The occult ideology behind all this goes back to the unfortunate fact that males can engage in penetrative sex with each other without worrying about conception. It is obvious that this behavior has long been rampant not only in the Catholic but also in fundamentalist Christian churches -- the very ones that so decry female contraception.

There is a connection here, which we refuse to see. Men who engage in this behavior naturally consider it superior -- after all, there are no material consequences. But (all political correctness aside), at some level they also know that it is wrong. So -- that 'wrongness' is projected onto women, who are in the double bind of being blamed for their fertility while engaging in 'normal' intimacy. Remember, VIAGRA was almost instantly covered by medical insurers, while the PILL is often still not. What does that tell you ?

Much male sexual behavior is both more complex and more deviant than most women can (or want to) understand. But until we do, the whole abortion issue will remain the desperate red herring (in more ways than one) of a much deeper ideological divide.

Where is Pope Joan when we need her?

Church and state, in lock step, marching us proudly backwards to our future. A good satire of this: "The Department of Homeland Decency: Decency Rules and Regulations Manual."

It describes a world where "words lead to ideas, which are the saplings of indecency, and pretty soon you have a forest that needs to be burned to the ground."

www.homelanddecency.com

George, you make a good case that religious views on sex being counter-productive in reducing abortions. However, you appear to still espouse the view that birth is a right and not a privilege.

As you point out in many words, some religious people consider sex to be a moral act, and therefore any consequences of such action should also have moral consequences. For many, sex is not a moral act and is an expression of bonding, pleasure, or exploration. In this context, birth remains a privilege.

I have argued on this site and elsewhere that abortion is not about life or death, but about control of sexual morals. Hence, I eschew the pro-death vs. pro-life framing in favor of the forced-birth vs. responsible-choice dimension.

Abortion is what I term as a "100-year problem," i.e. a problem that will simply resolve itself as our knowledge and technology increases. At some point in the future, we will have the technology to use any live cell to create an embryo. At such a juncture, every birth becomes a privilege, which is exactly where many "pro-choice" people are.

alaskamaid;

I would agree that men can boink each other without worrying about getting preggers. But having been to a good number of funerals for friends who've died as a result of AIDS, I wouldn't agree that there are no consequences for irresponsible acts of nookie anymore.

You're bang on when you argue that the abortion debate is a red herring. The major point of the very religious is to control the members of their cult, using sex to do it is probably the most effective way of instilling a sense of guilt just for being alive. Didn't that JC guy mention something about thinking of the act was the same thing as committing the act; at the beginning of the faith thought crime was a pillar of the new faith.

The best way to prevent abortion remains using a combo of b/controls. Pills alone don't always do the job, neither do condoms alone. Together they'll do a better job, knowing how to have sex safely is the best thing you can teach other people. People who preach abstinance are those who just don't want to have sex with anyone, including their sig. others.

Let's not forget that fundamentalists of all stripes (Islamist, Protestant, Mormon, Orthodox Jews) and "nativist" nationalist groups (European Russians) oppose contraception to one degree or another.

Big families guarantee another generation of believers to fill the pews.

But the policy of the Clinton/Gore administration still stands true for me: Let's work to make abortions safe, legal, and RARE.

The US wears the white hat and other nations wear black hats, and abortion is murder.

These are two examples of soundbites that much of the US electorate responds to. Neocon success is based on packaging many concepts into sound bites. The concept of contraception preventing abortions is way too complex for many voters to ponder.

Show me a religion anywhere in the world that promotes contraception. Its about time we took apon it ourselves to indoctrinate the masses with the idea that contraception is good, and that abortion is a failure of contraception. For most of the time, religions get away with promoting a monopoly of supporting our evolution-given sexual instincts where it increases the numbers of the faithful. They know that abstinence training increases desire, and males are programmed to rape women if necessary. They know that the threat of social ostracism has a powerful control over behavior. And keeping the mantras simple and allowing expression of instinctual behavior whilst seemingly under divine instruction is the great art of the religious con man, whose alter-ego is implantable in our easily deluded left hemispheres. The only combative approach is countervailing propaganda, and for this we need brave, wise, secular governments with a long term perspective. Preventing population explosion is far better than the converse results of resource starvation, war and the destruction of nature.

George and the posters here are bit historically stupid.

The rise in abortion IS the direct result in the rise in the practice of contraception. see Humanae Vitae.

Contraceptive practices were common among the pagan areas of the world...let me narrow that down...common everywhere but among the Jews. (modern contracepting and pro-abort jews don't count as their acting against their historical religion)

If you want to stop abortions that please quit trying to suspend the laws of science and biology. Your demand for sterile sex is illogical and stupid. Why are you suprised that the exact act that would naturally procreated....does exactly as nature intended?! Now our waters are flooded with hormones wreaking havoc on our environment as well.

Stupid is as stupid does.

brontoburger: "If you want to stop abortions that please quit trying to suspend the laws of science and biology. Your demand for sterile sex is illogical and stupid. Why are you suprised that the exact act that would naturally procreated….does exactly as nature intended?!"

A classic argument from authority even if one accepts, along with many other assumptions, that it is possible to figure out what nature "intends." Amazing!

hedology;
I'm a man. Don't recall anyone ever trying to program me to rape women, maybe it's cause I'm gay...

Saying all men are potential rapists is the same thing as saying all muslims are terrorists or all yanks are warmongering mass murderers...

brontoburger;

If your sexual experiences have ever been sterile (even when practicing safe sex) you've not been doing it right. Perchance, do you think that contraception _is_ abortion?

Let's not forget good ol' "mother" Teresa teaching the non-Catholic women of India that contraception is a bad thing.

The whole catholic church - arghhhhhhh! Any why any woman financially supports that male-controlled organization is something I will never understand.

Shaman - are you saying your incapable of understanding what nature intends? Are you so lacking in the most basics of science?

All this article and idiot responders commenting on is a display that America has really gone down hill with the most basics of science.

We have posters like Julian who don't want those 'brown' women of India to have children...they would rather they be treated as a sperm repository than actually procreate (and not fooled and suprised that sex would result in a child).

Of course all this hatred against the Catholic Church is really just hidden hatred against the jews who's teaching against contracepting and abortion has been met with selective genocide and such. The more things change...

jjohnjj February 26th, 2008 3:33 pm

"Big families guarantee another generation of believers to fill the pews.
But the policy of the Clinton/Gore administration still stands true for me: Let's work to make abortions safe, legal, and RARE."

Fine! Let the generations of believers support the children who will fill their pews. Frankly, I don't want to support them, just as I don't want to pay for someone elses credit card bills.

What pisses me off more than anything is that these alleged "moral" Christians don't want to have anything to do with these unwanted children after they come out the womb. It's nothing but goddamned hypocrisy!

brontoburger;
Considering that there is still a great debate over the concept of the theory of evolution, and most of that controversy comes from members of the churches which oppose contraception, who the hell are you to argue that americans understand science?

What's not to hate about a church that promoted genocide in the past (the crusades), inflamed hatred against the Jews (killer's of Christ), protected child rapists from prosecution, advocated a final solution to the natives of North America, and now wants to flood the biosphere with more humans than can be fed?

Either the natural growth rate of humanity is limited, or we all will starve. Historically that growth rate gets limited by war, disease or starvation. We're not fighting major wars anymore, disease has been cut by access to modern medicines (science) and starvation is on the horizon due to the sheer number of humans who live on this planet. Do you really disagree that the practice of birth control would be better than to kill each other off?

Important article. Thank you.

The nuns used to tell us that "dropping your seed on the ground is a mortal sin". That directs many a boy on his way to becoming a sexually dysfunctional conservative like the clergy itself. I barely made it out of there a psychological wreck, physically abused, but ungroped.

By trying to take control of other people's bodies, organized religion is very much responsible for giving us their Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, overpopulation, resource depletion, environmental pollution and species extinctions.

Priests, Nuns, Rabbis, Mullahs, Reverends and Pastors want lots of us multiplying to serve God (themselves). Then after we've given them our children, served our breeding purposes and turned our earthly paradise into a living hell, to die for the rewards they promise.

Yes, it says so in the books their priests wrote back in the days when the earth was flat. Even further back when witches were burned at the stake, heretics were dismembered, dissidents were crucified and women were stoned to death.

Peel away the vestments, the cloaks, the pointy, black or cloth headgear, the gaudy suits and pompadours and you have conservatives who are trying to scare us to death or kill us by any other means to make room for more young, tender children to eat.

This was an article well done. It seems like the left and "pro-life" people could find common ground if the end goal was just "reduce abortions."

I say this because I am very sympathetic to those who think abortion should almost never happen, and most of the people I know who hold that position do not understand the consequences of their "pro-life" vote. We should be able to unite this traditional bloc of voters who love to vote against their economic interests with a "reduce abortion" mentality.(Of course the church would never allow that) Just a personal observation.

Awesome article, I will be forwarding this to some "friends" for sure.

brontoburger: "Shaman - are you saying your incapable of understanding what nature intends? Are you so lacking in the most basics of science?"

Intention requires a conscious/intelligent agent. In this context, the scientific method requires justifying why investigating the conjecture that "nature has intention (ergo, is intelligent/conscious)" is worthwhile. Next, it requires a collection of one or more hypotheses with areas of falsifiability to test the same. Next it requires carrying out the tests to determine whether or not to reject the hypotheses.

Now, if you have any such formulations, I would love to hear them.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but the only thing in the Bible that I'm aware of that MAY be construed as an injunction against birth control is the story of Onan.

To Reader's-Digest-Condensed-Version the story, it goes like this:

Judah told his secondborn son Onan to impregnate the widow of his firstborn son, Er, who God had earlier killed for some unspecified reason, known only to Him, but Onan spilled his seed on the ground, instead of inside his elder brother's widow, thereby not making her pregnant, which pissed God off so much that he killed Onan.

I suppose there might be several moral lessons in this pleasant little bed-time story, depending on how you interpret it:

1. Birth control is bad.

2. Disobeying your father is bad.

3. God killed Onan for either practicing a primitive form of birth control or for disobeying his father, but he isn't necessarily going to kill everyone else for doing the same thing.

4. God likes to kill people for very minor reasons.

5. All of the above.

Despite the above, it seems obvious to me that if you want to prevent abortion, the most effective way to do this is to prevent pregnancies, and the best way to do this is to either not have sex at all or use some form of contraceptive. And, since most humans, just like other animals, have a powerful sex drive, expecting them, especially chock-full-of-hormones teenagers, to not have sex at all is highly unlikely to work. So using contraceptives is a good idea.

But maybe my logic is faulty. Apparently the Catholic Church thinks so, anyway.

Ti;
The sin of Onan wasn't just b/c, it was theft. Onan had to sleap with his sis in law so that the male child of the union could inherit the father's estate. Had to do with ancient inheritance law. Not sure what would have happened if the kid was a daughter...

But yah, it could be a condemnation of the withdrawl method of b/c, as well as a prohibition against using condoms. But it doesn't mention birth control pills or medicines.

And 4 is a good point too. God did seem to have the habit of offing people for minor things. Disrespect being one of his fav's. One wonders why he stopped killing people for those reasons, or why he stopped showing his face to 'prophets', I guess he's gotten a bit of an impotency problem in his old age... (evil grin) Goodnight.

Just as pro life conservatives cannot also be pro war, neither can anti war progressives be anti life. Life is the prime value. Progressives should embrace life in all of it's dimensions. By caring adequately for families and children the need for abortion is minimized. The issue of life is a larger value than the issue of a woman's control of her body. Life is "the" preeminent issue. Failure to recognize that leads us down the death path to our own destruction. The purposeful failure to acknowledge that is deeply selfish and short sighted. Focus on the "big" picture.

Hi skippy. I missed the theft motive. Thanks for pointing it out to me. As for why God stopped killing people for minor reasons and no longer shows his face for prophets, my guess is that he never did, because the God of the Bible never existed.

But that's different topic.

Doom n Gloom, I can see why someone might disagree with abortion, but I can't see why anyone might disagree with birth control, which is the real topic of Mr. Monbiot's article.

If reverence for life is the reason anti-birth control people use for their disagreeing with it, I don't get it. Sure, using birth control kills sperm, which is a form of life, but even if you don't use birth control the vast majority of the sperm dies, anyway, so you end up killing thousands of the little critters, no matter what you do.

So, Doom, does the big picture you're referring to include a detail that says birth control is bad, or only abortion? It wasn't clear to me from your post.

Suppose someone made the argument against 'Onanism', without resorting to divine vengeance, and instead suggested that masturbation is harmful, because in the case of young males, it trains them to be premature ejaculators. That regular self-pleasuring impedes the emotive impulse to connect with other people.

Not that every person who engages in these behaviors will become completely dysfunctional, but that these behaviors carry these risks of dysfunction, and like the notion of pre-dispostion to alcohol or other addictive substances, sexual addiction, and dysfunction do affect a certain proportion of society.

Both these arguments occur in the context of sex therapy for people identified as having sexual disfunction, a diagnosis having no connection with religious judgement. One of the treatments for 'premature' type problems has to do with reversing the effects of the 'self trained' effects of masturbation.
One type of treatment for frequent 'satyriasis' is to have a more active and casual social life.

Consider then the role that desire plays in forming social attachment, and being attracted to others. Desire is an emotive impulse, that has a necessary FUNCTION important to social group behavior. It is not something that exists in a vacuum, for the purposes of indulging as a 'guilty pleasure' at whim. Like the midnight snack, bowl of icecream indulgence, taken too often, leading to obesity, other indulgences of our physical FUNCTION have consequences.

But the argument used in the case of sex therapy, by the most alternative lifestyle progressive therapist, is not that different from the most cloistered pharisetical cleric, namely that sexual function has a proper USE, that improper USE of ones sexual FUNCTION (or nature) leads to problems, which impact the life of the person struggling with that problem, and like the emotional distance of the alcoholic, and its effect on family and close associates, problems with emotive impulses are not truly VICTIMLESS crimes.

These are arguments that do not come from religious doctrine, but are based on therapeutic observation.

Perhaps the clerical articulation of dogma is heavy handed, or inarticulate, but the appeal is directed towards curbing behavior that left unchecked can result in problems that are in essence problems of abuse.

The argument on birth control is similar, namely that desire, and intercourse are functionally essential to human life. Technological means to impede that function come with consequences, the tendency towards abuse and abuse born of rashness ignorance or exploitation is well demonstrated in society.

The problem is not contraception in itself, but rather that particular forms of contraception more easily lead to abuse of sexual function.

Whether religious leaders are the appropriate arbiters of sexual function is the bigger question, but in addition to that question, are pharmaceutical appropriate arbiters of safe or proper sexual function. Because like the clerical contributors to this controversy, they are a significant factor. How many medical studies, textbooks and manuals serve as commercial advertisment, or where funded and printed by pharmaceutical corporations.

As the saying goes those that ignore history are doomed to repeat it. Unfortunately most have displayed 'at best' a cartoon understanding of history.

If you oppose groups that defend child rapists that you must opposed Planned Parenthood. (they do it every day)

If you oppose groups who support and have supported genocide that you must oppose Planned Parenthood.

If you oppose groups who promote psychological abuse of children you must oppose Planned Parenthood.

If you oppose groups who dehumanize, treat human life as garbage than you must oppose Planned Parenthood.

If you oppose groups who worked with the KKK and the NAZI eugenic campaigns that you must oppose Planned Parenthood.

If you oppose groups that promoted concentration camps on American soil and forces sterilizations than you must oppose Planned Parenthood.

If you oppose groups that are setup in the tax-code as churches from getting Federal and State funding than you must oppose Planned Parenthood.

"The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it."
Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood

"Birth control must lead ultimately to a cleaner race."
Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood

"We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don't want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population…"
Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood

"Eugenic sterilization is an urgent need ... We must prevent multiplication of this bad stock."
Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood

"Eugenics is … the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems.
Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood

"Birth control itself, often denounced as a violation of natural law, is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit, of preventing the birth of defectives or of those who will become defectives."
Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood

"The unbalance between the birth rate of the 'unfit' and the 'fit,' [is] the greatest present menace to civilization… the most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective."
Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood

"The campaign for birth control is not merely of eugenic value, but is practically identical with the final aims of eugenics."
Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood

"Our failure to segregate morons who are increasing and multiplying… a dead weight of human waste… an ever-increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all."
Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood

"The undeniably feeble-minded should, indeed, not only be discouraged but prevented from propagating their kind."
Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood

"The procreation of [the diseased, the feeble-minded and paupers] should be stopped."
Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood

"The marriage bed is the most degenerative influence in the social order..."
Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood

"[Our objective is] unlimited sexual gratification without the burden of unwanted children..."
Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood

"[Mandatory] sterilization for [the insane and feeble-minded] is the answer."
Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood

"Give dysgenic groups [people with 'bad genes'] in our population their choice of segregation or [compulsory] sterilization."
Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood

Since, there is a call for sound bites, here are a couple:

- Anti-abortion is "pro-slavery, forced-birth."
- Responsible sexuality requires contraception.

brontoburger:

Your entire post using Margaret Sanger uses a fallacious argumentation technique in the form of "argument from authority."

In case you are curious about fallacious arguments here's a link:
http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html

Margaret Sanger, 1879 - September 6, 1966.

Just for your bennies bronto. that lifespan includes the period when women were considered the property of their father's or husband. She lived during the time when Canadian women had to go to court to be recognized as 'person's'. Not a shining example for humanity at all. She founded PP because of the number of women who were suffering because bearing child after child after child really fucks with their bodies, and is one of the chief causes of abject poverty. Take a look at those interesting family photos from the turn of the century, in the lower classes you'd have five-ten siblings (those are the ones who survived, not the ones who got born), a husband who could barely afford to feed his kids, the wife who was exhausted by raising them, or burying the ones who died from rampant infections/diseases. The world Sanger lived in was one that the church and anti-choice people would have us live in today. The middle classes figured out that buggering your wife would not cause pregnancy, the upper classes used mistresses and abortion as they do today.

Eugenics was supported not only by the founder of planned parenthood (founded at a time when there was no effective b/c) but by the catholic church (amongst others). It wasn't until the 'excessess' of Hitler's Germany that Eugenics was outed as a nasty thing. After all, I'm sure you'd agree that humans are not horses, and shouldn't be bred like them...

Did you read the article? Missed the point of how high the abortion rates are in country's that are highly religious and have barriers to contraception? Do you not see the corralation between the number of children in a society and how much poverty affects those societies? Ignoring the fact that women desperate to avoid having another child will resort to drinking turpentine, using coathangers or beat their own stomach's to prevent the birth of yet another mouth to feed? Fuck your god, it doesn't exist, never did.

Thought Shaman;
I'd say bronto's arguing not from any authority, but from a false reading of the historical record. The world Sanger lived in was not a freaking paradise, she argued in favour of what she thought would make a better world. As we do, but where we're willing to learn from the errors of the past, bronto (what an apt name) wants to return us to them. Either way, bronto's nuts.

"Thought Shaman; I'd say bronto's arguing not from any authority, but from a false reading of the historical record."

skippyagogo41, I was referring to his argumentation technique not the content of his post. He presents several conclusions, and then pulls out a single apparent authority on the topic as representative of the totality of views about the same.

I didn't even want to get into discussing the post's contents which, as you point out has more problems.

Interesting post, sophist, but it really has nothing to do with the topic at hand. Onanism, although it's usually defined as masturbation in most dictionaries, is really a form of birth control, which is what Mr. Monbiot's article was about.

Thought Shaman;
Realised that myself after I posted... I was thinking only of the last post not the earlier ones which are the classic 'arg by auth'

And the sanger arg bronto used was also an 'arg by auth', just more flawed by its abuse of the historical record. I also should have mentioned the other method of abortion used in the world in ages past (and sometimes today); infanticide. The high death rate for infants wasn't only due to disease, it also included parents who'd dump their unwanted infants in the snow/bush/river...

Bronco, one thing you seem to have forgotten about history is that history is history, that is, it's in the past.

For example, the signers of the US Constitution committed genocide by nearly wiping out the Native Americans, but that doesn't mean we need to burn the Constitution.

If you regard the Bible as historical truth, instead of as metaphor, history points out that God is the greatest killer there ever was, but that doesn't mean you have to hate all Christians.

It's obvious that the Iraq War was started primarily to benefit the major oil companies, but that doesn't mean the guy down the road who runs a gas station is a bad guy.

It's clear that the modern meat industry contributes greatly toward global warming, and it's also clear that not eating meat will help alleviate this problem, but if you're a vegetarian it doesn't mean you have to get rid of your dog because it eats dog food that contains animal products.

And etc.

skippyagogo -
"Eugenics was supported not only by the founder of planned parenthood (founded at a time when there was no effective b/c) but by the catholic church (amongst others). It wasn't until the 'excessess' of Hitler's Germany that Eugenics was outed as a nasty thing. After all, I'm sure you'd agree that humans are not horses, and shouldn't be bred like them…"

Actually it was NEVER supported by the Catholic Church. The Church has always condemned both positive and negative methods of eugenics. You can review papal decrees as well as encyclical such as Casti Connubii, Mit Brennender Sorge, Humanae Vitae, Evangelium Vitae.

It would be known by those that actually understood history that the defense of the Nazi's at Nuremburg was that their laws (eugenic laws) were based upon laws on the books of the United States. The Supreme Court legitimized the same authority of the Nazi's in Buck V Bell. Of course we also condemned the German state for denying doctors and pharmacists the right of conscience (as indicated in teh Hippocratic Oath). Now advocates on this board want to follow in the goose-stepping footsteps and make sure doctors are forced to abort babies and pharmacists forced to give drugs against their conscience and/or religion.

In regards to Sanger...are you all so blind? And what are we to make of the fact that Planned Parenthood which runs abortion clinics, was founded by eugenicists - Margaret Sanger, Abraham Stone, Mrs. Louis de B. Moore, Dorothy Brush and many others? What does it mean that the Association for the Study of Abortion was founded by Alan Guttmacher of Planned Parenthood, a former vice-president of the American Eugenic Society? Or that the Population Council was founded by Frederick Osborn a former president of both the Pioneer Fund and the American Eugenic Society? Or that NARAL was founded by Lawrence Lader of the Population Council? Or that the Catholics cited in Roe v. Wade, John Noonan and Daniel Callahan, were members of the Population Council, a eugenic front group? Above all, what does it mean that 25% of all abortions in America are performed on black women when blacks are twelve percent of the population? Why are fertile black women decreasing to post Civil War-Ku Klux Klan era levels? Why are the pictures of those who "need" abortion so frequently pictures of blacks?

Shakespeare pictured the hypocrite as " the smiler with the knife". It seems to me that all the talk about "abortion rights" is just a piece of hypocrisy by means of which eugenics is simultaneously marketed as a right (the smiler) and as racism (with the knife)

Alright. Look at this from a softer perspective. Perhaps life does not 'begin' at conception. Perhaps life simply 'is' and conception is a particular but not unique manifestation of it. That is why is doesn't come with guarantees. Early pregnancy is no guarantee of a live birth, and women deserve the official recognition of that fact. Personally, I had an abortion when an IUD (saf-t-coil) failed. Later, I miscarried twins at three months gestation. My mate and I have two grown children.

Induced or 'accidental', many early pregnancies miscarry. Another fact of life for those engaging in reproductive sex. Why further burden women with the misplaced guilt of non-regenerative gay behavior by denying them the most basic of bodily rights -- that of family planning ?

If all the anal males weeping over the altars of their HIVed lovers could come to terms with the fact that their behavior codes for destructive memes that men and women both end up acting out, then and only then will the reproductive function of heterosexual relationships begin to be honored in all its many manifestations.

If we were truly in honest communication with our genital (and excretory) organs, what would they say to us ? Would we have the humility to listen ? Or have we gone deaf ?

(Signed : A breeder)

Bronto;
How many black catholics married white catholics in churches before the 1970s? None. But that's not eugenics you argue...

The eugenics laws were in place all over north america, including in Canada, passed by well meaning fools who thought humans bred like horses. You decry the eugenic policy of the founders of planned parenthood, then ignore the pro-slavery history of the founders of the American Republic. Is the yank republic inherently flawed and evil because it was founded on the backs of slaves? Or did it grow and recognize it's earlier mistake?

A doctor who doesn't want to practice abortion doesn't have to, nor would he ever be forced to do so. Until that doctor had to decide if a medical procedure would end up saving the life of one patient or let both die. Pharmacists who don't want to dispense prescriptions because it's immoral should not have taken the job in the first place. In the 19th century there were quite the number of doctors who would refuse to prescribe painkillers to women who were giving birth due to biblical injunctions. If those doc's had their way, women wouldn't get epidurals during the painful birthing process. Ceasarians would only be preformed when the mother was about to die, or after the fetus had done so.

You're still missing the point that b/control has nothing to do with eugenics in today's world. It does have everything to do with removing the choice from the family as to how many children that family wants and can afford. Who the heck is the pharmacist to say that he/she won't provide a prescription that a doctor has given the patient? If the doc missed a potential lethal combo of drug then yes, the pharm has the right to question the drug. But in cases of b/c it's seldom fatal for the women or the men. On the other hand there are other reasons for the b/c to be given. Some women can not survive a pregnancy, some people have picked up an STD like Hep C or AIDS. You are arguing not only for an end to b/c but also in favour of spreading diseases that kill people in horrible ways.

In Africa today the catholic church is advocating genocide by denying the faithful the blessing of using condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS. People will not stop having sex, much as you'd like them to do so. Better they do it in a way that reduces harm as much as possible than to spread disease, or pop out so many children that starvation or infanticide ensues.

alaskamaid;

Proper function of excratory organs, eh? Never gonna give a blow job, or get head from your hubby? Don't realise that most of those who've died from AIDS are breeders like yourself? Go to hell.

skippyagogo...I don't know how many inter-racial marriages their were. I'm not omniscient enough or foolish enough to make the claim that there were none. Did the Catholic Church recognize such marriages as valid...of course. The truth is you again are living with blinders on. You focus the Church in America as if that is the whole Church which it is not. In America you had people excommunicated for supporting racism. In the World the Church had aften been witness and married many of different culters and races.

In Africa today the Catholic Church is trying to STOP the GENOCIDE of the pro-condom groups (hmmm like KKK and NAZI supporters planned parenthood..they never have chainged).

Why is it that wherever the pro-condom group is the problem of AIDS increased ever so???? Becuase its designed to. The failure of condoms to prevent HIV with a minor amount of promiscuity will created the statistical inevitability of pandemic infection. Math isn't your strong suit I know but please give it a try.

What does the Catholic Church tell the Africans... monogomous marriage, chastity. If one is infected does the Church tell them to put on a condom and hope they don't infect another? No. They tell them to remain chaste even in marriage. Why is it the Catholic Church where AIDS is concerned seems to be the only one acting like its an infection disease?
I'm not fooled by the pro-condom groups. They are the same racist, genocidal elites but with a brand new bag.

Just to be clear I'm stating emphatically that it's the condom promoting advocates that are the one promoting and ensuring genocide. T

In twenty years of using condoms I've never had an STD. Anyhow, I'm done with this thread.

As a licensed membe of a healthcare profession, I have always found it odd that we Americans claim education is the key to success and to a better life and healthy lifestyle, EXCEPT, when it comes to educationing ourselves, our children and our communities about sexuality and reproduction. Children, both male and female need a thorough education on the subject as well as the means to protect themselves against disease, debasment, violence and unwanted pregnancy. Doing any less is the main cause for all the misery surrounding reproduction. Abortion is just the tip of any uneducated, uninformed, misdirected iceberg that has been created to control and diminish the lives of women and scar the lives of our male children. Education and supervision of underaged children by parents and schools is the key to reducing abortion.

Pro-life, as I interpret its application in the U.S., refers exclusively to the life prior to its exiting the womb. Do I have that right? So, it is not really pro-life; it is pro-fetus. We seem to have no problem killing post-partem infants, their mothers, fathers, sisters, uncles, aunts, ad infinitum. And, what of the pregnant women who are at the terminal end of a bomb or bullet dropped/fired by one of our own self-appointed freedom fighters? Does that constitute abortion? This entire argument is never addressed. The so-called Roman Catholic Church denies the use of contraception of any sort, and only allows abstinence or carefully timed intercourse. As someone earlier mentioned, the sperm die by the millions following ejaculation, and only the one or two or so that actually enter the egg survive. What of the eggs that are not fertilized and exit the female as a "period"? Don't we owe them some protection? Perhaps we should harvest them and save them for future fertilization? Is this a ridiculous enough post, or would you like me to go on? I'm attempting to be as radical as I can to make a point. Don't know if I accomplished it. As for Brontosaurus, his/her posts have no rational point so I just skipped most of them.

Enjoyed the visit.

"I am Committed to Oneness through Justice and Transformation"
peace,
st john

st john said "Pro-life, as I interpret its application in the U.S., refers exclusively to the life prior to its exiting the womb. Do I have that right?So, it is not really pro-life; it is pro-fetus"

Actually no you don't have it right. You use the term pro-fetus. Why did you not accurately status human fetus....well that wouldn't be totally correct either as fetal is more of an understanding of stage of development in human life. When you people use 'fetus' what your really mean is 'untermensch' so why not be honest with yourselves?

All intentional killing is unjust. If you want to talk about just vs unjust war (if any war can be just) than that is a different topic. You could quite easily look at the volume of death. Doesn't 50 million children murdered through abortion evoke any kind of questioning? Nazi killed 6 million jews...america has killed 50 million children in this manner.

St John, People who wish to underscore responsible choice in families need to move away from the demonstrably false "pro-life vs. pro-choice" paradigm. Use "forced birth vs. responsible (pro) choice" instead, otherwise the image invokes a nonsensical "pro-death" position.

brontoburger: "Doesn't 50 million children murdered through abortion evoke any kind of questioning?"

What!? you are not going to talk about the millions of children lost *every day* when women have their periods? Go ahead, discuss why this occurs without evoking any sort of questioning by society.

brontoburger: "All intentional killing is unjust."

Hmmm, what about killing in self-defense? You might want to rephrase that position. Regardless, taking your sentiment in context, letting people die due to inaction is also unjust. Therefore, you might want to justify why it is okay to stand by and let all those human eggs die, when all we have to do is fertilize them.

Shaman - from your posts I see you've joined the ranks of the insane.

"Shaman - from your posts I see you've joined the ranks of the insane."

Finally, you understand what your position regarding abortion sounds like.

My 'position' regarding abortion is the only logical and sane one.

Just as it took showing the post WWII German people the truth of the holocost (pictures of the bodies and death) it will be the same in America as they are shown the truth of their own holocost picutures (pictures of bodies, death, and parts of babies.)