Years ago a friend of mine said the Lord never meant us to march for life during the cold winter, that we should be marching on the anniversary of Griswold v. Connecticut in June (June 7, 1965). Why? Because Griswold is the Supreme Court ruling that overthrew all the laws against selling contraceptives (the Comstock Laws) and established the "penumbra" right to privacy which is nowhere enumerated in the Constitution. Griswold was the Executive Director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut. Like Roe, Griswold was a 7-2 decision that forbade all states in the U.S. from banning the sale of contraceptives. It's another example of the court legislating. It became the "privacy" decision used to overthrow all laws against abortion, which was always Planned Parenthood's not-so-hidden agenda.
Contraception is abortion's root. Anyone who claims to oppose abortion but supports contraception is foolish or a liar. Wherever contraception is promoted, abortions increase. More on that later. Michael Voris is absolutely right and it's high time we heard more preaching against contraception!
It is common knowledge that some contraceptive methods are abortifacients, so the abortion-contraceptive connection is easy to recognize. Perhaps subtler in its disguise but also gravely immoral and evil is the sterilizing effect of contraceptives upon marriage; this effect, I believe, has led to the clamor for "marriage" from homosexuals who want the same "right" to state-sanctioned sterile unions as heterosexuals. Griswold opened Pandora's box, and now the vices have spread across our country. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us.
ReplyDeleteI respectfully disagree with you. I think that a married couple can wisely choose to limit their family size and yet still remain pro-life. And there are often true medical reasons for not having more children. Should a married couple have to give up intimacy for the rest of their fertile years in that case? We are one of them. After 11 miscarriages and a stillbirth after having our living children, we made the very painful decision to accept that continuing to become pregnant was not only dangerous for me, but demoralizing for our whole family. It was not good for our children to continually see their mother sick and their parents sad and heartbroken. And since we were, in the words of our NFP coach, the exception that proved the rule of NFP (having gotten pregnant while nursing and using NFP), we chose a permanent option. Far from sterilizing our marriage, it has been marriage-saving for us and we have found much grace in our living children. The journey has also taught me that there are few absolutes in life - that being open to having children does not necessarily mean one will have them.
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ReplyDeleteLet me say first of all how sorry I am for all the pain and suffering you experienced with child loss. That is a great grief I know from seeing my daughter lose three babies and my sister deliver a late term son stillborn.
Life is hard and filled with pain.
Nevertheless, the Church teaching on human sexuality is that contraception and sterilization are ALWAYS wrong. So you are not disagreeing with me, but with the Church.
As for getting pregnant while nursing, I am an NFP teacher and no well-trained teacher will tell you that you can't. There are rules for nursing moms for exactly that reason. My husband and I used NFP after our first baby and had four more children, so I used it while nursing four times. I always had a return of fertility before I stopped nursing and I accurately predicted the onset of my first period following childbirth. That convinced me of its effectiveness. I also used it during chemo when I had cancer and my cycles went crazy, varying between 17 and 70 days. From my own experience, I am convinced women can use it under difficult and challenging situations. I certainly did not want to get pregnant during chemo since the drugs attack the fastest growing cells.
NFP is challenging but it is not impossible. In 15 years of teaching, we never had a couple who could not use it successfully to space pregnancies, although some had to accept more abstinence than others.
Your argument about absolutes is the same one used by women who believe in "their cases" abortion is justified. In fact, it's the same argument used by many to justify whatever it is they want to do that is forbidden by God's laws.
Agreed... I disagree with the Church as I believe it fails on this matter.
ReplyDeleteAnd, I too, used NFP for many years, to conceive and space pregnancy. It just stopped working for us as my body stopped producing the necessary signs. And after 449 days of celibacy, waiting for those signs to return... we made a decision that was right for our marriage and that I will happily defend to any who ask.
Peace.
Life is short; eternity is long and life is filled with suffering and challenges. Many have faced forced celibacy because of health or infirmity.
ReplyDeleteWomen's fertility ends with menopause and since you say you used NFP "for many years" perhaps your lack of signs were related to pre-menopause and onset of permanent infertility.
In any case, the Lord has asked some people to accept heroic suffering. Is celibacy any more difficult than St. Therese's tuberculosis or Celie Martin's cancer and early death? If a person has a stroke and is no longer able to have relations is the marriage covenant no longer binding?
In the end, it is the Lord who judges and I plan to throw myself on His mercy for my own many sins.
Chesterton once said something like, "Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it's been found difficult and left untried." The test of our love of God is found, not during times of joy and ease, but in times of difficulty and suffering.
Yes, life is full of suffering and challenges. Believe me, celibacy was not nearly as difficult as burying three tiny caskets and having 9 other losses too small for that. It was not even as difficult as being in the hospital without my living children for 15 days receiving blood transfusions after the last miscarriage and hemorrhage.
ReplyDeleteWhile I appreciate your concern for my soul, I am at peace with our decision and have absolutely no doubt that it did not jeopardize my eternal life at all.
Having to look forward to chemo at 30 years of age and my third child being only two months old...I understand the difficulty with accepting NFP. But I have no issue with abstinence. In fact, I think it's society that has the problem with it. After so many miscarriages and medical problems, I understand you are disheartened to the thought of pregnancy. But like Sarah in the bible who conceived in her old age....what if God were to give you one more healthy child after all that? No one knows God's plan for our lives.
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