{"id":443,"date":"2009-02-21T21:55:38","date_gmt":"2009-02-21T21:55:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/contraception-the-practical-pr.html"},"modified":"2009-02-21T21:55:38","modified_gmt":"2009-02-21T21:55:38","slug":"contraception-the-practical-pr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/contraception-the-practical-pr.html","title":{"rendered":"Contraception: The Practical Pro-Life Approach"},"content":{"rendered":"

William Saletan writes a great article in the New York Times which will either inspire or provoke everyone<\/a> involved in the current culture wars.  His argument is for basic practicality to prevail in approaches to both gay marriage and abortion.  Saletan is anti-abortion, and he uses the power of that conviction as his springboard for a stronger advocacy of contraceptives as a means of stopping them.  He writes: <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

For liberals, that means taking abortion seriously as an argument for contraception. We should make the abortion rate an index of national health, like poverty or infant mortality. The president should report progress, or lack thereof, in the State of the Union. Reproductive-health counselors must speak bluntly to women who are having unprotected sex. And as Mr. Obama observed last year, men must learn that “responsibility does not end at conception.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Conservatives, in turn, need to face the corollary truth: A culture of life requires an ethic of contraception. Birth control isn’t a sin or an offense against life, as so many girls and Catholic couples have been taught. It’s a loving, conscientious way to prevent the conception of a child you can’t bear to raise and don’t want to abort. It’s an act of responsibility and respect for life.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It is refreshing to hear from a pro-lifer who is so committed to stopping abortions that they are willing to be pro-contraception. Contraception as “an act of respect for life” makes perfect sense to me if we are serious about reducing the number of abortions.   I have heard Saletan’s approach argued against by moralistic and religiously dogmatic pro-lifers who dismiss this approach as consequentialist<\/a> (the principle that argues whether an act is morally right depends only on the consequences of that act).  <\/span><\/p>\n

But if the effort is to reduce abortions then consequence is the name of the game.  I hope more pro-life advocates will take this position and join in the effort to prevent unwanted pregnancies before they happen by making contraceptives available and promoting their use among people who are having sex but are not hoping for a child.   <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

William Saletan writes a great article in the New York Times which will either inspire or provoke everyone involved in the current culture wars.  His argument is for basic practicality to prevail in approaches to both gay marriage and abortion.  Saletan is anti-abortion, and he uses the power of that conviction as his springboard for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion"],"yoast_head":"\nContraception: The Practical Pro-Life Approach - Progressive Revival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/02\/contraception-the-practical-pr.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Contraception: The Practical Pro-Life Approach - 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Paul B. Raushenbush is the moderator of the Progressive Revival blog and the Associate Dean of Religious Life at Princeton University. .An ordained American Baptist minister, Rev. Raushenbush speaks and preaches at colleges, churches and institutes around the country including the College of Preachers at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C., The Chautauqua Institute in upstate New York, and the New America Foundation. Rev. Raushenbush has served at Seattle First Baptist Church, the Presbyterian Chaplaincy at Columbia University and as College and Young Adult Minister at The Riverside Church in New York City. He has appeared on ABC World News Tonight and is a repeated guest on CNN. He has been quoted in The New York Times and The Washington Post and is a contributing editor for Beliefnet.com. His first book, Teen Spirit: One World, Many Faiths (HCI) was released in the Fall of 2004. He is the editor of the 100th Anniversary edition of Walter Rauschenbusch\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book Christianity and the Social Crisis \u00e2\u20ac\u201c In the 21st Century (HarperOne). His work at Princeton includes strengthening the interfaith community on campus. He is the Co-Director of the Program on Religion, Diplomacy and International Relations at The Liechtenstein Institute on Self Determination at Princeton University. Rev. Raushenbush studied religion at Macalester College before attending Union Theological Seminary in New York City where he graduated with distinction.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/author\/praushenbush"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}