Friday, February 24, 2012
The Big Lie about Catholic Women and Contraception
Would anyone be surprised to find that Planned Parenthood was "cooking the books" in order to support their big lie? The 98% claim about Catholic women using contraception comes from the Guttmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood's research arm. Anyone with a little knowledge of the history of the abortion movement knows that statistics were made up and disseminated with the assistance of a sympathetic media. Nothing has changed except the lies get bigger and bolder.
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I did my own survey with a group of about 24 women that meet as a group at our parish. The women range in age from late twenties to early fifties. I just had each woman answer two questions anonymously. I thought we would blow the contraception "myth" out of the water when the question was asked to a group of women who are active in the church. I was surprised at the results. About 88% (21 out of 24) said that they used contraception (barrier, chemical, or sterilization) in their marriage during their childbearing years. Of course my survey was not scientific, but I thought we'd get a much lower number. It did make for a very lively and interesting discussion.
ReplyDeleteI think the results would depend on the question. I imagine many, many Catholic women would say yes if you asked, "Did you ever use contraception during or before your marriage?" When you consider the confusion in the Church and the failure to preach Humanae Vitae...well...what can one say. I think if you asked Catholic women in their child-bearing years today if they are using contraception, you would get a lower number for a range of reason. Many Catholic women are more orthodox than their moms at the same age -- consider the Catholic homeschool movement's connection to orthodoxy. Then the connection of artificial hormones to breast cancer is better known. Many women would avoid the pill to protect their own health. Barrier methods can damage the cervix but are not nearly as dangerous as the hormones.
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting to have a real study on this. But what would really be great is our shepherds preaching the good news of Humane Vitae.
I put a post on Facebook about this on Feb. 19:
ReplyDeleteRecently there has been a big flap about a statement by the Guttmacher Institute that 98% of Catholic women use contraception.
I distrust that figure -- not as a Catholic but as a statistician. Here are some questions I want to see answered before I believe the figure:
1, How large was the sample size?
2, How old were the women? -- reproductive years only?
3, Were the ages taken singly or in groups?
4, Were the women single, married, divorced, or what?
5, Do they have children already? How many?
6, Were they regular churchgoers or not? How regular?
7, Were age, marital status, and church attendance all cross-indexed?
8, What kind of contraception -- barrier, chemical, IUD, NFP, other, none?
(We're talking about maybe 1500 subgroups; for example: women 25-30, married, 2+ kids, go to church every week, use NFP)
9, Did every subgroup have a large enough sample size to do a Z test instead of a T test?
10, What was the confidence level for each of the predictions?
11, What was the margin of error (in percentage points) for each prediction?
As someone said, "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics."
The only answer that addressed the question was from a young woman who sent me a PDF copy of the AGI report. I found that statistically inadequate also.
(The other answers were mostly anti-Catholic retorts.)
I did number-crunching part- and full-time for 27 years with MnDOT, and I had the equivalent of four college-level courses in statistics, so I think I know what I'm talking about.