Birth control and Christian colleges.

Look, this is pretty silly to me, but some people think it's important. There are those BC practices that take life and those that don't. It's pretty simple for me. Whether me and my wife have sex all the time or not is between us and God. I am not in sin if we decide not to. Scripture does not say that. If I go to bed early or am out of town or we are just content to not, God does not say we have to. the problem is withholding. Not not careing to.

 

Let's say there are two women. One does not use birth control, knowing that roughly 1 in 5 of her pregnancies will end in miscarriage. The other uses the birth control pill, knowing that occasionally an egg will be fertilized that will result in miscarriage. Is one, neither, or both morally responsible for those miscarriage deaths?

 

Where does Scripture explicitly say that all doctrine must have explicit Scripture support?

 

Actually, breakthrough ovulation with women on the pill actually occurs about 60% of the time. That is why there are two other (sometimes three other) things that are used to keep a woman from having a baby. First is the ovulation being blocked - doesn't always work. Second is that the mucus is thickened so that the sperm has a harder time of getting through - doesn't always work. So, they put the abortifacient aspect in there - the lining of the uterus is made inhospitable to a baby so the fertilized egg (read baby) cannot attatch itself to the uterus and is essentially aborted. No, this doesn't hapeen every month. No one can predict how often it happens. Some figures I have seen show as high as 1 to 4 million chemical abortions take place every year. The point is, why put something in your body that's goal is to keep you from having a baby even if the cost is killing a baby???

As far as miscarriages go, the woman who takes the pill and CAUSES the abortions through the pill is responsible for that. The woman who just has a miscarriage as a part of life is not responsible (unless she made a choice such as throwing herself down stairs trying to miscarry which I had a friend do....so sad.) "To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is a sin." This is the verse I really hold to here b/c I did take the pill. I had no idea about the abortifacient aspect. But let me tell you, once I found out, I knew I would never put another of those pills in my mouth.

If you have any questions, please read Randy Alcorn's book "Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions?" It is very cheap and a great resource. He studied it out thouroughly and can explain it much better than I can.

 

Back in the 50's my mother was pregnant for the 10th. time. In her fourth month of carrying twin girls, one baby died. The doctor thought it best to leave the dead baby in the womb in hopes that the other one would survive if it was allowed to stay in the womb as long as possible. Aborting the dead child would also abort the live one. In the fifth month my mother went into labor and lost both babies (the live baby died shortly after birth). My mother's system was poisoned to the point that she almost died and had to remain in bed for a whole year. My youngest sister was 3 and I was 5. My other 6 siblings stair stepped from there every two years. One of my older sisters had died as at 9 months old. If my mother had died, all of us small children would have been without a mother. Most likely my father would have remarried and carried on with his baby making.
He once remarked to my mother that women were put on this earth to have children. My mother snapped back that women were also put on this earth to die. Would he rather have more babies or would he rather have the mother of his children alive to take care of them. There were no more babies. She had birthed all the "blessings" she could handle.

Even in this age of "modern medicine" women still die from childbirth. Women have tubal pregnancies that can easily kill them if the baby isn't aborted.
I simply can't believe that God's plan includes a woman losing her life because her husband wants 10 kids. I also believe that the male ego plays a part in large families as it's a macho thing for a man to keep his wife pregnant.

Back in the old days, if a man's wife died from having his children, he simply went out and found a young girl to wed and started over again. Hmmmm, I think that still happens these days.

Many times it's the husband who wants to have all those children, not the wife. It's a lot easier for him because he's on the "pleasure" end and not the "pain and possible death" end.

I am totally aginst abortion. Children are a precious gift if they are wanted by both parents, but many people don't have the ability to be parents, either financially, physically or mentally. We all have known or heard of people who have children only to abuse, abandon or murder them. Did God give these parents these children just to have them abused and killed?

Every chicken egg does not a baby chicken grow because those eggs are not allowed to be fertilized. Birth control, either by pill or barrier should be used when couples don't want children (it isn't a sin to not want kids) and when a woman feels she is unable to bear more and more children. (that isn't a sin either). I really believe it is up to the woman to decide how many children she will bear.
Don't get your drawers in a knot here. I'm not talking about aborting babies. I'm talking only about preventing pregnancy by making sure that unfertile eggs remain unfertile.

By the way, I only had one child then I urged my husband to have a vasectomy. Much less painful for him to do it and much safer for me. Besides he was so jealous, he would never let me take birth control pills, but I was determined not to go through 20 hours of the most horribly painful labor again. Not for any man.

 

delly, I'm so very sorry for you that your child will not have siblings.

I believe it IS a sin not to want any children. God creates each child, so if He didn't want someone to be pregnant, they wouldn't be. Simple. Easy to understand.

 

We had 3 children before Jim had a vasectomy and then we adopted our Nick when our daughter got pregnant the end of her senior year in high school. Tubal ligation or vasectomy is the only birth control I believe is not an abortifant. (NOT including those methods such as proper timing, or male barriers, etc. but am including IUD's, Birth control pills, patches, etc.)

Our house was full.

joyfulkeeperathome, respectfully, I have known many young women with one or 2 children who were 'quiverfull' and yet changed their mind when they had 4 children in less than 4 years. I was the Administrator on a Christian Women's website for 5 years. BTW.... I'm 54 this December and still have not gone through menopause.

 

So, your definition of "not indiscriminantly" is having kids every 2 years or so? What if you can't breastfeed (my ex-wife wasn't able to bf with her first child). What if a couple is married, and both are still in college? Where in scripture does it say they MUST have children, MUST NOT use birth control, etc? No where. Where in scripture does it say that a vasectomy is a sin? Where does it say that managing and planning conception is a sin? No where. Since when does "children are a heritage from the Lord" equate to "have as many children as possible"?

Actually, your implication appeared to be that if couples manage their conceived children, that it's an implied disobedience to God. As I stated earlier, I think that line of thinking is an abuse of the verse "children are a heritage from the Lord".

 

Uhhh, the last time I checked, humankind has successfully filled and subdued the earth. Hence, the context of "be fruitful and multiply" in this verse no longer applies.

 

I am pained that I have not been able to have a second child yet. Every month I cry when I realize that once again I am not with child. I cannot imagine ever going back to the place where I would want to prevent something from happening that I cry about a lot. I want another baby so badly it hurts. I know that it is in God's timing, but it still hurts to know that I can't have another child. And if I weren't already quiverfull minded, believe me, going through this secondary infertility sure would have convinced me. And it seems to be convincing my husband too. We are reminded every month that even though we thought we were super-fertile (we got pregnant the first time we had sex), that we are not and life is in God's hands. As Jacob said, "Am I in God's stead who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb." God is the one who gives life!!!! He is the one who creates each and every baby!!!! I know that God has a reason that he hasn't given me another child yet, and I'm willing to wait, but I do not think that I will be changing my mind about being quiverfull. I would gladly welcome 4 children in 4 years!!!!

 

Reproduction is a wonderful gift from God. So is sex. So is food. But the use of food and sex can be abused. So can reproduction.

You bring up a good point. If I could take as many hundred dollar bills as I wanted, but I chose to only take what I needed and left the rest for others, by your illustration, I'd be sinning by NOT taking as many hundred dollar bills as possible.

We have populated the earth to the point where we do damage to the earth if we fail to take steps to be responsible with the earth's resources. Left to the unassisted devices of nature, the earth would have a difficult time recovering from damage we do to it. So perhaps the issue of the earth being sufficiently "filled" is subjective.