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 Monday, April 24, 2006
Contraception: Societal Good or Evil?/Cristina Page
Thank you Maggie for hosting this debate. Jennifer, thanks for the opportunity to debate. It’s particularly nice for me to have the chance to test my ideas with someone on the other side, especially a “Chief Visionary” of the other side (as you list on your bio). It’s so rare that the two sides actually discuss things civilly. So, let’s begin. Our jointly chosen topic of debate today is “Contraception: Societal Good or Evil.” The fact that this topic is even worthy of debate will come as a surprise to most Americans, including a majority of pro-life Americans who support birth control simply because it prevents abortion. Most people still have no idea that the pro-life movement is working to strip Americans of family planning. As you know, my book, How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America: Freedom, Politics and the War on Sex, documents the well-funded and successful pro-life campaigns against the most proven and realistic way to preventing abortion: contraception. As I argue in my book, the pro-life movement is not interested in reducing abortion; its priorities are elsewhere. Pro-lifers are most interested in changing Americans’ sex lives. I gather that this is where you come from as well. I read about your years of experimentation (as you explained to Kathryn Jean Lopez) with “adultery, fornication, cohabitation, group sex, same-sex sex” as well as the abortion and divorce. Now, I understand, that you’ve found another way, and would like everyone else to follow suit. The pro-life campaigns – and yours – are designed to take away the ability of Americans to enjoy sex without getting pregnant, and that puts contraception in the crosshairs. If these pro-life efforts also happen to lead to more abortions (or fatal disease), well they figure, that’s God’s will. If instead the pro-life movement were in fact interested in reducing abortion, pro-life policymakers would take note that the countries with the lowest abortion rates in the world are also the ones that have adopted the strongest pro-choice policies and have made contraception widely available, if not free. Pro-lifers would also do some soul searching over the fact that many of the places on earth with the highest abortion rates are those that have adopted the strictest pro-life policies. It’s curious that not one pro-life leader sent out a letter of congratulations to President Bill Clinton, our nation’s first pro-choice president, for presiding over the most dramatic decline of the nation’s abortion rates ever. And that’s because the policies that led to that decline, wider access to contraception and practical work-family policies, are apparently more offensive to the pro-life establishment than abortion. So, I’m not surprised that you, a professional within the religious right, would oppose what has been proven to work to reduce abortion. Being anti-contraception is party line for the pro-life movement today. That there’s not one pro-life organization in the United States that supports the use of contraception should be sobering for all Americans, genuine pro-lifers included, especially since we know contraception is 85% effective at reducing abortion. The typical American woman spends twenty-three years of her life trying to prevent pregnancy. She spends only seven trying to get pregnant, be pregnant or breastfeeding. Without contraception those twenty three years are dicey. I expect, on this point, you’ll make a big pitch for “natural family planning” –a technique most notable for its unpopularity (less than 2% of Americans even try it) and high failure rate (25%). But know that scientists who have recently looked into women’s ovulation cycles report that 40% of women ovulate more than once during their cycle. The scientists explain that natural family planning may not just be hard to practice, it may be impossible. They conclude, “We have a name for people who practice natural family planning—we call them parents.” And so in a world without contraception, the world you’d like to usher in, couples who hope to have two kids (as most Americans do) would be consigned to a life of abstinence within marriage (with two momentary exceptions). Few of the sex-free couples would take any comfort from the logic you lay out in the following passage from your book: “[R]eproductive freedom is empty: it is based on a misunderstanding of the amount of control that is reasonable or desirable in a fully lived human life. We convince ourselves that we are entitled to control the timing and arrival of children. If that is so important: isn’t it equally important to control who those children are, what those children do, whether those children please us? But this is plainly both impossible and inhumane. Yet that is what we set ourselves up for, when we begin to think in terms of “family planning.” pg. 87. Who in their right mind thinks that because you only want to have two kids (or three or four) you won’t love them for who they are? Does anyone in the real world really think that parents who use birth control don’t want what’s best for their children? Most Americans want to plan their families to the size they want and can support and can love. This is an American value, and it is the basis on which we construct our happy families. It’s the code by which Americans now live. It’s important to note that having access to family planning has resulted in critical benefits for the family. In the nineteen fifties, contraception was not as widely available and was also, for the most part, illegal for single people (the Supreme Court legalized contraception for single people in 1972—one year before Roe v. Wade). If we look back to the Fifties for signs of marital perfection—we come up short. First, lack of access to birth control in those days didn’t restrict sexual activity, only the (now-avoidable) consequences of it. The rate of teen motherhood in the Fifties was in fact twice the rate it is today. Yes, people did marry earlier and not always as a result of love but, as likely, unintended pregnancy. Marriage was the norm in the Fifties, more specifically, unhappy marriage was. Twice as many married couples today report to be “very happily married” when compared to married couples asked the same question in the Fifties. You may be pro-marriage. I’m pro-happy-marriage. Family planning has indeed changed the way people find marriage partners and when. These days, rather than marrying at nineteen, couples are more likely to marry in their mid to late twenties. That age jump is important. It coincides with the college years. Family planning, and more specifically, the introduction of the pill (Harvard researchers have discovered) was directly related to women flooding into the workforce and the professions. Working women (who you seem to have a disdain for in your book), have dramatically improved family income. In your great nostalgia for the Fifties-style marriage, you seem to forget to mention that one in four families in the Fifties lived in poverty, unable to get by on one income. Women’s move into the workforce, brought forth by access to family planning, has played a primary role in solving poverty. Half as many families today live in poverty as did in the Fifties. Today, families in which the husband is the only income maker are four times more likely to live in poverty than families in which both husband and wife work. Not only did family planning give women the ability to decide when to have a family, and thereby get a foothold in the professions, it also gave families the ability to space and plan for the number of children they can support. As for the benefits to children by being in families with more stable incomes, they are numerous, including more involved father, more educated mothers. It’s not inconsequential that family income happens to be one of the great determinants of children’s positive cognitive and social development. Of course, worldwide contraception is also life-saving technology. As Save the Children reports in State of the World’s Mothers, “increased access to and use of modern contraception can lead to dramatic improvements in infant and maternal survival rates.” Spacing children is critical to healthy pregnancies. And so, whatever convictions you cherish, the facts are clear: as contraceptive use rises in a country, maternal, fetal and infant deaths decline. That’s why in Finland, where 75% of women use contraception the lifetime risk of a mother dying in childbirth is 1 in 8,200. Only 4 out of 1,000 Finnish infants do not make it to their first birthday. Compare this to Niger, where 4% of women use birth control. There, one in seven mothers die in childbirth and 156 of 1,000 infants die before reaching age one. (The US rate of maternal death during pregnancy is 1 in 2500—why we don’t enjoy the dramatically lower Finnish death rate is in large part courtesy of the pro-life movement’s efforts against contraception.) In closing, I see that in your book you trot out the standard pro-life diatribe against child care and working women. I think we should probably touch on that subject in more depth sometime this week. But for now, suffice it to say, it’s interesting that professional pro-lifers are against contraception and child care too. Such a paradox only makes sense when you accept that what really is most offensive to you, the pro-life movement, and the bureaucracy of the religious right, is the way in which the modern family is structured: marriages between equals, in which consideration and planning is given to the number of children people can provide for, lavish with attention, and launch into the world, educated and stable, loving, kind, and hopefully immune from unfounded prejudices, especially those poisonous ones coming from the religious right these days. posted by Cristina Page at 1:29 AM | link 
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Cristina Page, I do not think that your opening post is a good example of how to discuss things civilly.
The taunts and jibes distract from your more substantive remarks.
Hopefully, Jennifer Roback Morse will respond charitably and generously; and you might respond in kind so that the debate between the two of you, and the rest of us in the comment section, might discontinue the petty tone of your initial posting.
In the meantime, could you add references, or links, to the few sources you've cited? Thanks.
Cristina Page:
Your post was excellent. As a pro-life and pro-contraception Christian conservative, I am baffled by why some in the pro-life movement are so anti-contraception. I think it should be self evident that increased use of contraception would lead to a decrease in the abortion rate. Why? Because some of us just don't want children! My marriage (which is very happy and very sexual)is no less worthy than my sister's who is pregnant for the 6th time. Just because we don't "procreate" doesn't mean we are deficient in some way. I happen to think it makes us a little bit smarter than some of my peers who have babies and cannot afford to care for them. When we decide we want a baby, we will have one. Until then, leave my birth contol alone! Honestly, I believe that abortion is elimination of human life for the sake of convenience and is wrong and immoral. But when certain pro-life groups start in on the evils of contraception, I get a little scared away and start to wonder if, as a voter, do I want to be associated with some of these groups. Not all of us use birth control so that we can have "consumer sex." My husband and I just want to have the opportunity to enjoy each other and our marriage without children. What is wrong with that?
Anonymous -- Why, precisely, do you and your husband use birth control?
And does that term include abortion and "emergency contraception" as well as supply methods of modern contraception?
My husband and I use birth control, specifically, depo provera, because we are 27, have "joe jobs" and most importantly, DO NOT WANT A BABY. And why would you ask if birth contol includes abortion if I specifically stated my opposition to it? For the record, no it does not. Since I use depo, I have no need for emergency contraception. If we only used barrier methods (like a condom)which are not very reliable, then yes, EC (which is just a higher dose of the pill)would be included. Are you having trouble making the distinction between eliminating life and preventing it from occurring in the first place? And really, what difference does it make WHY we use birth control (I think the answer is obvious)?
I'm wondering if the author can provide any actual facts to back her assertion that pro-life people and groups support restricting access to birth control (specifically condoms, birth control pills, diaphrams, IUDs) by married couples. Some pro-life people support easy access to birth control by everyone while some see easy access to birth control by unmarried folks as part of the problem (makes it more likely a person will engage in sexual activity while not prepared to take on responsibility for a child which is a real concern given the high failure rate of birth control methods in the real world. Also makes sex outside of marriage generally more acceptable, even for those who simply fail to actually use birth control). However, the only people I know who don't approve of birth control in marriage simply argue for their point of view, which is certainly their right, but don't actively seek to limit such choices for those who don't agree. This really seems like a straw-man argument. Just because someone may view something (like married couples using birth control) as wrong or undesireable, doesn't mean that one is trying to make it illegal or unavailable.
I'm wondering if the author can provide any actual evidence that pro-life folks are trying to keep married couples from having access to birth control. They may be arguing against using it, but that's hardly the same thing as taking away the option.
Cristina Page make some remarkable claims for the increased use of contraception in the world:
Fewer abortions.
Happier marriages.
Fewer teen pregnancies.
Less poverty.
Happier, more well adjusted children.
More educated mothers.
Better fathers.
Fewer women dying in childbirth.
Less infant mortality.
All this just from contraception? Seems like a rather simplistic view worthy of inclusion in the next "Freakonomics" edition.
Anonymous said: "I think it should be self evident that increased use of contraception would lead to a decrease in the abortion rate."
It only seems self-evident. Responsible adults who don't want children will use contraception. However, if the contraception fails, or if they are not diligent in its use and pregnancy results, the likely result is an abortion (there will be exceptions - like anonymous). As far as the irresponsible "adults" using contraception, I suspect that most of the abortions performed today come from this group. The bottom line is, those who use contraception constitute the majority of people who have abortions.
The real question is – how do you actually increase the use of contraceptives? It’s been tried, and the results are not impressive. Are the decreasing rates of abortion cited by Ms. Page the result of increased use of contraceptives, or are other factors such as the re-emergence of traditional family values playing a greater role? Unfortunately, Ms. Page does not provide facts to back up her claims.
Ms. Page, I believe it is the fallacy of oversimplification or generalization or something along those lines to conflate my opposition--as a pro-lifer, to teaching hypersexualist contraception claptrap to teenagers with a purported opposition to contraception generally. In addition, I think your argument fails because by asserting that I cannot oppose/outlaw/condemn theft unless I am willing to support socialism without any limits . . . pregnant women are almost never stricken with the condition.
Did she actually say - "This is an American value (wanting to plan the size they want and can support and can love), and it is the basis on which we construct our happy families. It's the code by which we now live"? - Wow, that's quite dogmatic langauage for someone who claims to promote liberty and self-determination. She should speak to her own code and not purport to speak the mind of all Americans as if we have one code. As for the 'happy families', is she kidding? Ask any school teacher about all the 'happy kids' they encounter in this age of therapists and anti-depressants. I wonder does she credit the pro-choice movement for that too? Certainly not.
Markr suspects,
And then rounds up the usual suspects.
Morality improves when there are more "quality" men. http://www.issues.org/13.2/courtw.htm
Demographics.
BTW reports I have seen say abstinence only sex education in schools delays the year of first intercourse but increases out of wedlock conception. Sounds about right to me. So you get a choice. What will it be?
Actually I think you need to go look at those reports. If you are referring to the work of Bearman and Bruckner, I believe they found that participation in abstinence did not reduce (but did not increase) the risk of STDs in young adulthood.
But the abstinence group had markedly lower rates of out of wedlock births, primarily because they were far more likely to be married by their early twenties.
Maggie
>> "why would you ask if birth contol includes abortion if I specifically stated my opposition to it?"
Cristina uses the term, birth control, much more expansively than do you. I asked for, and you gave, your clarification. Thanks.
You say you do not want a baby. Is that the reason you use depo provera or is it because you also want to engage in sexual intercourse, potentially potent, first and foremost? Presumably you make this choice with forethought, of course, but it is you, not your husband, who takes the health risks. Or are there other risks (healthwise or otherwise) that he alone takes in that scenario, or that shares with you?
I ask, again, for clarification. I think the topic of the debate raises this question so please don't take it personally because it is raised in our exchange.
>> "And really, what difference does it make WHY we use birth control (I think the answer is obvious)?"
It may be obvious but you have yet to articulate it. Depo provera is a means to an end, or is it the end in itself? I think your comments hint at a more basic, and perhaps less obvious, reason. But it is not my purpose to place words in your mouth. So I asked. I am not denying you have a reason, or reasons, obvious or not. I am assuming you do have such.
* * *
Emergency contraceptives terminate pregnancy and end the lives of human beings.
M. Simon said...
"Markr suspects,
And then rounds up the usual suspects."
I'm not sure what you mean, so rather than leap to conclusions, I'll simply pontificate a bit more. There are two general categories of people who use contraception – responsible users and irresponsible users. Responsible users are consistent and diligent, irresponsible users are inconsistent and, shall we say, less than diligent (don’t want to offend the usual suspects, whomever they may be). Both groups use birth control to avoid unwanted (unplanned) pregnancies. When pregnancy occurs (either through malfunction or inconsistent use of the contraceptives), the typical (not absolute) response of people who don’t want children (those who use contraceptives) would be to terminate the pregnancy through abortion. Thus, people who use contraceptives have abortions. And, as I suspect, the majority of abortions come from irresponsible users of contraceptives.
The question was whether or not increased use of contraceptives results in decreased abortions. If by “increased use” we mean “increased availability” the answer is no. Irresponsible users will still be inconsistent and abortion will be used to “fix the problem”. If by “increased use” we mean more consistent/diligent use then yes, abortions will decrease. So, we need to teach people to be responsible (something our culture has not exactly encouraged in recent times). This points to the larger issue Dr. Roback Morse was discussing – that of morality informing human relationships (or people behaving responsibly toward one another). Contraception has become a band-aid solution for the deeper problem of our culture’s devaluation of human life and human relationships. There are exceptions – people (like anonymous) who use contraception to deepen or enhance committed relationships. It’s the rest (and the majority) that fall into the category of Consumer Sex.
M. Simon also said...
"Morality improves when there are more "quality" men."
I wholeheartedly agree. What I find odd is that Ms. Page cites contraception as a significant factor in developing better fathers (quality men). I use a condom and I’m a better man?
Natural Family Planning has a much higher effectiveness rate than 75 percent. I'm sure someone has pointed this out somewhere, but I'm surprised that someone billed as a professional would throw out such a dishonest statistic.
"In Finland...the lifetime risk of a mother dying in childbirth is 1 in 8,2000."
"[In Niger,] one in seven mothers die in childbirth."
If both of these statistics are true (and the second one seems rather high), there are many reasons other than availabilty of birth control that are probably much more important. Finland is a prosperous "first world" country. Niger is worse off in the areas of:
nutrition
clean water
sanitation facilities
education
general health care
prenatal care
trained birth attendants
transportation
just to name a few off the top of my head. I'm sure there are other "third world" problems that impact maternal mortality as well.
If contraception (or lack thereof) was truly responsible, then the 25% of Finnish women who don't use it should have a similarly appalling death rate--I bet they don't.
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