Saletin is correct to point out that pro-lifers should embrace contraception. That said, a pro-lifer might yet ask why PPFA insists that abortion services -- in any number -- must be provided alongside contraception.

I doubt this flies with those opposed to abortion. Many anti-abortion activists don't like contraception much, either.

Ummmm....because even the best contraception doesn't always work. That, AND - rapists don't always use contraceptipn anyway.

I'm going to leave aside the rape argument just because those numbers get into such a morass.

I basically stopped giving to any of the world aid charities because so many have have something in their charters against contraception. The choice to have children saves more children than those that randomly have them like a litter. If you can plan the child, that child is more precious and the mother and father have at least the nominal resources to raise the child.

Christopher: I doubt this flies with those opposed to abortion. Many anti-abortion activists don't like contraception much, either.

Exactly. As one of the commmenters wrote: More significantly, Mr. Saletan knows that there is a split in the pro-life movement between those who accept widespread availability of contraception and those who do not.

I would guess that those pro-lifers who don't accept the widespread availability of contraception tend to be religious. One argument likely is that since it's a "sin" to have sex outside of marriage, we shouldn't be doing anything, like providing contraception, for anyone who does. The other would be what Father Frank Pavone says, in his piece
Why Pro-Lifers Must Oppose Contraception...

"In natural family planning, using the body’s cycles of infertile days, God closes the door to life. In contraception, we close the door. We have no authority to do so."

I really wish PP would go on a "we are a women's health clinic" campaign. They don't do only abortions. Statistically, abortions are peanuts. They do so much else they can *advertise* on. But I don't see them doing it.

I think I got my soar throat treated by them once...

How many other clinics get the same sh*t as PP and do abortions too.

I don't trust PP. As I see it, they exist mainly to kick back federal funding to the Democratic Party; any other services they provide are incidental to that. Since PP doesn't provide mammograms, for what purpose was Komen funding them?

This is another fine example of how every issue can be milked for money, in the name of "compassion".

>> I think I got my soar throat treated by them once...

My favorite type of contraception!

See also.

Also and also.

@crid that chart is very misleading. No one pretends PP doesn't perform abortions. They also prevent huge numbers of them by providing free or low cost birth control to young and/or poor women. An accurate graph would include those.

> An accurate graph would include those.

How? That's preposterous. By what possible "accuracy" could you affirm that Planned Parenthood is a net gain for human life?

"Huge numbers"!

Y'know, abortion is unnecessary killing, but I like it more than I like many things... I like abortion more than I like you, for example.

But I loathe the smarmy, pussyfooting and duplicitous rhetoric by which it's defended.

"In natural family planning, using the body’s cycles of infertile days, God closes the door to life. In contraception, we close the door. We have no authority to do so."

Totally fucking amazing. Big, powerful, God, huh? So easily overruled.

Also, by this logic, we should all die of whatever infectious disease comes along; no need to actually treat illness. God wants us to die (or be permanently maimed by polio and other fun diseases); otherwise, we are "closing the door" to God's will.

Sheesh. The gymnastics of "logic" that are used to defend this mental illness.

Anyone who believes in a god should be ashamed that a fellow believer would relegate their deity to the role of sperm wrangler.

"Let's see...that one will become a zygote, but the pregnancy will fail. That one won't become a zygote. That one will hit a contraceptive barrier and immediately damn both people to hell for an eternity of torture. That one will hit a washcloth and damn the issuer to hell for an eternity of torture. That one will be too slow. That one will be too slow. That one will successfully become a zygote, the pregnancy will succeed, but the parents will emotionally, sexually, and physically abuse the child, and will be damned to hell for an eternity of torture. The child will disobey the abusive parents and be damned to hell for an eternity of torture. That one will be too slow ....".

No matter how much of a loser you feel you may be, you still outfought a few billion rivals.

Someday I'm going to sit down and try to guestimate how many sperm I have spent. A rough estimate is 25,000 orgasms so far...

About 100 billion so far!!! I'm glad I don't have to name them all.

Huge numbers

Yes, enormous. The women who get birth control from PP are overwhelmingly from the groups of women with the highest abortion rates. If you want abortion to be less frequent - and I do - providing those women with easy and low cost access to birth control is the likeliest way to do it.

That graph was made by anti-abortionists to cast PP in the worst possible light. It's propaganda, that ignores the majority of the services PP provides, and doesn't add anything new to the discussion - when a pregnant woman goes to PP, she has already decided to get an abortion.

I am not not enthusiastic about abortion, which I think is done far too casually and frequently. Abortion will always be something some women will seek when faced with an unwanted pregnancy; those who want fewer abortions should seek to reduce the incidence of unwanted pregnancies. PP does more about that than any other organization. You certainly don't see any anti-choice groups out there handing out condoms and birth control pills.

Who cares whether PP does birth control more than abortion? It's Komen, a breast cancer research and prevention fundraising group. What does PP do about breast cancer? I know what the Catholic church does about it, every catholic hospital in the country does low and nocost mammograms. So why exactly SHOULD Komen give PP money? That's the issue here. That, and the knee-jerk hysteria a wide swath of this country goes into anytime PP is perceived "attacked" in any way.

If I had my way birth control would be in the water. You'd have to get an antidote script form your Dr to get preggers.

Whoops, was still thinking about a Komen article that was apparently on PJ and not here. So.

One can support lowering the unplanned pregnancy rate without supporting a place that does abortions, and being against abortion doesn't mean you're against contraception. I love contraception and would like to see it EVERYWHERE. I am against abortions pretty much across the board for any reason.

"In natural family planning, using the body’s cycles of infertile days, God closes the door to life. In contraception, we close the door. We have no authority to do so."

Totally fucking amazing. Big, powerful, God, huh? So easily overruled.

Also, by this logic, we should all die of whatever infectious disease comes along; no need to actually treat illness. God wants us to die (or be permanently maimed by polio and other fun diseases); otherwise, we are "closing the door" to God's will.

Sheesh. The gymnastics of "logic" that are used to defend this mental illness.

Some religious people, of course, do apply that "logic" to illness. From this 2001 article, Freedom of Religion or State-Sanctioned Child Abuse?, in Time magazine:

At the center of controversy are Congregants of Church of Christ, Scientist, along with members of other, smaller sects, including the Followers of Christ Church and the General Assembly and Church of the First Born. All are staunchly opposed to medical intervention in the case of illness, preferring instead to depend upon prayer to do the healing. Their devotion to what they call "God's will" has, according to their critics, led to the deaths of more than 172 children between 1975 and 1995 — all because their parents refused to seek medical treatment for their children's illnesses. According to autopsy reports, many if not most of the children could have been saved easily with simple antibiotics.

Regarding those religious people who oppose contraception as being "outside of our authority" yet have no problem with medical care, I would guess their "logic" would be that even if illnesses are the result of God's will, they are something bad and that, therefore, it's okay to seek treatment. In contrast, they would not see contraception as treating something bad. In fact, they would likely see it as preventing something good: babies!

One can support lowering the unplanned pregnancy rate without supporting a place that does abortions, and being against abortion doesn't mean you're against contraception. I love contraception and would like to see it EVERYWHERE. I am against abortions pretty much across the board for any reason.

This is a fair position. I wish your attitude regarding contraception were more common among the anti-abortion movement.

I like abortion more than I like you, for example.

I bet you do. I clean your clock every time we are on opposite sides of an argument, which has to sting someone as prideful as you.

Still, saying so makes you look quite... infantile. Enjoy personifying your favorite invective against others.

momof4:
"Who cares whether PP does birth control more than abortion? It's Komen, a breast cancer research and prevention fundraising group. What does PP do about breast cancer? I know what the Catholic church does about it, every catholic hospital in the country does low and nocost mammograms. So why exactly SHOULD Komen give PP money? That's the issue here."

BECAUSE they do abortions! That is the thing. Most of the people who pilloried Komen for dropping PP would have gone ballistic if Komen had said, "we are going to re-direct money to XYZ Catholic Hospitals to support mammogram tests." They would have been up in arms about how bad the Catholic hospitals are because they don't perform abortions and hate women.

Komen learned an important lesson: breast cancer may be "everyone's favorite disease" in America (second only to AIDS, possibly), but even breast cancer takes a back-seat to the right to kill the unborn.

-Jut

Also, by this logic, we should all die of whatever infectious disease comes along; no need to actually treat illness. God wants us to die (or be permanently maimed by polio and other fun diseases); otherwise, we are "closing the door" to God's will.

Sheesh. The gymnastics of "logic" that are used to defend this mental illness.

Posted by: gharkness at February 5, 2012 5:47 AM

And to those lurkers who say, regarding overpopulation and lack of resources: “God will always provide,” consider this: Maybe God WAS providing, for thousands of years, by keeping the death rate so high so there would always be enough arable land to go around? After all, Homo Sapiens has existed for 300,000 years or so, but it wasn’t until barely more than a century ago – 1890, maybe – that ALL doctors started believing in the GERM THEORY and WASHING THEIR HANDS! Coincidence? Maybe God (or Mother Nature) didn’t really WANT us to discover germs!

Komen learned an important lesson: breast cancer may be "everyone's favorite disease" in America (second only to AIDS, possibly), but even breast cancer takes a back-seat to the right to kill the unborn.

They learned a lesson, but that's not it. The lesson is that you can't make political decision about a controversial issue and not expect a backlash. This was a lesson in how to create a PR disaster. Hell, if they'd even been honest about why they did it, it wouldn't have been the same kind of epic fail. Komen has been successful by not being political; they had broad support among both men and women, conservative and liberal. Now they've pissed off everyone.