Should birth control methods such as the pill be considered abortion?
Technically, it’s only an abortion if a fertilized egg or developing fetus is terminated. Any method of birth control that prevents fertilization from occurring wouldn’t constitute “aborting” a pregnancy. But that’s a distinction lost on many religious people who consider any method of preventing a pregnancy to be sinful. To doctrinaire Catholics, using a condom or birth control device is just as mortal a sin as an abortion. As always, the “pro-life” argument is mostly just a smokescreen for the real agenda which is “anti-sex in any form we disapprove of”. Nothing drives a Fundy into a frenzy like an unpunished orgasm. Problem, of course, is that, for the Bushies, catering to religious fanatics is political policy (they are a big part of the party base) and religious fanatics who are opposed to abortion are opposed to birth control in general as well. (No, not all people who are opposed to legal abortion and/or birth control are religious fanatics, but all the politically active ones a
There is a huge difference between preventing a pregnancy and stopping a pregnancy. Even if the Pope disagrees. The pill and IUD work by denying a fertilized egg a place to live. Spermicides deny conception, even as abstinence does. What most people overlook is that life does not begin at conception. It begins when a fertilized egg (zygote) finds a place to develop. A zygote not implanting in the uterus is more common than not. It should be obvious that life cannot exist without a place to live. If the Pope were correct, then it would be a sin (denying life) to let any egg go unfertilized. Even in unmarried children. If you maintain that life begins at conception, you can also say that life begins when the egg is formed, which is when a female is conceived. There is no end to that argument. A pregnancy, a viable life, only exists when the zygote implants in the uterus. Or maybe a test tube, but that’s another issue. If God had not made sex pleasurable, there would be few children.
