JinJer 47: Sparking J-O-Y

[theotherelise]

@singsingsing - This is just my best guess. The majority of protestant, sexually-active women use birth control including sterilization (Source). Being quiverful in mainline Protestantism is not the default, so it seems like a church would not be silent about it if they believed in zero birth control. As for hormonal birth control specifically, it mostly seems like reformed and SBC powers that be advise that certain BCP along with IUDs can be abortifacents, but some reliably prevent ovulation. It is definitely a leap on my part that I don't think those churches have a firm position on hormonal prevention, but it is at least an educated guess. Even being fine with barrier method and vasectomies/tubal ligation would be an improvement for the lives of the families and their opportunities.

Here is reformed pastor John Piper on it: https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/what-is-your-stance-on-married-couples-using-birth-control-pills

Albert Mohler: https://albertmohler.com/2006/05/08/can-christians-use-birth-control/

The SBC policy arm: https://erlc.com/resource-library/articles/the-confusion-about-contraceptives

[Bobology]

If they (whoever... SBC, headships, god) are against HBC, it stands to reason that they would also take a stance against Viagra, Cialis, etc. which contribute to the release of reproductive hormones or block reproductive hormones. I just read up on that because I really don't know anything about it. Even if their objection is to the possible abortion of an embryo, the impotence drugs are messing with hormones, just in a different way. Wouldn't impotence be god's way of closing the door to pregnancy and therefore must be accepted?

Does anyone know how old this objection to HBC is and how it started? (Really guys, I don't know much.)

[nastyhobbitses]

4 minutes ago, Bobology said:

If they (whoever... SBC, headships, god) are against HBC, it stands to reason that they would also take a stance against Viagra, Cialis, etc. which contribute to the release of reproductive hormones or block reproductive hormones. I just read up on that because I really don't know anything about it. Even if their objection is to the possible abortion of an embryo, the impotence drugs are messing with hormones, just in a different way. Wouldn't impotence be god's way of closing the door to pregnancy and therefore must be accepted?

Does anyone know how old this objection to HBC is and how it started? (Really guys, I don't know much.)

I think it started with the realization that hormonal birth control would allow women a modicum of agency and control over their bodies, and we can't have THAT now, can we? 

[Iamtheway]

19 hours ago, Anna Bolinas said:

Her hair looks nice all curly like that. But if I may slip my Tyra Banks high heels on, she needs more smize in those eyes. RIght now, it's reading more "confused" than "fierce". 

I’m pretty sure that’s exactly how Jeremy likes his women. Then he tells her ”important” thoughts that he has and she looks at him lovingly and sighs. ”You are so smart babe!”

[PennySycamore]

Prior to contraception coverage being mandated by the ACA (aka Obamacare), Hobby Lobby had no problem with covering birth control for those employees that qualified for health insurance.  It was only because it was part of something associated with President Obama that Hobby Lobby filed that damn lawsuit.

[CarrotCake]

14 hours ago, Bobology said:

If they (whoever... SBC, headships, god) are against HBC, it stands to reason that they would also take a stance against Viagra, Cialis, etc. which contribute to the release of reproductive hormones or block reproductive hormones. I just read up on that because I really don't know anything about it. Even if their objection is to the possible abortion of an embryo, the impotence drugs are messing with hormones, just in a different way. Wouldn't impotence be god's way of closing the door to pregnancy and therefore must be accepted?

Does anyone know how old this objection to HBC is and how it started? (Really guys, I don't know much.)

I think the problem with HBC is that it, even though the primary goal is not releasing an egg, if an egg is released anyway it results in the inability to let the fertilized egg develop. Since this could happen, they see it as a sort of abortion.

 

(I don't know if I used the right terminology here, not the usual topics I discuss in English)

[Pecansforeveryone]

Yes @CarrotCake, I have heard various conservative Christians, including conservative Catholics say that HBC are abortificants. 

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

I just want to know where this whole "life begins at conception" bullshit started?  What sick fuck white man decided that this was a thing?  I get it, it is to keep control of women and poor folks into being dumb and poor an unable to get out from under their power.  When did this start? Was it at the invention of HBC or has it always been around?  

[nolongerIFBx]

36 minutes ago, allthegoodnamesrgone said:

I just want to know where this whole "life begins at conception" bullshit started?  What sick fuck white man decided that this was a thing?  I get it, it is to keep control of women and poor folks into being dumb and poor an unable to get out from under their power.  When did this start? Was it at the invention of HBC or has it always been around?  

Jeremiah? Pretty sure he was Jewish though: 

Jeremiah 1:5 English Standard Version (ESV)

5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;”

[theotherelise]

I don't have time right now to dig for sources, but I know most evangelicals and SBC specifically were not even anti-abortion when Roe happened. (Found one source that's an interesting jumping off point HERE). A lot of opposition to birth control generally from any denominations was mostly about sex being for the purpose of procreation or at least all sex should be undertaken with the idea of being open to procreation.* Abstinence during the fertile window (natural family planning) is kind of a cheat because there is no sex, so you aren't undertaking sex for a purpose other than procreation.

I've read before that much of the change in the evangelical views toward abortion came about from advancements in ultrasound technology. Ultrasounds did not become a normal thing until the early 80s, I believe. It might take 12 weeks to get a heartbeat with a doppler, but ultrasounds can pick it up from most people's first appointments. Before the 80s, it was not common to hear evangelicals proclaim that life began at conception. Kind of a cruel irony that when they finally started attempting to learn more about women's health in the medical community after centuries of ignorance, that knowledge was immediately used to advocate for less agency for women.

From then on, you've got a lot of factors at play. With the pill and the feminism movement of the time, women started entering and staying in the workforce in larger numbers. Men be threatened. The continuing sexual revolution, the perception that birth control would or did lead to more sex outside of marriage, an increase in divorce rates, and the surge in secular culture dominance in the 80s left the evangelical community reeling. The reaction to all this resulted in Reagan, Just Say No, the Jesus Movement, ATI, Focus on the Family, the homeschool movement, and the anti-abortion movement.

The pendulum swung hard. My parents didn't listen to secular music from like 1983 to 1998ish because of hearing messages about the harm that could happen from being exposed to the messages in the songs. I was told in my christian middle school that condoms didn't protect against HIV or many STDs because the spores were too big and birth control pills caused abortions, so our only godly option was abstinence. 

*ETA: that's the whole "spilling his seed on the ground" = smoted (smited?) being struck dead by God because you should only finish inside a woman and anything else is an abomination.

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

12 minutes ago, nolongerIFBx said:

Jeremiah? Pretty sure he was Jewish though: 

Jeremiah 1:5 English Standard Version (ESV)

5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;”

Oh wait, my bad I was thinking logically here with science and shit, I forgot I can't do that when dealing with these folks. LOL! 

[Cleopatra7]

36 minutes ago, allthegoodnamesrgone said:

I just want to know where this whole "life begins at conception" bullshit started?  What sick fuck white man decided that this was a thing?  I get it, it is to keep control of women and poor folks into being dumb and poor an unable to get out from under their power.  When did this start? Was it at the invention of HBC or has it always been around?  

I think it was Pope Pius XI, who wrote the first major modern encyclical on “life issues”, Casti Connubii:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casti_connubii

https://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19301231_casti-connubii.html

CC was written in response to the 1930 Lambeth Conference in which the Anglican Communion allowed birth control for married couples. Because CC was still within living memory when the pull was invented, Pope Paul VI felt he had to uphold the anti-contraception stance to appear consistent, even though a lot of officials in the Vatican were in favor of allowing birth control. However, the idea of life beginning at conception is clearly less than a hundred years old, since exactly what happened at conception wasn’t clear to doctors until the late 19th century and even that might be pushing it.

As for conservative Protestants, it appears that they got into the frowning on birth control thing once they entered the anti-abortion movement in the 1980s and became influenced by the Catholic approach to life issues (this is also why natural law theory is becoming a thing with some Protestant theologians now). Interestingly, when Roe v Wade came down, the only religious bodies that opposed it were the Catholic Church, the LDS Church, and the Orthodox Union. It bared registered for most Protestant churches, who regarded the antiabortion movement and being against birth control to be weird Catholic things, like the rosary or the Mass. If you dig around on the SBC site, you’ll find a document from the 1970s where they say that abortion should be between a woman and her doctor. It seems like conservative white Protestants and their white Catholic peers have been feeding off the worst aspects of each other.

However, the Protestant camp aren’t as consistent as the Catholic Church, probably because conservative Protestantism is much more diverse. There are people on the fringes like the Duggars who bring up the average wherever they go, but it seems like the average conservative Protestant doesn’t have an issue with birth control per se, but take umbrage to paying for other people’s contraception through tax dollars and those methods that they erroneously believe are abortifacents. Al Mohler and his ilk may complain about birth control, but they aren’t having quivers of kids themselves, which is quite telling.

[mollysmom]

1 hour ago, nolongerIFBx said:

Jeremiah? Pretty sure he was Jewish though: 

Jeremiah 1:5 English Standard Version (ESV)

5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;”

They use Psalm 139 for that as well. (which says basically the same thing you just wrote!) 

[kmachete14]

I went to Catholic high school, and in Religion class we had to read an article about how taking hormonal birth control thins the lining of the uterus, so IF somehow you did ovulate even on the BC, the fertilized egg would "starve" without the uterine lining to implant into and get nutrients from. 

We also learned that you had to be open to conception whenever you had sex, and that there is no divorcing the reproductive/pleasure/bonding parts of sex (since that's how God made it). Hence, IVF is wrong as is any type of barrier method. 

We learned NFP is only permissible for extenuating circumstances you can discuss with your priest, and that it is always temporary. 

This is Catholic belief, yet 99% (I'm not making that up) use some form of birth control. 

After declaring the purpose of sex, that life begins at conception, and then scientists pinpointing conception, there is really no way around this tenant of the Catholic Church. 

Sadly, many of the 99% of Catholic using birth control don't get that the "sin" of BC is just as bad as gay marriage (gay sex is always closed to conception), and thus support horrible legislation or discrimination . . . forgetting about the log in their own eye . . . 

[KeshetParparNesicha]

4 hours ago, nolongerIFBx said:

Jeremiah? Pretty sure he was Jewish though: 

Jeremiah 1:5 English Standard Version (ESV)

5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;”

Except that Jews don't believe life begins at conception. Oops.

[PennySycamore]

@kmachete14,  when the birth control pill was first developed, the scientists did not know precisely how it worked.  They knew it stopped ovulation in the vast majority of women, but they also postulated that it might thin the uterine lining and make it difficult for the fertilized ovum to implant.  We know now that oral contraceptives DO NOT thin the uterine lining. It's way past time to put that canard to rest.

[kmachete14]

@PennySycamore

"How do progestin-only pills work?

Progestin-only birth control pills, sometimes called “mini-pills,” have several effects in the body that help prevent pregnancy:

The mucus in the cervix thickens, making it difficult for sperm to enter the uterus and fertilize an egg.

They stop ovulation, but they do not do so consistently. About 40% of women who use progestin-only pills will continue to ovulate.

They thin the lining of the uterus." 

https://www.acog.org/Patients/FAQs/Progestin-Only-Hormonal-Birth-Control-Pill-and-Injection?IsMobileSet=false

That's from The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, March 2018

I'm not saying I trust all the BS from my Catholic high school, but I did just do a quick search because I was surprised. 

[AstridM]

Most pills are not progestin only.

[SorenaJ]

If life doesn't begin at conception, when does it begin? 

[Kailash]

31 minutes ago, SorenaJ said:

If life doesn't begin at conception, when does it begin? 

For a scientific point of view, I like this article: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.timesunion.com/opinion/amp/Why-life-doesn-t-begin-at-conception-12320582.php

This article mentions other reasons too: https://www.romper.com/p/3-ways-science-proves-life-doesnt-begin-at-conception-despite-what-the-hhs-strategic-plan-is-telling-you-3199987

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

37 minutes ago, SorenaJ said:

If life doesn't begin at conception, when does it begin? 

When it can breath on its own. like Genesis says.  I personally don't think it is a life until it can exist separate from mom.  I've had 2 children, and from the moment I got 2 lines on those tests, I was that is MY BABY, but that was my CHOICE. I would like to keep it that way, you do you, and I do me.  

[SorenaJ]

1 minute ago, allthegoodnamesrgone said:

When it can breath on its own. Like Genesis says.  I personally don't think it is a life until it can exist separate from mom.    I've had 2 children, and from the moment I got 2 lines on those tests, I was that is MY BABY, but that was my CHOICE. 

What if a baby is born at nearly term, but it can't breathe on its own, and needs breathing tubes? Or someone is ill and needs breathing tubes? 

And can a baby exist separate from its mum? If you left it alone it would die pretty quickly. 

Sorty for playing devil's advocate here, but I'm genuinely interested in hearing people's opinions, because I don't know the answer myself. 

First I thought something that can move on it's own would be alive, but then people in coma can't move on their own, but are still alive. 

How is "life" defined as opposed to being alive? I mean sperm cells are alive, but are not life. 

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

@SorenaJ I guess it depends. You need help to breath, and medical intervention can help then yes. But that is MY opinion. I get what you are saying. It is such a tricky question.

[Italiangirl]

I have tried to think about it by miself too and at the start I say when the heart beat, but then even if the heart beat, it could simply be a mechanical things like for people in deep coma, or in a baby case they are still very much part of the mom body (does it make sense? I'm not sure) so I don't know I think that if it is about a pregnancy of mine it would say from the heart beat 'cause that is when it become real for a lot of person  (at least this is what I heard in my circle) like you realize that is all true and you will have a baby...

But I will like to know what others think about it I always learn so much here! 

[JesSky03]

I don't think one can argue that an unborn child isn't alive or that it is not a "life". A better question to ask is when does that life have value? For me it IS from conception. My son was my son from the beginning. He didn't change into someone else or become anything different from the womb to outside world. He was my son when I saw his heartbeat at 4.5 weeks gestation and he was still my son when I was able to feel his heart beating in my arms at 38 weeks gestation. He's now a year old and he still can't survive on his own so when does his life have value?