Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Morality vs. High-and-mighty

Who wants feisty?

There is a story in today's Minneapolis Star-Tribune about the increasing availability of Plan-B, AKA the morning after pill, in Minnesota and across the country. It does a decent job of presenting two divergent views on the appropriateness of making Plan-B an over-the-counter drug (which an independent study overwhelmingly urged, though the FDA has reservations).

Here's where I get confused:
Many religious and abortion opponent groups promote abstinence until marriage as the only moral form of birth control. And others say that making Plan B easily accessible promotes irresponsible sex and inattention to sexually transmitted diseases.

"Teenage girls are not going to go to the doctor if they don't have to," said Dr. Joe DeCook, a spokesman for the Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, a national advocacy group that lobbies on reproductive issues. "But then they will not be having medical testing for [sexually transmitted diseases], and they are already epidemic."

First: the idea that birth control is a moral issue escapes me. Abortion as a moral battle-ground yes: is it about a baby or about a woman's autonomy over her own body. Both legitimate questions.

But birth control? I was raised Catholic. I know mother-Church teaches two main forms of BC: abstinence and the rhythm method. The Strib article says there are approximately 3 million accidental pregnancies in the U.S. every year. Without any research I'll guess about 1 million of them result from the rhythm method, and another 1 million come from people who are unwilling or unable to use birth control, but can't live up to the "moral imperative" of abstinence.

I know several Catholics of varying degrees of conviction read this, so I want to say I'm not trying to be offensive, I just don't get it. The Holy See and I don't see eye-to-eye on this one.

If birth control is such a moral issue, why aren't its opponents pounding away demanding condoms be removed from pharmacies, gas stations, and vending machines? Or at least require presentation of a valid marriage certificate at time of sale?

Why isn't there a push to ban "the pill"? I mean if there was one single invention that advanced the cause of a libidinous society, it was the one-bedroom apartment. But the second is certainly "the pill". Where is the moral outrage on those?

Or even Viagra, for that matter? Again, this is without any pretense of scientific study, but I'm willing to bet the majority of men who are prescribed Viagra are not married to their first wives.

Second: it's a preposterous idea that without doctors acting as gate-keepers on contraception, the (horrendous) problems we have in this country with sexually transmitted disease will somehow morph into an Avian Influenza-like problem, and we'll all start contracting herpes through unprotected discourse with the (presumedly promiscuous) cashier girl at Safeway.

If Americans were in any way serious about reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies, slowing the spread of STDs, or generally improving the health and well-being of fellow-people (instead of chest-pounding and soap-box based righteous indignation at the slightest perceived affront) we'd take a lesson from several African nations.

ABC. It's not only slowed the progress of AIDS, in some cases it's even decreased transmission.

The crazy thing is, almost everyone, of every political and religious stripe can agree nearly instantaneously to the first two-thirds of the program;

Abstinence
Be faithful
use a Condom

Why is it so hard to concede to reality? People are animals. I said it, we are. Animals. Like Chimps (or bonobos...some of you get the reference), or cats, or salamanders. We're animals. Well, most of us aren't too much like salamanders. As a result, sometimes our Animal selves win out over our Moral selves-we were apes before we were people. We had survival instincts before we had ethics and philosophy.

Is it so hard to encourage people to behave "well" but give them the tools to cope when they "falter"?

Maybe we just want to see other people "screw up" and rather than extend them a helping hand, we'd prefer to ridicule.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Chinahand,

I agree with Alektra's well written comments. I am also looking forward to your next visit to China and will put aside a good deal of time for a discussion with you on your post when you come. The radio show is definitely going to visit DC next year so that may be the time of our chat. ^_^

I think the Golden Gophers win over Michigan has really brought the animal in you out!

Anonymous said...

Leave the church out of it. Why do we bring it in? What I can't get is Bushy being against BC, he's not Catholic...Why does he care so much?

Why does condom use lower STDs? Because it works some of the time, better than no condoms working none of the time. There is no way possible for us to stop having sex, married or not. (i like the bonobo reference)

Also I like the fact that a group of fat rich men has consistently eliminated womens choices on BC and abortion, but Viagra, a RECREATIONAL drug(first ever) benefits only that group....NO ONE IS TAKING VIAGRA TO HAVE CHILDREN!

Oh and we may not be animals according to the church, but the priests that are supposed to judge us, sure seemed to be when they "played" with their choir boys. I wonder if they used condoms?

Sorry for the rant...

John said...

I'm with Alektra--the shot about pedophile priests was a low blow. Some of the most hard-working, selfless, caring, and simply GOOD people I have met are priests. If more of us gave a fraction ourselves to do the good work done by the vast majority of priests, we'd have a lot less problems in our neighborhoods.

Anonymous said...

All I'm saying is that after the whole "hide the pedophile" incident, the church at times should admit they are wrong. I know plenty of priests have done good and continue to do good. I have a two friends that were in the clergy, one was a monk, the other was in line to become the Bishop of the US, infact he sat on council with Pope John Paul the II in Rome before he was pope.

Both have one thing to say, the church needs to become consistent. My friend the monk, is Bi-sexual, a very good person, and incredibly kind and generous. He also points out that the Catholic church is full of other gay and bi-sexual men. The majority of which do incredible good and help the church to become a better place. Yet everyday the church condems them?

The "was to be bishop" concurred on the amount of "gays" in the church and one reason he left the clergy was because of the inconsistency on this issue, Birthcontrol and marriage for priests.

My main problem is that the church doesn't take the time to say "maybe we were wrong". Or maybe we could look at this differently.

In the end I have nothing against hard working priests...just against shell games and mistruths from their bosses.