb seminal fluid it decreases depression unless you are on the pill, then it causes you to be depressed. The body is also designed to only have one partner also. When intercourse occurs women have an immune system response because there are antigens in sperm. It takes women 6 months to recognize the partners fluid and then there isn’t any immune system attack. So if someone has multiple partners the body always launches an attack.

Contraception was created because men and women are bound by their lustful desires. They are like animals who can’t say no. The marital act is a renewing of the wedding vows. The renewing of “I do.” But contraception says “I do not.” If people are continuing to break there wedding vows instead of renewing them, how long do you think their marriage is going to last? People who use contraception the divorce rate is 50%. The people who use Natural Family Planning the divorce rate is less than 5%

Dr. Janet E. Smith, Chair of Life Issues at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit. In a popular and published lecture titled Contraception: Why Not?, Smith discusses why the divorce rate doubled between 1965, when 25 percent of marriages ended in divorce, and 1975, when 50 percent of marriages ended in divorce, the same as today. Smith cites the research of social scientist Robert Michael, who concluded "that as the contraceptive pill became more and more available, divorce became more and more popular." In fact,

Michael attributed "45 percent of this increase to increased use of contraceptives." Why so? Michael’s statistical data showed "that those who use contraceptives have fewer children and have them later in marriage. Those who have the first baby in the first two years of marriage and another baby in the next couple years of marriage, have a much longer lasting marriage than those who don’t." He found that "since contraceptives have arrived on the scene, there is much more adultery than there was before." Observes Smith: "People have been tempted, for the history of mankind. It’s easy enough to think about wanting to have an affair, but wanting a child out of wedlock is another story. But if most every woman is contracepting, then most every woman is available in a certain sense and there is no real reason to say no. Adultery is absolutely devastating to marriages.

Contraception is not loving the person as a person. How loving is it if you say I will only have sex with you if you get a nose job? Fertility is a part of the person. It is no different to say I will only have sex with you if you sterilize yourself. How horrible it is to love your own gratification and to use the other to obtain it rather than to love your spouse and give yourself to them. This is why women claim headache to avoid intercourse. They know they are going to be used and they don't want to be used. It is not about receiving it is the giving of yourself totally to the other. Children are a blessing. So much so that Rachel in Gen 30:1-3 said "Give me children, or I shall die!" The first command God ever gave to man in Gen 1:28 was to be fruitful and to multiple. God doesn’t want you to be irresponsible so if there are serious reasons not to have children at a certain time then it is ok to use NFP. The marital union is not just for babies but for bonding as well. This mystery of the two will become one flesh (Eph 5:31 and Mt 19:6) is most intimately shown in the marital act.

John Paul II said in his Theology of the Body that “the language of the body is prophetic because it proclaims the mystery of God.” God is life giving love. By inserting contraception you are saying God is not life giving love and this is blaspheme. It is saying this is NOT my body given for you (Mt 26:26). It is saying let this NOT be done according to thy word (Lk 1:38). This language of the body and spousal love is a foreshadowing of heaven. Love is always free, total, faithful, and fruitful. This is how we were created. We were made in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26). God’s internal Trinitarian love is free, total, faithful, and fruitful. The love of the Father to the Son and Son to the Father is so great that that love is another person, the Holy Spirit. We can see a glimpse of this imagery in Rev 22:1. God’s love is not sterile it is fruitful and we are called to love as God loves. Contraception says I would rather have a momentary orgasm than to participate in the inner life of the trinity.

Suppose you have a religious person, non religious, and an anti religious person. If a religious person walks by a church he may show reverence. If a non religious person walks by he will do nothing. If an anti religious person walks by he may spit or throw a rock. This is analogous to the marital act. The religious person is the one who is performing the act, the non religious is the one who is not performing the act and the anti religious is the one who is using contraception. What is the difference? What’s the difference between a miscarriage and an abortion? The end result is still a dead baby. The difference is an abortion you are taking life and death into your own hands. Using contraception is an anti sign of life giving love and that is the difference between the non religious (the abstaining during the fertile periods) and the anti religious (contracepting). The one says God is God during the fertile and infertile periods and the other says I don't like the way God made you. 1 Cor 7:5 affirms NFP when it says that it is good to abstain for a time so you can devote yourself to prayer.

Most people don't know that every Christian church up until 1930 taught that contraception was a grave moral evil. It was only in 1930 that the Anglican Church first broke with that unbroken tradition and approved contraception within marriage for serious reasons. In 1931, Pope Pius XI wrote the Encyclical, Casti Connubii, which is usually translated On Christian Marriage, and there he reiterated what had been the constant teaching of the Church. Today the Catholic Church is the one of few who still holds the position.

Pope Paul VI predicted what would happen if this contraceptive mentality continued when he issued Humanae Vitae in 1968. He said, first of all, that there would be a general lowering of morality in society. We saw all sorts of great family entertainment in the 60’s. And now, one can hardly watch the advertisements on TV without being offended, let alone afternoon soaps which are soft porn.This is called the frog in the water effect. Some of you might have heard that if you put a frog into boiling water, it will actually jump out. But if you put a frog in a pot of lukewarm water and gradually raise the temperature to boiling, it will quite happily boil to death and not notice.

Secondly, Pope Paul VI predicted that there would be a general disregard for the physical and psychological well-being of females by males. Pornography is a great assault on a woman's psychological and physical well-being. There seems to be an enormous outbreak of sexual abuse of women. The statistics are just overwhelming for how many women have been sexually abused by someone in their household. Let us also consider the fact that 60% of poverty in the United States is accounted for by single women with children. Pope Paul VI also predicted that we would begin to treat our bodies as though they were machines. We would no longer have respect for the human person as an integral unity of body and soul, but the body would now be a machine that we can treat however we like.
John Paul II later greatly expounded on the dignity of the human body in his teaching on the Theology of the Body. It is not just about sex and marriage. It is an amazing way to help you understand who God is and the whole meaning of human existence. This is only for people who are male or female. Christopher West does an excellent job breaking this teaching down in his lecture series “Naked With out Shame” It consists of 8 talks and all of it is great but if you aren’t getting into it at first, it gets better. Talks 6 and 7 are particularly good. You can listen for free on the computer here: http://www.giftfoundation.org/products_naked-audio.cfm . If you want to put it into a mp3 player you can use realplayer to download it. Then use realplayer to convert it to mp3.


The Bible on contraception


In Genesis Onan gets killed for using a form of contraception. Onan’s brother died and didn’t bring forth any children so in Jewish culture the brother was to (in bible language) “go unto her” and bring up offspring to carry on his brother’s lineage. Dt 25:5 explains this teaching: "If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead shall not be married outside the family to a stranger; her husband's brother shall go in to her, and take her as his wife, and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her.”
Gen 38:9-10 “But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so when he went in to his brother's wife he spilled the semen on the ground, lest he should give offspring to his brother. And what he did was displeasing in the sight of the LORD, and he slew him also.”
Later in Deuteronomy it explains what the punishment for not bringing up children if your brother dies before giving forth an heir.
Dt 25:9 “then his brother's wife shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, and pull his sandal off his foot, and spit in his face; and she shall answer and say, 'So shall it be done to the man who does not build up his brother's house.”
The punishment wasn’t death so the abominable thing that killed Onan was contraception.
Dt 23:1 "He whose testicles are crushed or whose male member is cut off shall not enter the assembly of the LORD.

This verse shows that people who have sterilized themselves were not permitted in the assembly of the Lord


Early Church Fathers on contraception
John Chrysostom Homily 24 on Romans (347-407 ad)
"Why do you sow where the field is eager to destroy the fruit, where there are medicines of sterility [oral contraceptives], where there is murder before birth? You do not even let a harlot remain only a harlot, but you make her a murderess as well. . . . Indeed, it is something worse than murder, and I do not know what to call it; for she does not kill what is formed but prevents its formation. What then? Do you condemn the gift of God and fight with his [natural] laws? . . . Yet such turpitude . . . the matter still seems indifferent to many men—even to many men having wives. In this indifference of the married men there is greater evil filth; for then poisons are prepared, not against the womb of a prostitute, but against your injured wife. Against her are these innumerable tricks"
Jerome Against Jovinianus Book 1 par 5 (347-420 ad)
and he censures Onan, slain by the Lord, because he, grudging to raise up seed to his brother, marred the marriage rite
Jerome Against Jovinianus Book 1 par 5 (347-420 ad)
But I wonder why he set[4] Judah and Tamar before us for an example, unless perchance even harlots give him pleasure; or[5] Onan who was slain because he grudged his brother seed. Does he imagine that we approve of any sexual intercourse except for the procreation of children?
Jerome Letter 22 par 13 (347-420 ad)
Some go so far as to take potions, that they may insure barrenness, and thus murder human beings almost before their conception.
Sulpitius Severus Sacred History Book 1 par 11 (363-420 ad)
Onan took his brother's wife; and he is related to have been destroyed by God, because he spilled his seed upon the earth.





Reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin on contraception


"It is a horrible thing to pour out seed besides the intercourse of man and woman. Deliberately avoiding the intercourse, so that the seed drops on the ground, is double horrible. For this means that one quenches the hope of his family and kills the son, which could be expected, before he is born. This wickedness is now as severely as is possible condemned by the Spirit, through Moses, that Onan, as it were, through a violent and untimely birth, tore away the seed of his brother out the womb, and as cruel as shamefully has thrown on the earth. Moreover he thus has, as much as was in his power, tried to destroy a part of the human race. When a woman in some way drives away the seed out the womb, through aids, then this is rightly seen as an unforgivable crime. Onan was guilty of a similar crime" (Calvin's Commentary on Genesis, vol. 2, part 16).

"[T]he exceedingly foul deed of Onan, the basest of wretches . . . is a most disgraceful sin. It is far more atrocious than incest and adultery. We call it unchastity, yes, a sodomitic sin. For Onan goes in to her—that is, he lies with her and copulates—and, when it comes to the point of insemination, spills the semen, lest the woman conceive. Surely at such a time the order of nature established by God in procreation should be followed. Accordingly, it was a most disgraceful crime. . . . Consequently, he deserved to be killed by God. He committed an evil deed. Therefore, God punished him" (Luther's Commentary on Genesis)



References:

Onemoresoul.com
Vicky Thorn: Biology of Theology of the Body
Christopher West: Naked Without Shame
Janet Smith: Contraception Why Not
Ante Nicene Fathers
Catholic.com
NIV



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