Birth Control vs. The Church
Should insurance plans at Catholic colleges be forced to cover birth control? The Obama administration thinks so, as the New York Times gleefully reports. Of course, the Times' piece is less a news story than it is an editorial against the Catholic Church, but it's an illuminating read as a case-in-point of this new morality of entitlement that has stitched into today's culture, especially youth culture. Young people think they have the right to have premarital sex, and they think they are entitled to full protection against its consequences, i.e., having a child or contracting STDs.
Here's the Times:
Bridgette Dunlap, a Fordham University law student, knew that the school’s health plan had to pay for birth control pills, in keeping with New York state law. What she did not find out until she was in an examining room, “in the paper dress,” was that the student health service — in keeping with Roman Catholic tenets — would simply refuse to prescribe them.
As a result, students have had to go to Planned Parenthood or private doctors to get prescriptions. Some, unable to afford the doctor visits, gave up birth control pills entirely. In November, Ms. Dunlap, 31, who was raised a Catholic and was educated at parochial schools, organized a one-day, off-campus clinic staffed by volunteer doctors who wrote prescriptions for dozens of women.
Many Catholic colleges decline to prescribe or cover birth control, citing religious reasons. Now they are under pressure to change. This month the Obama administration, citing the medical case for birth control, made a politically charged decision that the new health care law requires insurance plans at Catholic institutions to cover birth control without co-payments for employees, and that may be extended to students. But Catholic organizations are resisting the rule, saying it would force them to violate their beliefs and finance behavior that betrays Catholic teachings.
...
Despite Catholic teachings, surveys have found that 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women, as in the general population, have used contraceptives.
At Catholic universities, some students support the right of the schools to uphold religious doctrine. But others, particularly professional and graduate students, have found the restrictions on birth control coverage onerous. Undergraduates are often covered by their parents’ insurance, but graduate students are usually on their own and are more likely to be married or in relationships and in regular need of birth control.
...
A 23-year-old who asked that her name not be used said she became pregnant while studying at Fordham. In high school, she said, she had taken birth control pills, but she gave them up at Fordham because she could not afford the doctor visit needed for a prescription. She and her boyfriend were using condoms when she became pregnant. Though Catholic, she considered abortion, but chose to have the baby. She said she knew six other Fordham students who had become pregnant and had abortions.
This is crazy. These young women, as the Times is reporting it, are acting like their Catholic colleges are putting them in an impossible position, where they—the women—are left without a choice. "Now I'm going to have to have sex without protection!" you can hear them crying. "What about my reproductive rights!" But the beauty of being a young woman today is that there are plenty of choices to make—thank you, feminism—in a situation like this: You can drop out of your Catholic school and go somewhere that better matches your lifestyle; you can pay for your own birth control (what a thought!); you can decide not to have protected sex; or you can have unprotected sex.
These are real choices—real alternatives—so why doesn't the Times mention them as serious alternatives? Because they are hard choices that no one wants to face up to; because they are choices that have consequences, as most important decisions do. To the Times and to the young women in the story, sex shouldn't have consequences. That it would is an outrage.
Against this fantasy, the Catholic colleges remind us that we may be entitled to making our own decisions, but we won't be coddled and protected from the fall out of those choices. This is a lesson that young women everywhere—especially those who choose to go to Catholic colleges--should learn.
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Re: Birth Control vs. The Church
Grendel:
Likewise, because the potential of the sexual powers does not encompass a pregnancy with every use, you don't interfere with the purpose when you rationally choose to refrain from exercising your sexual powers when the chance of conception is high; if there is no act there can be no misuse.
You are acknowledging then that we put sex off when the chance of conception is high, postponing it no doubt for when the chances of conception are low.
1. And what is the goal of the participants when they do so?
2. Do you admit that these later encounters do exist?
3. Are these later encounters sinful or not sinful?
Edited on February 3, 2012 at 6:58pmApr '11
Re: Birth Control vs. The Church
Tommy De Seno
You are acknowledging then that we put sex off when the chance of conception is high, postponing it no doubt for when the chances of conception are low.
1. And what is the goal of the participants when they do so?
2. Do you admit that these later encounters do exist?
3. Are these later encounters sinful or not sinful? · 3 hours ago
Edited 3 hours ago
I don't acknowledge it, I insist on it.
Apr '11
Re: Birth Control vs. The Church
Noesis Noeseos
Didn't Thomas write something about sexual desire (taken merely as desire) being a mistaken attempt to achieve unio mystica? ·
I don't know about that, but I wouldn't be surprised. JPII suggested that the married couple in the unifying throes of mutual self-giving may have a foretaste of what the Beatific Vision is like.
This is getting away from mere desire, but Paul repeatedly likens matrimony to the relationship of Christ and His Church, and vice versa. When our Bible study did Revelation (which, I am assured, when you straighten it out, as I have never been able to do, typifies both the Mass and a wedding feast), we learned that apocalypse means unveiling in Greek, specifically the unveiling of the bride after the exchange of vows in the marriage ceremony.
Re: Birth Control vs. The Church
Grendel
Tommy De Seno
You are acknowledging then that we put sex off when the chance of conception is high, postponing it no doubt for when the chances of conception are low.
1. And what is the goal of the participants when they do so?
It makes an enormous difference when juxtaposed against your prior insistence that sex is ALWAYS about conception.
Feb '11
Re: Birth Control vs. The Church
Tommy De Seno
Grendel
Tommy De Seno
You are acknowledging then that we put sex off when the chance of conception is high, postponing it no doubt for when the chances of conception are low.
1. And what is the goal of the participants when they do so?
It makes an enormous difference when juxtaposed against your prior insistence that sex is ALWAYS about conception. · 30 minutes ago
That is not what he said. He said that sex is always properly ordered toward procreation. Big difference.
Also see here. Peace!
Edited on February 4, 2012 at 12:12amJun '10
Re: Birth Control vs. The Church
Grendel:
It should be clear by now that "sex" (using the sexual powers) is always about procreation--no matter how many G&Ts you drink to forget it--because the purpose follows from the intrinsic nature of the act, irrespective of the intent of the actor.
Tommy, I think Grendel already answered your question above. The act has an intrinsic procreative nature or character regardless of the goal or intention of the actors. Intending to avoid conception does not change the nature of the act, but obstructing the natural development of the generative process via contraception does change the nature of the act.
Re: Birth Control vs. The Church
I'm glad to have conceded the ultimate conclusion but refuse to go along with matters that make no sense to get there.
There is a great likeihood of crashing my car when I enter the derby and that's my intent. But other times I'm driving on a public road and use the steering wheel because my intention is not to crash, although it can happen.
To say that driving is always about crashing because sometimes a crash is willful and sometimes a crash is unavoidable is just silly.
Driving is about crashing when I want to crash and about driving to a destination when I want to do that.
To have it your way, football is about losing, prayer is about unanswered prayers and Ricochet is about silently reading with no participation.
All those things can happen, but to offer a discription of them based upon unwanted consquences is, as previously stated, silly.
Where Psued led me (I don't know if he agrees) makes more sense: Sometimes sex is just about sex, and so long as we don't over-indulge and slide into lust, by using the virtue of temperence, then it's not sinful.
Apr '11
Re: Birth Control vs. The Church
Joseph Stanko
Grendel:
It should be clear by now that "sex" (using the sexual powers) is always about procreation--no matter how many G&Ts you drink to forget it--because the purpose follows from the intrinsic nature of the act, irrespective of the intent of the actor.
Tommy, I think Grendel already answered your question above. The act has an intrinsic procreative nature or character regardless of the goal or intention of the actors. Intending to avoid conception does not change the nature of the act, but obstructing the natural development of the generative process via contraception does change the nature of the act.
Thanks, Joseph Stanko; very well put. (You, too, Mama Toad.) Tommy, in the preceding paragraph I had said that procreation is not limited to conception:
Re: Birth Control vs. The Church
Grendel
If by "growing persons" do you mean children? Then say so. If so, then you are wrong about all of this.
That is NOT what the unitive is supporting on those days where couples use NFP to put sex off for another day to AVOID AVOID AVOID having kids.
AVOIDING getting pregnant is not in any way being "supportive" of "growing people." It's to stop "growing people" from coming into being while couples get their occasional freak on.
Your attempt to ingnore biology is what (wrongly) gives Christians their anti-science reputation.
Edited on February 4, 2012 at 12:56amSep '10
Re: Birth Control vs. The Church
Where Psued led me (I don't know if he agrees) makes more sense: Sometimes sex is just about sex, and so long as we don't over-indulge and slide into lust, by using the virtue of temperence, then it's not sinful.
Not to belabor the point, as I'm just checking back in, I think you're just about there Tommy and might be getting confused over some Thomistic distinctions over goods, three fonts of a moral action, etc. but you're pretty close. I'll have to revisit this thread and see if I can add another comment or two later that might bring to light something that could close the loop for you.
Peace,
Pseud
Edited on February 4, 2012 at 12:59amJun '10
Re: Birth Control vs. The Church
Tommy De Seno
Your attempt to ingnore biology is what (wrongly) gives Christians their anti-science reputation. · 14 minutes ago
You said this once before, and I still don't understand what you mean by it. What biological facts do you think are being ignored here?
Re: Birth Control vs. The Church
Joseph Stanko
Tommy De Seno
Your attempt to ingnore biology is what (wrongly) gives Christians their anti-science reputation. · 14 minutes ago
You said this once before, and I still don't understand what you mean by it. What biological facts do you think are being ignored here? · 3 minutes ago
I was referring to Grendel. What he is ignoring is the following:
That desire is innate while pregnancy is a matter of intention.
There is sex that is not ordered toward and completely unattached from procreation.
What is starting to bother me about the conversation is that the above statement is perfectly proved by the Church's support of NFP that it is actually a self-evident truth, yet I seem to be arguing with folks who still deny the evidence.
Edited on February 4, 2012 at 1:21amJun '10
Re: Birth Control vs. The Church
Tommy De Seno
That desire is innate while pregnancy is a matter of intention.
There is sex that is not ordered toward and completely unattached from procreation.
From the Times:
Clearly these 7 students had no intention to become pregnant. And though I fear I'm still misunderstanding you, it sounds to me like you're saying that since they did not intend to become pregnant they were engaging in acts that were "not ordered toward and completely unattached from procreation."
And that leaves me scratching my head wondering how in the world an act completely unattached from procreation could result in pregnancy. That can't be your meaning, so what am I missing here?
Apr '11
Re: Birth Control vs. The Church
Please don't stop him now. He's on a roll.
Apr '11
Re: Birth Control vs. The Church
Tommy De Seno:
Driving is about crashing when I want to crash and about driving to a destination when I want to do that.
The Church's metaphysics are objective and essentialist. You persist in subjective, consequentialist analysis, even though it leads to contradictions and conundrums and the Church's approach does not. I told you this (#55), and you accused me of setting up straw men and making it about you. It is not about you but about the fallacies you keep introducing into the discussion as the Church's position. A second problem is thinking colloquial language expresses the same things as the more technical terms I and others have been using, as sparingly as possible. (I apologize for contributing to the confusion.)
Third, because of the consequentialist approach, the analogy with driving doesn't work. An essentialist analysis would say it is the nature of driving that you direct the car where you want it to go; whether to crash or a church parking lot is immaterial. If your mother-in-law were in the back seat nagging at every turn, wouldn't you feel the nature of driving was being blocked from its proper expression.
Apr '11
Re: Birth Control vs. The Church
Tommy De Seno: To have it your way, football is about losing, prayer is about unanswered prayers ....
All those things can happen, but to offer a description of them based upon unwanted consequences is, as previously stated, silly.
In the past 13.4 billion years, there have been as many losers as winners at football, but according to you, the losers were not really playing football, and whoever did not obtain the object of his prayers was not really praying. Whatever happened to Grantland Rice?
It is you who insist on defining things according to the consequences, not I. (I won't say it's silly but it sure is a hindrance to understanding.)
I would say that it is part of the nature of a sport that one try to win, even on days when they're the Yankees and you are the New Haven Little League. As long as your efforts are directed toward winning, it's OK, even if the other guy scores more points. But if something blocks that effort, like the fix being in, then something is wrong.
You notice that I did not use the "X is about Y" construct.
Apr '11
Re: Birth Control vs. The Church
Tommy De Seno
Grendel ... the unitive, which supports the couple in creating the nurturing environment that a growing person needs...
If by "growing persons" you mean children, then you are wrong about all of this.
That is NOT what the unitive is supporting on those days where couples use NFP to put sex off for another day to AVOID AVOID AVOID having kids.
AVOIDING getting pregnant is not in any way being "supportive" of "growing people." It's to stop "growing people" from coming into being while couples get their occasional freak on.
It's a commonplace that a happy sex life contributes to a loving relationship that is the best environment for raising children. For the rest of it, you seem to be confusing avoiding getting pregnant with having sex.
Re: Birth Control vs. The Church
Grendel essentialism requires members of a group to have the same properties. What then of naturally infertile people? Will you be throwing them over the wall as you have suggeseted for others?
Where you and I disagree is over the importance of intention.
It is the intention of the Church that we do get to enjoy sex that is not oriented toward conception. You just refuse to address that those encounters even exist and that the Church is A-OK with them.
Re: Birth Control vs. The Church
Joseph Stanko
Tommy De Seno
That desire is innate while pregnancy is a matter of intention.
There is sex that is not ordered toward and completely unattached from procreation.
From the Times:
Clearly these 7 students had no intention to become pregnant. And though I fear I'm still misunderstanding you, it sounds to me like you're saying that since they did not intend to become pregnant they were engaging in acts that were "not ordered toward and completely unattached from procreation."
And that leaves me scratching my head wondering how in the world an act completely unattached from procreation could result in pregnancy. That can't be your meaning, so what am I missing here? · 15 hours ago
But sin is a matter of intention.
Sex with a condom that fails and results in pregnancy = sinful.
Sex with NFP that fails and results in pregnancy = not sinful.
I don't buy it.
Re: Birth Control vs. The Church
Grendel
Tommy De Seno:
Driving is about crashing when I want to crash and about driving to a destination when I want to do that.
A second problem is thinking colloquial language expresses the same things as the more technical terms I and others have been using, as sparingly as possible. (I apologize for contributing to the confusion.)
Well I'm in a business where choosing the simplest and least amount of words to make a point is encouraged.
I personally wouldn't feel superior were I to opt instead for more technical terms over the colloquial.
Whether I call a guy an "equus africanus asinus" or a donkey, either way he's still an ass.