Last Sunday, Paul Vincenti of the Gift of Life Foundation wrote a letter to the editor of The Sunday Times. The letter, which went by the title ‘Condom use does not lower teenage pregnancies’, was based on the rather shaky premise that the use of condoms somehow leads to more pregnancies, which results in more abortions. Therefore the author concluded that the use of contraception is the cause for increased abortions worldwide.
Frankly, the letter had so many illogical statements in it that I do not quite know where to begin.
“Evidence shows that contraception is leading to more abortions,” Mr Vincenti tells us. What evidence exactly? He proceeds to spout some statistics which he obtained from a fundamentalist Christian website www.lifeissues.net. In fact he shamelessly plagiarises the text from an article written by Brian Clowes, while claiming to have obtained the information from the National Statistics Office of France or UK Unistat.
Plagiarism is not what got my goat, however. What really irritates me is when people confuse morality with science, and try to pass off one as the other.
Mr Vincenti is totally entitled to preach the value of morals. He has every right to write as many letters as he pleases to advocate abstinence. He would be right to say that the best way of avoiding an unwanted pregnancy is not to have sex. However, he has no right to make ridiculous statements about condoms without a shred of real scientific evidence to back them up!
Let me give Mr Vincenti some food for thought.
In the paper ‘Expanded State-Funded Family Planning Services: Estimating Pregnancies Averted by the Family PACT Program in California, 1997–1998’, which was published in the American Journal of Public Health in 2004 (a renowned medical journal which only publishes peer-reviewed articles that are backed by credible data), the authors found that providing 500,000 low-income women with family planning services and a variety of different types of contraceptives averted 108,000 unwanted pregnancies. The study also concluded that of those 108,000 women, 41,000 would have aborted.
In other words, if this family planning centre had not handed out free condoms, oral contraceptives and diaphragms to half a million low-income women in California, the world would have ended up with an additional 41,000 dead babies.
Another interesting paper with entitled ‘Pregnancies Averted among U.S. Teenagers by the Use of Contraceptives’ was published in Family Planning Perspectives, yet another peer-reviewed scientific journal. The authors found that the use of contraceptives averted 1.65 million unwanted teenage pregnancies in the US in 1995 alone. Based on statistical trends at the time, and correcting for the fact that if contraceptives were not available a proportion of teenagers would have abstained, those unwanted pregnancies would have resulted in 390,000 abortions. This is just taking into consideration 15 to 19 year-olds. God knows how the numbers would grow if one included all women of child-bearing age!
I think that you are getting the drift.
It is important to point out that what is often touted as contraceptive failure is actually the result of an inadequate knowledge about how to use the devices in question. Studies have found that women who ask for an abortion often claim that they got pregnant because of contraceptive failure. Upon further investigation and interviews it actually transpired that 25.5% of the women had lied – they had not used any contraception whatsoever and were embarrassed to admit it when filling in the initial paperwork. Makes sense, does it not? If you were about to terminate a pregnancy and someone asked you: “was it your fault because you were irresponsible or was it the condom?”, the knee jerk reaction would be to blame it on the rubber.
In Denmark 95% of teenage women use contraception when having sexual encounters. They have been taught how to use condoms, the pill and other contraceptive devices properly so the failure rate has fallen dramatically. In fact, teenage pregnancies are practically unknown in that country.
That is the reality that Mr Vincenti and his ilk have to contend with. There is an abundance of scientific evidence out there that proves that there are enormous benefits to be attained by educating young people and making contraception available to them.
Lifeissues.net and its followers have no right to impose their straitlaced view of the world on the rest of us. People are entitled to decide that they want to have sex without getting pregnant. I am not trying to justify promiscuity in any manner. These facts apply to married people who have been in a loving, committed relationship just as much as they apply to teenagers having one night stands.
I find it hard to understand how it is possible that an organisation which claims to be fighting to eradicate abortion is not on the vanguard of sexual health planning. These people should be out there pushing for proper sexual education for all our youngsters. Such lessons would make it clear to teenagers that the best way to avoid unwanted pregnancies, disease and heartbreak is to abstain. However, it should also give them the fundamental knowledge required should they decide that abstinence is not for them.
I, for one, am totally against abortion, whatever the circumstances. That is why I believe that people should be responsible and do what is necessary in order to avoid unwanted pregnancies.
GOL and its members must face the fact that for many people the choice is not simply between having sex with the intention of procreating and not having sex at all. A good percentage of the population is going to continue having recreational sex like there’s no tomorrow – and there is a much greater likelihood that the tomorrow in question will include STDs and unwanted pregnancies (and the resulting abortions!) if they do not use a condom.
In such circumstances, the role of policy-makers is to reduce risks – yes, abstaining is the best way of not getting pregnant, but if you are going to have sex anyway, then using contraceptives will reduce the possibility of an unwanted pregnancy. It is not the job of policy makers to be moralists – they have to be realists!
Mr Vincenti, my advice is this. Decide whether you want to save: souls or babies.
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