Could Abortion Opponents Embrace Contraception?
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Andrew Sullivan careens very close to revelation about the anti-choice movement today, asking, "What are the odds that the Christianists are prepared to do the one thing that would actually reduce abortions dramatically: guarantee free contraception as part of a public option." Answer: somewhere between zilch and nada. The Christianist movement that brought you abstinence-only education doesn't feel much better about contraception than they do abortion.
Dan Savage is right; the organized anti-choice movement is motivated by the desire to punish what they consider deviant sexuality much more than they are motivated by any love of fetal life. It's been well-observed by pro-choice activists for a long time that anti-choice activists, given the choice between punishing sex and reducing the abortion rate, will choose the former every time. The anti-choice movement's hostility towards contraception is an open secret; most people on both sides of the debate know about it, but anti-choice activists also know better than to flaunt their hatred of contraception when trying to woo people on the issue of abortion. As I discovered when an anti-choice handbook fell into my hands, activists are instructed to dodge questions about their hostility to contraception early in conversations, and put a great deal of work into softening targets up before hitting them with appeals against not just abortion, but contraception.
But for anyone who cares to know, the anti-choice movement's larger anti-birth control agenda isn't that hard to figure out. Some groups take a "moderate" stance of refusing to take an official stance on contraception, while quietly promoting misinformation about it. Some groups openly flaunt their desire to ban contraception; the American Life League holds annual protests against legal contraception on the anniversary of Griswold v. Connecticut, the 1965 Supreme Court decision that legalized contraception for married couples. Abstinence-only programs instigated by the religious right are rife with flagrant misinformation about contraception straight out of anti-choice mythology. If there's any angle prominent anti-choice activists can use to take potshots at contraception, they will. Knowing as we do that access to contraception reduces the abortion rate (duh), the only honest conclusion is that the "pro-life" movement doesn't care about the abortion rate so much as they care that women can get abortions without fear of punishment.
Incidentally, this is one reason I prefer the term "anti-choice" to "pro-life". In the public at large, "pro-life" is a feel-good term adopted by people who have no knowledge of the radical anti-sex bent of the anti-choice movement. In fact, many people who self-identify as "pro-life" oppose banning abortion, and many have abortions themselves. Calling yourself "pro-life" has as much weight in the real world as going on the record as believing that divorce is sad; you may want to be on the record as pro-marriage, but you'd get a divorce if you needed one. We need to distinguish between those attracted to the feel-good "pro-life" term, and activists out to ban abortion and severely restrict contraception access.
Comments
Solution already seemed in place for me
By: Kapt Z | Fri, 10/16/2009 - 13:30
If we just said OK, FINE! Abortion is legal. Those who want one can get it those who don't won't be forced to.
Stress abstinence as the only true way to avoid both STDs and pregnancy, then teach safe-sex methods so those that might want to have sex anyway will know how to protect themselves.
No one has to get in anyone else's business and we could all move on to other things.
It couldn't be that simple? Could it?
Nice
By: phpeter | Fri, 10/16/2009 - 07:14
I always enjoy other people telling me what I really believe and how I believe it. Sure, there are people who are against contraception, but that is such a small percentage of the poplulation that I am not certian it is even noteworthy except for discussion sake. That doesn't mean that the small % has a strong lobbying effort, but it truly does not represent a representative segment of the population. I am personally pro-life, I am for whatever can reduce unwanted pregnancies and thus reduce the number of abortions. I also believe there should be choice to have sex or not (first and most important choice), to use protection or not, to have the baby or not. Frankly, if somebody doesn't have a moral issue with killing their baby, then there is nothing I can say or do that will correct that, it is up to them to work it out.
The big issue with sex ed classes is that most either view it as abstinence vs. contraception...it is both people. Abstinance (the choice to have sex) is the very first decision, but not the last. If that choice sets you on a path, then how does one do that responsibly...contraception. The problem is that lobbiyists both sides are so hunkered down that NIETHER is concerned with the outcome, they are only concerned with their own beleifs. For one side, the author, to claim otherwise is just intelectually dishonest. Lastly, there is too much money wrapped up in this to find an actual solution. Womens groups collect millions each year spooking women about their rights being taken away while some pro life groups fill their coffers about the death of babies. If a legitimate solution and compromise were worked towards, both sides would lose millions of dollars, so their is no interest in finding a solution here...just more complaing, name calling and misinformation (such as this article).
You might not have met these people
By: igardner | Thu, 10/15/2009 - 17:22
@Lyssa Lovely Redhead:
I grew up in a very evangelical protestant christian church, and that's where you find the people who are anti-contraception. As much as the catholic church has explicit and formal prohibitions on contraception, the majority of practicing Catholics seem to take that with a grain of salt. While I left the church a long time ago, I actually have a lot of respect for the attitude of the Catholics (in general, or at least the ones I know) in their pro-life feelings. Many of them seem genuinely motivated by a belief that every fetus deserves to live, but are not so inflexible that they can't see things rationally.
In the conservative protestant churches, though, you often don't find that same kind of flexibility (especially when it comes to the more informal denominations, like Baptists, Pentacostals, etc.). That's where you find people who are literally anti-sex. During youth group I attended as a teenager, one of my friends asked whether masturbation was a sin. The pastor said, "Your body is a temple and God's home; it would be a sin to masturbate in church, wouldn't it? So, yes, masturbation is a sin." At the Christian high school I went to, we were told that any form of non-vaginal sex was deviant. And we were definitely told that condoms were ineffective, the pill had led to the demise of marriage (including some salatious details about the woman who invented the pill) and that other forms of contraception could make you sterile. So, yeah, anti-sex.
I carefully noted
By: Amanda Marcotte | Thu, 10/15/2009 - 17:10
That individuals who identify as "pro-life" rarely have well thought-out political opinions, or much of an opinion on contraception. Unfortunately, the organized anti-choice movement obejcts to contraception. That your mother and even your church fits into the hazy first category doesn't negate the existence of the second. The apolitical people who call themselves "pro-life" aren't the political lobby that exerts pressure on laws. The people who want to ban birth control are.
Unless you are going to object to the piles of evidence we've marshaled on the grounds that we're "leftists".
"The anti-choice movement's
By: Lyssa Lovely Redhead | Thu, 10/15/2009 - 17:08
"The anti-choice movement's hostility towards contraception is an open secret; most people on both sides of the debate know about it, but anti-choice activists also know better than to flaunt their hatred of contraception when trying to woo people on the issue of abortion."
OK, this impression/myth/assertion frustrates me to no end. I'm a life-long Catholic; I live in a very conservative part of the country; my family is very pro-life. I have literally never met ANYone who is actually against contraception. My mother, who is a single issue voter and completely single minded on the subject, had her tubes tied and has never expressed any objections to my use of the pill (and believe me, she would).
I've met a few people who assert that it is not the choice for them and practice natural family planning (which, with modern science, is actually just barely under the pill in success-rates). But, even in my (Catholic) pre-marital counseling, they only suggested NFP; they said that it was a choice, not a sin, to decide against it.
The only places that I have ever seen stories against birth control use come from leftist writers who are anxious to characterize anti-abortionists as "anti-choice" (my choice is the pill, thanks) or to paint every last person who values life as a clinic bomber.
(I am, of course, not saying that anti-contraception-ists don't exist; I am only asserting that they are extremely rare, to the point of not being worth worrying about at all, and that "feminists" are either mistaken or dishonest when they assert that anti-abortion and anti-contraception are (close to) one in the same).
How to tell if someone is pro-life or anti-sex:
By: Vegemighty | Thu, 10/15/2009 - 16:14
If a pro-lifer is willing to make an exception for rape/incest, then that pretty well indicates that they are more anti-sex than pro-life. If abortion is murder, then the fetus conceived by rape is no more deserving of murder than any other fetus. But if someone is unwilling to permit the murder of one fetus and perfectly willing to permit the murder of another, then clearly the concern is not about murder, the fetus, or "life", but about the act of conception.
Now of course there ARE those who truly oppose ALL abortions. That's another discussion altogether
Some prominent person back in the 60s or 70s dubbed...
By: janeslogin | Thu, 10/15/2009 - 15:12
Some prominent person back in the 60s or 70s dubbed the anti-abortion persons as "pro-birth". He would follow "pro-birth" with "They don't give a damn about life"
I have always felt that way when I read or hear about the abortion controversies.