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 Tuesday, April 25, 2006
What Should Be Legal?/Cristina Page
Jennifer, you write in your post on contraception that “for the purposes of this debate, I am not concerned about what should be legal or illegal.” I find it curious that you are unwilling to state whether you think contraception should be legal or illegal. Why not just come forward and state your position? I think for the purposes of this debate it is essential that readers understand where you stand on this important point. Also, Maggie to reply to your post—I have made a distinction in my posts (and in my book) between genuine pro-life people (those individuals who support furnishing Americans with the best, most effective and realistic ways to prevent abortion) and the pro-life organizational establishment that does not support these strategies and instead opposes them. Feminists for Life does not support the use of contraception to prevent abortion—it says so clearly on their website. Feminists for Life has no position on contraception. This would be the equivalent of the National Cancer Institutes having no position on the most proven cancer fighting treatments. And that would be unacceptable. The American public would, rightfully, shut them down. Indeed, so eager is the Right to Life movement to ban contraception that it has now reclassified the most commonly used forms of contraception—the ones that 40% of Americans use—as abortion. There is no scientific rationale to do this: not one contraception method can cause an abortion. Even the top medical advisors to the pro-life movement have come out against these attempts to reclassify contraception as abortion—including the chief medical advisor to the Christian Medical Association and Concerned Women for America. The pro-life Ob/Gyns write, “the ‘hormonal contraception is abortifacient’ theory is not established scientific fact. It is speculation, and the discussion presented here suggests it is error.” They continue in the same unequivocal tone: “if a family, weighing all the factors affecting their own circumstances, decides to use this modality, we are confident that they are not using an abortifacient.” Of course, clarifying inconvenient biological truths is beside the point. Don’t be misled. This fracas is not caused by a simple scientific misunderstanding. If it were, pro-lifers would rush to support birth control methods that don’t, as they say, “cause abortions,” like the diaphragm, condom, cervical cap, and spermicides. There’s not one pro-life group in America that supports any of these methods either. But because so many of your readers are in disbelief over the pro-life establishments anti-contraception campaigns—I offer my book as proof. Please understand that the evidence of these efforts is too numerous to include here: five or seven chapters in my book are devoted to documenting the anti-contraception campaigns led by mainstream pro-life groups. (For readers who hope to refer to the evidence, all my citations are included in the amply documented endnote section of my book and whenever possible I included web addresses to the evidence too.) Jennifer, I do not share in your disapproval of the average American’s sex life. 85% of Americans in a relationship have sex once a week. Having sex, without the exclusive purpose of babymaking, is an accepted part of American lives. It’s so accepted, it’s passé. Women are sexually liberated, right-wing, churchgoing women too. And, yes, I think it is a positive thing that people have sex frequently. I don’t believe people “use” each other for sex, as you do. I think sex is a natural expression of intimacy and that we were given (by the intelligent designer?) a hearty sexual appetite because regular sex makes us healthier and happier people in better relationships. Having a lively sex life within a relationship makes relationships stronger—and that’s because it makes couples happier. The esteemed journal Science published a study in 2004 in which the scientists (including one Nobel prize winner) found that the one activity that made women happiest was sex. Another study found that regular sex brings people as much happiness as a $50,000 a year raise. “The more sex,” the researchers write, “the happier the person.” In 2004, Time covered the health benefits of sex and reported, “Studies are showing that arousal and an active sex life may lead to longer life, better heart health, and improved ability to ward off pain, a more robust immune system and even protection against certain cancers, not to mention lower rates of depression.” So, it turns out an active sex life is pro-life too. As for your theory that contraception has led to more promiscuity. Well, a closer study of those idealized Fifties marriages (the archetype of what you hope to return the nation to) further erodes your argument. Studies conducted in 1948 and 1953 found that back then 26% of women and 50% of men had had an extramarital affair. But today, in the more sexually accepting culture you denounce, the rate has sunk to 6% of women and 10% of men. (More conservative estimates put the current rate of adultery at half of what it was in the Fifties.) As for children had outside of marriage. I think it is sad that you do not consider these children legitimate. By vilifying family planning I think you are on the fasttrack to creating the very families you condemn. Hope you will be willing to explain to me and readers why you oppose child care. All the best, Cristina posted by Cristina Page at 10:43 AM | link 
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I think that these two are speaking about 2 completely different things and will not get anywhere at all. Ms. Morse is trying to get us to take another look at how we handle sex OUTSIDE OF MARRIAGE and why it's so hurtful and Ms. Page simply cannot (will not?) see the distinction. Ms. Page and Ms. Morse are having two different conversations. Also, I cannot believe that she actually relies on a completely discredited statistic to claim that infidelity was wide spread in the 50's. Besides, it's intellectually dishonest to try and argue that any attempt to reject our current philosophy of a right to sex with no ties emotionally or procreationally is an attempt to take us back to the 50's. One can benefit from the liberalization of ideas about men, women and our enjoyment of sex without drinking the kool-aid and also supporting the harmful things which came with throwing the baby out with the batth water.
As for contraception, the fact of the matter is that contraception is not the best way to prevent abortion - if only it were that easy. Contraception is easily and readily available to even the poorest of the poor. A child would pretty well have to live in a cave not to know about contraception and instructions are included on every package. Yet we have the highest rates of abortion in the industrialized world. Most abortions are the result of UNMARRIED people having sex and either neglecting to use contraception or having their birth control fail. Also, if Ms. Post can't even acknowlege the enormous problems which children born out of wedlock face, she has no credibility at all on the issue.
Cristina,
You've yet to prove that providing free contraceptives is the most proven way to prevent abortion. A number of states in the U.S. that have been rated high with regards to contraceptive and have high abortion rates.
If the prolife movement is so eager to ban contraceptives then why are some leading prolifers (whom you quote) opposed to saying that hormonal birth control is abortifacient. You're totally contradicting yourself.
It makes no sense to say prolife organizations want to say birth control causes an abortion and then quote prolife leaders saying hormonal birth control doesn't cause an abortion.
You don't need to share all the info in your book - you could provide a few examples - because the ones I've seen you discuss so far on your blog and in interviews are rather lame.
Who conducted the studies in 1948 and 1953? My guess is your referring to the work of Alfred Kinsey - a source of information that is rather disputed by most people who've looked into his "research."
One would hope that the sources for your other information aren't this dubious.
Cristina, your knowledge of NFP seems to be sparse indeed.
My husband and I started using NFP out of necessity shortly after we were married 12 years ago. I cannot use hormonal methods, I won't use IUDs on moral grounds, I'm allergic to spericides, and I developed a latex allergy that did in barriers. So NFP was it.
I should add here that my cycles are not and never have been "regular like clockwork," nor have I spent most of the last 12 years pregnant. We have three very much wanted children, not 6 or 12 or whatever you would assume we would have with your ridiculous "25% failure rate" statistic cited below.
We have a lively and enjoyable sex life, and we have sex, on average, twice a week. You say once a week is the minimum good, and you seem to be under the impression that NFP can't help you acheive that.
NFP is a matter of educating couples about how the woman's body works. It's about celebrating a woman's cyclical nature instead of destroying that cyclical nature with artificial hormones "treatments". It's about removing barriers, not putting them in/on. It's about communication between the couple. It's about desire and giving and loving each other who who you are, without rejecting each other's natural fertile state. It's truly FEMINIST in nature, because so much of it depends on accepting women for who and what they are without alteration.
Several resources do indeed state that the failure rate of NFP is 2-25%. In other words, Cristina's statistics are fairly accurate.
It seems to me that NFP is some pretty risky business.
Sparki, I'm sure it works for you, but I've also known a few girlfriends who got pregnant while using this method - and they all three followed the instructions to the T. I'm sure there are many success stories, but I think it's a logical falacy to use an example to combat a generality or a more broad idea.
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