Every defense of the HHS mandate, including the administration’s, inevitably has recourse to the statistic apparently proving that ninety-eight percent of Catholic women use contraceptive birth control anyway. As is true with most statistical analysis, a little digging into the study’s methods, restrictions, and controls often uncovers the less shocking reality: The sample population hardly represents the group about which the survey is concerned, the survey excludes variants of the population that actually make up a significant minority, etc. So with the ninety-eight percent of Catholic women actively using birth control.
The study excludes women who are not sexually active, where this is defined as “sexual intercourse in the past three months,” postpartum, pregnant, or women trying to get pregnant. The study was designed to “include only women for whom a pregnancy would be unintended and who are ‘at risk’ of becoming pregnant.” It is not clear whether the study includes women who are neither trying nor not trying to become pregnant, as well as women who have had their reproductive organs removed because of medical complications.
“The deliberate design of the study to cover only women who, at the time of the study, were having sexual intercourse while regarding a pregnancy as unintended would be likely to make it unrepresentative of Catholics and particularly unrepresentative of devout Catholics. Yet the study is now being cited to show the percentage of Catholic women generally who are not following the teaching of the Catholic Church in this area…a statistic based on a study that explicitly excluded those who have no use for contraception is obviously irrelevant to a question about the percentage of Catholic women who have a use for contraception!”
The fact that women who are celibate, postpartum, and those not trying to avoid pregnancy are excluded is enough. That such a misrepresentation is being used as leverage in serious political discourse is truly unfortunate, regardless of the content of the study, and says as much about contemporary American politics as the mandate itself.
February 14th, 2012 | 11:31 am
But does anyone doubt that the vast majority of Catholic women use birth control? I don’t think we are going to win this fight by saying something like, “Bogus. The real number of Catholic women who use birth control is only, like, 85%!” While I grant your narrow point that fudging the numbers is not nice, I don’t think this is ground we want to fight on.
February 14th, 2012 | 11:39 am
But does anyone doubt that the vast majority of Catholic women use birth control?
Yes.
If we are going to cite a statistic that indicates what percentage of Catholic women use birth control, it is not unreasonable to demand a statistic that actually represents that number honestly and fairly.
February 14th, 2012 | 11:40 am
demand a statistic that actually represents that number honestly and fairly.
Or even “accurately” (the word I should have used).
February 14th, 2012 | 11:44 am
People can interpret and use statistics very clumsily, but the fact remains that American Catholics use “artificial” contraception at basically the same rate as people of other religions or no religion. I have never seen an estimate higher than 5% of the number of Catholic married couples who use NFP. The vast majority of Catholics do not accept the Church’s teachings on contraception, or if they accept them, they do not follow them.
February 14th, 2012 | 11:51 am
Nonetheless, the fact also remains that a false and misleading statistic is being used as a talking point. This is similar to the “fake but accurate” defense — even if what’s being said is a lie, it’s being said to give the same impression as the truth would give.
That doesn’t make the people promoting the statistic any less deceitful, insofar as they are either aware of the falsity of the statistic, or insufficiently honest to make sure it’s correct before they use it.
So it doesn’t change the debate, but it certainly has a moral implication nonetheless that is worth pointing out.
February 14th, 2012 | 12:26 pm
Among all women who have had sex, 99% have ever used a contraceptive method other than natural family planning. This figure is virtually the same, 98%, among sexually experienced Catholic women.
The statistic (study quoted above) is that among all American woman who have ever had sex, 99% have used some form of contraception, and for the Catholic women in that group, 98% have used some form of contraception. Accepting the figure that 98% of women have sex at some point in their life, the accurate figure would be that 96% of Catholic women have used some form of contraception.
February 14th, 2012 | 12:29 pm
That being said……..it would be difficult for me to fathom (considering size of families on any given sunday in Church) that the great majority of Catholic women use artificial contraception. I have found that a scandal all my life (i’m 45). The very fact that most Catholic women do not adhere to the Church’s teaching regarding artificial contraception is a scandal and it’s an even bigger scandal that this is not voiced by the bishops loud and clear and from the pulpit. I have never heard a sermon on this subject. Maybe instead of funding “Renew programs” a diocese might want to consider teaching Catholic faith and morals with clarity and introducing each parish to Humanae Vitae.
February 14th, 2012 | 12:39 pm
“The vast majority of Catholics do not accept the Church’s teachings on contraception, or if they accept them, they do not follow them.”
Which only points out that the Church is a much needed hospital, full of sinful and broken souls who have trouble accepting the medicine place before them.
February 14th, 2012 | 12:49 pm
I do not agree with David Nickol often, if at all, but for once I agree with his observation.
February 14th, 2012 | 2:07 pm
No doubt that the statistics used by the Obama administration create a false impression. There is no doubt as well that many, many Catholics use artificial contraception. Ask such Catholics if they have ever heard a homily that explained the Church’s teaching on contraception. Ask them if they own a copy of the new Catholic Catechism. Ask them at what age their religious education ended. With graduation from grade school? High school? Ask them if they are aware that the Catholic Church does not approve of the use of artificial contraception. A survey regarding Catholic use of artificial contraception including such questions would reveal, I suspect, that Catholics who are fully aware of the Church’s teaching on artificial contraception and fulfill their Sunday obligation regularly – serious, catechized Catholics – use or approve of contraception in much smaller numbers than 98 percent. It would also reveal a great need for not just catechesis on this matter, but exhortation as well – which is used mightily by other denominations, but not so much in the Catholic Church anymore.
Church teaching on the use of artificial contraception is thoughtful and reasonable. It rings true. I suspect that many Catholics who use artificial contraception would stop if they were aware of the thinking behind the Church’s teaching. Here is a sample of that:
The entire document can be read here:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html
“The pill” often acts an abortifacient, creating an environment that is hostile to the newly conceived boy or girl. An awareness of the astounding functional complexity of the nanotechnology of life from its very conception, technology that is light years beyond anything modern science knows how to build from scratch, helps one to understand the horror of interrupting or sabotaging this wondrous divine engineering at any time after it has begun, and gives fresh insight into the meaning of Psalm 139:13:
A little knowledge will go a long way towards helping good-hearted people understand that they really don’t want to use artificial contraception.
February 14th, 2012 | 2:17 pm
http://www.getreligion.org/2012/02/lies-damned-lies-and-98-of-catholic-women/
http://www.whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2012/02/how_to_lie_with_statistics_exa_1.html
Here’s an idea – anyone who quotes a statistic should actually understand how statistics work.
Do a lot of Catholic women use contraception? Sure. Is it anywhere near 98%? Not so much. Does it matter regarding the HHS ruling? Not at all. Because the issue isn’t contraception – it is religious liberty. If you are still invested in arguing about contraception, it is because you are not interested in engaging the real issue.
February 14th, 2012 | 2:30 pm
TXW,
Which observation is this? To this observer, Mr.Nickol’s is attempting to excuse a bogus statistic as possessing a ‘ring of truth’ to justify his position. The reality is, he has little ground to stand on here and I think he knows that, which is why his argument is unusually weak considering all his other dissenting posts on this website.
The Church’s position has always been clear, just as the use of contraceptives and sexual acts designed to prevent pregnancy have always been a problem; none of this changes the fact that this is not a health issue nor does the government have the ethical right to force the Church to violate Her conscience on this matter.
February 14th, 2012 | 3:03 pm
No one has responded to my point. It is probably the case that the 98% figure is inflated. But going out and arguing that the policy should be opposed because the real number is somewhat lower is, it seems to me, a losing way to approach the issue.
February 14th, 2012 | 3:08 pm
Barry Arrington,
The point is we do not have any numbers and we do not have any reason to assume motivates to the actions of people; and the use of this bogus stat is prevaricating and obscuring the government’s reach into realms it does not belong.
February 14th, 2012 | 3:10 pm
The reality is, he has little ground to stand on here and I think he knows that, which is why his argument is unusually weak considering all his other dissenting posts on this website.
MPB,
I am not sure what my “argument” is. I think it is a statement of fact that a small minority of sexually active Catholics use NFP (and no doubt they are all married couples), and the overwhelming majority (married or not married) use “artificial” contraception. That may or may not be relevant to what the Obama administration is doing regarding insurance and what the USCCB is doing in response. But all we’re talking about here is the “statistic” that 98% of Catholic women use birth control. It so obviously a false statement that I can’t understand why anyone would accept it. On the other hand, why would a study about Catholic women who use birth control include women who were trying to get pregnant, women who were celibate, and women past childbearing age?
February 14th, 2012 | 3:12 pm
Barry, it’s a losing way to approach the issue if it’s the primary approach. But I hardly think it has been, anywhere.
Noting it, OTOH, is certainly legitimate in its proper place.
February 14th, 2012 | 3:13 pm
Hello, Barry Arrington,
I agree with you that the basis of the Catholic argument should not be “Not that many Catholics use artificial contraception!”
Actually, the silver lining to this dark, ominous cloud hanging over religious freedom in this country is that it may cause everyone to look again at the abortifacient nature artificial contraception, and cause serious Christians who use it to reconsider their thinking on God’s plan for human sexuality.
February 14th, 2012 | 3:45 pm
Very few in my extended and devout Catholic family use birth control. Only a couple use NFP. Most everyone has elected surgery.
February 14th, 2012 | 4:19 pm
“Among all women who have had sex, 99% have ever used a contraceptive method other than natural family planning. This figure is virtually the same, 98%, among sexually experienced Catholic women.”
What if we asked a different question…What if we asked the percentage of women that at some point used contraceptives, but now faithfully abide by the Church’s teaching and use them no longer?
That number would be far higher than 2%. In essence, the people using this poll are failing to account for behavior that has changed. The absurdity of their argument is made clear if we merely substitute a different moral offense, lying for example.
I much suppose if we asked people if they’ve ever lied, the response would be 100%, but no one is suggesting that lying is therefore always good and acceptable.
Likewise, I know both men and women that at one point used contraceptives, but who had a conversion experienced or researched the Church opinion and have now spent far longer abiding by it than they did “contracepting”.
February 14th, 2012 | 4:20 pm
Michael,
I find it quite fascinating that most of the discussions I have participated in have focused much more on oral contraceptives than sterilization or barrier methods, when according to statistics from Guttmacher, the breakdown for methods used is as follows:
Pill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28.0%
Tubal sterilization . . . . . . . . . . 27.1%
Male condom . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.1%
Vasectomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.9%
IUD 2,100 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5.5%
Withdrawal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2%
Three-month injectable . . . . . . 3.2%
Vaginal ring (NuvaRing) . . . . . . .2.4%
Periodic abstinence (calendar) . . 0.9%
Periodic abstinence (NFP) . . . . . 0.2%
That puts sterilization 10 percentage points higher than the pill. There seems to be a visceral hostility toward the pill among many who oppose contraception. This is interesting in light of the fact that the overwhelming majority on the Pontifical Commission on Birth Control approved of it, although of course Pope Paul VI did not accept their recommendation and instead wrote Humanae Vitae.
February 14th, 2012 | 4:24 pm
Here’s another curious thing I’d like explained by the pollsters…
Given how frequently couples struggle with infertility and the massive amounts of money spent on artificial insemination, surrogacy, and adoption, how is it so many people are using contraception?
Suddenly that number is looking like even more of a fabrication…
February 14th, 2012 | 5:53 pm
Given how frequently couples struggle with infertility and the massive amounts of money spent on artificial insemination, surrogacy, and adoption, how is it so many people are using contraception?
Artaban,
Some infertility statistics:
On the other hand, if you look at my message above of 4:20 pm, the number of women currently on the pill (given as 28% in my message) is 10.7 million.
Don’t forget, by the way, that people who have problems with fertility may not know it until they stop using contraceptives and try to conceive. No doubt many infertile people use contraceptives for years before they are ready to have a child without knowing they are infertile.
February 14th, 2012 | 6:17 pm
The statistic (study quoted above) is that among all American woman who have ever had sex, 99% have used some form of contraception, and for the Catholic women in that group, 98% have used some form of contraception.
You might want to reread the study.
From http://www.whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2012/02/how_to_lie_with_statistics_exa_1.html (the link provided here
(emphasis mine)
February 14th, 2012 | 8:05 pm
Yet the study is now being cited to show the percentage of Catholic women generally who are not following the teaching of the Catholic Church in this area! What is wrong with this picture?
Blake,
Of course it is wrong to take the 98% figure and claim it represents the number of Catholic women currently using birth control. Anyone who cites the figure that way is simply wrong. I don’t think anyone disagrees on that point. The 98% figure is what it is—the number of Catholic women who have ever had sex in their entire lifetime, wanted to avoid pregnancy, and used some form of birth control. It tells us virtually nothing at all about what Catholic women are doing now.
However, if you do some checking of Catholic sources, you will find that people who advocate NFP will give you basically the same estimates of how many Catholic couples use contraception as the Guttmacher Institute. Here is Janet Smith, for example:
I have never seen an estimate higher than 5%. I think from the standpoint of First Amendment rights and all of the legal arguments, the people are correct who say it makes no difference even if 100% of Catholics use contraception. That doesn’t make it any less a teaching of the Catholic Church.
Barry Arrington is exactly right. The 98% figure is pretty much meaningless, but getting into a fight about the actual number of Catholic women who use artificial contraception is not going to significantly help the Catholic position, since although the number is certainly not 98%, it is still very high—certainly a large majority.
February 14th, 2012 | 8:36 pm
In the Guttmacher study, “of all women” meant “of all women 15-44 who are sexually active and don’t want to get pregnant.” That 98% of such women use birth control falls under the category of “duh?”
However, the Institute did not actually state the meme so many are now parroting. The study was not =trying= to estimate the percentage of Catholic [or other] women who use contraception. It was trying to learn =what sort= of contraception was being used. So, they defined a population within which they could get such data.
Further, in another Figure in the report, we learn that 11% of these self-reported Catholic women never attend Mass. In what meaningful sense can they be called “Catholic”? Another 29% attend less than monthly. That’s 40% who can hardly be called well-catechized. Being “Catholic” is something you do, not something you are.
February 14th, 2012 | 8:39 pm
Added in postscript:
If 98% of women already use contraception, why on earth is it necessary to command others to pay for it?
February 14th, 2012 | 11:01 pm
Artaban,
“What if we asked a different question…What if we asked the percentage of women that at some point used contraceptives, but now faithfully abide by the Church’s teaching and use them no longer?”
In my experience, most of those who once used contraception but now faithfully abide by the Church’s teaching are past childbearing, have had surgery, have married only in their thirties, or have changed their lives dramatically because they were desperately unhappy. Rationalization about sexual behavior runs very deep.
“I much suppose if we asked people if they’ve ever lied, the response would be 100%, but no one is suggesting that lying is therefore always good and acceptable”
The physical stakes of most lies are much, much less serious. Lies occur much more frequently. The Church doesn’t present lying as a grave sin. And lying requires no technology.
February 15th, 2012 | 1:09 am
Does anyone remeber when the movie “Priest” came out? I never watched it, but it was about a gay priest in leather or something. People scoffed, catholics were angry about the depiction. If the movie came out now, after the abuse scandal has come to more light, would catholics be so suprised? I doubt if the movie would even get shown, it would have lost any effect of controversy by now, and have no box office appeal.
Is the same trajectory happening with this 98% thing? What has been under our noses for decades has come to light and we must now deal with it, instead of pretending everything is OK? Of course NOW we can admit there were/are seminaries that had close knit homosexual groups, and the John Jay study has been tweaked apart to show how this relates to the abuse scandal. But for decades the issue was given a pass for many reasons, similar to the contracepting catholic issue. Now we have to deal with it. No more winking.
February 15th, 2012 | 5:21 am
[...] via The Bogus 98 Percent » First Thoughts | A First Things Blog. [...]
February 15th, 2012 | 9:16 am
Michael,
If by “had surgery” you mean have elected to have themselves surgically sterilized, then you cannot include such people in the “faithfully abiding by Church teaching” group. The Catholic Church teaches that elective sterilization (ie, surgery for the express purpose of destroying fertility) is a grave wrong. The Catechism (#2297) includes sterilization as an offense against the integrity of the human body; #2370 asserts that any “action . . . to render procreation impossible is intrinsically evil.” This wouldn’t, of course, include medically warranted surgery which also incidentally destroys fertility. But the Church’s position on the deliberate use of surgery as a means of permanent contraception is pretty clearly spelled out, though people either are ignorant of it or willfully ignore it. It’s just delusional to think that if you’ve had yourself surgically sterilized, you aren’t then practicing contraception.
February 15th, 2012 | 9:36 am
It’s just delusional to think that if you’ve had yourself surgically sterilized, you aren’t then practicing contraception.
ST,
Are you implying that married Catholics who are surgically sterilized can never be faithful, practicing Catholics again? Do they have to give up sex?
February 15th, 2012 | 12:15 pm
ST,
“If by “had surgery” you mean have elected to have themselves surgically sterilized, then you cannot include such people in the “faithfully abiding by Church teaching” group.”
You are right, of course, that no one can be faithfully abiding and have surgery. But some Catholics either have the surgery during a period of weakness or only become serious about their faith after they have had surgery. All of my family members who have had surgery fall into one of these two groups.
Every once in awhile, First Things will run a column about NFP, and I’m fascinated by how many write in to discuss how poorly NFP worked out for them and the questions and suspicions they’ve endured. I’ve never understood why the Church supports NFP when it is clearly a mode of contraception. NFP is like annulment: it’s a clever way to support the insupportable.
February 15th, 2012 | 1:12 pm
Blake,
Of course it is wrong to take the 98% figure and claim it represents the number of Catholic women currently using birth control. Anyone who cites the figure that way is simply wrong. I don’t think anyone disagrees on that point. The 98% figure is what it is—the number of Catholic women who have ever had sex in their entire lifetime
You are misrepresenting both the figure and what I said.
It is not true that 98% represents the number of Catholic women who have ever had sex in their lifetime. That is not what the figure represents, and it is lying to suggest that it is.
Why do you continue to repeat something that is not true? Is it ignorance or are you doing it deliberately? Either way, please stop.
February 15th, 2012 | 1:16 pm
“I’ve never understood why the Church supports NFP when it is clearly a mode of contraception.”
Perhaps because the intrinsic disorder is not family planning, per se?
Consider weight loss.
Is there a difference between these two courses of action:
a) Eating less.
b) Eating whenever you like, but then taking an emetic because you are at risk of digestion.
Do you think the Church might coherently encourage a) while disapproving of b). Perhaps they might call b) a “sin.” Say, “gluttony.”
February 15th, 2012 | 2:09 pm
It is not true that 98% represents the number of Catholic women who have ever had sex in their lifetime.
Blake,
It represents the number of women who have ever had sex in their lifetime who at least once had that sex when they did not want to conceive and who at least one of those times used a “forbidden” method of contraception. It represents them based on a statistical study of a limited group of women during a limited time. It is as close to being a meaningless number as it is possible to get.
However, no one, not even the most loyal of Catholics, will claim that the majority of sexually active women who do not want to get pregnant do not use either artificial contraception or sterilization. The point is that the majority of Catholic women (and men) do not abide by what the Church teaches regarding birth control or sexuality in general.
Why do you continue to repeat something that is not true? Is it ignorance or are you doing it deliberately? Either way, please stop.
Anyone who looks at the study knows that it, like all such studies, says only what it says, based on a sample and on statistical techniques. It is not a description of “reality.” It’s a statistical study.
If you want to know who uses Fixodent versus who uses Poligrip, you’re not going to survey a representative population of the country (or the entire country down to a person). You’re going to focus on the people who wear dentures. It is irrelevant how many people don’t use Fixodent because they don’t have dentures. If you are going to do a study of what birth control methods are used, you are not going to include postmenopausal women in the study.
February 15th, 2012 | 3:08 pm
Michael and David,
Fair enough, and true enough. People do, as Michael says, elect for surgical sterilization either out of ignorance of Church teaching, during times when fear trumps faith (as it does for us all at one time or another), prior to conversion/reversion to the Catholic faith, and so on.
In these cases, obviously, as with any form of artificial contraception, sacramental reconciliation would need to happen before that person could go forward as a faithful, practicing Catholic. I’m an adult convert, and while neither my husband nor I ever sought surgical sterilization, we certainly used artificial contraception for many years prior to entering the Church, and though we had stopped contracepting as soon as we began the process of our conversion, that was high on my list for my first Confession. (so I guess I’m one of that “98%” . . . ).
Aside from the necessity of confession in the case of sterilization, I do know of converts and reverts to the faith who have had their surgeries reversed; whether they went on to have more children or not, they did make the effort to reverse the damage they had done to their bodies and to return themselves to a state of being open to life. That may not be an option for everyone, and how people in that position return to a life of active faith and reception of the sacraments remains, I imagine, a matter for discussion with a priest/spiritual director/confessor. Though I honestly don’t know for sure, I would imagine that once the sin was confessed and absolved, sex for such a couple would be no more morally problematic than sex for any naturally infertile couple.
I apologize for misconstruing Michael’s comment about people he knows who have “had surgery” in an uncharitable way.
February 15th, 2012 | 3:12 pm
Though I meant to add that you can’t really lump people who have had themselves sterilized with menopausal women and the naturally infertile: one of these things is not like the others, and does present moral complications which the others do not.
February 15th, 2012 | 4:37 pm
Anyone who looks at the study knows that it, like all such studies, says only what it says, based on a sample and on statistical techniques. It is not a description of “reality.” It’s a statistical study.
And it is a statistical study that is being deliberately misrepresented.
And you are actively misrepresenting what it says.
It does not say “98% of Catholic women who have ever had sex”.
It excludes women who have had sex, but are not having sex now.
It excludes all women who are not having sex.
It also excludes women who are having sex, but who want to get pregnant. I did not follow the links far enough to see how actively the women want to get pregnant – whether it includes only women who are actively trying to get pregnant, or whether it includes the more inclusive category of women who are “open to” getting pregnant.
However it’s constructed, it’s clear that the 98% figure is designed to mislead.
It’s important that we recognize that the administration and its supporters are deliberately putting out information that is intended to deceive.
This appears to be an ongoing pattern with Obama, his supporters, and the people who flood internet sites to achieve “saturation” for his talking points.
February 15th, 2012 | 7:12 pm
Ye olde statistician,
“Perhaps because the intrinsic disorder is not family planning, per se?”
I understand the position of the Roman Church to be that the purpose of sex is procreation and that anything that prevents procreation is sinful. I don’t see any difference among withdrawal, condoms, the pill, and NFP. The intention in each case is prevent procreation, and each form of birth control, except perhaps withdrawal, boasts a high success rate. Abstinence seems the only acceptable and philosophically consistent form of family planning.
February 15th, 2012 | 9:09 pm
ST,
“I apologize for misconstruing Michael’s comment about people he knows who have “had surgery” in an uncharitable way”
Thank you, ST. I’m not used to seeing such a gracious response on this site, so I really appreciate it.
“I’m an adult convert, and while neither my husband nor I ever sought surgical sterilization, we certainly used artificial contraception for many years prior to entering the Church, and though we had stopped contracepting as soon as we began the process of our conversion, that was high on my list for my first Confession.”
Perhaps I’m speaking only for myself, but my sense is that religious people are either prudent by nature or only come to religion after learning prudence. It is easy for people who are prudent, older, and/or well settled financially and educationally to accept the possibility of more children, to abstain, or to practice NFP. And it is easy to forget just how much others struggle.
February 16th, 2012 | 7:23 am
The study was designed to “include only women for whom a pregnancy would be unintended and who are ‘at risk’ of becoming pregnant…
OK, let’s pretend that we aren’t talking about the contraception mandate but we are Bishops in Rome grading how various regions have done in promoting the Church’s view on contraception.
First up various Bishops from some developing countries stand and listen to reports that such and such percent of women in their countries report using contraception. Their efforts are discussed and evaluated and then it comes time for the American Bishops to be discussed.
Upon breaking open the 98% figure, the American Bishop raises his hand, “wait a minute!” he cries. He explains the survey is invalid because it excluded various women such as 70 yr olds or women who are pregnant or women who are trying to get pregnant. He demands that the American efforts be graded on a curve because of this clearly unfair survey….
Hmmmm, the other skeptical Bishops look at this for a moment. So, they ponder, the Church teaching is that women who want to avoid pregnancy should use natural family planning and should not use methods like the pill, condoms, iuds, sterilization and so on. So they say, the American Bishop wants credit because while a 25 yr old married woman in Atlanta is on the pill, there’s a 70 yr old widow in Boston who does not use the pill! Hey while we are at it, why don’t we count men who aren’t on the birth control pill as complying with Church teaching on contraception too! The Bishop from some impoverished African country objects, hardly any women in his country are even able to make it to 70!
Here lies the problem with what you’re proposing. The teaching on contraception is only relevant to those seeking to avoid pregnancy. The question of whether American Catholics do or do not follow Church teaching in this regard depends not on how many are on the pill but how many who seek to avoid pregnancy go on the pill. That those who have no interest in avoiding pregnancy either because they can’t get pregnant or because they want to get pregnant don’t use contraception is about as relevant as counting all men who aren’t on the pill or counting family pets or cartoon characters!
The one population you may have an argument for including would be women who are celibate, but even there that should only count if they are celibate as a birth control method. Nuns who are celibate as part of their vows are not ‘on birth control’and should not be counted. What should be counted would be married women who are not having sex in order to avoid pregnancy.
Sorry, the 98% figure is probably pretty much right. I’m sure you can knock it down a bit by some strategic quibbles, but by knock it down I mean maybe by 10 to 20 points. Nothing that alters the substance of the metric.
February 16th, 2012 | 11:46 am
I understand the position of the Roman Church to be that the purpose of sex is procreation and that anything that prevents procreation is sinful.”
This isn’t exactly correct. The Church says that anything done to frustrate the natural end of the marriage act is sinful. Abstinence is a way to prevent pregnancy, but is obviously not sinful.
“I don’t see any difference among withdrawal, condoms, the pill, and NFP. The intention in each case is [to] prevent procreation . . .
This is like saying “I don’t see any difference between stealing money and earning it. The intention is each case is the same.” There’s a moral difference between abstaining from (not doing) what can naturally result in pregnancy, and interfering (doing something) to prevent a pregnancy from taking place that might otherwise occur.
February 16th, 2012 | 12:14 pm
There’s a moral difference between abstaining from (not doing) what can naturally result in pregnancy, and interfering (doing something) to prevent a pregnancy from taking place that might otherwise occur.
Sam Schmitt,
I have seen it said a number of times that practicing NFP with “contraceptive intent” is basically the same as using contraceptives. Thoughts?
February 16th, 2012 | 1:51 pm
Sam Schmitt,
“This is like saying “I don’t see any difference between stealing money and earning it. The intention is each case is the same.” There’s a moral difference between abstaining from (not doing) what can naturally result in pregnancy, and interfering (doing something) to prevent a pregnancy from taking place that might otherwise occur”
I think that if you reread my post, you’ll see that I’m saying something different from what you think I am.
Given the way the Roman Church defines contraception to be sinful, it makes complete sense to me that it rejects withdrawal, condoms, the pill, surgery, etc. It also makes complete sense to me that the Roman Church accepts abstinence.
What doesn’t make sense is that the Roman Church *accepts* and even promotes NFP. Its acceptance of NFP contradicts the logic of its rejection of contraception. The only reason it accepts and promotes NFP is that it has decided to make this concession to birth control.
There’s a parallel between its acceptance of NFP and its acceptance of annulment. Both attempt to skirt the bright line the Roman Church once drew around sexual morality. If you read past columns posted about NFP, you’ll see lots of faithful couples giving up on NFP and reluctantly embracing so-called “artificial” contraception because the intent all along was to prevent conception. With its temperature and mucous measurements, NFP is just as artificial as anything else. Augustine condemned the practice, and the Roman Church only accepted it in the late nineteenth century. It only started pushing the practice in the sixties.
February 16th, 2012 | 2:54 pm
“The teaching on contraception is only relevant to those seeking to avoid pregnancy.” Boonton
Remember that you said that when you start to draw Social Security and find there aren’t enough workers paying into that fund (because of contraception and abortion) for you to get out what you put in.
We are about to see the full effects of a contraceptive and abortive culture in Russia and Japan in the 2020s, when their populations drop by (literally) tens of millions. It’ll have the same effects on civilization and infrastructure as some of the nastier outbreaks of plague.
“Sorry, the 98% figure is probably pretty much right. I’m sure you can knock it down a bit by some strategic quibbles, but by knock it down I mean maybe by 10 to 20 points. Nothing that alters the substance of the metric.” –Boonton
Sorry, Boonton, you’re wrong. By your earlier logic, we can eliminate no fewer than 15% from that number because, as referenced by CBS This Morning, even Senator Barbara Boxer admitted 15% of women use contraceptives not as contraceptives, but as hormone treatment for a medical condition such as endometriosis.
Then we knock David Nickol’s stats (11% of females 15-44) concerning women that are infertile or fertility impaired.
That’s 26% right there, before the unpolled celibates, those who used at one point but are no longer using, etc.
February 16th, 2012 | 9:38 pm
Artaban
Remember that you said that when you start to draw Social Security and find there aren’t enough workers paying into that fund (because of contraception and abortion) for you to get out what you put in.
I’ll take that risk. Even if I didn’t want to take that risk, I have no right to use people as means to an end. I do not think the gov’t should be in the business of social engineering ‘workers’ to feed the next generation of social security receivers. I can go into a lot more detail about why I think the ‘social security’ crises is overblown, but that’s really a different type of topic.
No country ever got to the top by trying to out breed all the others. If population was the key to power and security England would have been a colony of India rather than the other way around. You can’t quite analyze humans the way you would analyze herds of cows or sheep.
Sorry, Boonton, you’re wrong. By your earlier logic, we can eliminate no fewer than 15% from that number because, as referenced by CBS This Morning, even Senator Barbara Boxer admitted 15% of women use contraceptives not as contraceptives, but as hormone treatment for a medical condition such as endometriosis
Another good reason to reject demands for yet more anti-contraceptive social engineering. If you’re not working directly for a church, why should you have to submit your prescriptions for ‘approval’? Your health coverage is something you earn, it’s your pay, what you do with it is your business, not your bosses or the guy who happens to have an ownership stake in the company that employs your boss.
Anyway, the question is if you want to ask about acceptance of Catholic policy on contraception then you have to ask what Catholics do when confronted with a desire not to have a child. Those who are not in that boat are not confronting that question hence you can’t count their use or non-use of contraceptives as an answer. The woman taking the pill for hormone control would be in the same boat as the 70 yr old widow who isn’t taking the pill. We don’t know whether or not they accept Church teaching on contraception because they are not in the position of trying to control pregnancy. Of course this makes any survey somewhat problematic. You’d have to start by taking the # of women on the pill and minus off those who are one it for non-contraceptive reasons. Then you take that number and divide it by those who are seeking to control pregnancy. That’s not an easy number to get at but the study bashed at the top of this thread seems like it made a good effort to get there. It tried to limit itself to fertile women, exclude those not having sex (if you’re not having sex you have no need to control pregnancy), exluded those who are or just were pregnant. The 98% figure is probably not too off. I’m willing to figure the true figure might be 88%, maybe even 70% but the gist is still the same. There’s no way you’re going to get anywhere south of a majority of women accepting the Church’s teaching via actual behavior.
Michael
…NFP is just as artificial as anything else. Augustine condemned the practice, and the Roman Church only accepted it in the late nineteenth century. It only started pushing the practice in the sixties….
Not really sure I buy this. Didn’t Augustine take the view Paulian view that marriage was a ’2nd best’ to those who couldn’t control themselves with chastity? He condemned withdrawl but how exactly would he have condemned NFP? Since he was taking the view that sex was bad, only to be tolerated when procreation was a possibility, to condem NFP would be essentially trying to ‘order’ married couples to have sex! Sounds pretty odd for someone who was promoting chastity, even within the bounds of marriage if possible. More importantly, did NFP exist in his time? There might have been some knowledge of the timing of a woman’s cycle and her fertile period but then ignorance about female reproduction was rampant in Western civilization up until maybe the early 1970′s. The only source I can see in a quick google search seems to have Augustine talking about withdrawl or ‘evil devices’, not NFP.
As for using NFP with ‘contraceptive intent’….I’m not really sure how to begin to contemplate how one is supposed to be leaning and applying NFP but NOT have contraceptive intent. The only exception might be a rather sex adverse married couple who just want to have sex to create children and would rather not be bothered with it beyond that so would use NFP to find the right days……not the typical couple I would imagine but the world has all types in it.
February 17th, 2012 | 1:31 pm
Remember that you said that when you start to draw Social Security and find there aren’t enough workers paying into that fund (because of contraception and abortion) for you to get out what you put in.
We are about to see the full effects of a contraceptive and abortive culture in Russia and Japan in the 2020s, when their populations drop by (literally) tens of millions. It’ll have the same effects on civilization and infrastructure as some of the nastier outbreaks of plague.
They continue to cling to the belief that overpopulation is going to make the planet explode (personally I hope that overpopulation will prompt us to put that lunar colony on the Moon, which is the one thing I have heard in this entire election cycle so far that has struck me as interesting in a good way).
They also hope that somehow overpopulation can be avoided through just “other people voluntarily not breeding”. They don’t realize yet that the only alternative to us popping our atmosphere and spreading out into space (rather virus-like imagery, like it?) is for us to have the sort of depopulation that is as painful for the survivors as for the fallen.
February 17th, 2012 | 3:53 pm
I certainly favor Blake being sent to a lunar colony. As for a population solution, it would be way too expensive. In terms of population, the entire population of the world could fit into northern NJ….provided it had the population density of Manhattan. ‘Overpopulation’ is really a problem of not using resources efficently. Contraception IMO is not a ‘solution’ for that anymore than trying to set up road blocks to contraception is a solution to Social Security or pensions or 401ks.
February 17th, 2012 | 5:52 pm
Blake,
A rare point of agreement. The last person I want to see as president is Newt Gingrich, but I think it is sad and short-sighted that America has largely abandoned manned space exploration. I could go for a lunar colony and a colony on Mars. For starters.
February 17th, 2012 | 11:13 pm
Boonton,
“He condemned withdrawl but how exactly would he have condemned NFP?”
The term didn’t exist at the time because the term was coined only recently to provide an alternative to planned parenthood. Humans have known forever that women’s fertility is cyclic, and so abstinence before ovulation has been a common, though not foolproof, strategy for limiting procreation. The method long preexisted Augustine, and he preached against it under the theory that seed should not be wasted.
“The only source I can see in a quick google search seems to have Augustine talking about withdrawl or ‘evil devices’, not NFP”
Try “periodic abstinence.”
February 19th, 2012 | 10:05 am
Michael, it seems like he was responding to the Manichaeism faith which held that creating a child was bad because it ‘locked’ a soul in a mortal body. This would seem to me to be an important point. They weren’t just using a type of contraception but committing to a marriage of no children ever. From his point of view, if one was committed to no children at all, then one should be celibate because sex was bad in itself so if you’re not going to use it for making babies you shouldn’t be using it at all.
while NFP could be employed by a couple that doesn’t want kids at all, it could just as easily be employed by a couple spacing out kids or shifting the time that kids come. This tells me that the Manicheans were pushing something that had an important difference from NFP, if that’s the case then it’s a bit too simplistic to say Augustine was against it.
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