Another thing I am grateful for

The other day my sister sent me an interesting email. She is volunteering with the Peace Corps and was describing some of the difficulties women face in her country. One of their biggest problems is ignorance about women's health issues and access to contraception and proper health care for women. If I lived there, my first birth experience probably would have killed me, and if it hadn't, my second surely would have. I have often thought that I am grateful to live in this time period because of the medical care I've received, but it was sobering to realize that many women who live on the Earth today are not as blessed as I am.

Besides the medical care issue, I am very grateful that I have access to contraception and am able to use it. This issue has been on my mind for a while; a few months ago the New York Times Magazine ran an interesting article about the fact that many evangelicals seem to be jumping on the "anti-contraception" platform that was recently reaffirmed by the Catholic church. Blanket rejection of contraception for all couples, especially married ones, really bothers me. I'm grateful to belong to a church that believes that sex is sacred and essential to the marriage relationship (apart from its function in procreation), and whose official stance is that the only people allowed to be involved in the decision of whether to use contraception or not are the couple in question and no one else.

Besides the fact that the anti-contraception thing is imposing too much control over people's personal lives, I think it actually ends up harming many families. Children have a right to be born to families where they are wanted and cherished. I know many people who have large families and really did want all those kids. I know some who probably didn't want all those kids, but love them despite that fact. But there are also plenty of kids born into situations that are less than ideal. I would love to change that fact, but I don't think that taking away birth control is going to encourage unmarried people to have sex less often. And what about women in other countries who have poor access to health care? What about women like me who have difficult birth outcomes and endanger their health every time they have a baby? I think my children would rather have less siblings and a living, healthy mother than the alternative. Many women in poorer countries would be healthier and have healthier babies if they had better access to tools to plan their families.

And that's exactly how I see contraception: it's merely a tool. There is nothing evil about a condom, a diaphragm, or even a package of birth control pills. It's all in how you use them. . God gave us the ability to act and choose for ourselves, and technology can be used for good or for ill. If giving out condoms in Africa will keep married couples from having more babies than they can support or from giving each other AIDS, I'm all for it. Even if it means that sometime people will be having sex when they probably shouldn't. Morally I believe in abstinence before marriage and fidelity within it, but I see nothing wrong with teaching and encouraging the ideal of fidelity while accepting the reality of daily life.

When I read that many critics of contraceptive use by married couples feel that it somehow inhibits their sex lives, I was surprised. For me, just the opposite is true. I feel more confident and closer to my husband knowing that I am probably not going to get pregnant before I'm physically and emotionally ready. I feel better knowing that intimate decisions, like whether to have children or not and when to have them, are ours to make for ourselves. Even if other people choose to judge, I know what choices we have made and so far I feel that God has approved them. I just hope that we can do more so that everyone in the world has the opportunity to have that kind of control over their lives.