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The Back Story on Birth Control

Oh, Baby!

For me and my husband, engagement was a time of conversations unlike any we had ever had. Meshing two lives that had before been quite independent was an interesting, exciting, sometimes difficult process of discovery. One of the coolest things about it was getting an occasional hint that this man I had chosen to marry was even deeper and wiser than I realized.

Case in point: When we were discussing children, contraceptives and family planning, Josh put the conversation in perspective with a simple statement. "I think that if you're ready to get married, you should be ready to have children." Maybe that should have been obvious to me, but it wasn't. At least not at first. At the time when we were preparing for marriage, I had finished college, but Josh hadn't started. Since he was planning to quit his job and go to school full time, our decisions about having (or not having) children were … um … complicated. Because of this, I assumed that marriage and childbearing were two separate things. And that they needed to stay separate for a while.

But the further we dug into the issue, the more I found my assumptions being challenged. I also had to acknowledge that they needed to be challenged in order to bring them in line with a biblical worldview. I want to share that thought process here, because I know that many college students wrestle (or soon will) with the same complications and assumptions.

Since When are Children Convenient?

The first big assumption I had to deal with was my belief that we could — and should — put off having children until it was more convenient to have them. Obviously, convenience means different things to different people: waiting until both partners have finished school; waiting until you're financially stable (whatever that means); waiting until the wife is "established" in her career.

Birth control, of course, is the major reason these options are available to us. And easy access to birth control often means we take our options for granted. We shouldn't, because doing so can easily lead to a warped attitude toward both sexuality and children.

What I mean is, we live in a culture that believes that men and women alike can have sex whenever, wherever and with whomever, as long as it's consensual. This so-called freedom is possible because the combination of birth control and abortion supposedly allows us to avoid or get rid of any unwanted consequences. Among those consequences is pregnancy. So, for the single person at least, contraception provides for a lifestyle that is promiscuous and sees children as mistakes to be avoided. I'm not saying that using contraceptives makes you promiscuous, or that all contraceptive users devalue children or condone abortion. I'm just saying that birth control makes it easier to adopt these attitudes.

Now, take this train of thought one stop further. If, pre-marriage, we are accustomed to viewing children as "mistakes," how does this affect our attitude toward them after we are married? For some couples it's a non-issue. They enter marriage with children in mind, and they view the beginning of the parenting season of life as something to look forward to. On the other hand, I know an increasing number of married couples who have their educational, recreational, financial and professional lives so carefully planned that children are still viewed as mistakes. Unless Junior shows up precisely on his parents' schedule, he is an interruption to their lives.

You simply cannot hold a thorough Christian worldview and view children in that light. The Bible makes clear that having, raising and discipling children is to be a priority for most Christians.¹ It also lets us know that we are not to hold so tightly to our own freedom and our own plans that we leave no room for God's.²

Wisdom or Selfishness?

I'm not saying that delaying or planning the timing of children is necessarily sinful. But we need to make a distinction between selfish delays and wise delays. And we need to be brutally honest with ourselves about which is which.

A wise delay is one that plans for the future with children — and their highest good — in mind. I think it's entirely possible for Christians, in good conscience, to put off childbearing while they fast-track through school, in order that one parent might earn enough to allow the other parent to stay home after children arrive.

Conversely, selfishness creeps in when we continually raise the bar for what constitutes financial stability. If we're really honest about our priorities, it's hard to justify a luxury car or a time-share on the beach as achievements to be reached before having kids.

A final thought on the delaying-children issue: no matter what our plans are, we need to discipline our minds so that if our preferred method of delaying the arrival of children fails (and they all do at times!), we are ready to welcome children in God's timing, even if that's not our timing.

Poor, Dead Onan

A different, but related, assumption I want to discuss is the belief that sex and procreation can be indefinitely separated. The proof text that's often use to shoot down this idea is Genesis 38:9-10 in which Onan practices what we now call "early withdrawal" and is executed by God for doing so. (Yikes!) Believers who oppose all forms of birth control cite this passage to "prove" that we should leave everything to God and have as many children as our fertility enables us to have. Unfortunately, that's not a very responsible reading of the text. In fact, I think there is sufficient contextual evidence to show that it wasn't the prevention of pregnancy in general that was Onan's sin. The real issue was his selfishness and his refusal to provide for his sister-in-law Tamar.³

So, while we've triumphed over a case of irresponsible Bible-reading, we haven't answered the question of when, if ever, it is OK to separate sex from the possibility of procreation. In her book, Real Sex: The Naked Truth About Chastity, fellow TrueU author Lauren Winner frames the issue nicely: "…experience, nature and scripture suggest that there is a deep connection between the work of sex and the possibility of procreation. Technologically effective birth control has severed those connections." In other words, if we want, we can now have a whole lifetime of sex without worrying much about children coming from our union. But should we?

The Roman Catholic Church says no and prohibits the use of any artificial contraceptive, whether barrier- or chemical-based. And while I don't think this is the only possible biblical conclusion, I do think it's worth considering the principle behind the Catholic stance. As Lauren goes on to say, "We can reaffirm [the connection between sex and procreation] without necessarily landing at the Roman Catholic position — we can, for example, say that the whole of a married couple's sex life needs to be open to procreation, but each and every sex act need not be. And we can worry about technology's separation of sex and procreation because we see that it does violence to what sex is finally about."⁴

Well said. I'm pretty sure that few Christians outside the Catholic Church give much thought to this connection. More of us should.

Pill or No Pill?

Finally, we need to deal with the assumption that your doctor is telling you everything you need to know about birth control. Here, I want to focus on hormonal contraception, since it presents serious issues that need to be addressed by people who want to integrate family planning with a Christian worldview. The problem is that many of us don't know that.

Hormonal birth control — including the pill, emergency contraception, implants, patches, shots, vaginal rings and some IUDs — works by using synthetic hormones (progestin and/or estrogen) to interrupt the process of getting pregnant. Hormonal contraceptives are designed to override the body's normal cycle and "trick" your brain into believing you're already pregnant, thus preventing the release of an egg from the ovaries.

The controversy starts here: progestin-only contraceptives don't consistently prevent ovulation, so conception remains possible.⁵ If conception occurs, there are two new problems to deal with.

First, progestin-only contraceptives inhibit the travel of the newly-fertilized egg down the fallopian tube, increasing the chances of an ectopic pregnancy. Second, these contraceptives cause thinning of the uterine lining, which makes it difficult for a fertilized egg to implant in the uterus. If life begins at conception, this is a big problem, since intentionally flushing that zygote out of the body has to be considered abortion. Things your doctor never told you, huh?

It gets more confusing. Combined hormonal contraceptives, which contain both estrogen and progestin, work primarily by preventing ovulation. Examples include combined oral contraceptive pills, the Ortho Evra® patch and the NuvaRing® vaginal ring. The absence of ovulation constitutes a true contraceptive effect because the sperm and egg are inhibited from uniting.

In addition, combined hormonal contraceptives thicken the cervical mucus, making it more difficult for sperm to enter the uterus and fallopian tubes. The problem is, the jury is still out on whether they also act to prevent implantation. Because of this dilemma, wise people who love God, value human life and oppose abortion have landed on both sides of this issue. Many take the stance that these drugs are "innocent until proven guilty" and hold that their use is ethical because they reliably prevent an egg from ever being fertilized. Others believe that if there's any chance that ovulation and fertilization will occur, we shouldn't risk using a drug that might prevent that new life from implanting in the uterus.

So how does this relate to us as young Christian women? Foremost, we need to know that this debate exists and make informed decisions. Unless you ask — and insist on an answer — your doctor probably won't tell you.

Next, we need to do the hard work of digging through the scientific information (not just internet chatter) that is available in order to come to a conclusion our consciences can live with. Precisely because this isn't a black-and-white issue, we are all called upon to pray for guidance and wrestle with it until we are fully convinced in our own minds (Romans 14:5).

Epilogue

C O F F E E  S H O P

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After reading this article, what do you think about the use of birth control? Is there more to consider than you previously thought?

Join the discussion!

For the record, my husband and I have chosen to delay starting a family until he graduates one and a half years from now. So I guess you could say that for all the pondering I did, I didn't end up in a very different place from where I started. Except for one thing — I'm different. Having my assumptions about contraception challenged has caused me to open up another part of myself to my Savior. And it has helped me to better understand God's design for raising children. So when that day comes, I'll be ready.

For More Information

• Focus on the Family's position statement on hormonal contraceptives
• Christian Medical and Dental Associations' position statement on hormonal contraceptives

More information on the debate about combined hormonal contraceptives and abortion

The following Web sites assume the pro-life stance, but reach different conclusions about the ethics of using hormonal contraception. None of these sites are maintained or endorsed by Focus on the Family, though some of the contributors to the research contained here are the same voices who have informed Focus on the Family’s stance on the issue.

• "Hormone Contraceptives Controversies and Clarifications" from the American Association of Pro Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
• "Postfertilization Effects of Oral Contraceptives and Their Relationship to Informed Consent" from The Polycarp Research Institute.
• "Do Oral Contraceptives Cause Abortions?" from the Association of Prolife Physicians.