Condom Wars
by TChris
First they attacked Roe v. Wade, now they're going after Griswold v. Connecticut. The next culture war (as if we need another one) will be waged over contraception, according to this article in the NY Times Magazine.
"We see a direct connection between the practice of contraception and the practice of abortion," says Judie Brown, president of the American Life League, an organization that has battled abortion for 27 years but that, like others, now has a larger mission. "The mind-set that invites a couple to use contraception is an antichild mind-set," she told me. "So when a baby is conceived accidentally, the couple already have this negative attitude toward the child. Therefore seeking an abortion is a natural outcome. We oppose all forms of contraception."
Contraception prevents abortion, an obvious reality that doesn't deter this crowd from arguing that sex without procreative intent is "anti-child." Sex without procreative intent is fun, and it seems a hard sell to convince people otherwise. The article informs us that a growing number of evangelicals are trying to do just that.
Many Christians who are active in the evolving anti-birth-control arena state frankly that what links their efforts is a religious commitment to altering the moral landscape of the country. In particular, and not to put too fine a point on it, they want to change the way Americans have sex.
Edward R. Martin Jr., a lawyer for Americans United for Life, sees contraception "as part of a mind-set that's worrisome in terms of respecting life." It's easy to think of things that are more disrespectful of life than condoms: the war in Iraq, global warming, and the death penalty are just a few.
Opposition to contraception is really opposition to using sex for pleasure. It's fueled by the same logic that promotes ineffective "abstinence only" sex education programs.
Contraception, by this logic, encourages sexual promiscuity, sexual deviance (like homosexuality) and a preoccupation with sex that is unhealthful even within marriage.
"Logic" is a kind word in that sentence. The fight against birth control has caused the usual Washington suspects to tell the usual lies.
Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who is also an obstetrician, has led a campaign to force condom makers to indicate on their labels that they may not prevent certain S.T.D.'s, specifically the human papillomavirus. In 2001, when he was in the House of Representatives, he issued a press release entitled "Condoms Do Not Prevent Most S.T.D.'s." Sex educators say this is a twisting of data to suit an ideologically driven anti-sex agenda. "An N.I.H. panel said condoms are impermeable to even the smallest S.T.D. viruses," Cynthia Dailard of Guttmacher says.
Truly offensive is the administration's assertion that there is an acceptable, government-approved standard of sexually decent behavior:
As the 2007 federal guidelines for [abstinence education] program financing state, "It is required that the abstinence education curriculum teaches that a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in the context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity."
Is it "expected" that we not stray from the missionary position, as well?
| < General at the NSA Doesn't Know the Fourth Amendment | Increasing Violence in Iraq > |
