In thinking about the empirical analysis of social policies, I've thought it sometimes useful to take the actual results of the policies and then look back and think whether the policy still would have been adopted had the architects of the policy known what the results would be. The answer might still be yes, but thinking about the costs and benefits through this lens helps to illuminate the trade-offs without the inherent biases that people seem to have in admitting that they were mistaken in the first place.
For instance, had the architects of Prohibition known the full costs and benefits that resulted from Prohibition, would they have still supported it? Perhaps yes, but surely the full range of unintended consequences of Prohibition were not fully seen at the time, and if they had been it is not obvious that they would have supported it (and of course they actually ended up repealing it). I recall seeing this same analysis of welfare policy prior to welfare reform in the 1990s: had the architects of the Great Society welfare programs known the unintended consequences that would flow from welfare reform, would they have still supported it?
Another one I wonder about is whether had the Federalists been able to anticipate the course of American constitutional history, would they have nonetheless opposed the inclusion of a Bill of Rights in the Constitution (Madison changed his mind, of course)? It is an interesting thought experiment to think about how American history would have been different had the Federalists prevailed and no Bill of Rights would have been added to the Constitution. One suspects, for instance, that the Supreme Court would have spent most of its time enforcing structural constitutional restrictions and enumerated powers rather than individual rights provisions. Whether that would have been better or worse is an interesting question--it certainly would have been different.
In this vein I offer a provocative essay by Mary Eberstadt on birth control and the sexual revolution. She writes about it through the lens of the Papal Encyclical Humanae Vitae, but I'm interested in it here as a non-religious sociological analysis. My guess is that most readers will conclude that the sexual revolution was a net positive for society. Certainly there were major social and widespread individual benefits from the sexual revolution and birth control technology, and one suspects that many of these social benefits were unforeseen at the time as well. Increased personal autonomy, freedom, and social and economic opportunities for women are certainly important benefits of access to birth control that most of us will easily recognize. Nonetheless, while most readers will conclude that the benefits overall outweighed the costs, Eberstadt frames the issue in a way that certainly caused me to think more deeply about the full costs and benefits of these social developments:
Let’s begin by meditating upon what might be called the first of the secular ironies now evident: Humanae Vitae’s specific predictions about what the world would look like if artificial contraception became widespread. The encyclical warned of four resulting trends: a general lowering of moral standards throughout society; a rise in infidelity; a lessening of respect for women by men; and the coercive use of reproductive technologies by governments.
In the years since Humanae Vitae’s appearance, numerous distinguished Catholic thinkers have argued, using a variety of evidence, that each of these predictions has been borne out by the social facts.
Speculation on the causes of such broad social trends is difficult, of course. Nonetheless, much of the rest of the article is concerned with laying out the empirical case that each of these four developments have actually come about. And reading the list of predicted effects (even before considering the empirical evidence Eberstadt marshals) it seems accurate to me that these are unintended consequences that have in fact come about as side-effects of access to artificial birth control. As Eberstadt stresses, most of this sociological evidence has been developed by secular scholars.
In the end, Eberstadt can be criticized for failing to fully account for the benefits of the sexual revolution, so it is not clear that Humanae Vitae has been "vindicated" (of course, this is a short magazine piece and most readers will easily be able to recognize the benefits of these developments to weigh them in the balance). Nonetheless, I thought it a fresh way of thinking about one of the major social developments of the Twentieth Century as it causes us to think about some of the costs associated with developments that are generally thought to be socially beneficial.
1. Has there been a general lowering of moral standards throughout society? Let's compare the actions and attitudes of male Americans against women and Americans of both sexes against blacks of both sexes from before the 1960s and after. Most women and blacks of both sexes, if they were transported back to 1958, for example, would be screaming to get out and back to our time. They'd be to the cultural left of Gloria Steinem in regard to asking for what they would right perceive as just "simple dignity" in their workplace or lives. Just watch the tv show MadMen on AMC if you don't have time to read sociologically oriented studies of what it was like to be a woman in the workplace, in personal relationships, etc.
2. Has there been a rise in infidelity? Eberstat should at least recognize that there was a deep hypocrisy going on behind a lower divorce rate that existed before World War II. As Barbara Ehrenreich point out in her book, Hearts of Men, the infidelity we were so upset about the 1960s began among men in the 1950s. That is where the loss of commitment began in any "modern" discourse or sense. Ever talk to a now old businessman as to what occurred at most males-only or near males only business convention back in the 1950s? There were prostitutes galore and affairs galore--by men with unmarried and sometimes married women. Since the 1950s and especially since the 1960s, there has been more openness, and as people live longer, longer marriages become more difficult to sustain. Too often, one sees the man in his 50s, still feeling robust, who winds up with the 28 year old woman and leaves his wife--even as his first wife still feels robust. Is that a generalization? Yes, but not as wide as Eberstat's generalizations.
3. Has there been a lessening of respect for women by men? Just look back at no. 1 above and ask yourself if men are really disrespecting women more today than decades ago.
4. Finally, Eberstat speaks of the coercive use of reproductive technologies by governments. That is not the American experience since the advent of the 1960s. Carrie Buck was forcibly sterilized in the 1920s, and there were some women who may have been forcibly sterilized in places like Mississippi in the 1960s (I may well be wrong about this latter point, which only strengthens my overall disgust at Eberstat's statement as could be applied to the US). The Chinese government's policy of one child per husband and wife is a statement about how dictators act elsewhere, not about morality in the US, which is what she wants to ultimately argue.
Eberstat needs a refresher course in American sociology and anthropology. If she only read about how women, traumatized by cheating and vindictive men, were forced into mental institutions (think Frances Farmer in the 1940s, let alone many women who suffered this fate in silence in the late 19th Century). If she only read about the violence women endured in marriages before the advent of the 1960s, she might step back from her exceedingly narrow focus about contraception. Anti-contraception pills are far more a liberator for women's lives than a problem. Eberstat wrongly blames anti-contraception pills and the like when the real problem remains men's disrespect for women and government oppression in foreign lands. The magazine that printed her essay should be embarrassed.
Law makers are now ghoulish, amateurish, incompetent human experimenters, with self-dealt immunities, outside of losing a re-election. This loss often results in lucrative jobs outside of government, and is not a negative consequence.
The second constitutional remedy is to pass an amendment ending all self-dealt governmental immunities. Let these incompetents compensate the victims of their carelessness.
To a lawyer or a blogger, yes - we expect everything to be footnoted, with a nice paragraph in the footnotes summing up the relevant provisions of the text. Bloggers expect a hyperlink.
Eberstadt doesn't make bald assertions, however; she cites to various social scientists, authors, and thinkers. In par. 4-7 of Part II, for example, she cites the works of 13 economists, social scientists, and other thinkers. Perhaps she assumes that her audience is familiar with these works; perhaps "First Things" doesn't allow for footnotes - especially the kind we're used to seeing in law review articles.
Eberstat's citations are drive bys. She hopes nobody actually reads what she cites because, if anyone did, they'd quickly realize that none of the feminist writers would agree with Eberstat's assumptions that there has been some sort of cultural decline in how men treat women. If anything, the feminists are saying things are still bad, but certainly no worse as to how men treat women overall. That is not the same as Eberstat's argument that we should end the use of anti-contraception technologies with the belief that men would treat women better thereafter. That is what makes Eberstat a loon.
It's absolutely atrocious.
(I think even the hard right has been cringing each time she publishes a new one.)
Since legislation includes repeal of laws, do we really want to enable such a circus when bad laws are repealed?
I'm not sure who would want to use such a technology, but your theory interests me, Mitchell... want to explain where you've heard of it? Please be sure to cite all your sources thoroughly.
I was just picking on you because you sound so arrogant in your posts, but clearly don't even understand the terminology you're using.
"The Pill" IS contraception... not anti-contraception.
So you caught me in a brain fart. Wonderful. And jolly for you.
Too bad the arrogance is facing you in your mirror. Why don't you correct someone's spelling, next?
Anyway... you're welcome for the vocabulary lesson, and I will now let you rant uninhibited.
In other words, yes, there was an increase in infidelity, but because the rate of female infidelity is now more equal to that of male infidelity, it's all good.
I think we're talking past each other. The part I cited (Sec. II, para. 4-7) was her summation of the social science research into poverty, divorce, out-of-wedlock births, etc.
When I read her article, I didn't take from it the same thing you did, i.e. that the feminists are saying exactly what she is saying. Gottlieb's article, for example, was discussed (witha very, um... interesting? comment thread) at Volokh a few months back, and it seems to have said pretty much what Eberstadt says that it did. The feminists don't follow Eberstadt's thinking, but she is arguing that they should, if they choose to think through their positions.
I was not alive in the 1950s, so I cannot speak to the way that men treated women back then. (Incidentally, where do you get the '50s as a default position? Eberstadt goes back to 1908 with her discussion of birth control.) Likewise, you are also ill-equipped to discuss what it is like to be a young woman in today's world.
I - a modern woman, late 20s, unmarried, law degree - cannot help feeling as if we've traded one set of problems for another: that we've gone from lamenting how married men seek out prostitutes to having them seek out every single female with a pulse for the same needs, with the same expectation that those needs will be met by her.
I am not alone in my thinking, either. Many of my friends - although not a random sample of women in their 20s and 30s - likewise lament the effects of the sexual revolution. They have law degrees, medical degrees, and PhDs, but feel as if they are living in a loony bin. The "committed relationship" standard of the '60s and '70s devolved - rather quickly - into the "third date" standard of the '80s, and, now, is first date - or, often, no date at all.
Far from moving beyond the times in which men would seek sexual gratification from prostitutes, we've moved into an era in which men treat all women like hookers. Sort of. At least if I were a sex worker, I could get paid for doing what men expect me to do for free.
Mitchell Freedman's comment on this and the other three points is exactly correct.
agriculture.
(BTW, theobromophile, without the sexual revolution, there wouldn't be many of you random 20 and 30 yr. old young women with MDs and PhDs and JDs... and as far as "men expect [you] to do it for free" well, you do have a choice, y'know. Free will and all that.)
Her complaint is that her random 20 and 30 yr. old PhD/MD/JD female friends are only meeting men with sex on their minds. To which I have two responses:
1. Bars are not the best places to find long-term relationships.
2. Do you prefer the situation you are in now, are pre-birth control, where you and your 20 and 30 yr. old married-at-18, high-school educated friends (maybe) would meet for knitting circles and recipe sharing while the kids played? Note- you *could* still choose this option today, but it is a choice, not a destiny.
Isn't it interesting how men gain power in their individual relationships by accusing men in general of being inherently uncivilized?
One often forgotten thing was how sexually liberated American society was in the 1920s before the pendulum swung back the other direction.
By the same logic, men should never have gotten advanced degrees before the sexual revolution, as they would have been dads at age 18, which makes it a bit difficult to support a family. (Yes, back then, men tended to be married to their baby mammas, more often than not.... Radical.) How were there any doctors?!?
Yes, I have a choice to say "no" to men, but it's entirely unpleasant to be treated that way.
Now, as for the idea that getting girls into bed gets them into college: sexually active teenagers are less likely to graduate high school, go to college, and graduate from college once there (here). While this is not necessarily causative, I will also note that a paediatrician recently noted that teenage girls who have sex tend to be more depressed after becoming sexually active, so much so that she said that depression ought to be considered a sexually transmitted disease. (I'll dig up the cite for anyone who wants it.)
As a final thought: we could give women contraception and tell them that their bodies should work like men's bodies - sterile, barren, and unable to bring forth life after sexual activity. Alternatively, we could - rather than change women - change the society in which we live - the society that makes it difficult to be a pregnant or parenting college student or career woman. When children are a choice, however, and pregnancy is the result of a failure to use contraception, not the natural result of a woman's body working the way it was designed to work, there is little need for this.
While women can certainly bear children in their 30s, and perhaps their 40s, reality is that it's harder for women - harder to conceive, to carry to term, and harder to be a parent when older. Given that most women want marriage and parenthood, why have we set up a society that stuffs the Pill down the throats of women in their fertile years and called it feminism?
Wow, as a child of this generation, you are so far from the point you can't even see it from your vantage. While there are some negatives from the sexual revolution, the major advantage was giving women the option of choosing to bear children if they had sex. This had societal consequences. While correlation does not imply causation, do you think there might be, um, more than a coincidence that all the male-dominated (completely) professions began to open up to women at the same time as the sexual revolution? Why? Because it was widely understood that women could choose to have a career. More importantly, women could delay childbirth, chose a career, then have children later.
As for a society that 'shoves the pill down the throats of women in their fertile years'... uh, yeah. Free will. Remember? If you want to be barefoot and pregnant and married at 18, there are plenty of communities in America where that is a viable choice. If you want to delay marriage (and pregnancy) until after your JD/MD, that is your choice, too.
Don't need the Taliban around to tell me what to do, thank you.
It's a joke. I apologize if I hit too close to home.
Are you making an effort to be an ass, Loki, or does it just come naturally to you?
How on earth can you get equality in the workplace but not the bedroom? You'd have to tie yourself into knots just to get in the door.
Yup. and for anyone associated with the Catholic Church to complain about how women don't get the respect they deserve is the height of irony. Few institutions have been so good at institutionalizing disrespect for women.
As for infidelity, some studies show that in Victorian London, there was about one prostitute for every man, and sex outside of marriage was not only common, but expected.
As for coerciveness, the Church has been the leader at trying to stop people from using contraception, and backed laws that would prohibit its use. I guess it's not 'coercive' if the Church does it, right?
It is not coercive if the church does it because the only power the church has is over association.
Were all of the women moonlighting?
What you mean "us"? Many of "us", male and female, are not invested in the
little redFeminist Revolutionary Handbook.The Constitution should mandate that all laws get tested in small jurisdictions.
You mean like, um, states, for example? What a bizarre notion. Well, if one is a true modern liberal, I suppose...
Well, Oren, getting tied up is half the fun....
Emoticons can be your friend. The ;) indicates, for example, that you're kidding - especially necessary when you're saying something that a lot of people say in funeral seriousness. :p pppttttt
It hit close to home - because everyone and their mother says that to me - well, everyone who is unaware that I don't spend my time in bars and that I've dated friends of friends, men I've met in school, etc. It's the "Are you a lesbian" (said to single women in their 30s) of 2008.
p., the increase in productivity and wealth caused by not discarding the skills and labor of half the population are not at all restricted in their benefit. What sane economist (of any persuasion) would advise that such a labor arrangement is unfavorable?
Increased personal autonomy, freedom, and social and economic opportunities for women
You don't see that everywhere
Like using racial preferences to "increase opportunity for students of colour," I don't think it's the goal that anyone objects to, but rather the mechanism.
P. Rich responded to the second clause: "important benefits of access to birth control that most of us will easily recognise." The way I read it - with the objection to "us" - is that some people, according to P. Rich, do not believe that those are the benefits of birth control.
While I realize nuance can be lost on teh intertubez, I refuse to use emoticons as a matter of principle. I figgered the one-liner could be understood in context, but did not realize the subtext it had to you (hence, the apology). Nevertheless, I expect David Bernstein to post on this thread shortly defending me, as we all know there are no subtexts to words and no 'dog whistles', and saying 'states rights' in the South is simply talkin' bout Federalism.
(Then we can dig it...
Who is the man,
who would risk his neck for...state's... um... FEDERALISM...
Reagan!
Can ya dig it?
He's a complicated man
But no one understands him but his David Bernstein
Ronald Reagan
(right on!)
Or both.
Nick
Since Eberstadt clearly refers to those moral standards concerning the relationship between the sexes, sexuality, procreation, children, families, and related issues, how are the attitudes of American men towards blacks immediately relevant? Or is this just your typical knee-jerk liberal response?
Here's an interesting question for libertarians. Generally, a libertarian would believe that the government shouldn't suppress birth control, because of personal freedom. This contains a presumption, I have always thought, that technologies providing individual freedom of choice were good by their very nature of empowering freedoms. So a libertarian would reject a position that cars never should have been invented because of the harms they do (simply because choice and technological advance is good).
Maybe I'm missing something, but this position seems very anti-freedom. I think it's pretty obvious that freedom does lower "moral standards" at least as those standards are defined by the Catholic Church. But that applies to lots of freedoms, certainly including capitalist freedom.
But for huge chunks of our society, it is plainly true that women are treated like sexual chattel. Just listen to hip-hop or read Dalrymple...
L3
As for libertarians: who said anything about the government?!? I could be wrong, but I think you're misstating the libertarian position a bit. The limits that the government puts on people should be different from the limits that we - individually, as families, social groups, and as a society - put on people.
I guess the best analogy would be fast food. As a libertarian, I would throw a fit and a half if it were banned (even though I despise the stuff). Nevertheless, I don't think that it's a good choice for a lot (or all) people, so I'll happily discuss the downsides of it. All choices are not necessarily good, and, ideally, we'll weed the bad ones out of the marketplace - a Darwinism of choice, if you will.
Demographics
More Demographics
BTW birth control is not the only problem for traditional marriage. Home appliances are another.
It is only "anti-freedom" if you accept the typical libertarian definition of freedom. The Catholic Church (among others) obviously disagrees with that definition.
I'm not all that clear on the "benefits" of the sexual revolution. As a person who is Married, Heterosexual, and Faithful™, I don't really feel like I'm better off (in a purely sexual way) than my MHF™ counterpart of 50 years ago. Or worse off. I'm just fine. Sex does not dominate my life, but it's a delightful part of it, in no small part because it brings me closer to the woman I love and has resulted in 2 of our 5 kids.
I'm just saying everyone seems to accept the benefits as a given, but I'm not really sure they're all that big, especially when compared to the costs...
L3
Perhaps he was a Navy man?
For you professionals - lawyers, scientists, etc., obviously the freedoms women have can't even be compared to before. But venture down into the ghettos of the inner cities, or the trailer parks of rural America, and tell me those women have it better thanks to the sexual revolution.
When you're sitting in an ivory tower, it's tough to see the forest for the trees...
TV (Harry)
As an oldster who grew up during the relevant timeframes, I can say... let's put it this way, There is no question that chances are open to women now that were not earlier on -- but I rather doubt that has anything to do with contraception and the sexual revolution per se.
But as to the rest ... as an example, I'd consider the comments to the lady (not female, you will note) professional out of line, altho today they would be considered rather mild. You open doors for the "better half." You use no cuss words beyond maybe "damn" around them (and in the case of women in their 60s and 70s, don't use even that). Not looking for possibilities now, but in my younger days, you must regard sex as a privilege to be earned rather than a right to be demanded. (In somewhat younger days heard males demand it as if a deprivation were an insult.
Uh. The sexual revolution had more to do with demographics than birth control. Look up the demographics of the sexual revolution time. Men were in short supply from birth (in the 40s) on. The war helped increase the pressure. Birth control did give it a very big shove.
It is an economic thing. In a buyers market giving free samples is a way to entice customers. In a sellers market you raise prices and establish waiting lists.
BTW when did the first American sexual revolution occur? Post WW1. (flappers anyone?) In that day and age Henry Ford was blamed.
I think the capitalist marketplace weeds out bad choices, but it hasn't done so for the pill or for fast food for that matter.
Genealogical studies have indicated that up to 15% of children are NOT sired by the putative father, and pre-DNA testing, it wasn't always possible to know for sure.
Did easy and reliable birth control increase infidelity? Quite probably. CAUSE it? Not even!
More broadly, the folly of native nostalgia that remembers the past without its faults is compounded when you compare that idealized past with an imperfect present. No real world state of affairs will ever compare to our whitewashed remembrance of the past.
More likely during prohibition -- everyone was drinking a whole lot more.
The movies played a part. It loosened up the morals by showing people kissing and showing affection, and the movies of the 20s were not afraid to tackle difficult social issues, such as abortion, homosexuality, suicide, alcoholism, infidelity, loneliness and so on.
Mae West wrote a play called Sex, and she was arrested, yet it was highly popular on Broadway.
The economic boom played a part. Now people didn't have to work as domestics much anymore, and they had more money and free time. So they partied.
I don't believe there was any one reason, but a combination of various factors, that changed the morals of the country.
I blame G.W. Bush.
Last time I checked my Libertarian Handbook, there is nothing - NOTHING - out there that says that people are always fully informed and have no need for more information.
If you want to make a choice - fine - it's your right to do so. But making educated choices is the ideal - for the market, for the individual, and for society in general.
What you seem to want to do is to deny people an opportunity to debate and add to the marketplace of ideas, which, in turn, fuels the marketplace for things like contraception and fast food.
Are you really demanding that we shut down the marketplace of ideas? Considering that no one, save yourself, has discussed government intervention into this matter, but everyone seems quite keen to discuss the wisdom of various choices, I can only conclude that your attitude is: "It's a choice, so it's good, so take any criticism you may have of that choice and shove it." Not cool.
Either that, or you rely on the straw man of assuming that I'm telling people what to do. Not cool, either.
It is the local market not the "average" market that counts.
BTW the flapper era was a result of a significant loss of marriage age men in the war. More so even in Europe. (see Wiemar Republic Culture or the "Tropics" of Henry Miller) I believe this effect is mentioned in the Bible (but I'm not sure where).
The imbalance need not be large. About 5% seems to be enough to make the change.
We have a significant portion of the black male marriage age men in the prison or jail. Thus rap music, out of wedlock births, etc.
2) Reflecting that the sexual revolution had costs as well as benefits does not necessarily mean that one would wish to reverse said revolution, let alone demand that government outlaw contraception.
3) Yes, people cheated and used prostitutes before 1960. However, greatly increased rates of sexually transmitted diseases tend to indicate that a lot more people are having non-monogamous sex now than in the 1920s, or probably any other time before the 1960s. The old and then-radical "free love" position was not about hooking up in bars and parties, but about having relatively stable relationships before or without marriage.
4) Rates of pregnancy and childbirth among women who aren't married, about to get married, or even living with or seriously involved with boyfriends, are also way up, "despite" contraception and abortion being far more effective and available now than in 1960. Pointing this out does mean that one opposes contraception, or even abortion.
There was a demographic imbalance.
Not so much for whites where the demographics are fairly balanced.
Very much so for blacks where the demographics are wildly out of balance.
"Increased personal autonomy, freedom, and social and economic opportunities for women are certainly important benefits of access to birth control that most of us will easily recognize."
mean?
"increased personal autonomy"-yes, the pill allowed women to sleep with men without fear of getting pregnant, I suppose. Is that what 'personal autonomy' means?
"freedom"-yes, the pill allowed women to sleep with men without fear of getting pregnant. Is that what 'freedom' means?
"social...opportunities"-yes, the pill allowed women to sleep with more men without fear of getting pregnant. Is that what 'social opportunities' means?
"economic...opportunities"-hmm.This one is tougher. I suppose the pill allowed more women could sleep with more men in a professional relationship (prostitutes, porn stars, etc)? Sleep with their bosses for professional advancement? What?
I have no problem with the sexual revolution that the Pill wrought (as a man, I have enjoyed the fruits of that revolution). I'm simply having a hard time understanding what the freedom, autonomy, and social and 'professional' benefits of the revolution are-other than the ability to have more casual sex (which has its own benefits).
I suspect the sexual revolution and the feminist revolution are simply assumed to be identical (or mutually dependent). I don't think that is the case. I could easily imagine a world where women are allowed to go to law and medical school, and yet the Pill hasn't been invented.
(after all, there are plenty of people out there-women and men-for whom the Pill has little or no meaning: monogamous, sexually inactive, religiously devout, and so on. I presume they have the same 'autonomy, freedom, and social and economic opportunities' as their more libertine brethren...)
Sk
RE: The Disasters of the Sexual Revolution
I sit on several commissions and boards in my city and county.
I am continually hearing of the disasters wrought by the sexual revolution. They come in two general areas:
[1] Single Parent 'Families'; a oxymoron if ever I heard one.
[2] Teenage Girl Pregnancies; which lead to item #1.
Departments, e.g., health, school boards, NGOs are ALL trying to 'solve' the problems, but for some 'strange' reason they seem totally clueless as to their root-cause.
This county is dominated by Democrats.
I find it 'funny'—not of the ha ha persuasion—that these people cannot connect the proverbial dots. It's a classic example of cognitive dissonance in their philosophy....
We have to allow children to have all the sex they want. But what do we do about all the children born of children?
I'd call it 'ignorance', but they know where children come from. So it more resembles the Emperor's New Clothes; in more ways than one.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[An intellectual is a person who has discovered something more interesting than sex. -- Aldous Huxley]
I asked him what forms of damage there would be. He has not made follow-up comment as to what those might be; as of this writing.
With the growth availability of pornography, the global sex trade, and abortion (seems that many women are, if not coerced into one, are talked into by the man in their life) the question of lessening respect for women is a valid one to analysis and judge.
Several decades before Humanae Vitae, advocates of birth control stated that access to conception would strengthen marriages, end prostitution, and also result in more respect for women. The first two are obviously false predictions, and the latter one, considering the number of women and their children living without the support of a man, is arguably false too.
RE: Thanks for the Memory
"The best and earliest arguments for contraception focused on married women...." -- Lisa
My Mother died screaming in my Father's arms one night because of a massive cerebral vascular 'accident'. It turned out, her birth-control pills where a major contributing factor to her death. Another factor was her Scandinavian ancestry.
Likewise, a member of my Friday Morning Mens' Bible Study group reports that his 33-year old daughter has similar ancestry and takes the pill and just had a stroke.
Hope that helps.
Regards,
Chuck
[We're talking deadly unintended consequences here.]
For anyone interested, the CDC listed out-of-wedlock births, from 1940 to 2000, by race, here.
Catholics believe that Natural Family Planning (NFP) is a Biblically permissible way to control reproduction. It is different from the rhythm method, which is more of a semi-educated, mostly uneducated, guess as to when a woman is fertile. The symptothermal method of NFP has a very low failure rate - somewhere in the 98% region, IIRC, when used consistently and correctly.
Couples who practise NFP have a much lower divorce rate (I've seen anywhere from 0.2% to 8%, but am inclined to believe the higher number) than their contraceptive-using peers.
So my question: is artificial birth control really a great thing for married women?
I'd be interested in knowing what, if anything, is controlled for in those statistics. I would assume, for example, that couples using NFP are more likely to be religious, and I would also assume that couples who are more likely to be religious are more likely not to get divorced. (I could be entirely wrong, but that was my first thought.)
RE: As I Was Saying
"I think what leads to item #1 tends to have more to do with Dad, who tends not to be the single parent." -- trad and anon
It's STILL a single-parent trying to do what historically two have done. And not doing a good job of it. The result is a dysfunctional child-cum-adult who hasn't seen how it is done right. And that only compounds the problem.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[You know you were a good parent if your grand-children turn out right.]
P.S. And if they don't....well....it's too late.....
Why should we care more about what they think that their data says than what their data actually says?
The person who collects some data does not get the final word on its meaning. They only get the first word and that word is unprivileged.
What does this mean? That it fails 98% of the time?
I'm guessing you mean there's only a 2% chance of conception. But that's pretty high, actually.
So my question: is artificial birth control really a great thing for married women?
Well, an awful lot of them use it, and you have shown no harm, so it seems like the answer is a clear "Yes."
RE: Only....
"....the outcome of the sexual revolution is bound to look a bit rosier." -- Matteo
....for the short-sighted. There's a LOT of human misery out there for single-parents and the like. But, hey, if you don't care about misery, unless its YOURS, I guess you can live with it. But that makes you what kind of human being?
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery. -- Winston Churchill]
PS. A blog post is not an email, you don't have to sign your posts -- authorship is listed at the top.
*The historical version concerned with equality of opportunity, not the modern versions that have, err, strayed, from that vision.
Your answer is a non-answer. My question: what benefits, other than consequence-free casual sex, did the Pill bring? Your answer: consequence-free casual sex.
You need to try harder yourself.
Sk
Non-casual sex without risk of unwanted children?
SK says: My question: what benefits, other than consequence-free casual sex, did the Pill bring?
SK: You must be a man.
I am a 27 year old woman. I do not have casual sex. I have it in committed relationships only. The same is true for most of my female friends of the same age, many of whom are married, engaged, or cohabitating with one person. We are all on the Pill. We do not have casual sex. What we do have is the freedom to have sex and pursue our other ambitions. Prior to the Pill, our options would have been to (1) remain celibate until we had completed college, graduate school, and a significant portion of our careers or (2) have sex, get pregnant, and likely forego those things, which are extremely difficult if not impossible to do while you are pregnant or a mother.
I do not have consequence-free, casual sex because I am on the Pill. But I do have a J.D. in no small part because I am on the Pill.
Without making a statement as to whether it's good or bad to do so, the Pill enables women -- all women, whether married or not -- to easily postpone pregnancy. This has a tremendous impact on them.
Yes, it enables an increase in "casual sex." It also enables an increase in non-casual sex.
On a basic and intuitive level, the pill gives women more choices. More choices invariably leads to high utility.
RE: I Doooon't Caaare! I Don't Care!
"I don't care about misery that people bring upon themselves by their own free choices." -- Oren
That sounds like a miserable attitude to go through life with. I guess you don't care much for the misery people who live in New Orleans experienced from Katrina. After all, they chose to live there. Or the people in Mississippi, next door. Or what's going to happen to all those people in LA and SanFran when the BIG ONE hits them. Or the people in Oklahoma and Kansas hit by tornadoes.
Also, I don't recall you being a Christian; based on previous engagements we've had here. But here you are saying, "God granted us the sense to make our own decisions in life, and we should live with the consequences."
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it. -- Baker's Law]
P.S. And with Oren's attitude, it's not surprising.
RE: Self-Parody
I am sure you had a (perhaps distant) relative die during childbirth. Therefore, by the logic of your previous anecdote, we should make sure there are no more pregnancies, since they cause pain, and death, and people can't handle that choice. After all, pregnancy is just like Katrina.
Regards,
Loki (Low Key)
[Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.]
God did not intend for man to lord over his fellow man (and one need not be a Christian to believe this) but rather gave each man faculty to make his own judgment even knowing that man's imperfection would mean that his judgment is frequently in error.
RE: Try....
"The alternative, interposing myself in the decisions of others, is considerably worse than allowing them to make their own choices." -- Oren
...to think OUT-OF-THE-BOX
You think it's either let them suffer or dictate to them how they should live.
You are oh so horribly wrong. And even Progressives will tell you as much. There IS such a thing as 'education'. I see the Public Health Department attempting to 'educate' people ALL THE BLOODY TIME. And you think we have to dictate to them?
Try not be so narrow-minded. Or are you REALLY 'projecting' here?
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[He was so narrow-minded, he could see through a key-hole with both eyes.]
Yes, a 2% chance of conception - over the course of a year. That's not "high" unless you want to compare it to sterilisation.
While the Pill allows women to have consequence-free sex, it also gives us little grounds upon which to not have sex. There are legions of men who expect their girlfriends to go on the Pill, or expect women to go on the Pill, so they can have sex whenever they want it, wherever they want it, and with whomever they want it.
I think that we are forgetting that childbearing and childbirth have effects upon men, too. The negative effects are pretty straightforward: responsibility, both emotional and financial. The positive effects, however, should not be ignored. I've heard a lot of men say that the day their first child was born was one of the most amazing things in their lives - they could not believe that they had been a part of that, had contributed to that, and the act that created their own child was sex. (As for the last part: there is a difference between knowing something intellectually and knowing something emotionally.) It is not a coincidence that the term "miracle" is used so often to describe childbirth.
Personally, I don't think that we do men or women any favours by ignoring this reality. The body, mind, and soul are a unit, and we're only starting to know how each affects the other. Medically, we understand that stress - mere worry - can change the condition of the heart and lead to premature death. We recognise that changes to the body (the food we eat, exercise we get, time spent in the sun) have very real effects upon the psyche. The human body is an incredible machine, fine-tuned over aeons of evolution; it's remarkably presumptuous to assume that we can shut down one system and not have it effect both the body and the mind - especially sex, which affects people more deeply than almost anything else.
Chuck P: It is true that BCP, like any medicine, can have untoward side-effects, including increased risk of blood clots leading to stroke. Please keep in mind that childbirth itself can have untoward medical side effects. Fewer women die on the Pill than die in childbirth, though the number dying in childbirth has dramatically decreased in the last century.
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BTW, I think this entire post has gone off topic. Completely ignoring the specific example Todd Z gave, I think it would be WONDERFUL if social scientists and esp. politicians actually looked routinely at laws and regulations and compared their results to the predicted results described when they were debated. It would add a little humility to the idea of solving the world's problems by passing more laws and regulations (assuming, without evidence, that politicians actually desire to solve social problems).
The question depends on what you think it means to be a Christian. There is quite a bit of disagreement on that question and so it would be foolish to answer it without knowing what exactly you mean.
At any rate, it's not a topic that particularly interests me. Religions are to be studied, not believed -- the heart of divinity is inquiry, not dogma.
Wait a second . . women have to give a REASON for not having sex? Could you kindly inform my girlfriend of this wonderful new development, she's pretty insistent that she can chose whether or not she has sex without any justification whatsoever.
Absolutely agreed. The wonderfulness of parenthood, however, does mean that it should be thrust upon the unwilling or unready.
It seems similarly presumptuous to declare, for another person, what will affect them positively or negatively.
RE: Dang It!
"Unfortunately, history demonstrates that self-described Progressives and conservatives alike always support "education" -- as long as it works. And then when it doesn't, they get frustrated and move on to coercion." -- David M. Nieporent
You spoiled one of my follow-up args.
Oh well....
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Play the 'deep' game.]
RE: Identified
"The question depends on what you think it means to be a Christian." -- Oren
A REAL christian would have unabashedly stated it. The false ones equivocate.
Thanks for the information. I now know the nature of the audience I find in you.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[The Truth will out.]
There are Planned Parenthood clinics that instruction women on Natural Family Planning too, though the exact phrase, for obvious reasons, is not used. It is an empowering method for women and men, and free of chemicals, hormones, etc.
Do try to remember to cite book/chapter/verse in such.
P.P.S. If you do, I'll be impressed that you are one of the few people who have taken Sun Tzu's axiom of war to heart.
[Know your enemy and know yourself and you shall never be defeated. -- Sun Tzu, The Art of War]
What did I say to deserve this lecture? I was asking theo to clarify her statement about the family planning method she advocates, not the birth control pill.
And by the way, shouldn't you state a time period?
With the Pill: women (and men) can have sex (casual or otherwise) without additional worry about the consequences (i.e. having a child).
In either case, women can go to law school.
ergo, the Pill doesn't allow women to go to law school (or pursue careers, etc etc). It allows women to have sex and worry less about the consequences.
I think its great. I like sex with women, and I like not worrying about the consequences, too. But the Pill doesn't allow women to go to law school.
Sk
RE: Typical Progressive Args
I noticed that Oren, in his reply to several posts, FAILED to respond to the argument regarding Self-Inflicted Misery, vis-a-vis living in New Orleans for Katrina.
I'll take it his failure to reply is recognition of the truth of the argument I put forward.
[Note: In debate, failure to rebut is considered acquiescence.]
RE: An Additional Arg
In his, and someone else's arg, they don't care about other peoples' misery. And I suspect that is VERY accurate; heartless people that some people are. [Note: According to some psychology reports, 1 person in 5 is amoral. These people may be part of that set.]
Such people will not recognize misery until it smacks them in the face, like a fist.
However, allow me to point out that people in misery tend to act in a manner that increases misery in the society. This can either be a drain on resources; think why YOU have to pay $250+ for a quart of physiological saline in a hospital while the OD'd homeless person pays NOTHING. [Note: If the homeless aren't 'miserable', who is?]
But people like Oren and whoeverelseitwas don't recognize the collateral damage done by their heartless nature.
Then again, if some homeless drug-user breaks into their house and robs and possible injures or kills them, they might....just MIGHT recognize there is a problem.
The same applies to all kinds of people suffering in various different circumstances. It's like discarding a pebble into a still pool of water....the ripples expand to affect all of the pool....and the inhabitants.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[No man is an island.]
That's assuming they don't make any mistakes following a fairly complex process
Regardless of how it compares, I don't see at all why it would matter what method of birth control a couple uses. If they want to avoid a pregnancy what difference does it make whether they use NFP or birth control pills or a condom or something else?
Men can live fine on their own, but women can't make it without a male protector and provider? Now THAT is an old time, pre-birth control, respectful attitude towards women!