Atlas Shrugged: The Mocking

Friday, December 30, 2011

Hypocrite

Dear, devout Elizabeth Scalia, professional Catholic, has written often of the evils of abortion. No doubt she feels the same way about contraceptives, which are strictly forbidden by her Catholic Church. Elizabeth enthusiastically supports the Catholic Church's right to refuse to pay for birth control for its employees.

Elizabeth has two children.

Not four, or six, or twenty, Duggar style. Two.

I guess Catholic rules are for everyone else and Elizabeth's super-duper-special brand of devotion means she can pick and choose which child-bearing laws she will obey, in true cafeteria Catholic fashion.

From the Guttmacher Institute:

WHO NEEDS CONTRACEPTIVES?

• There are 62 million U.S. women in their childbearing years (15–44).[1]

• Seven in 10 women of reproductive age (43 million women) are sexually active and do not want to become pregnant, but could become pregnant if they and their partners fail to use a contraceptive method.[2]

• The typical U.S. woman wants only two children. To achieve this goal, she must use contraceptives for roughly three decades.[3]

WHO USES CONTRACEPTIVES?

• Virtually all women (more than 99%) aged 15–44 who have ever had sexual intercourse have used at least one contraceptive method.[2]

• Overall, 62% of the 62 million women aged 15–44 are currently using a method.[2]

• Almost one-third (31%) of these 62 million women do not need a method because they are infertile; are pregnant, postpartum or trying to become pregnant; have never had intercourse; or are not sexually active.[2]

• Thus, only 7% of women aged 15–44 are at risk for unintended pregnancy but are not using contraceptives.[2]

• Among the 43 million fertile, sexually active women who do not want to become pregnant, 89% are practicing contraception.[2]

Control over my reproductive system for me, but not for thee.

Every time a woman says she supports the Catholic Church's rules on family planning, ask her if she has ever used contraceptives. The answer will be yes, and I see no reason why we should listen to people who want everyone else to live by onerous, dangerous rules that they will not follow themselves. If Elizabeth has never used contraceptives that information is important as well, since women's reproductive decisions are matters of public concern, not private decisions made by her family in consultation with her physician.

7 comments:

  1. Be fair, Susan.

    Maybe she's had sex two times in her life.
    ~

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  2. I need more information. Scalia should publish her sexual history at once so we can judge whether or not it obeys our personal beliefs.

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  3. My Catholic Mom had six of us kids. I asked her once, when I was in my 30's, what she'd have done differently in her life, if she had known. She thought about it for a minute, and then said "I'd have had fewer kids."

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  4. A mother wants to give her kids individual attention, as well as have her own life.

    The pull of a religious group is very strong. I guess that is why women elect people who promise to take away their rights.

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  5. Mrs. Scalia is a Benedictine Oblate, which is like a nun only you can have a spouse. Since most real nuns don't have any children (that we know of), the Scalias having only two might represent a regression to the mean.

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  6. You have to wonder even about people like Santorum who have seven kids. Before birth-control people had lots more than that. One of my great-grandmothers had eighteen live births.

    Of course they say it's okay for Catholics to use "natural" birth-control, but I don't see why even that would not violate the idea that sex should be for procreative purposes ONLY.

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