Catholic Voice

Patrick McCrystal, Chairman, Human Life International (Ireland)

“Birth Control appeals to the advanced radical because it is calculated to undermine the authority of the Christian Churches. I look forward to seeing humanity free someday from the tyranny of Christianity”
-Margaret Sanger, founder IPPF

Introduction

The Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA) recently hosted an evening in the Rotunda Hospital to ‘celebrate’ 40 years of their activity in Ireland. Since the IFPA is the Irish member of International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) the world’s foremost advocate of abortion, contraception, graphic sex education and population control, one is compelled to ask the question “celebrating what?”
This article is an introductory examination of the anti-Christian ideology behind birth control promotion, where it has come from, typical strategies of family planning agencies (FPAs), the ‘safe sex’ message, the clash of value systems, the role of religion and where it is all going.

Contraception a Controversial subject Contraception is a hot topic for discussion. It is not merely the use of pills and products to prevent pregnancy. Contraception promotion implicitly calls into question purpose of sexuality, the value of human life, the role of the transcendent, morality, the bible, sin, marriage, the structure of and type of society we want, population demographics and resources.
The reality of many of these dimensions of contraception promotion are typically ignored by contraception promoters or are reduced to slick, fine sounding euphemisms as evidenced on their websites. However, Margaret Sanger was right. When you enter the sphere of birth control and its promotion you enter the arena of religion whether you hold religious values or not. In her case however, she saw her “religion” of birth control as a tool to explicitly undermine Christianity.

Margaret Sanger Margaret Sanger (1879-1966) was the most revolutionary person to light the birth control torch that has raged to the present day.
Born of a Catholic mother and a socialist father, by her late teens Margaret had entered a life of radical politics, suffragette feminism, many sexual liaisons and a hatred of the Catholic Church. She openly espoused Malthusian, eugenic aims (reducing the population of those deemed less fit or inferior to others) and later had significant involvement in the occult. Having access to vast amounts of money through her marriages, she made an enormous impact in political, media, medical, academic, religious and social policy circles worldwide, invoking the fear of political and economic disaster if the ‘unfit’ masses were allowed to ‘spawn’ and ‘swarm’.
She wrote that “The marriage bed is one of the most degenerative influences in the social order,” that “The most merciful thing a large family can do to one of its infant members is to kill it,” that “47% of drafted men are... morons”
Her work culminated in the establishment of IPPF in 1952. Family Planning Associations in 192 countries are members of IPPF and carry on its aims locally.
The contraceptive mentality advocates a sexual ethic in complete opposition to the Christian one. One could have unfettered intercourse married or unmarried, with a reduced chance of conception. Christian morality in Ms Sangers movement was openly opposed. It’s not hard to trace the roots of modern day birth control proponents bitter opposition to Christianity, especially Roman Catholicism.

Family Planning Strategies Worldwide, the blueprint of FPA’s local strategy implementation is broadly the same. Start with saturating a society with contraception. “Every child a wanted child” was a favourite catch cry. Agitate for family planning services to be promoted through doctor’s surgeries, hospitals and pharmacies. As contraception caught a foothold, the rising birth rate outside marriage would prompt calls for abortion from the self same contraceptive promoters to deal with ‘unwanted’ pregnancy.
Through agitation by test cases, publicity campaigns, enlistment of media personalities, trendy student types, endorsement by government ministers, even ministers of religion, the barriers against birth control come slowly down. Employ plausible sounding matronly types to advocate and articulate, all the time dumbing down the conscience of a nation by incessant pitter patter of how sensible and responsible contraception is supposed to be.
Eliminate opposition as much as possible by ridicule or threat of legal action. Where necessary, campaign outside the law to effect legal change. Start to change the mentality of people towards smaller families, invoking a sense of overpopulation in the world. Sounds familiar? We hear a lot about so-called safe sex. Christ didn’t say “Go and sin more safely” he said “Go and sin no more.” Consider graphic sex education in schools so destructive to the innocence of children and youth. Christ reminded us that if any of us cause another one to sin, especially his “little ones” it would be better if a millstone be tied around our necks and be “cast into the sea.” Strong words. But then, it was He who paid the ultimate price with His own Blood for each soul that ever was or ever will be.
The population hoax worked a treat for a few decades until people started catching on it all wasn’t true. Watch out for the next bandwagon - that so-called man made climate change will be twisted round to attempt compel everyone to have smaller families...

Not telling the whole truth? Closer to home, how much of the whole truth does a client obtain in a FPA centre in Ireland? For example, how many women emerge from an FPA centre exclaiming: “ O my Gosh! I never realised the morning after pill was abortifacient! It could kill my child just after conception! Thank you for telling me! I’ll never take it again!?”
Or how many women leave an FPA centre having learned what surgical abortion can inflict on them emotionally, psychologically and even physically and has decided not to abort her child?
Or how many women are told of the evidence that when they start the contraceptive pill, their risk of breast cancer can rise between 100-800% depending on their age, duration of use, type of pill used and family history?
Or that their cervical cancer risk can rise between 40-300% or their deep vein thrombosis (blood clot risk) can rise between 40-340% and that they run the risk of infertility after pill cessation?
During the pill scares of the last few years, it was quite staggering to listen to FPA apologists on radio play down the risks to women in soothing tones, side-stepping the statistics above and highlighting reported drops in ovarian cancer. How many women must survive being afflicted with clots, breast cancer and cervical cancer before ‘reaping’ the advantage of being saved from ovarian cancer?

Trauma of unexpected Pregnancy Family Planning Agencies in Ireland receive significant amounts of government funds (ie your money) to counsel women in unexpected pregnancy. The IFPA in particular is involved in such counselling. This same organisation is openly involved in seeking the introduction of legalised abortion to Ireland. Its ethos is no secret. In its counselling of pregnant women in unexpected pregnancy, it is bound by legislation not to advocate abortion but to only facilitate information about where abortion can be had as an option.
Given its blatant involvement in abortion campaigning, the IFPA has a responsibility to demonstrate it is not nudging, influencing the decision or advocating women in the direction of abortion. If it cannot do this, the IFPA should have no more government funding and should be disbanded as illegal.
What percentage of women entering its doors end up having an abortion? Did any of them feel manipulated or pressurised? Do women who subsequently have an abortion feel they were not told all the information about its after effects they should have? What vested interest exists between IFPA and abortion providers in England such as Marie Stopes or British Pregnancy Advisory Service?
A full INDEPENDENT enquiry is absolutely essential. Taxpayers have a right to know what is happening with their money.

Contraception By prescribing or advocating the pill, any doctor is already nudging a woman down the abortion road. Make no mistake about it, family planning advocates know full well that advocating contraception raises the demand for abortion. They have followed this strategy without fail – and to all too much effect – in every country they have established themselves in. Abortion and contraception are fruits of the same tree, as Pope John Paul II reminded us. They go hand in hand. We see this repeatedly in the pregnancy counselling work with which I am associated.
Contraception is a potent disintegrating factor in marital harmony. The more contraception, the greater the risk of spousal separation and the host of ills which that brings.
Advocating contraception or morning after pill to minors is, in my view, adult mediated child abuse. All the chemical contraceptive preparations are abortifacient, something FPA’s won’t tell women. In fact they typically deny it, thanks to a tricky change of definition.
The promotion of contraception/abortion quite simply must be stopped. It is a blight on the face of a nation. It cannot be tolerated if we in Ireland are serious about keeping Ireland abortion free.

Abortion – the Ultimate Child abuse The tearing apart of a child in its mother womb must be exposed for what it is – the ultimate child abuse. Using suction, scalpels, clamps and more, the child is taken out piece by piece and reassembled to ensure no parts are left inside. It is the person by person destruction of a nation’s citizens. Partial birth abortion, practised in USA, involves the withdrawal of the baby down the birth canal leaving its head inside, inserting scissors into the back of the neck of the alive child, opening the scissors and inserting a suction tube to suck out the baby’s brains. Who’s to say this won’t come to Ireland if we allow abortion / contraception promotion to continue to unabatedly desensitise our nation.
Like the blood of Abel, the blood of preborn children surely cries to God for justice.

Clash of Two Kingdoms In reality we are – as Pope John Paul II wrote - witnessing the clash of the “Culture of Life” vs the “Culture of Death”.
At the root of these two kingdoms are two diametrically opposed value systems entirely incompatible. One has a vision of man made out of love in the image and likeness of God, called to walk in humble obedience in the laws of his Creator. Life long marriage between husband and wife, openness to new life, the sacredness of human life and the inviolable dignity of every individual is central to God’s plan.
On the other side is an ultimately humanist vision of man, where God is irrelevant and man makes up his own laws about what is ethical. The problem with this is that there is no objective right or wrong and so it is OK to euthanize the old or sick, sexual intercourse in any context is alright so long as its ‘responsible’ or ‘safe’, abortion is acceptable. Contraception and abortion are pivotal tools of that “Culture of Death.
Pope John Paul II, however, teaches in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae that “whoever attacks human life in some way attacks God Himself.” An unenviable place to be.

Redemption offered for all In the end, family planning / abortion / contraception promotion will come to a total and utter end. Bernard Nathanson, one of the foremost abortionists in the US had a massive conversion to Jesus Christ and now travels the world, telling his story as a reparation for the thousands of babies he personally killed by abortion.
More and more Planned Parenthood officials are having similar conversions and tell their stories.
We know for a fact the day will come when “every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” Pope John Paul II reminds us of the “absolute certainty that in God’s plan, life will be victorious” Death, he tells us, will be no more.
The day is coming when all will see that ‘choice’ was a false god.
The entire “raison d’etre” of human existence on earth is to attain our eternal destiny with our Creator. The path is through obedience to the person and Gospel of His son Jesus Christ. It is an invitation of love. It is offered to every human person, no matter what they have done or who they are.
Even if we have walked in conflict to his laws and Gospel, even if we have instigated others to do the same, his words to each of us come down through the ages unchanging:
“Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no More.”

It is not too late to choose the Lord of Life, for in the end, only those who choose Life will have REAL cause to celebrate.

1. Grant, George Grand Illusion, The Legacy of Planned Parenthood, 3rd Ed, Highland Books 1998
2. Margaret Sanger (Editor) The Woman Rebel, Vol. 1, no. 1, reprinted in Woman and the New Race. New York: Brentanos Publishers 1922
3. Cf Grant p77
4. Cf Drogin, Elasah Margaret Sanger, Father of Modern Society. New Hope KY: CUL Publications 1980
5.Wilks, John M.P.S., A Consumer’s Guide to the Pill and Other Drugs? 3rd Ed. ALL/ National Book Store Inc. 2000
6. ibid
7. McCrystal, Patrick Who’s at the Centre of Your marriage...the Pill or Jesus Christ. Contraception’s Disintegrating effect on marital Harmony, HLI (Ireland), Dublin 2009 www.hliireland.ie
8. Evangelium Vitae n9
9. Philipians 2:11
10. Evangelium Vitae n25
 

This feature is categorised under Life Matters