It is the abundant lack of generosity now bred deep in the human heart that says no to life

To be Serious About Contraception

by Austin Ruse

What is a faithful Catholic to do about contraception in a culture awash in them? Are we to make them a political issue, as some kind of prophetic cri du cœur?

Should we launch a campaign to overturn Griswold v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court decision that made married contraception a constitutional right, or campaign to overturn Eisenstadt v. Baird, which gave singles the same right? Should we make overturning Griswold and Eisenstadt a litmus test for presidential candidates?

And once Griswold and Eisenstadt are overturned we are faced with the formidable task of convincing our fellow Americans that they ought to be banned, as they could be before Eisenstadt and Griswold, though rarely enforced.

Keep in mind that the US has almost the highest use of contraception in the world, only one percentage point behind China where your house gets bulldozed if you have a second child. Our contraception rate is only one percentage point behind that highly motivated society. Keep in mind also we live in a post-Obamacare world where contraception is now free for all paid for by you and by me.

I would put an “Overturn Griswold … and Eisenstadt” bumper sticker on my car. After all they were devilish decisions that not only took away the right of states to say no to contraceptives but also introduced the concept of a general right of privacy into our constitutional language, which was the open door through which abortion officially marched and through which gay marriage might also waltz. Such a bumper sticker might not change anything but it would certainly start a conversation.

And maybe that is the best way we should proceed on this nettlesome issue, by conversation.

How do you talk someone out of her contraceptives? In the Casey decision upholding Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court claimed that women had come to order their lives according to having access to abortion. We know this is far from true, given that most women don’t ever have one. But I am not so sure we could make the same claim about contraception. It may very well be that a vast majority of women, including Catholic women, have ordered their lives around it.

So how do you talk someone out of her contraceptives? And going even further, how do you talk them into a ban on contraception altogether?

Do we start with Scripture? Be fruitful and multiply? Do we start with papal encyclicals? Casti Connubiiand Humanae Vitae? One of the amazing things about Humanae Vitae is how prophetic it was. Paul VI, whom I consider a saint for holding firm on contraception, predicted it all, the bitter sexual caldron that is our contraceptive society.

As we know, however, citing of Scripture and encyclicals are of highly limited value even when talking to Catholics. Catholics, those who know the Church’s teaching and who violate it anyway, will not be much swayed by a reiteration of that teaching.

And while evangelicals may respond to Scripture, they certainly would not respond to encyclicals, and most of them cannot find anything in Scripture against contraception. And going to seculars, citing Scripture and encyclicals would have an impact but only a negative one.

We might think about taking a page or two from the pro-life playbook that has been so successful in changing hearts and minds on abortion these past 40 years or so. What has changed America on abortion more than any other thing has been science and medicine. The persistence of pro-lifers kept the issue alive but things really began to change with rapid development of ultra-sound imaging, and then the partial birth abortion debate.

Two images have seared themselves into American brains.

................

Read more: www.crisismagazine.com