Arrrggghhhhh!  I am so weary of these comments from those outside the Church who want to tell me how to feel about my body and my life. 
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They claim they have all the freedom in the word but Ms. Heath’s own words say different.  And my own life tells the same story you relate here - contraception is the trap and the lie.
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I am one of who knows how many Catholics who once used contraception.  I truly did not know better as my parents, the couples leading our pre-Cana and even Catholic friends never said anything about contraception and the fact that the Church taught otherwise.  While I admit, we might have been resistant to that teaching way back then, we (my dh and I) were not given a choice to decide for ourselves.  We tells others it was the time of “don’t ask, don’t tell” in the Catholic Church.
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We have three contraception babies - one each from the Pill, the diaphragm and condoms!  At a point of talking surgical sterilization we met a few NFP couples and a priest who told us in no uncertain terms that we were wandering outside of the Church in our use of contraception.
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It was not an easy walk back but we did it.  I never felt so strong as when I came to learn just what my body was capable of doing month to month.  To watch the ebb and flow of fertility (corny, I know but so real) and talk with my husband, pray to God and seek His path for us was amazing.
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The rest of our story is being played out as I type.  Yes, more children came put all in union with God and His plan.  Can’t tell you how good that feels!

I just saw on the local news last night, a woman from NARAL talking about how the Catholic church’s response to the HHS mandate makes it crystal clear that there’s a war on women.  What a lie!  A war on women just because employers don’t want to pay for something that that is against their moral beliefs.  There are lots of things my employer doesn’t want to pay for, but I don’t view that as a war on me.  If any war is going on here, it’s a war between a woman and her unborn child, and that is truly tragic.

The problem with NFP in the United States is that it is often associated with John Kippley and the Couple to Couple League. Kippley is a theologian, not a medical professional, and he has used NFP to promote his very traditional and very conservative Catholic views. (Although Kippley and CCL have split, CCL retains many of Kippley’s ideals.) Young Catholics first introduced to the method through these groups often get a heavy-handed dose of morality that is above and beyond what the Church requires before they get to the science of the method. Not surprisingly, many run for the hills. 
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Furthermore, Kippley and CCL teach an older method of NFP that may require more abstinence than newer methods, especially in cases of irregular cycles or breastfeeding. Neither Kippley nor CCL has kept up with the science.
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It does not have to be that way. The science is not exclusively Catholic. Several groups promote fertility awareness from a secular, feminist perspective. Mother Teresa’s nuns taught the Billings Method to illiterate (and presumably non Catholic) Indian peasants.
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In other words, if Catholics want to promote NFP to a modern audience (and “fertility awareness” is a far better term than NFP, but I digress) they need to show how this lifestyle benefits couples and have the science to back it up. Threats of hellfire, appeals to Church authority, and questionable psuedoscience are not going to cut it.

@Rachel W.: I find it ironic how many people insist that “NFP doesn’t work” when they have had a “little surprise” or two with contraception.
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NFP works quite well to avoid pregnancy IF YOU FOLLOW THE RULES. Of course, following the rules is not always easy, but if you marked the day with a baby stamp, you should know full well what that evening could lead to.

wonderfully done, Jen!  Thank you for being the voice of all of us FREE Catholic women who embrace, and are so thankful for, the Church’s teaching on that women are NOT objects, sex is beautiful, children are a blessing!

I’m a 20-something-year-old cradle Catholic from South Africa. Here, we are still very much in the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ time as Rachel W. puts it.

There are little hopeful signs that this will begin to change in the coming years and my friends and I draw strength from the blogs of NFP-practicing American women such as Jennifer and Simcha - your impact and influence is magnificently wider than you can even imagine!

Re: Posted by Jim on Wednesday, Apr 18, 2012 8:15 AM (EST) “Furthermore, Kippley and CCL teach an older method of NFP that may require more abstinence than newer methods, especially in cases of irregular cycles or breastfeeding. Neither Kippley nor CCL has kept up with the science.”

This is not true.  Jim must not have used their manuals and updated information on breastfeeding, the postpartum period and perimenopause.  I personally know Baptist couples using these manuals - yes!  20- and 30-something protestants who are seeing through the lie of contraception.

Freedom, arghhhh.
What a wonderful freedom it is…at the expense of another person’s life. And that another person is your flesh and blood. Why stop with unborn children? Why not just kill your grandma, aunt, brother, neighbour, anyone who’s disturbing your precious freedom. Because you are the most important man/woman in the world.
A world with billions gods. What a terrible, boring place.
Now it seems to me that “Brave New World” is optimistic :-((

Perfect.  Thanks for posting this!

“It is a poverty that a child must die so that a person can live as she wants.” Mother Teresa

@Jim!!! Can you tell me where to find information on the most recent NFP medical developments?  My wife and I learned NFP from CCL about 12 years ago.  Has there been development since then?

I agree with Jim above. My husband and I took classes from the Couple to Couple League after we already had two children. The classes were good, and a lot of the Catholic teaching stuff was good, but there was also a bit of what struck us at the time as fanaticism. I still remember a story in their newsletter about a couple in some third world country being terrified that they were going to Hell after finding that they hadn’t been taught that contraception was wrong, and being advised that they would now be attacked by Satan through spiritual warfare. Whatever one’s views of these things, surely we can all agree that they might freak out a young couple not familiar with them! I remember thinking that the method was so easy to use, cheap, and sensible that it ought to appeal to a lot of people, but that I never wanted to hear another word from the Couple to Couple League. There was not much in CCL literature in the way of understanding how people could be well-meaning but wrong. I thought they could have presented the same information (scientific AND theological) in a way that would appeal to people and not scare them away. The idea that sex has a purpose and going along with that purpose is freeing and good is, it seems to me, a powerful one missing in our society.

Jim, I don’t think you are up to date with CCL.  They have a recently updated methodology, taking advantage of all the latest science on the matter.  Also, I have no idea what you could mean about “his very traditional and very conservative Catholic views” that go “above and beyond Church teaching.”  I not only took the course as written by the Kippleys but taught it for several years before the update.  I never saw anything out of line with Church teaching.  The moral aspects of the class were much needed, as most of the couples needed convincing, since they were made to be there by their pre-cana priest.  We could teach the method, but if they aren’t convinced they should actually learn it, what’s the point?

Creighton Model Fertiltiy cycle charting is what my family is doing and it works. NFP Teacher is awesome and I thank God for her. I am happy and free and worthy of motherhood in dignity and respected by my husband and family for living with my fertility without drugs or condoms or other methods of contra.

I am truly blessed to have converted in 2004 into the Roman Catholic Church.

Thanks for the article.

And on a different note, the NFP helps infertile couples and NaPro technology, way way better success rate than invitro.  Just shows natural processes are better.

I love the term “fertility awareness” or something along that line…“fertility mastery” something like that.  I just can’t get why these liberal feminists think it is so wrong to know ones body and honor ones rhythm… To me it’s as liberal as fighting GMOs and factory farming. And heck, I’m a woman, why can’t they trust I know “what’s right for me?”

I was an evangelical Christian when I had a tubal ligation at age 38.  My daughter was born via c-section, so it made sense to have the additional procedure at the time, or so I was told.  What I wasn’t told are the associated risks with having my tubes tied.  Even if I weren’t now a Catholic, I would be upset to learn of the increased cancer and other related health risks that come of playing with God’s grand design.  It’s a huge lie to think that contraception brings freedom.  How I wish I had that awful decision to do over.

As a 27 yr wife and one half of a CCL Teaching Couple who has been incredibly blessed by their work since I was married 2 and a half years ago, one of the challenges I have found is the debate about one NFP method being ‘better’ than another or one organizations way being superior. We need to support any and all methods of modern NFP (and those who teach them) be they mucus-only (Billings or Creighton), sympto-thermal (CCL, NW Family services, other organizations), Marquette or some other one. Different life circumstances will mean that certain methods will be more suited to the needs of different women/couples than other methods. Recognizing this fact doesn’t mean you have to put down other methods. We need to be encouraging one another and spreading the word, not cutting down what others are trying to do (as long as they aren’t teaching heresy). Although thoughtful and charitable critique is often necessary for improvement, the emphasis must be on speaking truth with charity.
And just to confirm what others have said, CCL realized that their method could be simplified and yet equally effective and so they totally revamped how they teach their classes in 2008(integrating Theology of the Body into the class, yet putting the main focus on teaching the method) and streamlined the method based on the latest science available. Any current member can take an upgrade class, which explains the new changes, for free. If you are not currently a member, resign up. If you want to find other methods that may work better for your family, I would encourage you to do so. I just ask that you don’t attack an organization which is trying to share the good news of the Church’s teaching with a world desperately in need of it and support those who practice it when they are faced with the challenges of living out what the Church calls them too.

Jessica, thanks for the update!  I took the CCL class in 2007 and found it impossible to manage with two young babies at home and in desperation resorted to barrier methods.  I’m glad it was simplified, because I found it very one sided (my husband had no idea how he was actually “helping”) and over technical (I’m not a doctor!). Having been healed of the whole contraception bout, and having welcomed our third, I am curious to find out the simplifications, as they may be less intimidating.  That being said, thank you for the work you do!  You work saves marriages and babies and glorifies the body of Christ. God bless you and your husband in your mission to reflect the creative power of God for all!

To quote Gail, “The idea that sex has a purpose and going along with that purpose is freeing and good is, it seems to me, a powerful one missing in our society.”

Yes! It has a purpose to make babies. And I totally understand when planning the size of your family, how an unexpected pregnancy can put a major kink in your future plans. Yes, you can even feel “trapped” by the natural consequences of YOUR physical actions. This is where I get very tired of hearing how we “need to educate women” on their bodies…etc.

What about educating MEN! It is men that put on the sexual pressure! And husbands! Parents: teach your young men how to respect a woman’s body, that it is not just for their pleasure on demand, its main purpose is to create another life. Teach boys, men, husbands! We cannot do this without men’s cooperation. Boys will be boys and men will be men is the degrading mentality still today, and this is why the average woman was and is accepting of contraception. (I have 4 daughters, my DH and I use NFP, but we still have our challenges in following all the rules. I don’t look forward to the day when I have to release my girls to fend for themselves against the secular mentality today. Finding respectable men will be like a needle in a haystack.)

Please check out www.fertilitycare.org
A practitioner is available in most areas of the country and can help figure out whatever is at issue in the realm of fertility. It is a gift.

LadyComp is a new device that keeps track of a woman’s cycle to make NFP easier. They are a bit pricey, but makes it easier to keep track of things.

We took the CCL course in 2006, so that was before the rewrite. Perhaps the newer material is better. Kippley himself seems to be teaching what he has always been teaching with a new organization. This material was based on research from the 1970s and made little use of the work of the Drs. Billings and Dr. Hilgers. Perhaps this has changed, but the old CCL material still used old rhythm calculations to calculate Phase 1 and does not have good rules for handling off-and-on mucus patches.
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We have also learned Creighton, which has its own drawbacks. The “standardization” didn’t match what my wife was seeing and we never quite understood what was going on. Furthermore, our Creighton teacher was NOT awesome. YMMV. Billings is quite well supported by the science, and relatively easy to learn and seems to work for us. (That being said, any mucus only method is going to be more prone to user error so we do add the BBT cross-check, just to be safe. Nevertheless, the mucus, not the BBT, is the primary marker of fertility.)
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My problem about the “above and beyond” is that at least back then the idea promoted by CCL was that a couple was not only supposed to avoid artificial methods, but was supposed to adopt attachment parenting, ecological breastfeeding, and were encouraged to have large families. Homeschooling was also encouraged. While none of this contradicts Catholic teaching, none of this is required either. The last four Popes came from families of four children or fewer. The material was VERY Catholic, unintentionally implying that Catholic teaching was the only reason for following the method. The science of fertility awareness should stand on its own without having to be propped up by doctrine or the idea of Church authority. This may have changed, but the older CCL material was lacking.

@Gail Finke:  THANK YOU!!! That was exactly our reaction to Couple to Couple League!  They may have changed since then, but that was certainly the case back then.

There is a war on women and womanhood…chemical warfare…contraception!

The word freedom is often used instead of a more accurate word: selfishness.

“Then, when the contraception fails, as it so often does, they find themselves feeling trapped, perceiving that their only escape is through the doors of an abortion facility. This, to me, does not look like freedom.”

Obviously, then, an answer could be fool-proof contraception, such as exists right now in trial form.  Reversible inhibition of sperm via a shot to the vas deferens has 100% effectiveness in preventing pregnancies.  To some degree, I would argue that any discussion of the failure rate of contraception is a red herring in the morality argument at all.  This leads to the irony that some NFP advocates will simultaneously argue that artificial birth control is not “open to lief” while simultaneously claiming that NFP is actually better at preventing pregnancy than artificial birth control. 

The Catholic Church is at war on ignorance. How many ignorant women and men are taking dangerous and cancer-causing chemicals, because they’re too ignorant to abstain from sex for a few days through the menstrual cycle? NFP is the safest, most reliable method of family planning, it’s totally safe and it’s totally consistent with Catholic teaching. Nobody in government wants to promote it as a fabulous method because of all the political and religious bias. What a shame!

My darling and I have been married since the late 1970’s, and our issues with fertility control came to an end in 1999 when I had a radical hysterectomy for ovvarian cancer.

The older methods of NFP from the eighties were pretty restricitive, but worked for us.  Of course, I had problems conceiving after our wedding due to an undiagnosed thyroid problem, so even after our two (planned) sons in two years, we may have just continued to be infertile. Our sons were the result of NPF and Clomid.

Babies who should be conceived generally are….and a family grows unless that child is murdered in cold blood.

Nevertheless,

I completely agree with others that back in the day CCL was too fanatical, and like Jim said, it asked more of you than the Church did.  Dh and I took the class back in 2001 and not only was the manual inredibly complicated, but it seemed to be completely undoable if you followed all their other “rules” like nursing your baby frequently at night.  We finally just gave up and did a mucus only method.  I was also particularly turned off by the CCL’s manual when it kept implying that using nfp is the holy thing to do and that marriages that rely completely on God’s providence are actual not as good.  The Church never says one has to use nfp.  This led the manual to back up their claims with a bunch of anecdotal “evidence” with stories of couples saying things like they hadn’t had sex in 10 months because the charts had been all over the place, but this prolonged abstinence had made their marriage even stronger.  Now, you want to talk about things that might turn new couples away from nfp -tell them they might have to almost a year without sex.  Yeesh!  I’m very glad to hear CCL has revamped things!

@Elizabeth- You can have a tubal ligation reversed. Several doctors do this and it makes them very happy even when they aren’t 100% Pro-Life they understand instinctively that it is good to reverse this procedure.

I envy pregnant women. I so want to have a baby but until I have a husband that will not have a chance of happening. Even if I were married my chances of conceiving are so slim due to age and other factors.

This world needs children. The war is on children because with less children around adults don’t have to mind their p’s and q’s as much and get away with crass behavior. They are making it more and more regulated in raising children also. A man was recently arrested because he wasn’t home for an hour as his 8 year old and a neighbor kid played in the backyard. Give me a break. When we were 4 and 5 we would spend hours outside playing without an adult to be seen. Pretty soon any child under the age of 12 will not be allowed out unless on a leash.

Wow. Thanks to those kind people who stepped up here today and defended CCL’s current efforts in teaching NFP. Our new program has been out going on five years and was in development for years before that. I could write an entire article on all of the things we have changed, and why, but that is not important. I hope the comments of those who don’t know today’s CCL do not stop people from checking out a great NFP organization.

You can get a taste of our new manuals here: http://ccli.org/productsservices/nfp-materials/manuals.php

And, for the record, in my personal opinion CCL does more about keeping NFP real - the good, the bad, and the ugly - in its Family Foundations magazine than anything else out there. It would be a great support to any NFP couple.

Why is it that when there is a high rate of infertility AMONG CHILDLESS COUPLES everyone wants to blame people who have no children and interiorly accuse them all of having an abortion or doing stuff they should not be doing?

No one is doing anything for male infertility and they always blame the women and say it is THEIR FAULT!  How stupid and base and ignorant.  No amount of NFP will help them.

But people like me would guess that we only are as GOOD AS THE NUMBER OF CHILDREN WE CANNOT HAVE UNLESS WE ADOPT.  BUT WE DO NOT SEE OTHERS DOING THAT SO GUESS THAT IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR HYPOCRITES in the Church. They never want to go through all the bother to do so.

I find that very funny.  I find that as funny as people who visit the warm sunny beaches of Florida, then complain about the heat and their sunburn after someone has given them sunscreen but then they refuse to be intelligent, listen to God and then do something that God is telling them to do.

Sorry but you are not as good as the number of children you have.  Some folks do not have children because they are unable to do so.  And no one is doing anything to SERIOUSLY HELP THOSE WHO DO HAVE KIDS or ADOPT LIKE US.  We are 49 and 50 this year and childless.  God still loves us and no matter what you people say,  anything you say doesn’t mean anything to us but shows your lack of absolute compassion and mini vans full of hot air and pride.

As for Susan Heath who was glad not to be “trapped” by pregnancy, she only had six months to go—she wouldn’t gift her womb for six months?  Like there wasn’t anyone to love that poor child?  I was in college up until I gave birth—could have been back in a few days.

Anna Lisa, that’s what I don’t understand about people who have abortions.  Pregnancy is 9 months out of your life, and by the time someone finds out their pregnancy, decides to have an abortion and then schedules it, they’ve already put a good dent in that 9 months.  I know that pregnancy can be physically hard for some women, but that doesn’t seem to have been an issue for this woman.  So why would another 6 months of pregnancy make her feel so trapped?  Probably because she would be emotionally devastated by carrying the baby and then placing it for adoption.  How is it fair for her to kill her baby so she doesn’t have to suffer the emotions of either placing the baby for adoption, or the inconvenience of raising a baby that she didn’t plan on?  How can anyone find that ethical?  She herself acknowledged that it is a child.  I just don’t get it.

@Ann Gundlach: It looks like from the manual a lot has changed at CCL. The modern CCL is teaching from a much more positive perspective than from when we took the class. More JPII and TOB, less judgment and hellfire. And the new book actually seems to make sense.
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@Emily: I remember the 10 months of abstinence story! I don’t know what kind of marriage that couple had, but neither of us would see that as a positive. That was another problem I had with the old CCL, they didn’t seem to take our struggles with abstinence seriously.

In Canada, where I live, NFP or fertility awareness is promoted by secular feminists.  I don’t agree with their views on pre-martial sex, but even they get that it fosters healthy relationships.

http://www.justisse.ca/Home

Why don’t the Bishops insist that the mandate provide coverage for NFP methods too?

Jim,

I agree there needs to be sensitivity, but with some people you can bring up the health benefits of NFP and they take it as a personal stab at them or as one woman told me,” you think we are all sex toys for our selfish husbands”

They don’t understand that these are reflections on the culture rather than a personal attack on anybody.’

@savvy: I suspect the reason Canadian feminists feel more comfortable with NFP is because Canada does not have the same “culture wars” as the United States does. In the United States, to even question contraception is to declare “War on Women”. As a result, Canadian feminists feel more comfortable questioning the wisdom of contraception. Furthermore, Canadian health care is not as profit driven to the same extent American health care is.
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A small number of American feminists DO promote fertility awareness, Toni Weschler being the best known, but all do so strictly from a health perspective. She does not mention relationship benefits and largely refrains from the harsh warnings about the risks of barrier methods in the Justisse user guide.

Apparently, these radical feminists don’t care about the success rate of marriages for couples using NFP.
I’ll take 99% success for NFP couples over the going rate of 50% failure for couples using contaception. Those aren’t odds I’d take to Vegas.

This is so uplifting to read this article along with the great posts following. It’s so nice to not feel like a minority anymore. This is like a “mini-support group” for NFP users. I would like to add that the primary problem with contraception is the flawed “contraceptive mentallity.” The 2 main underlying beliefs for people who use contraception are that: 1) children as burdens and 2) they are closed to life. I go back to this being a RIGHT TO LIFE issue - not a freedom of religion issue. Although I agree that the freedom of religion is being threatened by the HHS mandate, the RIGHT TO LIFE is a more superior argument because WITHOUT LIFE you have no freedoms. Abortion is “failed contraception” - “Plan B”. If this is not understood, then you might as well throw every other right away. If you don’t get this right, you’re not going to get any of the other issues right. The RIGHT TO LIFE is at the HEART of every right and freedom. Our Bishops, priests, lay ministers/leaders need to utilize this as a teaching moment and explain to people WHY the Catholic Church is opposed to contraception and why NFP is in line with God’s Divine Plan. I think a lot of you are doing the work of the Bishops through your wonderful articulation of the teachings here. I just hope the Bishops and Priests follow. Maybe this is a case of the lay people “pastoring” the “sheep” (i.e. US Bishops and priests dissenting from Church teaching or remaining silent) because they certainly are lost. How’s that for a reversal of roles????

And it is only the Catholic Church who dares to tell us that the sexual act not only carries the “potential” for a new human being, but that the primary “purpose” of the sexual act IS to create a new human being!

There’s a GOP elephant in the womb.

I don’t think you’re fools, but what’s my humble opinion among so many others?

ANONFLA, I don’t think anyone here was commenting in infertile couples being inferior.  We were speaking to the evils of filling our bodies with carcinogens and ruining marriages because of unnatural barriers.

In 1968 when we married the only accepted means of family planning was the rhythm method.  With two little “gifts” under age three I was pregant again.  As with the Heath story, I was trying to finish my degree and I did not want another child. But I would not sacrifice my child for my career.I had a lovely baby boy and another little boy a few years later.  So what dreadfull things happened. Well I finished my degree and went on to get a Masters and had my career.  That poor unwanted baby became an Eagle Scout, a naturalist with an wonderful knowledge of native plants, he is a delightful person who now has his own family.  An abortion is more than a solution to a present problem.  It wipes out a whole lifetime and potential.  I have lived through the arguments for contraception and abortion and how it would make our lives so much better.  After more than forty years, I am still waiting for this to happen.

Always happy with CCL, but love their new materials better than the old.  Switched to FertilityCare ONLY because we were considering the PopePaul VI Institute and that’s what they use.  I think both are just great and need to be supported & promoted, esp. from the pulpits.

Jennifer, I saw you on EWTN Life on the Rock tonight.  Great Show!  EWTN is the ONLY television channel that I watch.  The rest of secular TV is so anti-human dignity and anti-life, and of course anti-God.

Christine, you are an inspiration.  Thank you.

“I’ll take 99% success for NFP couples over the going rate of 50% failure for couples using contaception.”
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Do you have a link to a study on that? (BTW, the divorce rate has been going down since the 1970s and, IIRC it is closer to 35% now. Also, many divorces are from subsequent marriages; the divorce rate for first marriages is about 20-25%.)
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Even if the data about NFP couples is true, those who use NFP are disproportionately likely to be conservative Catholics and to have large families. They also have to be able to co-operate and communicate enough to learn and use the method. These traits all make couples less likely to divorce, whether or not NFP is used. There is certainly a correlation between NFP and a low divorce rate, but to imply that NFP “divorceproofs” marriages is a bit of a stretch.

@Christine: Abortion is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

I’m not sorry for ANONFLA. If mothers are supposed to sacrifice for their children, she could have put carcinogenics, or her husband could have been treated in a fertility clinic to extract sperm cells, to conceive a child. There is a lot of science that NFP passes up that could have solved their infertility problem and they chose not to take it up because of their faith.
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ANONFLA—don’t blame God, He got some scientists and doctors to set up fertility clinics.

Jim, your divorce statistics are wrong:
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http://vitals.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/22/10799069-cdc-only-half-of-first-marriages-last-20-years
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You should look for more current information that what is filtered by this site. They only post what they want you to know—not what’s really happening. They expect you to have faith and not question them.

Also, see Tim Warner’s post on birth rates and pregnancy rates. The comments stopped when I posted some real statistical details.

No Rodan, God has nothing to do with fertility clinics that manufacture millions of embryos, many of which end up being destroyed.  The desire for a child doesn’t justify playing God and creating new life artificially, only to destroy much of what was created.

Sorry—that’s Matthew Warner.

Claire—how do you know?

It is the desire to soft-pedal the Church’s teaching on contraception and to soft-pedal the message in NFP courses that causes CCL to receive phone calls in which couples say: “We have been generous with the gift of life, can we sterilize now?”

CCL is a wonderful organization whose soul purpose is to promote one method of NFP, faithfully.  And I am just a user of the method, nothing more.

Rodan:  because God is love, and destroying “surplus” embryos is not love.  Neither is the process that results in this.

Well, if you are OK with having an abortion, then your birth control failing does not mean you are trapped.

If you are not OK with having an abortion, but you knew this up front and decided you would have the child if your preventive measures failed (including NFP) well then you aren’t trapped either.

You’re only trapped if your preventive measures fail and you didn’t think this was possible (or at least highly unlikely, re rape babies).

This is why women should be free to do whatever they want but they really should be educated about the consequences of their decisions.

I don’t know if Cassie Murdoch would have an abortion if she got pregnant, but I’m pretty sure she’s educated herself about the consequences of sexual activity.

I’m not so sure about all women, and that’s where I have a slight problem with the pro-choice slogan du jour “Trust Women.”

I’m not asking you to feel sorry for her, and I’m not specifically commenting on her situation.  I’m commenting on your assertion that NFP “passes up” science.  It doesn’t pass up science.  It passes up immorality.  The ART culture plays God, and has resulted in the destruction of countless embryos.  Infertile couples who choose not to take part in immorality don’t need your sarcasm or scorn.

Rodan, all opinions of NFP aside you are a real jerk saying stuff like that to someone who has suffered from infertility.  I guess everyone’s life if just something for you to make wise a$$ comments about on the internet.

No one here said they’re better than anyone else.  We said that it is unethical to participate in an industry that results in dead babies, which the ART industry does.  You don’t have to believe in God to be opposed to playing God, or to destroy “surplus” embryos just to selfishly get what you want.

Can you ALL please be a little more charitable in our responses.

They’re not shirking responsibility.  You’re shirking responsibility by using an unethical industry to selfishly get what you want, and then blaming other people who make ethical, responsible choices.

Rodan-
If you do not believe in God, then how can you argue FOR free will/choice/soul?
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Why is it that atheists or secularists equate Christians speaking truth with their own supposed inferiority?
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Children are a GIFT not a RIGHT of marriage.

Rodan,

Naprotechnology was pioneered as an alternative to IVF.  It does not just treat the symptoms, but finds out the causes of infertility and works to fix it. IVF has become a business.

http://www.naprotechnology.com/

Our faith requires that we make ethical choices.  I know plenty of atheists who have a code of ethics too, but apparently you’re not one of them.  But to say that someone who makes decisions based on morality doesn’t deserve empathy is ridiculous.  As is the assertion that infertility is grounds for an annulment.  Remember the vows, in sickness and in health?  Anyone with any conscience at all isn’t going to ditch a spouse because they have a health issue.  It isn’t that she didn’t want a child bad enough.  It’s that she decided that her wants don’t trump morality or commitment.

oh that statistic I keep seeing out there:  NFP couples divorce only 1% of the time.  I am surrounded by couples who use NFP and I put the divorce rate at least 30%.

Truthfully we have no up to date current study on that.  NONE and I doubt there ever was one. And if there is one to be fair they needed to study couples who pray together and worship together (not just nominally attend church together..) and compare those who use contraception and those who don’t.  It is the practice of praying together and worshipping together that keeps marriages together.

Jim is right. NFP does not “divorceproof” a marriage. I have seen some couples who would like to divorce but as a stay at home mom for 15 years with 6 kids it is financially not possible.

The NFP community does enough dishonest marketing about the perks/reliability/useability of the method. It really is not correct to say if you use NFP there is only a 1% chnace of divorce.  NFP can bring many good and holy things into your marriage but it does not leave you immune from divorce.

Claire,

Infertility can be grounds for an annulment, only if deception and dishonesty was involved, like not telling your spouse even though you knew this. It’s not otherwise. We don’t know what her situation is.

Statistics,

If NFP only works in committed relationships, then the divorce rates are likely to be lower. But, I agree this is not always the case.

I would add that the part about reliability is true, if you follow the rules. Contraceptive failures are not marketed either, but they do exist.

True enough Savvy, but I actually do know this commenter from many other forums (including a Catholic infertility yahoo group that she and I used to belong to), and I am pretty confident that this is not the case with her.  In any case, based on Rodan’s previous comments, I highly doubt that was what he or she was getting at (presuming that she would have grounds for annulment based on deception).

Rodan, pretending to be this expert on Catholicism is quite funny.

Rodan:  your ethics consist of suggesting that someone who wants a child should abandon their infertile spouse, or get involved with an industry that ends up destroying thousands of “surplus” embryos every year.  Clearly you believe in moral relativism.  So I guess if I believe it’s ethical to go on a shooting spree, that’s fine as long as it follows my own personal code of ethics.  Furthermore, Anonfla didn’t give any indication that she accepted the Church’s values over her own.  Is it so hard to believe that she actually believes in the sanctity of human life?  Which makes it a no-brainer for her to accept Church teaching in this area, because it’s consistent with her own values?  As I said before, I’m not specifically trying to defend Anonfla.  I’m talking in generalities about people who, much as they want children, don’t feel entitled to play God and pursue what they want despite the ethical repercussions.  I don’t need your permission to complain about my infertility and miscarriages.  Not that I do complain much anymore, because I have been blessed by a beautiful baby boy through adoption, who I couldn’t possibly love more if I had given birth to him.  But that doesn’t mean that I don’t have my moments of grief over the babies I lost, and if people like you want to shut me up because I could have funded the ART industry which continues to disrespect the life of “surplus” embryos, then good luck.  Because it’s not going to happen.

Good point, Savvy.  Even funnier that he/she wants to spend time on a Catholic forum, when he has nothing but animosity toward Catholics.

Keep repeating yourself, Roda, or Rodan, or whatever your name is.  She did not make her bed.  No one chooses to be infertile.  People who suffer with infertility deserve empathy, and those who refuse to finance an industry that kills embryos deserve it more than people who feel entitled to get whatever they want regardless of how it affects others.  And no, Savvy did not make an a** out of you.  You did that all by yourself.

Roda,

Your constant insulting is pointless.  It only displays your own ignorance. If you did have brains you would be interested in learning about what others believe, rather than assuming you do.

AnonFla, and anyone else struggling with infertility and how to handle it ethically, chose not only their faith, but to make moral decisions regarding how to handle their infertility.  Putting ethics above selfishness does make anyone less deserving of empathy.  If anything, it makes them more deserving.

I’m very happy to see some moderating going on here.  I have many close friends who are atheists, and they don’t feel the need to disrespect people of faith.  Nor do they feel the need to spend time on Catholic forums, but if they did, they would do so in constructive ways, rather than with insults.  (And one atheist couple in particular that I’m thinking of, sees ART as immoral, regardless of their lack of faith.)

Actually, Rodan is the bigot.  Which in addition to the inappropriate insults, is probably why he/she is being blocked.

I’m glad to know you have some standards.  I have to wonder, though, why you care what people here think about you, and why it is so important to you to post your insults here, that you put so much effort into the persistence.

Jennifer: I just finished watching you on LOTR.  Great job!  Thank you for all you do to defend life.

Well Claire, you are the only one here that has answers agreeable to Jennifer. Are you her clone?
—-
Or maybe her rejected twin?

What’s more interesting is why do you want me to think you care about me? You keep praying for me, saying god loves me unconditionally, and that all will be forgiven if I just have faith.
—-
THEN you talk about free will, ethical choices, and morality.
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Split personalities, or just downright fear of being in the wrong?

How is a discussion about faith, forgiveness and praying for you (not that I said I was) a contradiction with a discussion about morality?  You lost me on that one.  And no, I’m not the only one here whose posts are acceptable.  I’m the only one other than you and your bigoted insults (which have been deleted) who has posted in the past 10 hours or so, but if you look at the long line of comments, you’ll see many names other than mine.

Linked below is an insightful, explanation of the Church’s teaching on the issue of contraception.

Personally, I think the Church’s teaching on marriage, sexuality and the family is incredibly beautiful, dignified, and uplifting.

This short essay provides a succinct and powerful explanation of the teaching, while leaving the open-minded reader with a lot of food for thought.

http://allhands-ondeck.blogspot.com/2012/02/contraception-and-catholicism-what.html

There really are only a few days a month you can safely have the act without the risk of getting preg.Bringing children into the world is a life time commitment. It’s not just 9 months and you are through, whether you give them up for adoption nor does it just end at 18. You are naive! So many children live in abusive, and unloving homes, sometimes to the point of death. I don’t get it!! You don’t want abortions yet you don’t want birth control and you don’t want to help low income home with children! I find people hard to understand these days. I find it hard to believe in this day and time we are not demanding these women have birth control available to them. How dare an employeer choose what he wants to cover in your health insurance. If they decide not to cover your heart or kidneys, is that ok? I see how we desperately need sex ed in the schools so people don’t grow up so uneducated. Why wouldn’t we want we want our women on birth control to avert having to do something drastic. It takes days after the initial act to become pregnant. It doesn’t just happen one miraculous night. The pill just doesn’t allow the fertilized egg to attach to the wall of the uterus. Two kinds of birth control should be used. A woman’s temp is not always a good indicator, there could be other reasons for temp flux.*Pregnancy begins when the fertilized egg implants in the uterus (which typically happens around 7-10 days past ovulation) SPERM CAN STAY ACTIVE FOR UP TO 5 DAYS.  and one should not test positive until around 3 or more days past implantation.

Shernita, you’re the one who is uneducated.  The Catholic church does plenty to help low income people with children.  The Catholic Church, and Catholic Charities, is the single largest charitable provider in the world.  Cardiac and kidney problems are diseases;  pregnancy is not a disease.  Contraception is a choice, and one that women can easily seek on their own without their employer funding something that is against their moral beliefs.  If you want to definte pregnancy as beginning around implantation, fine, but that doesn’t mean that your definition of life is absolute.  We believe that life begins at the moment of conception, and it is unconstitutional to force Catholic institutions to pay for contraceptives that abort a fertilized egg.  And it is untrue that there are only a few “safe” days to have intercourse during the cycle.  This may be true for some women, but not for all.  There are numerous NFP methods that allow women to identify when they’re fertile and when they’re not, and NFP when used correctly has a very high success rate.  Furthermore, a baby is not a danger.

SherintaDee,

This is about people who VOLUNTARILY choose NFP which is a form of birth control.  Have you even been reading?

Nobody here said anything about funding or not funding low income supports.

One rude blogger doesn’t speak for the whole of feminism. You don’t like contraception, then don’t get it. Pretty simple, really. The very religious often seem to think that people having access to freedoms not sanctioned by *their* church and *their* god is somehow an infringement on their own religious rights. I don’t care what you do with your uterus, why are you so concerned about what I do with mine? If you really want to know, I have a Mirena IUD and love it. I don’t have to remember to take a pill every day, it’s a low dose of hormones (so no sexual side effects or weight gain), and best of all, I only get my period three times a year—and therefore don’t have to spend half my life in the throes of depression due to PMDD. It basically rocks. But while I’m a huge fan, I don’t think that having one makes me better or smarter or more enlightened than women who don’t. To each their own, laissez-faire, and so on.

Abortion isn’t ideal, but they’re going to happen regardless of legality. There are countries where it’s illegal, and it takes no more than a casual google search to see how well that works. (a link for corroborative purposes: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/12/world/12abortion.html) The only realistic way to reduce the number of abortions is through contraception.

You can’t impose your own moral standards on an entire country of people who represent a wide range of religious and secular beliefs. That’s not how religious freedom works. That’s the exact opposite of how it’s supposed to work, actually. If you don’t want birth control, then don’t get birth control, but taking it away from everyone else would be a hugely dangerous social experiment. It’s just not realistic. Sorry. And before you say that you don’t care if people use birth control, you just don’t want to pay for it, consider the myriad of other things we pay taxes on that we don’t necessarily agree with. The war, for example.

Rapes and murders are also going to happen despite laws against them.  That doesn’t mean that the answer is to legalize heinous acts.  And comparing taxes to employer sponsored health plans is like comparing apples and oranges.  Forcing an employer to directly fund something that goes against their religious beliefs is unconstitutional.  No one is forcing people to work for a Catholic employer, and if employees want contraception, they can easily get it on their own.

Actually, the most telling line of all in the NYT Susan Heath article is: “I also know many women who, like me, have felt only gratitude and relief at having been able to take control over their lives safely and legally.” Isn’t that what NFP offers women? Control over their lives, safely and legally -only without the excruciating high cost of sacrificing ones own CHILDREN for the sake of that control?!?

Nat,

Feminism is a faulty ideology based on 2 things: 1) Hatred for men and 2) Hatred for women. They hate men and they hate themselves. They wish to BE like men - at least promiscuous men who are hungry for power and abandon their families. Is this really logical? And is this truly “liberating”? What are feminists “freeing” themselves from? Feminists HATE their fertility, because it’s the only thing getting in their way of being just like secular men. God’s design for men and women is contrary to an ideology based on hatred: It’s based on LOVE!!! Most feminists HATE God, too (which is why you spell it with a small “g” because you don’t even respect God). So, the whole premise of feminism (small “f”) is one filled with hatred and imprisoment. And that gets a BIG “F”!!!!

With NFP, there are usually only a handful of days per month where you are actually fertile. The majority of the time you are not.

Rafael,

I don’t think all feminists hold these views.

Contraception is a contraconception!

Actually, I think the Catholic Church has made a mistake in its support for NFP. Tolerating it may have been okay, but promoting it has not been a good thing.  Here’s why: at the basis of ALL “family planning” efforts is the notion that a child conceived “out of season” (in other words, when we don’t want one) would be a “problem” which ought to be “prevented.”  Margaret Sanger, an apostate Catholic herself, coined the term “birth control” which was later softened by Planned Parenthood to the term, “family planning.” Words matter. The Catholic Church has no business whatsoever in using this term or fostering the evil inherent in it. In accepting this term, we have walked hand-in-hand with the “greenie meanies” who do not believe in man’s mission from God to “fill the earth and subdue it,” and who, like the “greenie meanies,” see people as a cancer on the earth, thus entering into a kind of idolatry worshiping the creation in place of the Creator.  The USCCB is very guilty (and blinded) on this front, having signed on to the blatantly Satanic Ark of Hope and Earth Charter movements. Would that the Vatican would seek the bishops repentance on these matters, just as they have confronted the women’s religious orders for the same!

In Humanae Vitae, the notion that births could morally be avoided due to “GRAVE” reasons rarely gets mentioned—what constitutes a “grave” reason?  If one would argue, because I need to finish my masters degree, I would not agree; but I would if someone said, my heart is bad and it will kill me to try to carry a child, or there is a nuclear war on—I’d say that not wanting to bring a child into the world at that point makes sense—but, then, why not just abstain altogether, for the good of the mother or the good of the would-be child?  Why even take the chance of conceiving? 

Breathing is necessary for a human; and so are eating and drinking; but sex is not, as evidenced by plenty of young children who thrive quite well without that activity.  If sex were so crucial, why would priests or religious ever be expected to live their entire lives as virgins? Why would there be stories of saintly men and women who, upon marrying, chose never to be physically intimate in order to live out lives consecrated to God?

Picture people walking along a rocky, slippery, extremely narrow path cut into the side of a steep mountaint.  Even entering into the thought process of preventing God from creating a life in our married relations is like deciding to step off that path onto a wet tree root sticking out over the precipice below.  Here’s why: God is the author of life.  If we go against St. Paul’s advice and enter into marriage, we then enter into a kind of contract with God to procreate.  It is a DUTY of our vocation to allow ourselves to be the conduit through which more souls destined for Him in Heaven are created.  It is HIS CALL whether to create through us or whether not to (He is the potter; we are the clay). To thwart the creativity of God Almighty seems like a bad plan—especially given His Word that says children are His GIFT and BLESSING to us.

Frankly, I am severely disappointed that the Magisterium, starting with the Vatican, seems to be back-pedaling on the birth-control aspect and pushing this whole “religious freedom” thing.  The Church walks a dangerous road using techniques of subtlety, since subtlety is the tool of the DEVIL, who was the subtlest of the creatures.  The Magisterium ought to be BOLDLY proclaiming the Gospel Truth that ALWAYS welcoming Christ as the little stranger (the unborn) coming into our world is an inherent good; while anything which does not welcome Him in the form of the little stranger would be an inherent evil.

The controversy in our day, I truly believe, is the fulfillment of Christ’s prophecy in the Gospel of St. Luke, “The days are coming when they will say blessed are the barren.” This passage also ties in directly with the passage in Revelation where all disobedient people will hide themselves in the caves from “the wrath of the Lamb.”

We cannot win this one in the courts or using the techniques of the Devil.  At its heart, ALL contraception, or even NFP techniques standing upon a contraceptive mindset, are a proclamation of NON SERVIAM, a placing of ourselves above God—and a vote of “no confidence” in His Divine Providence. 

Unless our Magisterium “steps up to bat” on this issue as they ought to, and the Faithful return to our senses, a time of persecution on the Christian faith like none ever before will ensue. Here’s why: the contraceptive mindset has been cutting off whole branches of the body of Christ in His Church for almost one-hundred years.  What should have been an immense, spirit-filled, thriving Church is frail and anemic in its proclamation of the Gospel.  Christ will not put up with that.  To use His own words, He will CUT OFF diseased branches of His Church and He’ll hoe around and fertilize the tiny, sound remnant until it suits His purposes again; at least until the creation of souls is complete to the birth and baptism of the last saint.  The day of harvest has been approaching since He stepped out of His tomb.  Seems to me like the angels could very well be in His fields soon, separating the wheat for gathering into His barns from the tares for burning. 

How obedient to Christ a person is on this issue of contraception is a telling sign of predestination as to which pile one’s soul will end up in. Our prayers must be for Truth to be told—Truth to be heard—and for hearts to be converted.  Ninevah is an example of hearing the truth; recognizing one’s own misery before God, and turning towards God’s mercy with sincere repentence; Sodom and Gomorrah is an example of one’s sins being so repugnant to God; and one’s own hard-heartedness to be so set and solidified, God’s unasked-for mercy, even if it were asked for, could not assuage the horrific penalties due.

We cannot keep cooperating with the enemies of God and, at the same time, expecting His blessing upon us.

Our hands are full of blood. 

Jennifer Fulwieler is very convincing to a Fundamtalist Roman Catholic Woman. Almost all of the responses,agree with her. I do not share her beliefs. I consider my body my basic private property over which I have Constitutional right. Religion is not qualified to give medical advice or treatment. If 98% of Catholic women use contraceptives during their reproductive years they obviously also do not share Fulwieler’s beliefs. The Guttmacher Institute in 2011 study,” Countering Conventional Wisdom: New Evidence on Religion and Contraceptive Use by Rachel K. Jones and Joerg Dreweke, which can be found on the Guttmacher Institute’s website: www.guttmacher.org. Pro-lifers may only practice it on their own body. Unlike Jesus, they judge, condemn and are eager to punish others who Choose to limit the number of their children resulting in healthier, wealthier and better educated families.
comfortably raise.

Liliane,

Whose punishing others?  If one is at peace with their choices. They would not care about what others think of them. 

The actual number is 68%.  Gumattacher took down their previous study. The current table is here.

http://www.guttmacher.org/media/resources/Religion-FP-tables.html

You might be right that religion does not control our body.  Planned Parenthood does not control it either, nor does the media with their slick marketing. The natural rythmns of our bodies do.

My dear Savvy, you need to read the report more carefully. I have the copy right in front of me and and it shows on page 8, the bottom table under Catholic, that 68% of those women use Highly effective methods. That means that the rest of them use the less expensive and less EFFECTIVE methods like condoms, sponges, etc. You need to read the whole report to understand those figures. In fact in the introduction it says that only 2% of Catholic women rely on the natural method. The 68% who use Highly effective and more expensive contraceptives like sterilization, 32%, the hormone pills, 31%, and the IUD, 5 %  add up to 68%. The rest of the 98% who do not use the natural method use the cheaper and less effective contraceptives because they cannot afford the more expensive ones.

The USCCBishops who practice Fundamnetalist Roman Catholic Dogmas along with the Religious right Republican politicians and legislators are working together to impose laws that punish women by forcing them to carry to term, using all kinds of devious legislation to prevent women from having a safe, legal abortion when they need one for all kinds of reasons that should not concern those Religious right Bishops and politicians, who are supposed to serve us all, women and men. They are
now considering defunding Planned Parenthood with HB 2405 in PA. Bishop MacFadden of the Harrisbutg Diocese, says its about women having free sex…without suffering the consequences. He wants them to pay the price of 9 months of a risky pregnancyand painful delivery for using sex to recreate instead of procreating. Women have to pay for enjoying the sex act.

Planned Parenthood is legal, abortion which makes up only 3% of their health services, is also legal. Harrasing those Health centers with so-called prayer marches with misleading placards, forcing women into side-walk counseling and scaring them with false information, is what is
illegal.The Bishops and the Religious Right Conservative legislators think they own our bodies. Planned Parenthood provides the necessary, safe and legal health services that enable us to plan our families ina way that keeps us all healthy,and able to cope financially and responsibly with the job of raising our children to become honest, contributing, good citizens, not becoming harmful and expensive social problems
t
arenthood which has been serving middle to low income families with non-abortion health services

My dear Liliane:  any time innocent babies are being murdered, it is the concern of the “religious right” and anyone else who steps up to the plate to defend those who can’t speak for themselves.  Forcing women to carry a baby to term is not a punishment, it’s a way of saving an innocent life.  Abortion may only be 3% of Planned Parenthood’s “services”, but it is their most lucrative “service”.  (Have you ever read Abby Johnson’s book?)  Legal abortion is a perfect example of “devious legislation”.

I meant to finish the sentence at the end by saying that Planned Parenthood has been serving middle and low income women and their families for 96 years. They supply those women with low cost contraceptives and educate them on how to use them more effectively. This PREVENTS abortions. The pill is not an abortificient but even if it were, it is none of the Fundamentalist politically active Bishops’ business. Women own their bodies, as I said before. They are smart and can make their own decisions. Women have personhood and feel pain. If a pregnancy is going to affect them in any negative way they have a right to prevent it from happening and if it happens accidentally, they should have access to as early and safe, legal way of terminating it. They should not be made to feel guilty or risk their lives like St. Giana, who knew that carrying to term would kill her and it did. She got canonised in return for her sacrifice , leaving at least one orphan whose Dad had to take care of that child in addition to earning a living as a widower.  By the way Savvy, why don’t you reveal your true name? Does using Savvy as your name mean that you are all-knowing? Just wondered. Take care, Lily Stern

Yes, oral contraceptives do have abortifcaient mechanisms, and yes, again, this is the business of anyone who is willing to defend the defenseless.  FYI:  many people choose not to reveal their real names on these sites due to potential internet dangers.

So you eraced everything i said without allowing me to correct the word? Show me the message so that I can see for myself that I made a mistake. I am positive that i did not.

My dear Claire, neither you nor any one else has the RIGHT to interfere with anything that is in a woman’s body. As long as she has to “loan” her body to the fetus for its survival,that body, her most basic property,she is her own boss just as you are your own boss. It is not for you nor any pro-lifer to take CONTROL of a woman’s life in order to save what is inside HER Womb, not YOURS. You may tell me that it is God who owns our bodies, but you cannot FORCE YOUR BELIEFS on ME, that is against the First Amendment Establishment clause.

There is such a thing as separation of church and state. The USCCB, to which you belong as a pro-lifer, is illegally involved in political lobbying the Religious Right Republican legislators and should lose their tax exempt status. Not only does the USCCB want to eliminate free contraceptives from women’s health care coverage but also sterilization and abortions altogether with their right of Conscience Act . They also want to defund Planned Parenthood which is legal along with all its health services, with HB 2405.It is obvious to me that religious pro-life groups reason that if women’s bodies belong to their God then they have the authority to do God’s work. I highly recommend, ” Rescuing the Bible from fundamentalism.” to you, by retired Bishop of Newark N.J., Bishop John Shelby Spong. Just remember that your right and that of your fellow pro-lifers, end where my body and what is in it, and that of every
woman’s body, begins. Your pro-life centers specialize in hate mongering that motivates violence that killed several OBGYN doctors. Pro-lifers harass legal women’s Health clinics staff and the families they serve. They spread distorted information just as you did regarding what you interpreted as the Guttmacher Institute having changed their conclusion about the 98% Catholic women who use contraceptives to 68%, when in fact that 68% number was for those of the 98% who use the more effective, more expensive contraceptives that poorer women cannot afford without Planned Parenthood and now the Affordable Care Act. The only dangerous abortions are illegal ones which is what you and your group would like them to become.If Sister MacBrides had not given her permission to go ahead and let a 27 year old, mother of 4 who was dying from her 11 week pregnancy due to it aggravating her pulmonary hypertension,undergo an abortion, that woman would have died, leaving 4 motherless children and a widowed husband. Religion should stay away from women’s Health which is a Medical matter. Pro-lifers are the most intrusive people in the world and the most presumptuous. they have caused women’s clinics to be bombed, set on fire and its staff killed. How can they be for life? They are for hate, control,and killing. They motivate people to violence with their Holocaust rhetoric. Calling themselves pro-life is really ironic. They will allow women to die in order to support their killer double effect dogma, which Bishop Olmert supported by excomunicating Sister MacBride and the St. Joseph’s Hospital, that had the temerity of saving the life of that 27 year old Arizona mother of four by giving her the forbidden abortion when the 11 week old fetus would have died with her had she not had an abortion. Shame on all pro-lifers, who distort the facts and obssessively persecute pregnant women and their families who become poorer and stressed out with too many children to care for who grow into social misfits. Women have personhood and feel pain, their rights come first, their Constitutional right to Life , Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, not that of their yet undeveloped fetuses. It should be their Choice to sacrifice their lives for their progeny not the pro-lifers. Did you know that women are born with 500,000 ova? A fertile woman could become pregnant every 9 months for the rest of her reproductive years if she used the natural method of Birth Control. She would probably die from having too many pregnancies too close to each other. Pregnancies are riskier than an early, legal, safe abortion. By the way, your definition of an abortificient is a religious one, not a Medical one. If the embryo is prevented from implanting you regard that as an abortion. It is not one by Medical standards.

I checked the word in the image caefully. It is correct so please do not
delete this response, as I spent a lot of time writing it. The word is labor45. Claire, why don’t you take up aerobic dancing, yoga or art, any hobby that will cure you of that obssession of needing to control women’s lives by coaxing them with all kind of twisted means to carry their fetuses to term even if it kills them. Most women would rather be healthy and alive that dead and canonised as saints like St. Gianna. I bet you are one of those women. If you are against having an abortion, Don’t have one. Believe me nobody is for an abortion, that is why we support effective more costly , but affordable or even free contraceptives. Take care. Sincerely, Liliane

Liliane, I don’t have time to respond to every little item in your long-winded post, and I probably shouldn’t waste my time responding at all to someone who thinks that I need a hobby to cure me of my obsession (which is saving babies, not controlling women’s lives).  But I will say two things:  pro-lifers do not bomb abortion clinics.  Fanatics do.  I am not a fanatic, and neither are any of the pro-life people that I associate with.  All abortions are dangerous to the babies that they kill.  And if you’re so in favor of freedom and rights, then it’s highly ironic that you think Catholic institutions should be forced to pay for contraceptives, including abortifacient contraceptives, for their employees.  Your post is full of contradictions and ironies.

Dear Claire, here is a sample of Bishop Spong’s enlightened reasoning regarding contraceptives. He does not believe they are a trap but very liberating.

The Roman Catholic Bishops: Are They Killing Their Church?
23 February 2012: 5 Comments »

I never thought I would live long enough to see birth control become a major political issue.  Nor did I think I would ever hear the desire to provide women with safe and effective contraception be referred to as “a war on religion on the part of the Obama administration.”  Granted that presidential election years frequently reveal the politically bizarre, it still seems that this year’s rhetoric has reached a new low on the scale of the absurd.  It also reveals some frightening realities in the body politic of this nation that I find all but inconceivable.  In this column let me try to cut through the polarizing propaganda and locate, if possible, the facts.

First, if the national polls are to be believed, about 98% of the American population uses contraception at some point in the course of their lives.  That statistic appears to be true whether the users are Protestants, Roman Catholics, Evangelicals, Jews, non-believers or atheists!  There is no correlation between one’s religious tradition and one’s use of contraception.  The “pill” has been determined to be not only safe, but of great benefit in the emancipation of women from being chained to their biological destiny.  Family planning is no longer regarded by significant majorities the world over as a sinful thing to do, but has become an absolute virtue in our overpopulated world.  In some nations, contraceptive help is actually forced on their people as a tactic of national survival.  Contraception has also been demonstrated to be a strong bulwark against abortions since it dramatically lowers the unwanted pregnancies that fuel the number of abortion seekers.  The Roman Catholic Church’s leadership, however, still acts as if it has the power to dictate what public policy is or what it should be on this issue. Unable to gain the loyalty of those they call “the faithful” they have now apparently decided that they will seek to impose their practices on the entirety of the nation’s citizenry. It is not working. The birth rate in an overwhelmingly Catholic Italy, for example, is about 1.5 children per family.  Italian parents are not even reproducing themselves and the Italian population is actually declining.  Does anyone think that is achieved through abstinence?  Because of successful family planning women have been freed to make major contributions in such fields as politics, business and the professions. The idea that once emancipated from biological necessity women can now be coerced to return to the practices of yesterday is not just unrealistic, it is an act of violence!

A Vatican study commission on which sat some of Rome’s most respected moral theologians recommended to Pope Paul VI in 1968 that Rome’s ban on birth control be moderated significantly, but Paul VI, elected to bring the Roman Church back in the paths of the past after the dynamic pontificate of John XXIII, vetoed his own commission’s recommendation and, in an encyclical entitled Humanae Vitae, reasserted the anti-feminist position of that Church’s most oppressive past.  The only problem was that Catholic women in significant majorities simply refused to be obedient and the authority of the Church was visibly weakened in all areas by their refusal to comply with their Church’s teaching in this area.  Ecclesiastical influence always declines when church leaders overstep the limits of their power and seek to impose upon their people an authority they no longer possess.

In American politics, the Roman Catholic bishops have become increasingly aggressive on public issues over the last fifty years.  When John F. Kennedy was seeking to become America’s first Catholic president in 1960, he assured a gathering of clergy in Houston that he would not seek to impose his religious rules upon this religiously pluralistic nation.  That answer seemed quite satisfactory to Catholic bishops at that time.  By 1984, however, when a Catholic woman, Geraldine Ferraro, was a candidate for the vice presidency, her position of separating her personal code from what was legally possible in the public arena was ruled by the Catholic bishops as no longer a satisfactory position for a Catholic to hold.  John Kerry, as a practicing Roman Catholic, was told in his bid for the presidency in 2004 that he was forbidden to receive Communion because of his position of not repudiating the law that gave women the legal right to make their own abortion decisions. Now this Church’s bishops have taken that battle to what seems to be both a political and a religious absurdity.  Though already given a “conscience” exemption of not being required to provide contraceptive coverage in the health care offered to employees of Catholic churches, they are now demanding the right to impose that teaching on employees of their Catholic universities, hospitals and charitable institutions. Those institutions, while Catholic sponsored, serve a diverse population and receive public state and federal money to carry out their work. They have many non-Catholic employees and many Catholic employees who do not want Catholic teaching imposed upon their own health care decisions. The bishops have gone on to argue that any business run by a Roman Catholic CEO should also have the right to opt out of the requirement to provide contraceptive care to their employees. If this principle of exemption for Catholics is allowed, where will it stop? Some religions practiced in America object to blood transfusions, others do not believe that any medical intervention should be allowed since sickness is thought of as punishment for sin and still others have in the past sought to be exempted from the law that requires only one partner in marriage.  Must the laws of America respect their consciences also?  When the public good and religious values have come into conflict in the past, the state has always protected its understanding of public good and the various religious bodies have had to accommodate that policy.  That is what it means to live in a multi-cultural state, where people enjoy freedom to worship as they wish, but where no religious system can impose any religious principle or practice on the entire nation. Are the Catholic Bishops and those politicians who want to dictate the details of health care that will be offered to employees of religiously affiliated institutions now find that this basic American premise is no longer acceptable?  That is a frightening change.

The Roman Catholic Church’s recent history with the laws of this nation in regard to the criminal behavior of both abusing children and of protecting abusive priests had them asking for and receiving great leniency. Subpoenas of church records relating to the transfer of known child molesters have not been aggressively pursued. Cardinal Bernard Law, perhaps the guiltiest prelate in America of protecting abusers was allowed to move to the Vatican rather than have to answer his accusers or their attorneys under oath.  Cardinal Law probably should be in jail today not in a respected post in the Vatican.  This Church has a history of putting its own well being ahead of its victims.  Now they want to dictate the kind of health care available to women who are in their employ.  I shake with rage at that suggestion and at that kind of self-serving duplicity.

This Church has also carried out a destructive public campaign against justice and equality for gay and lesbian people over the last fifty years.  They have used their money to defeat initiatives that would have provided equality before the law and end all forms of discrimination against homosexual people.  They have done this based on Church teaching that defines homosexuality as deviant, a point of view regularly articulated by Pope Benedict XVI, despite the fact that this definition is almost universally dismissed as little more than dated ignorance in scientific and medical circles.  How long do we tolerate religious ignorance that diminishes American citizens? I do not understand religious imperialism in any of its forms.  Religious imperialism is what gave us the rampant anti-Semitism that finally erupted in the Holocaust which Pope Pius XII watched without lifting a finger.  It has given us the Vatican led Crusades against the people of Islam that marked the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries and that still today feeds the hostility of radical Islamic fundamentalism costing countless lives on 9-11 and in the continuing wars in Islamic countries.  It has given us the Inquisition in Europe in the 14th century that burned at the stake, quite legally, those who dared to question that Church’s teaching.  Now this institution, which has never allowed equality for women, wants to be permitted to determine the limits of health care for women who work for Catholic institutions.  When President Obama worked out a compromise acceptable to the health care industry that allowed women to receive contraception care without cost, but from the insurance industry not from the church affiliated organizations, the result satisfied most Roman Catholic women, including many nuns who run health care institutions.  It did not, however, go far enough to satisfy the all male bishops who want to require that no public money go for a medical procedure that the bishops oppose for women, whether Catholic or not.

I never want to go back to the time when participation by Roman Catholics in public life was opposed because of their religion.  I recall when one seat on the Supreme Court was designated “the Catholic seat.”  Today a literal majority of five of our Supreme Court justices (Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy and Alito) are Roman Catholics.  If, however, the leaders of that church are going to use the political process to impose Catholic teaching on this entire nation then that attitude will surely compromise their ability to fulfill their oath of office. I had hoped that such a day had long gone from American life.  The behavior of the Catholic bishops is surely reviving it.  I am not willing to sacrifice the health of women or the constitutional rights of homosexual people to accommodate the dated attitudes of present Catholic leaders.  The vast majority of American Roman Catholics also seem to recognize that the leadership of their Church is simply badly out of date.  I grieve that the present all-male leadership of the Catholic Church is bringing that Church into disrepute in a way that hurts the witness of the Christian faith, a faith that I too represent and treasure.

~John Shelby Spong

the word and number here is:having59

Liliane, you could have posted the link rather than clogging up the combox with that whole article.  But in any case, this bishop is not enlightened, and his dissenting viewpoint holds no credibility.

Dear Clair, I apologise for clogging up your combox, but if you add all your responses to other comments, they would probably add up to more than Bishop Spong’s article. I figured I would make it easier for you to view his well-thought out and most logical and perceptive, broad-minded, compassionate and most understanding and opinion article.

What I love about 84 year old, most reverend Bishop John Shelby Spong is his honesty and courage to express what he learned and discovered during his many years and experience as a God-loving human being. He considers Jesus to be a model to be emulated for his inclusion of all people, without discriminating against pregnant women, homosexuals, physically or mentally handicapped because they were all created by the same God.

Unfortunately, it is your pro-life group who hate pregnant women and their physicians. Don’t you believe in the Golden rule? Where is your humility, compassion and kindness? You are deluding yourself that you are saving “babies”. You are creating more poverty and misery so that your Charitable Religious Organization can perpetuate itself by creating more needy families to justify its existence, which is a very good one by the way.

Non -Catholic employees of employers of any faith need to be offered the same insurance coverage as other employers offer. It is the law. In the case of your affiliated schools and hospitals, etc. you are not paying for those contraceptives etc. because President Obama managed to get   the Health Insurance companies to pay for those themselves.the companies will benefit by not having to cover pregnancies that the contraceptives will prevent. The article below explains that quite clearly. I just hope you read it very carefully so that you do not jump to the wrong conclusions as you did with the Guttmacher Report. Adieu! So long! Lily

The word and number here is job11

“The Truth About Religious Freedom”

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) rarely lets the facts get in the way of their story.

In press releases during the past months, in alerts by state Catholic Conferences, in statements that they have made in various media outlets and in their official comments to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the bishops have explained why they oppose the HHS decision supporting access to no-copay contraception. In making their case, they have relied on spurious claims about religious liberty, conscience and science to attempt to mislead policymakers and the public.

The bishops’ arguments are italicized. The reality follows.

The mandate does not exempt Catholic charities, schools, universities, or hospitals.

Schools, universities, hospitals and Catholic charities will have a workaround under which insurers, not employers, must offer employees coverage for contraception when their employers object. Employees at these institutions deserve to benefit from the same access to healthcare as everybody else, and they should not be subject to discrimination just because of where they happen to work. Religious institutions or entities, like houses of worship, including Catholic ones, received an exemption, and do not need to comply with the law.
This is not about contraception; it’s about religious freedom.

The reality is that this debate is about both. It is about whether individuals have the right to follow their own consciences in making their own healthcare decisions, and it is about whether individuals have the right to freedom of and freedom from religion. Individuals have consciences, have healthcare needs and have religious liberty, and deserve to have these rights and needs respected and protected. 
The question that matters in this debate is: whose religious freedom are we talking about? It is the job of the government to protect both individual rights in healthcare decisions and individual religious liberty, and to protect them both from institutional intrusion. This debate absolutely is about protecting the freedom of an employee, no matter where she works, to exercise her personal beliefs without the bishops imposing theirs upon her.
The bishops would have us believe that a school, a Taco Bell or a hospital has a “conscience” and “freedom of religion.” They do not. Individuals, according to our Catholic tradition, have consciences and deserve to exercise them without coercion. Individuals also deserve to have their freedom of and freedom from religion protected. Institutions—both secular and “religious institutions,” as well as “religious organizations”—do not have the right to claim “consciences” in order to trample on the conscience rights that properly belong to their employees. 
This debate means a lot of things to a lot of different people. It may not be about contraception for the bishops, but for the everyday person who utilizes contraception, having affordable access to such services can mean many things. No-cost contraception for the average woman, including many Catholic women, can mean following her religious beliefs, following her conscience, protecting her health, saving money for her family, protecting her future or a myriad other things that we cannot be privy to. If the bishops succeed in eliminating coverage, it will most definitely be about contraceptive access, and all of the things that access means, to millions of Americans.
The debate is about both religious liberty and contraception, but the bishops’ end goal is clear: having failed to convince Catholics in the pews to follow their ban on contraception, they are attempting to eliminate all access for all people. One only has to look at a comment made by Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, then Bishop Lori, during a Congressional hearing this spring, to glean where attempting to follow the bishops’ policy priorities on contraception would lead us. While he implied that workers whose employers refuse contraceptive coverage could simply go elsewhere to receive these services, such as family planning clinics supported by Title X or other public funds, Lori failed to mention that the bishops have opposed such programs for years. When President Nixon created Title X in 1970, the director of the United States Catholic Conference (USCC) Family Life Division (later a bishop himself) testified before Congress that the bishops opposed such programs. In 1978, The USCC Secretary for Social Development and World Peace testified that the bishops supported universal health care—except for coverage of contraception. In 1989, Richard Doerflinger, who still serves as a spokesperson for the bishops, testified before a House committee that the bishops “have problems with” Title X. In 1991 and 1992, the bishops’ stated list of public policy priorities included “oppose reauthorization” of Title X. 
The mandate forces these institutions and others to pay, against their conscience, for things they consider immoral.

It is incredible to suggest that an institution has a conscience. Institutions do not have consciences, individuals do. This rule merely evens the playing field by allowing individuals to decide whether or not to utilize contraceptive coverage.
In regard to individuals’ expenditures, our tax dollars go toward many things that we may not agree with, and the money from our insurance premiums likely goes toward coverage of many medical services that we may not agree with or need ourselves.
The institutional Catholic church enjoys a tax-preferred status and has a long history of seeking government funding streams— including support for Catholic schools, hospitals and programs run by Catholic Charities. Some politicians have claimed that tax-preferred status for organizations that provide reproductive healthcare services constitutes public funding of abortion or contraception. By this logic, the same tax breaks and government grants given to Catholic churches and charities for non-religious purposes would also qualify as direct government funding of religion—a constitutionally impermissible use of state funds. Catholic organizations cannot have their cake and eat it, too. 
The mandate forces coverage of sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs and devices as well as contraception.

These regulations require coverage of all FDA-approved methods of contraception, but they do not require coverage of abortion medications, such as RU-486. Emergency contraception (EC),  such as Ella or Plan B, does not terminate existing pregnancies—it prevents a pregnancy from occurring, hence, it is a contraceptive. The bishops themselves have acknowledged that the provision and use of emergency contraception is permissible. Directive 36 of The Ethical and Religious Directives for Health Care Services explicitly allows Catholic-sponsored hospitals to provide emergency contraception to sexual assault survivors. Likewise, in 2010, the Catholic Health Association included a series of journal articles in its flagship publication, Catholic Health World, which dispelled the myths about emergency contraception and reiterated that organization’s commitment to providing EC in Catholic hospitals as part of compassionate care for survivors of sexual assault. 
Catholics of all political persuasions are unified in their opposition to the mandate.

Each of the individuals cited by the USCCB as evidence of “liberal” opposition to the mandate has traditionally opposed contraception and other reproductive healthcare services. There is no diversity of opinion or liberalism in repeating the talking points and toeing the line of the USCCB on this issue, as each of them has done. The majority of Catholics do not look to their bishops for how to vote—in fact, a mere 10 percent consider the bishops to be the sole arbiter in whether one should use contraception.
The Catholic bishops are not the same as the Catholic church. The Catholic church in the United States has 68 million people. Only about 300 of them are bishops. The bishops represent themselves, and not the majority of Catholics, when they give their opinions on healthcare policies and other social and political issues. American Catholics can and do speak for themselves, and they overwhelmingly support insurance coverage of preventive care for women, including family planning.
One only has to look at the recent Catholic-affiliated lawsuits against contraceptive coverage to recognize that there is certainly not a unity among Catholics on this issue, even among the bishops’ own dioceses. There are 43 plaintiffs in 12 lawsuits, but only 13 of these plaintiffs are dioceses. Meanwhile, there are 191 Catholic dioceses, 629 Catholic hospitals, 251 Catholic colleges and universities, many other Catholic-affiliated schools and charities and 68 million individual Catholics in the United States. Even if one includes the additional, individual lawsuits from Catholics and Catholic organizations filed by groups such as the Becket Fund, the number of those shouting the loudest against contraception is a drop in the bucket compared to the number and scope of Catholics and Catholic institutions in this country.
The majority of Catholics support equal access to the full range of contraceptive services and oppose policies that impede upon that access, including access to EC. Two-thirds of Catholics (65 percent) believe that clinics and hospitals that take taxpayer money should not be allowed to refuse to provide procedures or medications based on religious beliefs. A similar number, 63 percent, also believes that health insurance, whether private or government-run, should cover contraception. A strong majority (78 percent) of Catholic women prefer that their hospital offer emergency contraception for rape victims, while more than half (57 percent) want their hospital to provide it in broader circumstances. This support for the full range of contraceptive services is unsurprising, as restrictions such as refusal clauses or prohibitive costs affect Catholics just as often as non-Catholics—98 percent of sexually active Catholic women have used a modern method of birth control, mirroring the rates of the population at large (99 percent).
Many other religious and secular people and groups have spoken out strongly against the mandate.

Many religious and secular organizations, including Catholic ones, have also spoken out in favor of the regulations. A letter signed by representatives from more than 20 denominations and religiously-based organizations supporting the birth control regulations was issued in February. 
The federal mandate is much stricter than existing state mandates.

In those states with refusal provisions similar to those in the HHS regulations, institutions affiliated with the Catholic church, including hospitals and universities, have provided contraception to their employees without having to shutter their doors. Catholic Healthcare West, operating healthcare facilities in California and Arizona, has been providing contraceptive coverage to its employees since 1997—two years before the state of California passed legislation requiring employers to cover contraception and well before the California Supreme Court required institutions such as Catholic Charities to do so. Catholic Healthcare West’s employees were able to access contraception, and the system certainly didn’t shutter its doors. New York and California have refusal clauses identical to that contained in the HHS rule, and the sky has not fallen in either state for hospitals, schools or other institutions—or for the church.
The “accommodation” from the Obama Administration does not change anything.

While it is true that the administration did not choose to cave completely to the bishops’ demands, the reality is that the compromise announced on February 10, 2012, resulted in real changes—a possibility of loss of some insurance coverage—for millions of women and for the female dependents of all workers. By opening the door to a workaround for hospitals and schools, and by leaving the door closed to contraceptive coverage for women employed by churches, the final regulations announced by the Department of Health and Human Services allowed the bishops to place one foot over the threshold of denying contraceptive access to everyone.
The compromise announced by the administration will indeed result in a wait-and-see game—until August 2012 for some organizations and until August 2013 for others— but we disagree about whose wing and a prayer we should be worried about. For women working for Catholic hospitals, universities and other institutions who hope to gain access to contraception, or those who hope to continue to have access to coverage, it remains to be seen whether their consciences and private, moral decisions will be respected by a workaround that places the onus on insurers to do the right thing—and on employers to let insurance companies do it.
The second-class-citizen religious institutions that object to coverage but aren’t exempted will still have to pay for contraception and violate their beliefs.

Just as institutions do not have a conscience, they are not citizens. Individuals have a conscience, and they enjoy citizenship. The only “second-class citizens” created by laws allowing employers to refuse coverage for medical services are women workers. It is absolutely discriminatory to allow the beliefs of employers to violate those of employees.
For-profit religious employers, secular employers, insurers and individuals are all stakeholders whose religious freedoms are threatened and who cannot escape from paying for things they don’t believe in.

We recognize the right of individual medical professionals to decline to provide services they consider immoral. However, it goes too far to grant such rights to an entire institution—such as a hospital or managed-care provider—or, for that matter, to allow blanket exclusions of coverage for certain healthcare services. The bishops would like to grant these exclusion rights to all institutions—as a top advisor to the USCCB stated, they will not rest until the owner of a “Taco Bell” can refuse coverage to his or her employees. This is not in keeping with our Catholic understanding of conscience. 
The bishops did not pick this fight in an election year—others did.

In truth, the bishops were quite strategic about the decision to “pick this fight.” On the same day that the Department of Health and Human Services public comment period regarding the then-pending contraceptive coverage rule closed (September 30, 2011), the USCCB announced the creation of their new “Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty.” At the top of the list of “concerns” that provided the impetus for that committee’s creation was the contraceptive coverage requirement, despite the fact that the final rules had not been established and that public comments were still being processed.
If the bishops did not “pick this fight,” then they have an odd way of assuring the public that their opposition to contraceptive coverage is not, at least in part, political. The bishops, after all, have made it so. Bishop Thomas J. Tobin of Providence, Rhode Island, claimed that President Obama was “devious” in pursuing reproductive healthcare access and alleged that sexual equality efforts, which he opposes, were “driven by the Democratic agenda” in his state. Archbishop Peter Jenky of Peoria, Illinois, infamously compared President Obama to “Hitler and Stalin” due to the President’s support for contraceptive coverage.
The bishops have led the charge against contraception and have not been shy about promoting the rhetoric of those who hope to continue that campaign. Likewise, other conservatives have supported the bishops’ rhetoric. There is a reason why Mike Huckabee chose to state “We are all Catholics now” rather than courting the leaders of another faith, and it does not seem accidental that Cardinal Timothy Dolan, President of the USCCB, at one point chose to wade into the same hyperbolic speech regarding prostitution begun by Rush Limbaugh in a speech at a Catholic college in New York. 
To understand the bishops’ mindset regarding the timing of the contraceptive battle, one has only to look to one of their grievances with the regulations: “If they turn out badly, their impact will not be felt until August 2013, well after the election.” 
Contraception doesn’t decrease unplanned pregnancy or abortion, and it is not cost-neutral.

Numerous social science studies have demonstrated that contraception does indeed prevent unplanned pregnancy, and therefore abortions. To claim otherwise is patently false.
It is correct to state that contraception is not cost-neutral for insurance companies and employers: it is cost-saving. On the critical issue of cost-saving, however, a more important point is the fact that contraceptive coverage without copays puts money in women’s pockets. No-cost contraception allows women to act as moral agents in making the health decisions that are best for themselves and their families regardless of cost. Particularly for those women struggling during these tough economic times, no-cost contraceptive coverage frees women to direct the money they would otherwise spend on co-pays or the out-of-pocket cost of contraceptives towards putting food on the table, saving for their children’s or their own educations or other basic necessities.
Ninety-eight percent of Catholic women have not used contraceptives.

In 2008, the National Survey of Family Growth, a well-respected social science study from the Centers for Disease Control, found that ninety-eight percent of sexually active Catholic women had used a modern contraceptive method. This fact was corroborated by the Guttmacher Institute, a similarly well-respected research institution, in 2011.

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It’s not my combox, and if you want to clog it up, go ahead.  It just seemed unnecessary when it would have been simpler to post the link.  But you seem incapable of anything other than very long posts.  And you call me obsessed with controlling women (ironic, since I am a woman).  I think you’re obsessed with talking to yourself and posting on Catholic forums.  Ever hear of self-insured insurance policies?  Look it up.  It is unconstitutional to force an employer to pay for a service that violates their religious beliefs.

Claire, please look up the following:

1)The National women’s Law Center Takes a Position on contraceptive coverage and ” Extreme”” Legislation.

2)Catholic Bishops Religious Rights Vs. Women’s rights.

Just type those into your search bar as I could not obtain the website of either.

See how you feel about your Religious rights after reading those two articles. Take care, Lily

PS That is my last message to you.

Thanks Liliane, you take care too.

This is what Americans United for Separation of Church and State has to say about women’s right to their Health Care Coverage inclyuding effective contraceptives:=

Church-State Watchdog Says Religious Groups Should Not Be Allowed To Dictate National Policy On Contraceptives

June 19, 2012

Religious organizations have no right to meddle in Americans’ private lives by demanding the power to restrict access to birth control, says Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

In comments submitted to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Americans United told the agency that the creation of a new accommodation for religiously affiliated organizations is unnecessary.

“No religious organization’s rights are violated when an individual employee decides to use birth control,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “To be blunt, religious organizations should put an immediate stop to interfering with the intimate personal lives of others.”

The Roman Catholic hierarchy and its Religious Right allies are pressuring the Obama administration to allow religiously affiliated hospitals and colleges to deny birth control coverage to their employees even if the coverage is paid for by insurance companies. The bishops are also demanding that Catholic owners of secular businesses be allowed to deny their workers contraceptive coverage.

Read the rest of this press release at au.org »

Statement by the Americans United for Separation of Churtch and State=

Church-State Watchdog Says Religious Groups Should Not Be Allowed To Dictate National Policy On Contraceptives

June 19, 2012

Religious organizations have no right to meddle in Americans’ private lives by demanding the power to restrict access to birth control, says Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

In comments submitted to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Americans United told the agency that the creation of a new accommodation for religiously affiliated organizations is unnecessary.

“No religious organization’s rights are violated when an individual employee decides to use birth control,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “To be blunt, religious organizations should put an immediate stop to interfering with the intimate personal lives of others.”

The Roman Catholic hierarchy and its Religious Right allies are pressuring the Obama administration to allow religiously affiliated hospitals and colleges to deny birth control coverage to their employees even if the coverage is paid for by insurance companies. The bishops are also demanding that Catholic owners of secular businesses be allowed to deny their workers contraceptive coverage.

Read the rest of this press release at au.org »

Supporters for the “freedom of conscience” of the Catholic Church are essentially pursuing an argument to gut the very essence of labor rights that Catholic social teaching has fought for over a century to establish. There is something simply Orwellian about using the term freedom of conscience to restrict employee health care choices that are mandated not by government social engineers, but by the medical community

Reply=
“The secret the USCCB doesn’t
Submitted by Mark Luxford (not verified) on Jun. 01, 2012.
The secret the USCCB doesn’t want us to know is that the HHS mandates are anything but an attack on religious liberty. They are simply the Obama administration drawing up rules and regulations that comply with existing law. They’re not an unprecedented attack on religious liberty. They are an example of what’s done when rules to implement legislation are written.

In 1978 Congress passed The Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 which amended the 1964 Civil Rights Act to mandate that employers with 15 or more employees must offer women’s reproductive health care, including contraception, if their insurance program offers prescription drug coverage or other preventative services. That’s been the law of the land for the past 34 years. If you doubt my assertion check out Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act; specifically Section 701 provision (k).

The bishops are pushing for passage of “The Respect for Rights of Conscience Act of 2011” to enshrine in law their desire to deny women reproductive health care. But that law, if passed and signed into law, does not address the issue of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act; which gives women the right to reproductive health care. Congress gave women, a protected class where discrimination issues are present, the right to reproductive health care. And Congress cannot simply pass a law which negates that right they have granted. Well actually, I guess they can, but such a law is a near certainty to be struck down on review by the Supreme Court. The Court’s have always held that in cases such as this that the government must have a compelling interest in taking such an action. And, saving money or reasons of morality have never been found to be such a compelling interest. If the law is ever reviewed and approved by the Supreme Court, it would be a breathtaking display of judicial activism.

I see the USCCB’s campaign to overturn the HHS mandates as being an utterly disingenuous, deceptive campaign. I believe that they are abdicating their responsibility to be teachers of the truth in this campaign. They’re supposed to be truthful in their teachings to the faithful. Their arguments in this case are anything but honest and truthful

This is spin-doctoring, to manufacture an supposed war on women. The fact is that this mandate has no options to opt out, even if employers themselves want too, the same with employees. It’s been forced on everybody, based on what the government thinks is right.

The issue is also the government is trying to define, what religious practise should be, by calling Catholic organizations not Catholic enough.

Failing Grade in Social Doctrine

“If we evaluate Obamacare in light of the full scope of Catholic social teaching, it fails to hold up to scrutiny.
The cornerstone of Catholic social teaching is the recognition of the equal dignity of all people.

The Compendium teaches that it is “necessary that public authorities keep careful watch, so that restrictions placed on freedom or any onus placed on personal activity will never become harmful to personal dignity.”

Yet Obamacare violates this core principle with the “contraception mandate” that requires everyone to subsidize the universal provision of “free” abortifacients, birth control and sterilizations.

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson coined the immortal phrase “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” to represent the unalienable rights bestowed upon us by our Creator, rights that should be protected by our government.

Unfortunately, the life part — the most fundamental of the three — will be eroded by Obamacare, not only through the mandate, but also by federal tax dollars indirectly subsidizing abortion-covering plans in the soon-to-be-created Obamacare health exchanges.

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/site/article/failing-grade-in-social-doctrine/#ixzz2537uDMnw

Let me preface this by stating clearly that I am not a Catholic, but that I am a strong Christian who believes firmly that sex should remain within the sanctity and safety of marriage.  I am 25 years old, unmarried, and a virgin.  I am also a graduate student who desires to one day have a career and a family.  Logistically, that will absolutely require family planning.  Getting pregnant willy-nilly is not an option.  Neither is an abortion.  But natural family planning would NEVER EVER work for me.  It is not because I am a sex crazed sinner that can’t keep her legs shut.  It is because I have periods that are so irregular that to keep track of my fertile times would be next to impossible.  I have, on average, 3-4 periods a year.  Moreover, I have a thyroid condition that makes my basal body temperature consistently low and unpredictable.  I was just diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS.  What this practically means is that my hormone levels are so out of whack that my ovaries cannot release a properly matured egg and instead produce a follicule that does not travel down my fallopian tubes.  Instead, it remains attached to the ovary and forms a cyst that produces scarring.  Over time, an accumulation of these cysts can lead to infertility.  Ironically, I have to take birth control now to ensure that I will be able to have a child later.  And when I get married, I will not use birth control solely for preventing reproduction, but I would be lying if I said that wasn’t one of the reasons I prefer it over other treatment options available for PCOS.

I respect that women who use NFP often feel more empowered and in touch with their bodies. But without birth control pills, I feel the opposite.  I have no trackable “ebb and flow” of fertility and each month that passes without any sort of period puts me that much closer to not ever having to worry about preventing pregnancy again.  What works for you may not work for everyone.  I believe that women should be allowed to choose the form of family planning that suits their particular situation without ridicule or difficulty.  It doesn’t matter whether it is NFP, hormonal birth control, etc.  It is impossible to understand any woman’s reproductive health needs without first talking to her.  And that is a discussion best left between her and a doctor.  Not her and an insurance company, not her and a church that she is not a member of, not her and her employer, and not her and the government.  Abortion is another matter altogether, and should be discussed as a separate issue.

It is conceivable that I may one day work for a Catholic employer… Possibly a university.  As such, they would most likely be the ones to provide me with health insurance.  Given my age, it is reasonable to anticipate that I would spend around $45,000 on birth control over the course of my lifetime if it were not covered by insurance.  I am not asking for the government to give me free birth control and I am not asking anyone to compromise their moral values.  What I am asking is that birth control be treated as an issue that is between a patient and a doctor, not an employer and employee.  I have no right to criticize or prohibit you for preferring NFP, but neither do you have a right to criticize me for my reproductive choices and needs.  You especially do not have the right to call for laws allowing Catholic employers to refuse coverage of these needs based on their religious convictions.

As for women who do engage in premarital sex and use birth control solely to prevent abortion… The Bible cautions us against holding non-Christians to Biblical standards (1 Corinthians 5).  How can they follow God’s laws when they do not have the Holy Spirit to guide them?  When we force Biblical standards on someone who is not a Christian, they will recoil and develop bitterness towards us.  We are not called to dictate or establish morality.  God has already covered that pretty well.  We are called to love others, particularly non-Christians.  This doesn’t mean caving to or validating their sins, but it does mean accepting them for where they are at and gently encouraging them to seek after the Lord.  If you guide someone to Christ in this way, they will embrace Biblical morality as a genuine display of obedience rather than a legally enforced superficiality.  If they don’t have God in their heart, it doesn’t matter whether or not they ever have premarital sex, use birth control, or get an abortion… Their eternal fate is the same as one who has repeatedly and wantonly disgraced their body and their sexuality.

At the political level, this issue is an important one because it extends well beyond birth control.  If companies and employers can limit what coverage their employees receive based on moral grounds, Jewish bosses could refuse to cover organ transplants or medications where the donor with a pig.  This could result in life threatening situations, as pig organs and hormones are extremely similar to our own and used in many medical treatments.  Jehova Witnesses could easily refuse to cover their employee’s blood transfusions.  They strongly believe that sharing blood is one of the only Hassidic laws that still apply from the Old Testament and that receiving or giving blood is a desecration of the body.  There are even religious groups that eschew all forms of medical treatment.  Their reasoning is that any sort of medical intervention interferes with God’s will regarding life and death.  Would they be allowed to refuse any sort of medical services?  Even in instances where the head of the company or organization is of faith, but makes a habit of hiring employees who openly claim no affiliation with their church and whose jobs do not require them to?

As Christians, I believe we should be focusing on promoting genuine spiritual growth and changes of heart rather than establishing and forcing our standards onto non-christians through legal means or businesses practices.  I also believe we should learn to accept that we will sometimes disagree, both with each other and non-christians, and that this does not constitute a threat to our own sense of morality or our faith.

A $45,000 lifetime cost of contraception?  Where do you get that math?  Furthermore, oral contraceptives have an abortifacient function.  It is immoral to expect Catholic employers to pay for something that could potentially cause an abortion.

I used this online cost calculator: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/calculator-birth-control-expensive-really-cost

I am aware that Catholics consider birth control pills an abortifacient in the sense that they prevent the possibility of a pregnancy, which is considered playing God.  But not everybody follows that standard and it is not fair to require them to. It is a religious ideal not based in science or medicine.  Most people (secular and religious) consider an abortion to be the act of removing a fetus from the womb following conception.  They may disagree as to whether or not an abortion constitutes murder, but they do agree that having an abortion is possible only if conception has already occurred.  Conception occurs when a sperm meets an egg.  After sex, it may take as many as three days for the sperm to travel the egg and fertilize it.  During this time, a woman’s body contains both the egg and sperm that will result in a baby, but they have not yet joined.  Birth control acts in two ways:  First, it prevents eggs from being released.  Clearly, if an egg is not released, conception cannot occur.  Second, birth control thickens cervical mucus.  This makes it more difficult for sperm to travel toward the ovaries and any potentially released eggs.  Again, it prevents conception rather than ending it.  In fact, if conception does occur while a woman is on birth control (this happens only 2-3% of the time when women are using it correctly), a woman can continue to take birth control for up to a month with little to no harm to a fetus.  As long as they discontinue use once they discover the pregnancy (no period, blood test, routine pregnancy test, ect), the risks to the developing baby are very low.  This is because the hormone levels induced by birth control pills are actually quite similar to those that occur naturally during early pregnancy.  Birth controls prevent ovulation by tricking the body into thinking it is already pregnant.

Halleluya! Elle Yager. At last a sensible, logical and realistic thinker. I, and many of us women, are with you.

By the way I am a member of Catholics for Choice and the Republican Majority for Choice. God love you. take care, Lily sStern

That cost calculator is very misleading.  There are many inexpensive places for women to get contraception if they’re insurance doesn’t cover it.  And no, Catholics don’t think oral contraceptives are abortifacient because they prevent conception.  They are abortifiacients because if a conception does occur while taking the pill, the pill causes the uterus to be a hostile environment which can often result in miscarriage (i.e. abortion that would not have happened if the uterus were not rendered hostile by the oral contraceptive).