Arguments against contraception

I had mentioned that I saw logical problems with birth control. Someone asked me: “Chandler, what are your logical oppositions? I’ve only ever heard opposition stemming from religion?”

The question was interesting because I guess it is uncommon for people to argue against contraception without a belief in any gods. I have written about this subject before, but this is the first time someone specifically was interested. I will try to explain clearly why I tend to favor abstinence over contraception.

My strongest argument is that birth control costs money. Abstinence is free. The reason that this is the strongest case I can make is that it is independent of the beliefs of anyone. It is just a fact.

My second problem with birth control is that sometimes things go wrong. Women get pregnant and then claim that it was an “accident”. This sends the message that someone believed, falsely, that they could not get pregnant if they used whatever forms of contraception they were using. Abstinence is still superior because it never fails.

Another problem I have with birth control is one that applies only to hormones taken by women to reduce their fertility. I see hormonal birth control as anti-woman because men would never be willing to put that stuff in their bodies, but they expect women to. I am concerned about the health risks that come with any medication, especially one that is not necessary. Since there are no risks involved in not having sex, abstinence remains the most logical choice. Other forms of contraception, such as condoms, I don’t really see anything wrong other than my first two arguments that all contraception is a waste of money and is not 100% effective.

But the reason I even considered writing about this topic is because it is a very hotly debated topic between some of my pro-life friends and I think that this conflict also needs to end because it divides people.

Abortion prevention: don’t forget about the men

This is a post that I submitted to Kelsey Hazzard at Secular Pro-Life

I encourage everyone to go to the link and comment there. Also Kelsey put a funny picture of a pregnant looking man. However, for convenience of those who subscribe to my wordpress blog, I have also copied the text here.

Abortion prevention: don’t forget about the men

Consider this situation: A man chooses to have sex with a woman who he knows will go for an abortion if she gets pregnant. She does get pregnant. She goes to an abortionist, who performs the abortion. Which of the three people killed the baby? The father, mother, or abortionist?

It should be obvious that all three people played a part in the abortion. So no matter what your answer, you are partially correct. The father chose to do the one thing that could result in a pregnancy the mother did not want. The mother chose to abort rather than seeking out alternatives. The abortionist was the final step in causing the death of the baby.

Keeping all of that in mind, if you could go back and talk to one of the people—the father, mother, or abortionist—and convince them to become pro-life, which one would you choose?

Again, there’s no one right answer, but I would pick the father. Talking to the abortionist could have a major impact if he’s the only abortionist in town and has no one to replace him, but otherwise, the mother will just go elsewhere for the abortion. Of course talking to the mother is good because if her mind changes, the child will live. But will she have the support of the father? He had expected the mother to have an abortion even before they had sex, which implies that he has no interest in taking care of the child.

Talking to the father makes sense because he has the power to change his ways and stop creating children who will be killed. He also has the ability to support the mother in taking care of the children he is responsible for, making the mother less likely to want to abort. Many women abort due to fear of being a single mother.

Outreach to women in crisis pregnancy situations is great, but we need to make sure we’re reaching the men too, rather than placing all of the weight on the women. The idea that men are irrelevant to the abortion debate is incredibly misguided.

Why watermelon is pro-life


Understanding my devotion to life is the key to understanding why all things that threaten life are automatically my enemy.

If something feels good to someone, normally, they will do it. The exception is when it can result in something that would feel bad for them or someone else.

With this premise, it makes sense that eating a watermelon is good for me since it tastes good and is not going to cause me to die any sooner than I would otherwise. It may cause me to live longer. Therefore, watermelon is pro-life enough for me.

By the same logic, something such as alcohol would likely cause sooner death to either the one who drinks it or to other people who are victims of car wreck caused by drunk driving. Therefore, the danger is too great to make it worth drinking alcohol even if the drunk person feels good while drunk. It is pro-death.

Therefore, it is not that I choose what I eat or drink, but rather that my previous choice of life cancels out all other things that conflict with it.

Knowing this, other humans can predict what I will say or do in a situation.

rethinking homosexuality

I have become convinced that there is no valid argument against
homosexuality or allowing gay people to get married if that is what
they want. I would not describe myself as pro-marriage in any sense
because I don’t think marriage makes sense outside of the context of
religious beliefs.

That being said, I was forced to reconsider the entire subject of
equality for gay people after talking at length with a gay catholic.

After thinking about it, I could only think of three solutions to this conflict.

A. The Catholic Church could give up its ideas about homosexuality
being different than heterosexuality.

B. My friend could stop talking to all the Catholics who are trying to fix them.

C. The other result could be that my friend becomes so lonely and
depressed that they kill themselves. This stops the conflict but at
the cost of a life.

To prevent the death of someone will be my priority. Given this
premise, what should my action be?

The answer to that can make the difference between life and death.

What pro-choice arguments sound like.

“Yes I’m pro-choice. That’s why I believe every man has the right to rape a woman if that is his choice. After all, it’s his body and neither you nor I have the right to tell him what to do with it. He’s free to choose and it’s none of our business what choice he makes. We have no right to impose our morals on him. Whether I like the choice or not, he should have the freedom to make his own choices.”  – Randy Alcorn

The above quote is a perfect example of how pro-choice arguments sound to pro-life advocates. They question is not whether we have a right to choose, but WHAT we have a right to choose!

Did the gender neutral people really say that?

Three gender neutral people decided to talk philosophy. They sought to find solutions to the problems of humanity.

A: Of all the debates that humans have, one of them stands out as being the most relevant. The debate about abortion continues endlessly. Some think the debate is over and that people have fundamental right to kill others. While this continues, certainly other matters get ignored and the people already born are not being helped in any way. Surely, we must end this conflict.

B: What you say is true, but how are we to communicate this message to others? Can they handle the truth of what they are doing?

C: This is certainly going to be difficult but it is the greatest good we can do for the world. We must find solutions to end abortion, for great justice!

A: It appears to me that abortion is the result of other problems that have been unresolved. How can people unite to defend life when they cannot end other debates such as birth control, gay marriage, or their religious differences? All of these could be relevant factors in why people don’t work together at solutions.

B: Some people cannot accept the truth of your statement. In fact, many deny the existence of truth and say that all things are only opinion. Without truth, they will not believe there are problems to solve.

C: Without the truth, they cannot accept that some things are good and that others are bad. They argue over definitions of morality and claim that there is no standard of truth and therefore no morality.

B: To even say that there is no universal standard that governs all life is to state a truth. What could be the foundation of the truth that there is no truth?

A: Your statement is relevant to this talk because the relativism is self refuting. There can be no debate without truth. The relevance of all life is the truth that people have missed for so long. How can they believe that their actions affect only themselves. They have become so selfish that they destroy themselves.

C: Their narcissism cannot be fully sustained. A selfish person still depends on others for everything they want. Their selfishness would soon end if only they see this. What is good for them is to do good for others. This is the key to happiness.

B: This is true, but that is not what they are being taught. Instead they are talk to find themselves. They forget that the self is an illusion.

A: They are relevant to all others who have given them their food, water, and education. They speak of “free will” and yet they act like a clone of those around them. As soon as they leave their parents and finish school, they must find who they really are. They can no longer depend on the same social structure that kept them from needing to make their choices.

B: They are so committed to choice that they fail to make any choices. If they make a promise, they either have to keep it or make themselves a liar. How can such a person maintain loyalty to a job, a religion, or to a marriage.

C: The subject of marriage is another moral issue that people lack the power to decide on. If marriage is a legal matter, then surely it does not exist because the laws of humans were invented by humans and humans can break them. If it can be defined otherwise, then maybe they would have a foundation for debate.

A: Without a relevance that can’t be broken, no marriage, religion, or country will survive. The more divided a group is, the less effective it is. Diversity can be a strength or a weakness. The result of this is death.

B: Without the truth, there is no common ground which the people can unite. This will lead to death as you said.

C: Life and death are at the center of morality, but to some, life is seen as bad. Others would do anything to defend their own life or that of their families. Life must be good or why would someone seek to protect it?

B: Some care for the lives of those in other countries which they will never meet. This shows a truth in what you say. The thought of others in pain is something that must be avoided.

A: The people who defend life in such a way understand that the lives of others are relevant no matter where they are or what their appearance or beliefs are.

B: If all of them saw this truth, war would end.

C: The ways that people try to justify war don’t work. No good can come of it. Let us admit that the debate about abortion is a war. It is a war of words.

A: Forgive me for my irrelevance. I had almost forgotten that we were talking about abortion. There are so many relevant issues that it is easy to get sidetracked.

B: The truth is that we never left the topic of abortion because all these things are relevant to it. It was you who mentioned that all these other debates were relevant causes to abortion.

A: Yes, we must resolve them first before we make a dent in this great evil.

C: Which of the popular debates is the first that we can end. Surely there is an order to them. Some may be easier than others. Which would you say is the easiest?

B: I would say that relativism is the easiest to prove false. This however is something the untrained mind cannot see. After we establish a standard for detecting what is true, all other debates will no longer be interesting.

A: But we must not forget that some truth is irrelevant. People still want to argue about whether certain historical people existed. Such debates are irrelevant. None of us needs to know a lot of that information.

C: But some would argue that history is relevant. The context in which their laws and holy books were established seem very relevant to them.

A: I really hesitate to debate about religion, but surely it is relevant to some decisions made today. Marriage is a fine example of this.

B: Indeed, people are taught not to marry someone outside of their religion. This is done to make sure that the tradition survives.

C: From this comes the ruin of marriages. For as long as a couple are bound only be their religious beliefs, it is bound to fail if one of them changes their mind. Nothing good can come from refusing to change just to please your spouse or for changing into someone you are not because they want you to change. I don’t believe that it will work in the way humans expect it to.

A: Certainly, humans speak of love, but they don’t know that love must certainly be based on something that will last. If based on emotion or a false belief, it will fail. It takes a great relevance to keep people together when things go bad.

C: They also forget that love is shown by good deeds. It is hard to believe that a person who supports violence has love. Certainly their relevance and truth has failed.

B: When such a thing happens, separation is the only option. Often the cost is great. To stay with someone who lies, steals, or kills is the way to death.

C: What you say applies not only to marriages and friendships, but to schools, religions, and countries. People choose what is comfortable rather than what is good. Compromises are made. One person kills someone in self defense. Later, other people decide to use it as an excuse to kill other people even when unnecessary. Then it goes back to the subject of truth.

B: When someone kills someone, people can ask why they did it. They can say anything they want, even if it is false. The dead cannot speak for themselves and so the whole story is never known.

A: It is easy to see why killing is seen as the solution to a problem. Certainly it seems faster. One could end abortion by simply killing all the men on the planet. Of course to do so would be aborting the men. When someone sees that abortion is identical to murder, it becomes clear why this is not an option.

C: When finding solutions to a problem, we must not forget that some solutions may be logical, but too immoral to be considered. They create more problems than they solve.

B: We also cannot neglect the truth. To lie, even to save lives is unacceptable to me.

C: Yes, it would be easy to lie as a means to end a debate, but it is a bad thing to do and so I too could not condone it.

A: There are times when I refuse to speak because I am aware the truth can hurt people. When something is relevant to someone, it is hard to criticize it without upsetting them. This is why not too many people wish to talk about controversial topics, but that is the very thing we are doing. All of these are relevant in our quest to end violence.

B: Almost everything people are taught seems to teach violence. This is one of the hard truths that we must tell. Most of what they know is false.

C: Even that which is true should not be used as an excuse to do bad.

B: All three of us must agree on the action to take or our lack of unity will ruin us.

A: I agree, all three of us must be in perfect relevance or we cannot succeed.

B: I second that, but we must also speak the truth or our relevance will fail.

C: I believe that the good that we are trying to do will keep us in relevance and truth.

The gender neutral people will inevitably use all their philosophical powers to change the world for the better, but it remains undecided which path they must take to do it. What would you suggest that they talk about?

Three gender neutral people talk about suicide

C: Have you heard the bad news?

B: No, what news is this?

C: Another movie star committed suicide.

A: This must somehow be relevant for you to mention it. Certainly there is nothing new about celebrities dying by every known cause.

B: And every time it happens, people act as if the death of that person is somehow worse than the death of all those who die by abortion, war, famine, disease, and disaster.

A: What relevance does this human’s death have to us.

C: It is times like this when people start thinking about death. People refuse to wake up to the reality of death, but when someone famous dies, then they think about it for a time. It is times like this when we need to educate people about what causes suicide.

B: Are they ready for the truth?

C: I think not, but we must speak to them. No good comes from silence about tragedy.

A: They cannot imagine all the relevant factors that cause a person to become hopeless and depressed.

B: True you are! Bad words, spoken at a bad time can make the difference between life or death. Religion, mental illness, and lack of money can all limit people from getting the help they need.

C: Some fools say that those who kill themselves are “selfish” as if that made any sense.

B: There are also those Christians who are teaching them that suicide is an unforgivable “sin” that they will be punished for after their death.

A: If only they could see that the depressed people believe that they are doing the world a favor! They are not being selfish, but in a certain way, they believe they are doing the right thing.

B: In truth, this is the message that they are often taught. They are taught that their own lives are not worth the time and money it takes to help them.

C: Let us not forget that they also sometimes believe that they get another life after death. Perhaps to them it makes sense to die in order to go to heaven, or to be reborn into another happier life.

A: This is certainly relevant. It is one more reason that I have come to hate the religions which teach this. It leads to death more than people can imagine.

B: True, this could be a motivation for suicide. I wish I could prove such a teaching false, but such a thing is impossible to know.

C: Either way, it is a bad thing to believe or to teach others. Those who believe it may be more likely to end what could be the only life they have.

A: Even if we knew that there was an afterlife, it would not change the tragedy that exists. People must stop their hatred and irrelevance.

B: And they must stop saying false things about people who cannot speak for themselves! It shows a terrible lack of respect for those who are already grieving over the loss of someone.

C: I agree. This must stop. Those who have nothing good to say should be silent.

Kenny and Kylie episode 14

This is the second episode that I was a guest on the Kenny and Kylie podcast. I feel like this went even better than the last conversation. We got into some deep topics. I find it interesting that Kylie was thinking about free will since last time. It has been on my mind a lot too. I don’t like free will used as an excuse for evil. There is still a philosophical debate that rages on about whether humans actually have free will. The way I see it, it depends on the definition of “free” and “will”.

Has it been decided that we “will” do something or are we “free” to change our future? I think that we have choices, but that there is such a conflict between the choices of living things that we often don’t feel very free. As Kylie mentioned in the opening of the podcast, I had mentioned unborn babies not getting to choose to live or die.

The subjects that I talked about in this episode are still related to the abortion issue, but I also try to clarify that I am against violence to other animals besides humans. If this is understood, then you will see that all other areas of my life are filtered through my pro-life or anti-violence philosophy. This raises the question of whether my actions are “free” when it is clear they have a foundation. Maybe I have already made the one choice that is most relevant.

Kenny and Kylie episode 13

I was invited to be a guest on the Kenny and Kylie podcast. To me this was a big deal because I don’t usually get to have recorded talks with people. As much as I like to communicate by writing, it does not translate so well to the real world where people have a limit to their attention span.

You can go here to find out how to listen and or download the episode:

I was trying to explain the way that the tragedy of abortion led me to question everything about the bible and the Christian theology I had been taught all my life in churches.

Kenneth brought up Free Will to explain why God does not stop abortion. I think the argument is terrible, but I am glad Kenneth brought it up because it is the most common reply that Christians give to explain why their God doesn’t stop evil things such as abortion and rape. He also said that parents can allow children to make choices without approving of everything their children do. This may be true, but it is still not a comparison to the Christian God because human parents did not actually design the brains of their children like the Christians believe that God has done.

After that, he asked me about my first book: “Confessions of a Confused Virgin”. I talk briefly about my first book and how my opinions on sex have changed over time. I am definitely a Confused Virgin. I don’t think anyone will disagree on that. I talked about my second book: “Irrelevant”. It was all about finding which things were the most relevant to my life and I discovered that most were irrelevant.

I was glad for the chance to explain certain problems I had with some stories in the bible. It was a good talk and I look forward to doing this again. The one thing that troubles me is that there were some things that we talked about that seem to have been cut out of the published version of this. I am not sure exactly why that is.

The next time I talk to Kenneth and Kylie, I would like to talk also about vegetarianism and veganism and how they closely relate to how much I love animals. This also relates to abortion and the animal sacrifices written about in the bible.