Are Artificial Contraception Foes Anti-Sex?

Today’s Top Five

1. The New York Times Magazine looks at the contraception wars First the good news: The cover story of this weekend’s The New York Times Magazine picks up on the growing Protestant discomfort with artificial contraception. It’s an important developing story that few major mainstream media sources have picked up on.

The bad news is that Russell Shorto’s 8,000-word article is horribly underreported, contains glaring errors, and essentially paints critics of artificial contraception as anti-sex.

Shorto is right that religious conservative Protestants have been increasingly critical about the 1965 contraception case Griswold v. Connecticut, and that recent technologies (especially the emergency contraceptive pill) have forced them to reconsider facile support of earlier technologies (like the non-emergency pill). And he’s right in his implication that Catholic-Protestant alliances in the abortion wars (and the reasoning in Pope John Paul II’s writings) have also had a dramatic effect.

But for those who have actually been watching this happen, it’s like reading a U.S. history text that talks about the American Revolution without also talking about colonialism, Reconstruction without the Civil War, and World War II without World War I. Or like trying to read a subway map that only names four stops. His connect-the-dots puzzle only has the numbers 3, 8, 24, and 31, and the only crayon in his box is labeled “anti-sex.”

“The issue is partly — but only partly — one of definition,” Shorto says. Well, perhaps partly, but if the thesis of your story is that those who only opposed abortion now oppose contraception, it’s an important part of your story to define which is which. Pro-lifers who have said “protect life at the point of conception” have always meant fertilization. That’s because pretty much everyone equated fertilization and conception. It has only been very recently—and largely due to groups supporting emergency contraception, in vitro fertilization, and embryonic research—that some have wanted to redefine conception to mean uterine implantation.

Indeed, this article could have as easily been written as “How the Left Has Divorced Sex and Pregnancy.” At the least, it should have been “How the Right Is Reuniting Sex and Pregnancy” instead of “The Latest Salvo in the Right’s War on Sex.”

In Shorto’s view of “The War on Conception,” there’s only one side (an “outer fringe” that’s “moving in the opposite direction from much of the rest of the world”) at war. He sees a liberated, science-minded, politically innocent mainstream under attack, shocked, as his closing quote says, that “here in the U.S., people are still arguing about whether it’s okay to have sex.”

You can color the story with that crayon, but it’s both acrimonious and wrong. The debate over contraception isn’t about “whether it’s okay to have sex” but rather about what sex is. That Shorto dismisses natural family planning in one phrase and says it is “otherwise known as the rhythm method” (the rhythm method is to NFP what a bubble mower is to landscaping) demonstrates that he was less interested in reporting or in understanding an actual newsworthy development than he was in scaring his readers with another malicious article to support the theocracy thesis.

2. Sudan government, Darfur rebels sign peace planIt’s “major progress in an internationally backed effort to end the death and destruction in western Sudan,” says the Associated Press, adding, “Optimism over the deal was muted by their absence and a history of failure to live up to agreements struck over two years of negotiations in the Nigerian capital.” One must always balance hope and realism when talking about such a resolution to genocide. Only one rebel group signed the accord: two other groups refused. But even peace comes soon to Darfur (miracles happen), The New Republic‘s Eric Reeves reminds us that the tragedy of Darfur is far from over:

It is in the long term … that the genocide’s perpetrators will have their true victory: They have not only killed individuals, but also destroyed an entire way of life. Attackers have targeted men and boys; this will make it particularly difficult for traditionally male-led farming communities to reconstitute themselves. Moreover, children who come of age during the genocide will not have learned the agricultural skills necessary for survival in this unforgiving land. As a result, agricultural life in Darfur will be seriously compromised for the foreseeable future.

And, if those communities cannot reconstitute themselves, even after the killing has ended—then what? Boys, seething with anger at what they have suffered, are ripe for recruitment into Darfur’s insurgency movements. … A decade from now, the larger [refugee] camps will almost certainly still exist in some form. They will likely become ghastly suburbs; this, at any rate, is what happened to the camps around Khartoum, where hundreds of thousands of southern Sudanese—displaced by decades of civil war—have more or less given up on the chance of returning to their homes. It will be a long time before life in Darfur returns to normal—if it ever does.

3. Judge throws out Christian frat’s UNC suitWhat’s unclear from news reports is why the case was still going forward. Alpha Iota Omega members sued the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2004 after they were required to sign the school’s nondiscrimination policy. In March 2005, UNC changed its policy, granting recognition to “student organizations that select their members on the basis of commitment to a set of beliefs.” The Alliance Defense Fund told The News & Observer that it was disappointed that the case had been dismissed, but didn’t say why. Is it not enough for the school to change its policy? Must we also have a judge saying that it had to, even though the point is moot?

4. Blast those foreigners!Doug Mendenhall has an interesting take on the immigration debate in his Huntsville Times column:

The great melting pot is lumpy. It threatens to boil over. America has a problem. Millions upon millions of people in this country do not really belong here.

They are not true citizens in the sense that their primary allegiance is not to the red, white and blue.

They act as if this country’s laws are not the final authority in their lives.

They have their own culture, and if America tries to get them to give it up and embrace something more palatable to the rest of its people, they buck and resist as if they are the injured party.

They act as if they share more camaraderie with people in far-off lands than with other Americans. They’re always leaving on jaunts to those other countries. Or sending off every U.S. dollar they can squeeze out of their wallets to make life better for those foreigners they love so much.

Many in these United States believe it won’t be long until the nation rises up and tosses out these irritating millions, or at least tells them collectively to shut up and keep their weird ways to themselves.

I am speaking, of course, about Christians.

Heh heh. Nice work, Doug.

5. New jerseys So the Birmingham Steeldogs are having a “faith night,” and players were going to wear jerseys with Bible names on them. But the Arena Football League officials said they can only wear them during warm-ups and post-game festivities, not during the game itself. More evidence of the war on Christians! Soon Alabama football “faith night” will be replaced by public exhibitions of the faithful being torn apart by lions and such. You mark my words. The Christian band Audio Adrenaline, which is playing before the game, and the Christian school program that will get the money from the jerseys being auctioned should boycott at such a blatant display of anti-Christian bigotry. As someone once said, “They came for the gimmicky minor league arena football jerseys, but I did not say anything because I was not a gimmicky minor league arena football jersey.” The world is watching. Which side are you on?

Quote of the day “Islamic terrorists are not a figment of anyone’s imagination.”

—Cardinal George Pell, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Sydney, Australia, defending his comments the Qur’an contains “invocations to violence.”

Sexual ethics and life ethics | Homosexuality | Education | Church and state | Politics | Immigration | Sudan | China-Vatican relations | Catholicism | Abuse | Crime | Christianity and Islam | Books | Entertainment | Birmingham Arena Football Faith Night | Other stories of interest

Sexual ethics and life ethics:

Contra-contraception | A growing number of conservatives see birth control as part of an ailing culture that overemphasizes sex and devalues human life. Is this the beginning of the next culture war? (Russell Shorto, The New York Times Magazine)
Unwanted pregnancies rise for poor women | Rate drops for those well above poverty level, report indicates (The Washington Post)
Use of contraception drops, slowing decline of abortion rate | Contraception use has declined strikingly over the last decade, particularly among poor women, making them more likely to get pregnant unintentionally (The New York Times)
Nun puts the ‘red card’ on forced prostitution at World Cup | activists prepare for increased sex trade and forced prostitution as World Cup approaches (ABC News/ESPN)
Driving force | A Wakefield woman gathers support for a state license plate urging adoption over abortion, but critics decry the effort as politically charged (The Boston Globe)
‘Designer baby’ bid gets go-ahead | A couple from Leicester have been given permission by the fertility watchdog to have a “saviour sibling” in a bid to help their sick 20-month-old daughter (BBC)
Also: Q&A: Helping a sick sibling | The process, the legality, the history, and other issues (BBC)
Barren considerations | “Every Child a Wanted Child” is the long-time slogan from the Planned Parenthood/National Organization for Women crowd. It’s also the rationale behind a top bioethicist’s belief that the government should pressure people with low IQs to get sterilized (Mark Stricherz, National Review Online)

﻿﻿New to CT?

Share

Today’s Top Five

Sign up for The Daily Briefing

More articles

Related Elsewhere:

Share

Our Latest

New to CT?