Those of us who are consistently prolife are glad to see this.

Very good news, indeed.

I think when we are old and grey, teens will think of it like evils of segregation and their children will think of it like the evils of the holocaust. Kyrie Eleison.

swimmerbabe11 said:

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I think when we are old and grey, teens will think of it like evils of segregation and their children will think of it like the evils of the holocaust. Kyrie Eleison.

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You are far more hopeful than I am. I pray that this view of abortion is not far off but fear it will be generations before it will come to be a common view.

swimmerbabe11 said:

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I think when we are old and grey, teens will think of it like evils of segregation and their children will think of it like the evils of the holocaust. Kyrie Eleison.

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I often think to myself what it will be that people hundreds of years from now will look back on us and think "my God what kind of animals were those people".

Abortion is the one thing I keep coming back to.

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Very good news, indeed.

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Even for those against birth control/contraceptives? It seems like if you are against those, then there is no progress and we've just changed the measuring methods. I would think that Catholics would be worried by this...because if contraceptives is part of the abortion solution, then we aren't undoing them.

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As a Catholic, contraception is one thing but murder is quite another. Not all sins are created equal (no matter what some Protestants say).

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Yeah, but the issue your run into is that you can't say things are better if society is driving people to another sinful pattern...even if it's lesser.

that's why I asked the question. it seems like the thing that hasn't changed is our views on sex.

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It seems like if you are against those, then there is no progress and we've just changed the measuring methods.

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I don't think it's a matter of changing the measuring methods. It's not as though birth control/contraceptives are some new creation and we can see the decline begin w/ their invention. Birth control was readily available at the peak just as it is readily available today.

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Birth control was readily available at the peak just as it is readily available today.

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"Readily available" should not be confused with "actually used". I think most would agree that usage has been on the rise, especially in poorer communities.

diehard03 said:

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Birth control was readily available at the peak just as it is readily available today.

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"Readily available" should not be confused with "actually used". I think most would agree that usage has been on the rise, especially in poorer communities.

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Hmmm I don't know. I'd be curious if there are any stats on that.

Then again, I'm not anti-BC/contraceptives so this downward trend is good in my book.

I think hormonal BC has its own set of problems..but that's more about playing chemist with a half of the population without anyone really knowing what they are doing.

Hormonal birth control use has been widespread in the public for over 50 years. I think we know all we're going to know about it at this point.

*sigh*

We've got millions of points of data spread over 50 years. We know the pharmacology, biological interactions, intended effects, unintended effects, serious adverse effects. What else are you expecting to learn? Who do you think is still doing studies on hormonal birth control? Right now it's only drug companies trying to find novel hormones to patent.

I would say my generation is probably the first where use of hormonal birth control at the start of puberty was a majority, not minority thing. I'm talking high majority like 70-80%.

And you know how you get prescribed? You go in and you tell your obgyn that you want it. You might describe that you have too much acne or that you were getting moody and the obgyn says "cool, lets put you on the most popular brand right now" then you go back and you say "no, that one made me get fat." or "no that one didn't work for x, x, and x" and they throw a dart at a wall for another hormone cocktail.

The doctors aren't pharmacists or chemists or even mixologists at a bar working off a taste palate profile. They are simply peddling the drugs peddled to them when it comes to BC. These drugs that make a significant change in your basic emotions and bodily functions.

You think that we really were prepared for the type of change that can have on a society? You think we still are? Do you think we have gotten better at it? I don't.

I think that is an almost impossible question biologically and sociologically. After all, the drive for hormonal birth control was from the feminist movement and women who wanted sex and careers without pregnancy. So to take that complete cultural shift and try to account for what % of the change was due to the influence of birth control and what was due to increased employment and autonomy would be almost impossible.

That doesn't even figure in the biological aspect. Until the last few centuries, women didn't have hundreds of monthly cycles. They conceived during teenage years and bore children until they couldn't anymore. So we know, for instance, that each montly cycle increases the risk of ovarian cancer. Hormonal contraceptives lower this risk to the same level as in frequently pregnant women. So teasing out the effect of birth control versus years of cycling non-pregnancy is also going to be difficult if the historical baseline is that a woman is almost always pregnant during those years.

wbt5845 said:

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diehard03 said:

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Very good news, indeed.

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Even for those against birth control/contraceptives? It seems like if you are against those, then there is no progress and we've just changed the measuring methods. I would think that Catholics would be worried by this...because if contraceptives is part of the abortion solution, then we aren't undoing them.

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Probably. As a Catholic, contraception is one thing but murder is quite another. Not all sins are created equal (no matter what some Protestants say).

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I agree to an extent, but I want to throw in a little nuance. A sin is a sin, in that the defining feature of sin is that it separates the sinner from God. It's a rejection of God's will and love for humanity.

The distinction here is that some sins are personal. For example, if I secretly lust after a woman, I am really the only victim of that sin. On the other hand, if I kill someone, I am a victim of the sin in that I separate myself from God, and also the person I kill is a victim. It's that second external victim who is relevant to secular government policy-makers.

dargscisyhp said:

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swimmerbabe11 said:

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so much less guilty of crime than those who ignore that life begins in the womb. (and yes, some ignore that human life begins in the womb and don't even want to have the personhood/rights talk about a fetus)

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That human life begins in the womb is not a scientific statement, it is a value-based statement. A fetus is biologically alive. This is not up for debate. But so are your gametes. What people are really debating is not when life begins, but when personhood begins. This is not something that can be established scientifically.

Your argument seems to be that since life begins in the womb, personhood begins in the womb. But this is the crux of the debate. Looking past the flowery language of heartbeats and tiny little limbs, you're essentially simply decreeing where personhood begins by fiat. All of this is fine if you simply want to assert your position, but call a spade a spade. Saying that life begins in the womb but really meaning personhood begins in the womb is not engaging in the debate, it's circumventing the debate altogether through equivocation.

I find this kind of logic fairly shallow, and using the guise of science bordering on disingenuous. I say this as someone who is pro-life.

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So a fetus in the womb isn't human? All living humans didn't pass through that phase of development? Which part of those statements are value based?

Here's an article on the study that ties the drop in abortion to contraceptives.
http://www.vox.com/identities/2017/1/18/14296532/abortion-rate-lowest-ever-because-birth-control

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The best explanation for this sudden drop is that use of long-acting reversible contraceptives (or LARCs) like IUDs and implants increased 130 percent among US women between 2007 and 2009. LARCs are much more reliable and less likely to fail than either birth control pills or condoms (LARCs fail less than 1 percent of the time, compared to 9 percent with typical use of birth control pills or 18 percent with condoms).

That trend likely continued between 2011 and 2014, Jones and Jerman conclude. Low-income family planning clinics supported by the Title X program gave LARCs to 11 percent of their patients in 2014, up from 7 percent in 2011. Low-income and young women have the most unintended pregnancies, and are mostly served by Title X clinics.

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Birth rates are at their lowest point ever as well:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/11/health/us-lowest-fertility-rate/

Millennials are having less sex than any generation in 60 years:
https://www.google.com/amp/www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-millennials-less-sex-20160802-snap-story,amp.html?client=safari

AstroAg17 said:

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What darg said.

Life doesn't begin in the womb, and nobody is ignoring the development process.

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What is life and at what moment do you determine it innately exists?

JJMt said:

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AstroAg17 said:

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This is life.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life

Life seems to have existed in a continuous chain for at least ~3.5 billion years. Sperm are alive. Eggs are alive. Put them together, the zygote is alive. Life does not begin anywhere in this process.

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You're being intentionally obtuse. Obviously, the point is about human life.

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Agreed. The obvious point is about a new, unique, human organism.