New birth control plan still not good enough for bishops

[doggie]

Nah, I don't buy this excuse. They don't just want to restrict birth control for non-marital sex; they want to restrict it even for the most innocent married couples.

They also know perfectly well that restricting birth control does not make people just stop having sex. Their problem is that people will have sex that is not church-approves and get no punishment for it. The idea of women just enjoying sex for its own sake makes them angry.

they claim that though. but it is all about control and breeding. The catholic church is so used to having power over most of the earth 9well white mans earth anyway) that they still think and want to control everything.

[muffynbear]

Will the Catholic Church and all the other religious blow-hards fuck off already? I'm so sick of people opposing contraception because they claim it promotes promiscuity blah, blah, blah. It's Two-thousand and fucking twelve! Not 1812. People like to fuck! Deal with it! Not only that, but I actually take BC for medical reasons other than being sexually active and I'm sure a lot of other women do too. This is why I will never let organized religion control my life. *end rant*

[mockingbird]

Email from our Catholic society (I swear I have been at this school for 4 years and never paid attention to their emails... I just subscribed to see if they ever had lectures I was interested in): "Natural family planning doctors will be coming to talk about their experiences going through medical school to become doctors and upholding Catholic values." Tempted to go in hope they bring up the mandate. Snacks are provided so that could make it worth the effort. I'm heading to med school but I don't want to be a natural family planning doc lol.

[Stickers]

"[Mother Teresa] was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction.†Christopher Hitchens

Will always be one of my favorite quotes from him. His point still stands when speaking of the Church as a whole. It seems like the Church isn't happy with just cursing people in South America, Africa and India with widespread abject poverty they want to spreed it to the USA too.

And NFP? Without any backup BC? That's mostly BS. Sure it works for people in, at the very least a respectful relationship, where the couple (read:guy) is fine with absence from intercourse half the time and they have the time and knowledge to track vaginal discharge. Even then it's failure rate is much higher then barrier or hormonal or surgical methods. Nothing one should be relaying on if a kid would make their financial situation dire or a pregnancy put would their life at risk or even if they just don't want one!

[JesusFightClub]

Extremely irrelevant but the title of this thread makes me laugh because I read it the wrong way. I keep imagining all these bishops sitting around saying to each other "Ooh, John, this new birth control isn't good enough for me. I've tried it and I'm still just POPPING out the babies." :D

[Boltingmadonna]

I was taught to read and the bible, and if I disagreed with a Church doctrine, that was OK.

Also, the Church agrees with the use of condoms to prevent aids.

Speaking as a life-long Catholic until I quit in disgust a few years ago, I'm always really puzzled by statements like these. Sorry, but no. Just no. I understand that you may think it's okay to disagree with the Church, but it's not. That's one thing that hasn't changed and never will. The Pope decides what you should believe. You do not have an option. I understand that there are many more liberal priests and teachers who may have given you the impression that it's okay to disagree, because that's what they wish were true--but it isn't. If they want you to have an opinion, they will issue you one. "Humanae Vitae" is the official word from the Pope on birth control. It says you can't use any artificial means, and that includes BC pills and condoms. It hasn't changed. It's still there. The bishops aren't trying to enforce it directly right now, because they realize they'd lose too many members and too much money. So they're trying to make an end run around their own congregations by getting BC re-defined as "abortion" and trying to make it unavailable. That's what the current fuss is all about.

Official Catechism of the Catholic Church: In contrast, [to NFP] "every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible" is intrinsically evil:159

As far as using condoms to prevent AIDS, I don't want to get into tl;dr territory, but check out this summary on the Church's position. While a few cardinals and bishops have suggested that possibly, maaaaybe, condoms could be the lesser evil, most Church leaders are against condoms, to the point of brazenly lying about their effectiveness in public speeches. And both John Paul II and Benedict XVI consistently forbade use of condoms for any reason. You're just mistaken about this.

If you want a church where you get to have your own opinion, you need a different church. Just sayin.

[Boltingmadonna]

Fiddle dee dee--forgot link on Catholic position on use of condoms to prevent AIDS. Here it is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_AIDS

[treemom]

There is no doubt that the Catholic church higher-ups would be much happier had birth control never been developed, so no decision that allows women to get their naughty fingers on birth control is going to make them unhappy. Yes, I realize they make exceptions (so big of them), but the Church is against birth control, no matter how it's spun.

The creator of the bcp was a devout catholic. He was shocked by the churches response.

http://www.gladwell.com/2000/2000_03_10_a_rock.htm

[treemom]

Fiddle dee dee--forgot link on Catholic position on use of condoms to prevent AIDS. Here it is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_AIDS

http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/201 ... n-condoms/

Note: gay male prostitutes can use condoms. Female prostitutes can't.

If that doesn't show the value of women's lives in the eyes of the pope, I don't know what does.

[GeoBQn]

And NFP? Without any backup BC? That's mostly BS. Sure it works for people in, at the very least a respectful relationship, where the couple (read:guy) is fine with absence from intercourse half the time and they have the time and knowledge to track vaginal discharge. Even then it's failure rate is much higher then barrier or hormonal or surgical methods. Nothing one should be relaying on if a kid would make their financial situation dire or a pregnancy put would their life at risk or even if they just don't want one!

In The Means of Reproduction, it talked about when Bush II got elected and NGOs that advocated BC use were encouraged to promote NFP instead. At an NFP presentation to NGO representatives, someone from the crowd asked how NFP was supposed to help when a husband came home drunk and demanded sex from his wife on one of her "off-limits" days. The presenters replied, in all seriousness, that the wife "could sleep at her parents' house that night, or give her husband money to go to a prostitute."

[mirele]

In The Means of Reproduction, it talked about when Bush II got elected and NGOs that advocated BC use were encouraged to promote NFP instead. At an NFP presentation to NGO representatives, someone from the crowd asked how NFP was supposed to help when a husband came home drunk and demanded sex from his wife on one of her "off-limits" days. The presenters replied, in all seriousness, that the wife "could sleep at her parents' house that night, or give her husband money to go to a prostitute."

*Blink* Oh yeah. So she gives him money to go to a prostitute, and he picks up an STD, and then when it's safe for her to have sex with him again, she also gets the STD.

I'm absolutely gobsmacked at this response. Fuck these promoters of NFP all with a rusty chainsaw...sideways.

[Hane]

As treemom said, John Rock, the developer of the birth control pill, thought he was doing a GOOD thing by developing a means of contraception that mimicked a natural phase of a woman's hormonal cycle--and was excoriated for his efforts.

Pope John Paul I, as an archbishop, had seen firsthand the suffering women endured when they had large families they couldn't support, and was leaning towards allowing the pill for Catholic women. Then he mysteriously died after a month-long papacy, and the circumstances of his death were never adequately investigated. I'm no conspiracy theorist, but I'm convinced that he was murdered because he would likely have rocked the boat.

[Austin]

If you want a church where you get to have your own opinion, you need a different church. Just sayin.

A friend was recently trying to talk me into considering the Catholic church after I explained why I had left evangelicalism. He is gay, but was telling me how open and caring his parish is. I really don't think that's the point, although I support his choice to go to whatever church he likes. However, the anti-woman sentiment is systemic in the Catholic church, and it comes from the very top and is a matter of their basic theology. Why would I choose a church like that after leaving a similar system?

[NurseNell]

The creator of the bcp was a devout catholic. He was shocked by the churches response.

http://www.gladwell.com/2000/2000_03_10_a_rock.htm

Yes, he was. I'm a lifelong Catholic and one thing I know,the only birth control plan that would get the endorsement of the bishops is outlawing all birth control. When men start having babies maybe then they can decide about birth control, until then they can keep their opinions to themselves. I've never used birth control but plenty of my Catholic family and friends have.

edited because I know the difference between a comma and a period.

[jesssnerch]

This topic aggravates me to no end! I find that a bunch of men who are supposed to be celibate, most of whom have never had to raise a family and support them in any way are trying to preach the right way for people to raise and grow their families. I have a very good friend who is a Catholic priest. I told him I was getting my tubes tied and he was like, "No don't do that, there are many ways you can prevent pregnancy without using birth control." I told him, "Listen, Number 1: I refuse to have another C-section. Number 2: My already born children deserve a better parent than the one I am going through PPD. I highly doubt you are going to stay at my house and help take care them while Mommy is a raging, miserable basket case- you can't even stand their crying and such while I'm on the phone with you. And number 3: I don't think you're going to be send money my way for doctor's bills, diapers and formula because I can't breast feed." That shut him up for awhile, but of course he goes on and on over Facebook about this BC bill. I love him like a little brother, but sometimes I'd like to slap him, especially because he has no idea what the real world is like. And for the record, his best friend (who is our mutual friend and the person that introduced us) is gay. Needless to say, we try to avoid the religion talk most of the time.

[Peas n carrots]

Why are we listening to these guys? As a group, the members of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops have been responsible for a veritable crime wave of priestly child sexual abuse that was covered up for decades. I just read yesterday how, in the Milwaukee archdiocese's bankruptcy, it came out that there were 8,000 ADDITIONAL, UNREPORTED incidents of child sexual abuse.

http://www.jsonline.com/features/religi ... 44534.html

These men should just STFU. I, and the women of America, don't need these guys up in our ladybits.

#BiteMeMiterBoys

Here here! I was thinking the same thing. Why is Catholicism even still relevant in the US? The child molestation alone should have been the kiss of death. In Ireland, within the generation the RCC has gone from Almost totally integrated into every aspect of Irish life to being on life support. My family was never very much into being Catholic, but the abuse scandals totally did it for me.

[doggie]

why would it matter what form of birth control you use? I mean the results are the same though the naterula ones are more likly to fail so maybe thats the point? or maybe you may prevent gopd from knocking you up and making the new Jesus.

[SpeakNow]

For a bunch of guys that aren't having sex, they seem overly interested in sex.