Culture of Life

[Koala]

It's 2017, and women still find themselves in the position of trying to explain why they can do anything they damn well please with their own bodies.

Unbelievable.

I don't care what the church thinks, and quite frankly, I don't care what her husband thinks.  That woman sounds like she's one more pregnancy away from losing her grip.  She has a 4 month old that they still don't seem too excited about.  

Do you know what they call people who use NFP?  They call them PARENTS. That baby that they wept over (and not in a happy way)?  NFP baby.  How can that be good for any of them?

Why we care more about a non-existent baby, than a very real mom (and family), I don't know.  I do know that she doesn't need anyone's permission. She needs to march into the nearest Planned Parenthood and take control of her life.  What they're doing now isn't working for any of them.

 

[Pammy]

This gets dicey to me because of this one thing she says:

"He told me some time ago that if I did go on birth control, he’d continue to feel obligated to never have sex again because contracepted sex is a sin."

It's dicey for me because it makes me wonder about consent. For sex to be consentual, both parties have to freely choose to participate. In this case she fully knows, because he has openly stated it, that he does not consent to sexual activity with her "if" she goes on birth control.

If she goes on birth control: Is it ethical for her to proceed with sexual activity with him -- when she knows he has stated non-consent for that activity (contracepted sex) while she is (actively or passively) deceiving him in order to gain his participation? Wouldn't that be a non-consentual sexual activity?

[PennySycamore]

@Jingeyk,  if this woman's periods were to stop because of a hormonal IUD,  I'll bet her husband would never know.  Men tend to ignore that kind of thing.  

[FakePigtails]

Even the people over at CAF (for anyone unfamiliar, describing them as intensely Catholic is an understatement) have told people that they're not responsible for birth control used by partners and need not abstain because of it.

Anyway, IMO the wife needs to go get herself some birth control and the husband needs to accept that his wife isn't following his church's teachings nor should she be expected to and tbh he should re-think his own beliefs if he reacted so strongly to the 4th pregnancy and yet still doesn't think his wife should use birth control that doesn't involve the daily analysis and stress (especially pre-period) that NFP will cause for his wife.

[NachosFlandersStyle]

4 hours ago, Pammy said:

This gets dicey to me because of this one thing she says:

"He told me some time ago that if I did go on birth control, he’d continue to feel obligated to never have sex again because contracepted sex is a sin."

It's dicey for me because it makes me wonder about consent. For sex to be consentual, both parties have to freely choose to participate. In this case she fully knows, because he has openly stated it, that he does not consent to sexual activity with her "if" she goes on birth control.

If she goes on birth control: Is it ethical for her to proceed with sexual activity with him -- when she knows he has stated non-consent for that activity (contracepted sex) while she is (actively or passively) deceiving him in order to gain his participation? Wouldn't that be a non-consentual sexual activity?

Yeah, I think there's a difference between doing what's right for you, and doing right by your partner. And in a healthy setting, you often have to dissolve the relationship when those things conflict. But I would argue that this is a potentially abusive situation, in which case you gotta secure your own mask before helping others.

[Foudeb]

10 hours ago, Pammy said:

This gets dicey to me because of this one thing she says:

"He told me some time ago that if I did go on birth control, he’d continue to feel obligated to never have sex again because contracepted sex is a sin."

It's dicey for me because it makes me wonder about consent. For sex to be consentual, both parties have to freely choose to participate. In this case she fully knows, because he has openly stated it, that he does not consent to sexual activity with her "if" she goes on birth control.

If she goes on birth control: Is it ethical for her to proceed with sexual activity with him -- when she knows he has stated non-consent for that activity (contracepted sex) while she is (actively or passively) deceiving him in order to gain his participation? Wouldn't that be a non-consentual sexual activity?

I read that letter as "my husband doesn't consent to sex with me as it is, because risk of pregnancy, but does it anyway. He indicated that my going on birth control wouldn't make him any less reluctant to have sex".

The husband's a grown man, if he can't resist having sex with his wife then so be it. Doesn't mean that the wife should risk pregnancy every time his hormones grow stronger than his religion.

[Pammy]

47 minutes ago, Foudeb said:

I read that letter as "my husband doesn't consent to sex with me as it is, because risk of pregnancy, but does it anyway. He indicated that my going on birth control wouldn't make him any less reluctant to have sex".

The husband's a grown man, if he can't resist having sex with his wife then so be it. Doesn't mean that the wife should risk pregnancy every time his hormones grow stronger than his religion.

In that case, his freedom to knowingly consent or not consent to future sexual acts would only be intact if she discloses to him whether she is using contraception. That way if he "does it anyways" it's a consentual act for both them.

She need not risk pregnancy, but I don't think she is ethically free to trick him into sexual acts that he has already declared he doesn't consent to.

I know that he can change his mind any time his "hormones grow stronger than his religion" -- but if information is hidden from him, he's not "changing his mind" he's being coerced by a lie into sex that he does not want... and she knows he doesn't want it.

[lawfulevil]

Good grief, what an asshole. "I hate literally all the possible outcomes or decisions we could make- here's a heaping helping of guilt and emotional labor to perform, I'm going to go snivel in the corner." This poor woman can't win and her husband has left her completely alone with the problem so he can feel like he's the good guy.

I don't know if she needs an IUD or not, but she might need a fucking divorce.

[Foudeb]

On 29/05/2017 at 1:33 PM, Pammy said:

In that case, his freedom to knowingly consent or not consent to future sexual acts would only be intact if she discloses to him whether she is using contraception. That way if he "does it anyways" it's a consentual act for both them.

She need not risk pregnancy, but I don't think she is ethically free to trick him into sexual acts that he has already declared he doesn't consent to.

I know that he can change his mind any time his "hormones grow stronger than his religion" -- but if information is hidden from him, he's not "changing his mind" he's being coerced by a lie into sex that he does not want... and she knows he doesn't want it.

I would agree with you - if the husband here only wanted to have sex to get a chance at pregnancy. If that were the case then lying to him about contraception would indeed be tricking him into sex. But it's not the case - he doesn't want another child, didn't want their last child, and from her description of "still not having recovered from the depression caused by child #4", I assume, doesn't lift a finger to father said child.

It's a big difference. If your partner really wants more children, you married under the assumption that you'd breed every year, and your partner, sensing your reluctance, does his very best to make pregnancy and parenting easier on you (foot massages, taking over more chores so you have longer to relax, doing the bulk of the parenting, being the very best partner you could wish for, etc) then yes, secret contraception would be going against the relationship and would be grounds for him to ask for a divorce. But that's not the case here. What I sense here, based only on the tone of the letter, is that we have an overwhelmed dad who can't cope with more children and the responsibility it entails (and with four little ones, I'm not holding it against him!) but who refuses to man up ie stop having sex or get contraception. He's putting his wife in a lose-lose situation - she can't look after herself, and his own mental health, by getting contraception, but she also can't take the risk of child #5, because he is as unprepared and unwilling as she is. And she has to make that call on her own, without his support.

Frankly if that was me I'd be taking the kids, moving back in with my parents and asking for a divorce before you could say "IUD" out loud, because such big decisions, with the guilt it implies when you're practising Catholics, should be a shared burden. And talking about it rationally, together, could potentially lead to compromise (maybe only non-PIV sex for a year, then talk about it again, something like that)

If it helps try to picture it the other way around - a wife who doesn't want more children, was depressed for over a year over child #4, which negatively affected all four kids and the husband who was trying to cope on his own, although child #4 wasn't his choice either, but who also doesn't want her husband to use condoms and also doesn't want to stop having sex and regularly pressures her husband into unprotected sex. Would you perhaps think of her as slightly irrational? would you perhaps think the husband justified in getting a secret temporary vasectomy so that when he's pressured into sex he doesn't take the risk of the child #4 fiasco happening again?

The only limit of the role reversal is that here it's the party who is being denied contraception who is also the party who would suffer most if there was a child #5. Being pregnant is 20 times more likely to kill you than skydiving is. Potential complications from pregnancy and childbirth could seriously impact her health. That, and that alone, is the reason the agony aunt gives to go get protection - she is a grown woman and should take responsibility for her own health.

[EowynW]

The Yates family was told not to have another child as it would throw Andrea (who had suffered from PPD for years) into post partum depression psychosis. Her husband refused and they had a 5th baby. 6 months later she drowned all kid kids in a bathtub. 

 

I was14 when that happened and that incident made little fundie raised me decide I was never going to be so overwhelmed with so many kids that I'd get to that point. 

[smittykins]

And he left her alone with the kids when her doctors emphatically told him never to do so under any circumstances.  I believe he should have faced legal consequences for that decision.

[EowynW]

18 minutes ago, smittykins said:

And he left her alone with the kids when her doctors emphatically told him never to do so under any circumstances.  I believe he should have faced legal consequences for that decision.

Me too! Still boggled that he didn't. 

[bal maiden]

Ah, Captain Awkward. Best site on the whole internet! 

I felt so sad for the LW when I saw this letter. It's a total lose-lose-lose for her. Either she keeps a big secret in the marriage, which is never a nice thing, or she lives the risk of another pregnancy, or she divorces someone who (presumably) she does actually care for deeply, and is alone with 4 kids. It doesn't sound like her husband is willing to budge an inch. I think the Captain's advice is spot on, although if she got an IUD on the quiet, I would still be worried about him noticing those little strings that hang down from the cervix. 

 

[SoybeanQueen]

If he doesn't consent to contracepted sex, and she doesn't consent to non-contracepted sex, their choices are 1) no sex, or 2) divorce.

Some of our friends tried to get us to consider becoming Catholic a while back. The rules about whether or not sex between married people is OK is one reason I would never have agreed to it. There were other reasons, too, and I know a lot of Catholics don't follow the contraception rules or the ones about only PIV sex, but still. It doesn't strike me as very "unitive" to have the church constantly standing between me and sex with my husband.

[Jug Band Baby]

On 5/24/2017 at 7:37 PM, Chocolatedefrauded said:

Almost every Catholic I know (my family & community is largely Irish Catholic) practices some sort of BC. Whether they admit it or not, they have to because everyone mysteriously stops having babies after 2,3 or maybe 4. It is not an accident!

Almost every Catholic I know doesn't.  And the married of them have 6+ kids or are on their way there.  I had a friendship end recently because my ex-friend's teenage daughter was on the pill for medical reasons, and was raped, and my ex-friend came to the stupid idea that taking the pills at all were wrong because they prevented a pregnancy that would have happened, then they're a since.  I ripped her to shreds over that, and we haven't spoken since.  I've never known anyone before who said "shit, what if the victim would have gotten pregnant and this prevented it."  Only people saying "thank goodness she didn't get pregnant, and this could have helped."

[Jug Band Baby]

On 5/25/2017 at 0:20 AM, L1o2u3 said:

Natural Family Planning is a very safe method, if you do it right and always take your temps, watch your cervical mucus etc. You need to learn to do it properly and then stick to it. It was not predictable. NFP can be as safe as the pill, if done correctly. 

It's actually safer, but is it as reliable?  No.  

[Coconut Flan]

In our parish of over 1100 families, there are maybe three families with more than four kids.  I've never seen a family there with more than six kids.  Somehow I don't think it's all NFP.   The only Catholic I know who didn't use some form of BC was my boss.  She used BC until they were ready to have kids because she wasn't Catholic yet.  After the first couple of kids, she went to classes and was confirmed.  They went on to have four in ten years plus one miscarriage when she was 45.  They planned it to not start having a family too soon and that age and nursing would limit their family size. 

 

[Jug Band Baby]

On 5/25/2017 at 6:20 AM, L1o2u3 said:

@GeoBQn That's fine, but I think that both the letter and the reply convey the message that NFP is shitty and it will fail. Which it won't. They should have at least made that clear in the reply IMO.

Did you miss how their #4 is the result of NFP failing?

[EowynW]

I think it depends on the family. In the practice I work for we have many catholic clients who limited their family size and only use NFP + condoms. 

[Jug Band Baby]

On 5/28/2017 at 5:55 PM, Pammy said:

If she goes on birth control: Is it ethical for her to proceed with sexual activity with him -- when she knows he has stated non-consent for that activity (contracepted sex) while she is (actively or passively) deceiving him in order to gain his participation? Wouldn't that be a non-consentual sexual activity?

It's ethical.  Why the fucks should be have a say in her trying to prevent pregnancy? 

Is it ethical for him to manipulate her by saying he'll only have sex with her if she can get pregnant each time?  No.  Each person has a right to prevent a pregnancy on their end.  It's called taking control of one's own infertility, and if someone limits their fertility, that's their choice.

[louisa05]

1 hour ago, Coconut Flan said:

In our parish of over 1100 families, there are maybe three families with more than four kids.  I've never seen a family there with more than six kids.  Somehow I don't think it's all NFP.   The only Catholic I know who didn't use some form of BC was my boss.  She used BC until they were ready to have kids because she wasn't Catholic yet.  After the first couple of kids, she went to classes and was confirmed.  They went on to have four in ten years plus one miscarriage when she was 45.  They planned it to not start having a family too soon and that age and nursing would limit their family size. 

 

We have one family in our parish with 10 kids and the mom is about 35 or 36, so I'm guessing there will be more. We have another family with 11, but 3 are adopted. And I'm guessing the mom is in her 40s, so they are probably done. That father is a doctor, so there is plenty of money there. Not sure about the first one. 

The rest of the parish...mostly 2 or 3 well spaced children. A few families with 4--We know one of those families very well and I know that 4 was their intention and they never used NFP. We have had multiple only children in our confirmation classes and two kids who were triplets in families that only had the set of triplets (2 families with triplets). I suspect fertility treatment in those two families, many of which are against church teaching, too. 

The only Catholics I know who are extremely adamant about NFP fall in two categories: 

*Some 40+ year old unmarried virgins I went to high school with. Easy to yammer about a topic that has literally never affected your life. 

*Some post-menopausal women who saw the light at some point after they raised two or three well spaced children and now preach to younger couples about the wonders of NFP. Seems a bit hypocritical to me. 

[Cleopatra7]

Catholics who are militantly against birth control tend to self-segregate in conservative and/traditionalist parishes where they can surround themselves with like-minded people, just like their Protestant counterparts. You probably won't come into contact with such families at your average mainstream Catholic parish. This blog thread is an example of the kind of discourse that conservative Catholics have about birth control:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/voxnova/2014/07/20/catholic-women-on-not-using-birth-control/

(full disclosure: I participated in this thread as a provocateur under another screen name and it will be quite obvious which responses are mine)

The TL;DR summary of the "arguments" is that the Magisterium says birth control is wrong, so it is, end of story, and no amount of statistics on maternal death or marital unhappiness can trump that.

[Pammy]

1 hour ago, Jug Band Baby said:

It's ethical.  Why the fucks should be have a say in her trying to prevent pregnancy? 

Is it ethical for him to manipulate her by saying he'll only have sex with her if she can get pregnant each time?  No.  Each person has a right to prevent a pregnancy on their end.  It's called taking control of one's own infertility, and if someone limits their fertility, that's their choice.

I don't mean to imply that he should have a say in whether or not she prevents pregnancy. She can make that decision as she likes -- my issue is around disclosure and deception.

It seems to me that a person always has the right to choose to decline a sexual encounter for absolutely any reason they please -- even if that reason is an irrational superstition.

If (at any time for any reason) this husband wants to decline to have sex with his wife, does she have the right to tell him lies in order to gain his consent for the encounter she would like to have? I'm pretty sure that any "consent" that is gained by deception is actually not consent.

I think that telling outright lies to manipulate someone into sex that you fully know they don't want is much more serious than the other side of the coin. To tell someone that you will "only have sex if" they meet certain conditions is low... but to actually *knowingly* initiate unwanted sex is considerably worse in my eyes.

[Jug Band Baby]

3 hours ago, Pammy said:

It seems to me that a person always has the right to choose to decline a sexual encounter for absolutely any reason they please -- even if that reason is an irrational superstition.

If she's against porn, do you think he's disclosing every tie he fantasizes about porn?  Even with her?  Her husband DOES NOT WANT ANOTHER CHILD, and is already unhappy with #4 existing.  Her going on birth control would lessen the chance of #5 by a lot, but her telling him about it would shut him off to her.  Their situation isn't a typical situation where both halves respect the other a whole lot.  He's putting religion ahead of her mental health, and his own mental health, and if he won't grow the hell up  and see that he's going to destroy them both, then she needs to, and the least destructive way is to do what she has to do to make sure there are no more pregnancies.

Quote

If (at any time for any reason) this husband wants to decline to have sex with his wife, does she have the right to tell him lies in order to gain his consent for the encounter she would like to have? I'm pretty sure that any "consent" that is gained by deception is actually not consent.

She's not telling him lies to get him to consent.  He's already only consenting when they both hope she won't conceive.  All she'd be doing is lessening that possibility.  How are you able to ignore that neither of them want more kids?

Quote

I think that telling outright lies to manipulate someone into sex that you fully know they don't want is much more serious than the other side of the coin. To tell someone that you will "only have sex if" they meet certain conditions is low... but to actually *knowingly* initiate unwanted sex is considerably worse in my eyes.

Manipulating with birth control would be telling someone you were taking it when you weren't, or being on it when the other person believes you're trying to conceive.  In this case, again, since you haven't gotten it yet, HE.  DOES.  NOT.  WANT.  ANOTHER.  Is that getting through to you yet?  

You are pretty anti-woman if you really believe a woman who is nearly at the edge of her sanity who is in a relationship where the last baby isn't wanted and another is desperately not wanted should continue to take a reckless chance at an outcome that HER HUSBAND DOES NOT WANT.

And further, her not telling him absolves him of religious responsibility since he had plausible denial.  This is an all-around WIN.  

[Foudeb]

7 hours ago, Pammy said:

I don't mean to imply that he should have a say in whether or not she prevents pregnancy. She can make that decision as she likes -- my issue is around disclosure and deception.

It seems to me that a person always has the right to choose to decline a sexual encounter for absolutely any reason they please -- even if that reason is an irrational superstition.

If (at any time for any reason) this husband wants to decline to have sex with his wife, does she have the right to tell him lies in order to gain his consent for the encounter she would like to have? I'm pretty sure that any "consent" that is gained by deception is actually not consent.

I think that telling outright lies to manipulate someone into sex that you fully know they don't want is much more serious than the other side of the coin. To tell someone that you will "only have sex if" they meet certain conditions is low... but to actually *knowingly* initiate unwanted sex is considerably worse in my eyes.

What is the difference between them consenting to having sex at a time where they both believe they are infertile (with the NPF method) and them consenting to sex at a time where they both believe they are infertile (only she needs another method of contraception to really believe she is infertile)?