http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2006/03/20/anti_contraception/subscription req'd
The battle to ban birth control
Using bogus health facts to scare women about the "dangers" of contraception, a fledgling movement fights for a culture in which sex = procreation.
By Priya Jain
Mar. 20, 2006 | Ever since she was in her early teens, Mary Worthington has been vehemently opposed to contraception, which she regards as immoral and dangerous. To spread her anti-birth-control gospel, this month she launched
No Room for Contraception, a clearinghouse for arguments and personal testimonials on this subject. NRFC joins other anti-contraception Web sites like
Quiverfull and
One More Soul.
Worthington, who wouldn't reveal where she lives and works, or her exact age, is a recent graduate of Franciscan University of Steubenville, in Ohio, where she earned a B.A. in theology and a minor in human life studies. She is also opposed to abortion. But NRFC doesn't even address abortion; its sole purpose is to "prove" that the pill and the IUD cause health problems and destroy women's fertility, that condoms lead to the spread of sexually transmitted diseases by making people believe that sex can be completely safe, that contraception destroys marriages by rendering sex an act of pleasure rather than one of procreation. Emboldened by the fact that the president and the two most recent Supreme Court nominees are anti-choice, a recent antiabortion victory in South Dakota, and legislative success restricting access to emergency contraception, groups like NRFC are shifting their focus and resources away from abortion and putting their energy into restricting birth control.
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Still, the anti-birth-control movement's efforts are making a significant political impact: Supporters have pressured insurance companies to refuse coverage of contraception, lobbied for "conscience clause" laws to protect pharmacists from having to dispense birth control, and are redefining the very meaning of pregnancy to classify certain contraceptive methods as abortion. In increasing numbers, women and men opposed to contraception are marshaling health facts and figures to bolster their convictions that sex for anything but procreation is morally wrong and potentially deadly. Although its medical arguments are really just thinly veiled moral and religious arguments, using findings that are biased and unfounded, the rising anti-contraception movement, echoed by the Catholic Church, is making significant inroads. Leaders of the pro-choice movement know it, are worried about it, and realize they can't take it lightly, as they mount their own strategies to battle it. "It is very hard to awaken people to the threat," says Gloria Feldt, the former president of Planned Parenthood, "because who can believe that something so accessible can be at risk? But that's what
said when they started attacking Roe, and now look at how close we are to losing Roe." Nor is the fight against birth control only the province of a few zealots. While sites like Worthington's may be new, many antiabortion activists have always been bitterly opposed to contraception. "After Roe v. Wade was decided," says Feldt, "the debate focused on abortion instead of birth control. But (for anti-choicers) they are not separate issues." She points out that what we're seeing today is more of a revival of an old movement than a shift to something new. "It's been there from the beginning. If you go back and look at the rhetoric against birth control from 1916, it's exactly the same as the rhetoric now."
And when you look closely, there is evidence to suggest that even the mainstream anti-choice groups are ready to make the battle against contraception part of their agendas. Many of the National Right to Life Committee state affiliates have opposed legislation that would provide insurance coverage for contraception. Iowa Right to Life even lists a host of birth control methods -- including the pill, the IUD, Norplant and Depo-Provera -- as abortifacients. And NRLC itself parses its language very carefully when it comes to contraception. A call to the organization resulted in an e-mailed statement on the group's position that read in part, "NRLC takes no position on the prevention of the uniting of sperm and egg. Once fertilization, i.e., the uniting of sperm and egg, has occurred, a new life has begun and NRLC is opposed to the destruction of that new human life." Such a position leaves the group plenty of wiggle room to argue, when it is ready to do so, that contraceptives prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg and are thus a form of abortion. (NRLC wouldn't comment further, because, according to a media relations assistant, contraception lies outside of its purview. For the same reason, Feminists for Life refused interview requests. And at Concerned Women for America, a group that has been openly anti-contraception, a spokesperson told Salon twice that none of its experts were available for interviews.)
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edit: PM me if you can't get a day pass. Big article.
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