. . . because action speaks louder than words.
League history, NOW v. Scheidler, Action News, Joe Scheidler, League staff
League history, NOW v. Scheidler, Action News, Joe Scheidler, League staff
Q & A on abortion, the unborn child, where we stand on the issues and more
Helping abortion-bound women choose life for their babies
Unmasking the truth about abortion in the public square
Our youth outreach, raising up a new generation of pro-life leaders
Abortion industry converts tell the inside story
News and commentary from the Pro-Life Action League
Due to its length, this story is divided into two parts.
During the conference luncheon, Damon Clarke Owens, director of New Jersey NFP, spoke on "The Perfect Family: How Contraception Affects Marriage and the Home." He testified to his own change of heart on abstinence before marriage and the importance of valuing parenthood. He emphasized that the marital embrace is meant to express the total gift of self on which marriage is founded, but that contraception turns that expression into a lie because the partners are unwilling to share their fertility—the self-gift is incomplete.
Damon Owens [Photo by JDJ]
A family that values children and values parenting has a far greater likelihood of long-term success. "The Perfect Family is the family that perfects the person," said Owens, but "contraception is a mortal assault on the marital love of spouses, the dignity of the person and the family that draws its life from that marital love." It does not allow for the perfection of the person, but denies the unity and wholeness of sex, marriage, love and children.
Andrew Pollard, a demographer from Northampton, England, presented an in-depth study of population trends in the United States, and explored the alarming depopulation of the U.S. and Western Europe. He zeroed in on the small town of Poultney, Vermont, "population 3,500 and falling," and Orange County, California, where the birth rate has dropped radically. He called the phenomenon "societal suicide," and said the sudden drop in the birth rate with the introduction of the birth control pill in the early '60's caused a "virtual tsunami"—fewer female children growing up and giving birth to fewer children.
Andrew Pollard [Photo by JDJ]
The effect on the economy is already being felt as fewer workers pay into the pension programs of an aging population. Pollard said the scientists and politicians who see what is happening feel helpless to reverse the trend. People have become accustomed to the one or two-child family or the childless marriage without considering what that means to the future of society. The efforts of European governments to offer financial incentives to women willing to have another child aren't working.
Pollard reported that America is beginning to look like dying Europe. He said a fertility rate of 2.1 is required to maintain a constant population, but only the states of Arizona and Utah are above that rate, and population has been falling in eighteen states, including New York. The only demographic trend that keeps the U. S. population growing is immigration. Abortion accounts for a portion of the falling population, but contraception and sterilization are the biggest culprits. Pollard praised the League for having the courage to bring this issue to the forefront.
[Back to Top]The most controversial speaker at the conference was Professor Lionel Tiger, who holds the Charles Darwin Chair of Anthropology at Rutgers University. Frankly admitting that he does not share our religious beliefs or our goal of ending abortion, he nonetheless observed that from an anthropological perspective contraception has had a serious impact on the behavior of men. He declared, "It is almost impossible to overestimate the impact of contraception on human arrangements."
Lionel Tiger [Photo by JDJ]
Tiger discussed a monkey experiment described in his book, Decline of Males, which dramatized unexpected consequences contraceptives have on male-female relations. Nine female monkeys in an isolated population were injected in different groupings with Depo-Provera, while the effects on the only male monkey, named Austin, were charted. When Austin's "harem" of three females was injected with the drug, he Austin shifted his attentions to two non-contracepted females, but returned to the original group when the drugs wore off. When all of the females were injected with the contraceptive, Austin became agitated and aggressive. Tiger severely criticized the FDA for approving various drugs with only a cursory examination of their impact.
According to Tiger, the contraceptive pill has given reproductive control almost exclusively to women and has done away with the societal pressure on men to "do the right thing" in case of an unplanned pregnancy. He pointed out that the pill came into wide use in 1963—a cheap, effective, trouble-free contraceptive. "And what happened? Ten years later, Roe v. Wade. The entire scenario has driven men outside of the family structure—avoiding taking responsibility for a child they did not want to have and are not quite sure is their own."
Jennifer Roback Morse [Photo by JDJ]
The conference closed with a talk by Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, author of Smart Sex: Finding Life-Long Love in a Hook-Up World. Morse explained that she lost faith in the feminist movement's false promises about contraception when she discovered that nature did not take her orders and that she could not control every aspect of her life. Morse calls married sex "smart sex" because it creates a permanent bond of relationship. In contrast, she says, contracepted sex is "dumb."
"The promise of perfect contraception makes the hook-up culture possible," says Morse. "But the reality of imperfect contraception is what makes the divorce and abortion culture inevitable." According to Morse the contraceptive ideology says that all adults are entitled to unlimited sexual activity without a live baby resulting.
Morse showed how that mentality was evident in the U.S. Supreme Court's contraception rulings in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) and Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972). In Baird the court called marriage "an association of two individuals, each with a separate intellectual and emotional make-up" and declared that the "right to privacy" includes "the decision whether to bear or beget a child," laying the groundwork for Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton.
Conference M.C. Eric Scheidler shares with the audience a prominent article in the Chicago Tribune on the conference (see related story) [Photo by JDJ]
"Contraception Is Not The Answer" was an overwhelming success. Many participants said it was the best conference they had ever attended. For those who were unable to attend, CDs of the presentations are available from LCE Media. Each talk is $7 and the complete boxed set of eight talks is $49, plus shipping. To obtain CDs visit the online order form, or call LCE Media at 800-693-3884.
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