No Room for Contraception

by Katie Kish on Dec.01, 2006, under Abortion, Feminism, Sexism

Girls shouldn’t use contraception, you know. Never in my life have I been more anxious for Alon to wake his screwy-sleep-schedual-ed ass up to reply to a comment. I started a reply, but decided 1/2 way through that he would do much better and I would end up taking the too much attention away from his arguments - and I want to see this flush out. (And besides, he usually says exactly what I would say or he articulates it about 800 times more and is able to be more harsh than me.)

Whoever wrote this article needs to be summarily branded with an I, for idiot.

*giggles* Its times when he starts his analysis of a post like this when I remember why I like him so very very much. The person he is calling and idiot wrote this article. Don’t really bother reading it - just read whats on Alon’s post and know that the original article really is full of whack-job analysis (I’m mainly refering to the 70’s stuff) and the one moment in first year university I will never forget is when Cassie’s best friend walked up, stared at my door with graphs and BSA on it, and said "You know, correlation doesn’t imply causation". (It was only halarious because it was obviously bullshit on my door and she did this whole… mock-serious analysis of it.)

But personally, I think this article is the one we should all be having a good f’n giggle at.

Society has a lust affair with birth
control to the point of not being able
to think outside of the box. We live in
a contraception "matrix" where it’s
impossible to believe that there are any
harmful effects on marriage, society,
and the health of women. This
"contraception deception" is the primary
force behind the attacks against the
contra-contraception message.

For the most part, society doesn’t
want to hear the message. This message
is that, in our culture, contraception
leads to increases in abortion, teenage
sex, affairs (and subsequent divorce),
health problems, and statutory rape.
These facts are apparent by simply
comparing statistics.

Why are people willfully preserving
their ignorance? For the past century,
people have lived in a society that
endorses the practice of a contraceptive
lifestyle of easy, commitment free, and
on-demand sex without challenging them
to question possible adverse effects.

I lust for my birth control so much that I can’t wait to get back on it after my next period. But on a more serious note, I’m going to go ahead and say that its societies fault that we’re having more sex. "But contraception makes it easier!" …No, contraception makes it safer. Ever heard of pulling out? It works, but is far less effective than a condom or the pill or whatever.

The big problem with this article is that he assumes that living in a hyper-sexual society is a horrible bad thing. He also ignores the fact that condoms literally save lives. (…spread of disease, if you didn’t make the connection there.) However, if he reads this I know I’ll get a mouth full about the ‘pupose of sex’…:

While the pill
didn’t cause the sexual revolution, it
certainly amplified it and changed
people’s perception of the purpose of
sex.

Uh huh. The biological purpose of sex is to make babies. The recreation purpose of sex is to have orgasms. Not the lack of babies in the recreational side of it. Sure you can stop giving out contraception, if you want to see a HUGE boom in abortions and people getting STD/Is. The fact is, is that sex has been widely accepted as something that just… happens. Unless you’re part of a radical religious group that sucks all the fun out of life, then people aren’t saving themselves for marriage. They’re not pretending that they don’t feel sexual attraction to another person.

When I am with my non-partner/guy I really like, its not that I am making a decision to have sex with him because we have condoms handy… I feel a want inside of me, a sexual drive. I am sexuall attracted to him, so I want to have sex with him - but we don’t want a baby. So why should we push these desires to the back of our minds and pretend they don’t exist?

Paradoxically, the contraceptive
mentality does not foster increased
contraception use or perfect use of it.
Instead it fosters increased pre-marital
sex, with or without contraception.

First off, LoL @ paradoxically. Its called "lack of sex education" because wingnuts like people who want to cut people off from the option to have safe sex also want to cut kids off from learning about sex. If you want people to have a perfect use of contraception then give them proper sex education in school. Its completely pointless to try and keep sex covered up and mysterious in a society where it’s plastered all over everything. Kids/teens need to learn about sex, what happens if you don’t practice safe sex and reasons why you shouldn’t have sex until you’re ready. But instead they’re just told never to have sex and that’s the end of the story. …

The people that i met in university that were most sane about sex were the ones that had parents who taught them all about it. Sam’s mom talked to her kids about sex, taught them about sex and made sure they knew the ramifications of sex. …As a resault both of her kids are extremely safe and sane about sex. The people I knew in highschool that had shitty parents are the ones who get pregnant. The ones I met in university that got pregnant were the ones who were sheltered from sex their entire lives.

Just step off your religious high horse sometimes and realize that kids need to learn about life, and not just have a blind eye to it.

Easy
access, better compliance, and more
contraceptive funding – a formula that
has failed miserably at reducing
abortion over the past three decades.

Maybe if there actually was easy access, better compliance and more funding AND education then it would make a difference. This has never happened. …Condoms are fucking expensive. …But if I could get them for free in constant supply… woohoo. I’d be all over that. Birth control isn’t cheap either. If you don’t have health care it get get fairly hefty. Its not accessible at all. I think by comparing now to the 70’s is insane, honestly. Free Love man. Free love. Next thing you know, Ruben will be rippin’ into here telling me to stop smoking pot all the time because it is increasing my risk of chillin the eff out. …Maybe Ruben should give it a hit, non?

6 comments for this entry:

Ruben
December 1st, 2006 on 4:11 pm
>> Don’t really bother reading it - just read whats on Alon’s post and know that the original article really is full of whack-job analysis

First of all Alon’s post is full of problems and inaccuracies. I’ll post my response to his post below.

Second of all, advising people not to read it? Wow, so much for having an open mind!

It reminds me of the Wizard of Oz “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain”. Pay no attention to stats, facts, and cited sources - Just pay attention to the illusion that Alon’s post is factual. (BTW, most of the article’s sources are from the family planning movement)

So here is my reply to Alon’s post:

-

>> increases the risk of breast cancer (which it doesn’t), is rearing its head again.

One shouldn’t cite a single source from 2002 as proof that it doesn’t. The article we posted concerning breast cancer referenced 3 recent studies which were published/presented in the last year, all in peer reviewed and recognized publications. In addition it noted numerous studies over the past 20 years. Also the totality of the studies does show it does increase the risk.

Finally, the study you cite found no risk for women *OVER 35* - it does not summarily dismiss the risk for those under 35!! (The women who were interviewed were from 35-64 years of age) Try actually *reading* the proof you reference, and not a secondary source!! While you are at it, try actually reading the NRFC articles you critique.

>>Whoever wrote this article needs to be summarily branded with an I, for idiot. A person with at least some understanding of causation would say that contraception became unrestricted in the US about the same time as abortion, so the rates of usage of both increased in the 1970s.

Contraception use and failure rates have a definite impact on the number of abortions.

Consider this quote: “Contraceptive effectiveness exerts an increasingly important effect on abortion rates as prevalence increases—in other words, as contraceptive prevalence rises, contraceptive failure or misuse becomes a more important factor in determining abortion rates.” That wasn’t from some idiot, but from a published Guttmacher report.

Also note that the article tries to address one group of women: unmarried teens, aged 15-19. Each age group has different dynamics, and what affects one group may work the opposite in other groups. When possible, stats for unmarried teens aged 15-19 were used.

>>The part about pregnancy rates in the 1970s makes no sense. The article’s saying that contraception encouraged teenage sex, which encouraged teen pregnancy. …a reality-based individual would conclude based on the fact that the US teen pregnancy rate plummeted in the 1960s that contraception helps,

First of all your “plummeted” link was to a chart on birth rates, and not pregnancy rates. Second of all, that chart data contains both married and unmarried teens. When possible, each group should be addressed separately. Consider that the number of married teens declined significantly in 1960-1965 and continued a slower decline from 65-70…

The reality is, that when this is broken down by marital status, the rate for *married* teens dropped in the 60s, but not for unmarried teens — it rose. The article, when possible, tries to use figures for unmarried teens aged 15-19. This is a common practice among researchers….

>>while a hack would handwave a magical explanation why contraception actually increases the pregnancy rate.

I guess a hack would just react to the article without doing some thou rough research and without providing citable sources and figures for rebuttals. And I guess a hack would just cite a single 2002 *article* about a study as proof that the pill doesn’t cause breast cancer…

>>It’s no coincidence that the country that has the broadest sex education and has the strongest contraceptive mentality, the Netherlands, is also the one with the lowest teen pregnancy rate.

Notice that the article is about the US? Stick to the subject. In any event, there are numerous reasons for different scenarios in different countries. What happens in other countries is beyond the scope of this article.

Also consider that many contraceptives are believed to act as abortifacients by preventing implantation. ( Oh yea I forgot, this isn’t considered a pregnancy by hacks who define pregnancy as beginning at implantation. ) Though the number of pregnancies which might have been aborted this way is unknown, changing the time of abortion is not a real reduction is it?

>>Russia, which under Soviet rule had unrestricted abortion but very little contraception, had an enormously high abortion rate, which went down by more than 50% after contraceptives became readily available.

As stated above, this article is about the US, and the article is very clear about that. It is the contraceptive mentality that sex is for pleasure and that offspring are optional which drives the demand for abortion in the US. There are numerous other factors which drive abortion in other countries, including the contraceptive mentality
Kian
December 1st, 2006 on 6:28 pm
LoL its fun when people dismiss my tongue in cheek action for seriousness.

I already read your response at alon’s blog. tell me again why you had to post it here? I linked to it in my post…

…I’m still waiting for alon to post his response so that I can have a few giggles.
seriously - the entire basis of your program and belief is … geez louise. “talk about not having an open mind” …Its sex. What is so wrong with have sex!? especially SAFE sex.
Ruben
December 1st, 2006 on 7:38 pm
>>I’m still waiting for alon to post his response so that I can have a few giggles. seriously

The problem is that Alon didn’t do his homework in his first post and I think he basically boxed himself in a corner. ie, pointing to a chart of birth rates in his critique of my claims for PREGNANCY rates? (FYI, one of the differences between the two is that birth rates do not account for miscarraiges)

Obviously the guy has a good grip on this issue and he knew what he was talking about, especially the breast cancer angle, right? Wrong. And concerning the chart he points to — I mean, gee, he didn’t even know how analyses concerning pregnancy are handled by analyzing age groups, marital status, race, etc.

I’d like to see his reply too, though I suspect he won’t reply or it will be just as bad as his original post. Or maybe he’s praying to the flying spaghetti monster for some solid rebuttals… Or is it the flying garlic bread?
Allen
December 1st, 2006 on 10:43 pm
isnt the whole point of contraceptives to reduce the chance of getting pregnant and therefore not have to resort to abortions? i understand where you’re coming from but if we didnt have contraceptive, wouldnt that mean a higher rate of pregnancy? and then a higher rate of abortions, which you apperently are not a fan of. Or are you just not a fan of pre-marital sex? Just come out and say it “I am up tight and you kids should not have sex until you have rings on your finger!”.
Allen
December 1st, 2006 on 10:45 pm
One more comment…

“Chill man just take the pill…everyones doing it!!”
Kian
December 2nd, 2006 on 12:51 pm
Ruben…think about the stupidity of other religions before you go off mocking fake ones…thats the only thing I feel really deserves a response. …The thing about Alon is that he is tolerant of idiots and will reply really well. I won’t. I think alon did a fantastic job at calling you out on a lot of things that you just don’t want to accept.

allen, i love you. lets all take a pill.