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Christianity and its various sects harm women.
In the early 1960’s, in response to the call of many millions of Catholic women, especially in the US, who wanted to limit the size of their families through the use of contraception, a papal commission was set up to look at Catholic teaching on birth control in light of the current scientific knowledge. If found that there was no scriptural, theological, philosophical reason, or basis in natural law for the Church’s prohibition on birth control.
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However, in 1968, Pope Paul VI responded instead with an encyclical Humanae Vitae. The encyclical reaffirmed the Church’s rejectionist stance: Contraceptives were evil and against God’s law. Ten years later, Pope John Paul declared that Humanae Vitae was ‘a matter of fundamental Catholic belief’.
In the West, many if not most Catholics ignored the ban. For them, however painful, the decision of whether to conceive or not was rarely a life-or-death issue. Unfortunately for women in the poorest parts of the world, it often is. There, the right to choose weather or not to conceive was vitally linked to a woman’s prospectsfor freeing herself and her family from poverty. It is in this context that the inherent and deeply rooted misogyny of the Church has taken its greatest toll on the lives of women. Pope John Paul II spent a considerable port of his pontificate propagandizing on behalf of a doctrine that tells poor and illiterate women that to use a condom is the moral equivalent of murder and that each time they use contraceptives they render Christ’s sacrifice on the cross ‘in vain’. He said:’No personal or social circumstances have ever been able, or will be able, to rectify the moral wrong of the contraceptive act.
Underlying this attitude is the assumption that when it comes to having a baby, a woman’s consent is not necessary and that once made pregnant, accidentally or not, her own will is rendered irrelevant. The moral implications of this are interesting when compared with those governing our attitudes to rape. All civilized societies accept that a woman’s consent is necessary in order to have intercourse with her. Not to seek that consent and to coerce her into intercourse is to commit rape, which is a serious crime. But yet according to the Church, in the vital matter of pregnancy, a woman’s consent is beside the point.
She can be made pregnant against her wishes, and without her consent. The inexorable law of God overrides her will and the fact that she is pregnant determines her fate. Her personal autonomy is denied to her.
To deny the need for her consent in this the most important aspect of a woman’s life is surely the moral equivalent of justifying rape. It reminds us once more of the profound contempt that has underpinned Catholic attitudes towards women and that has been responsible for so much suffering down through the centuries.
– Jack Holland. A Brief History of Misogyny: The World’s Oldest Prejudice. p. 241 – 243
Religion, centuries of practice keeping women in their place…
The neat thing about bad arguments is that usually they are layered in thick and fast that you don’t catch them the first time,so you have to slow down and rewind the tape to see the intersectionality of wrongness and then unweave the fail.
Today’s disservice is dedicated to a post by the Wayward Catholic, ostensibly extending the putrefied olive branch of religion to those who are drifting (I imagine it is code for people who are starting to think for themselves) to get them back into the feckless fold.
A noble cause indeed. But hey, if the arguments are good, then maybe there is a good point to be had. Riiiiight…anyhow, lets see how the Wayward Catholic does in his(assumption of gender) post “Killing is wrong“.
The argument was if I supported such a law and the law passed then that would be forcing my opinion on others. Of course the commentor fails to see that the opposite must also be true as well. Passing any law ca be considered one group of people forcing their opinion on another group.
Individual laws are forcing their “opinion” on other people. Cannibals are rightly annoyed that they cannot go to the local Uncle Wally’s and begin the all-U-can eat feast. Laws are in place in society to preserve order and promote fair treatment in society and usually, said laws are enacted based their utility and on the needs of said society.
A perfect example is the HHS contraception mandate. This mandate forces all employers (with a very narrow exception) to provide contraception, sterilizations and “morning after” pills to their employees whether they have a religious objection to them or not.
Ah, the persecution!! Not being able to propagate outdated and irrational beliefs on society, the horror! Welcome to civilization that does not kowtow to your magic book and delusional mind-set. Women use contraception and should have access to it when they need it, at any time. Reproductive consequences for women are serious and they need to have all the options available to them.
But then this is the typical secular argument. They see all issues from one side, and one side only. If they think something is right, it is right, end of story, and anything which has to do with religion isn’t right so it is bad and must be destroyed.
What a marvellous case of projection you have going there, never mind the sweeping generalizations about all “secular arguments”. I imagine the problem for you is that often, secular arguments are based on evidence and verifiable facts, rather than on mythology, magic and dogmatic adherence to bronze age bugaboo.
The fact is, access to contraception is good for society. The above links are just a small sample of the evidence that supports the benefits of contraception in society. Just because you do not believe in contraception does not mean contraception is a bad thing. You have every right to express your opinion. However, unsubstantiated opinion is pretty much next to worthless when it comes to the law and moral issues in society.
Belief weighs heavily in the next paragraph, a paragraph one sees much to often from those who worship the almighty fetus. But hey one more reiteration won’t hurt, especially when its being used for educational purposes.
Even though killing and murder is wrong they will defend it, doing everything they can to “soften” the fact that it is murder, that they are taking a life. An innocent one at that, one who doesn’t have a “choice”.
Killing and murder is generally wrong, especially when dealing with people. Blastocycsts, fetuses, fertilized eggs et cetera are not people. I’m going to assume, for the sake of argument that you think that “life” begins conception. It is an erroneous, problematic assumption at best. So, what this comes down to is whether or not you think women get to makes choices about what goes on in their body.
You don’t get a say if you need a kidney and I happen to have one that is suitable to donate. Bodily autonomy does not magically stop when it comes to uteri. What goes on in a woman’s uterus falls under the same measure, her body, her choice. It starts and ends there.
We can always thank religion for continuing the war on women.
Sorry, god mandates a needless death for you, have a nice day...
The story is almost always the same. Worship the christian-sky daddy and women become second class citizens who get to die because ‘abortion is a sin’. In the video the dude from the ‘health department’ mentions the moral and ethical nature of there society. Letting women die because of lack of access to reproductive services is hardly fraking ethical behaviour. I suggest to him that he untwist his head out of Jebus’s asshole and start putting together a health program that respects women and their bodily autonomy as opposed to the heavenly ooga-booga in the sky.
Although abortions are strictly illegal in the Philippines, the medical procedure to terminate pregnancy flourishes in underground clinics.
Given their illegal and unregulated nature, risky procedures are often followed at the clinics, endangering lives.
According to the US-based Centre for Reproductive Rights, more than half a million women risk their lives annually by undergoing backstreet abortions. Out of them, about 1,000 die each year.
Just a handy reference if you needed some more information on how lovely the Catholic Church actually is.
It is with a weary heart that I read headlines proclaiming the upcoming beatification and canonization of our last pope-in-chief John Paul II. It is quite the process becoming a saint, with rigorous standards and such. It requires not one…but two MIRACLES plus the second MIRACLE you need to be dead, but still responsible for said MIRACLE (damn shift key is sticking). Anyhow, it 2011 now, well into the 21st century and we have people studiously documenting MIracles (whew fixed the damn key) so they can ‘properly’ call someone a saint. Perhaps January 2011 is the month rationality takes a break in Trinidad and Tobago and Magic and Superstition take over for awhile.
“Pope Benedict XVI on Friday attributed a miracle to the late Pope John Paul II, which moves the former pontiff one step closer to sainthood. Benedict declared that the cure of a French nun who suffered from Parkinson’s disease was a miracle.”
Citation needed. The sainthood process for JPII was apparently high on the new popes to-do list.
“Just weeks after taking over, Benedict waived the normal five-year waiting period, which essentially put John Paul on a fast track to sainthood.
However, Benedict insisted on a thorough review process.”
The fast track indeed, but we need the thorough review process because we would not want to make a mistake we need the right type ensure that the magic and wishful thinking miracles were of the appropriate sort. (?)
“A Vatican-appointed group of doctors and theologians, cardinals and bishops agreed that the cure of a French nun, Sister Marie-Simon-Pierre, was a miracle because of the intercession of John Paul. Two months after John Paul’s death, the nun claimed she woke up feeling cured of her disease. The nun and the others in her order had prayed to John Paul, who also suffered from Parkinson’s.
In a statement issued Friday, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints said Vatican-appointed doctors “scrupulously” studied the case and found that the nun’s cure had no scientific explanation.”
I hope, for the sake of mankind, that if we are being studied by an advanced civilization they were away from their instruments during this sad instalment of mass delusional religious behaviour. I can imagine alien coffee being spewed over screens if they actually caught wind of this malignantly farcical episode.
Still the case for those who are not Male Prostitutes
It looks like 21 century ideas might begin to have the slightest bit of intellectual purchase with god’s go to guy here on earth. The pope, in his new book, has a section on condoms and reproductive health that suggests that condom use in certain situations could be considered acceptable. His popitude says:
“In a book to be released on Tuesday, the pope said that it was acceptable for male prostitutes seeking to prevent the spread of HIV to use condoms.”
Male prostitutes? That is it? No other case comes close enough to Papal reality to justify the use of condoms? Amazing progress consider this is the same individual as of 2009 that said this:
“The pope drew unprecedented criticism from European governments, international organisations and scientists in March 2009 when he told reporters while flying to Africa that condoms would not resolve the Aids problem there but, on the contrary, increase it.”
So, this is progress(?). During the inquisition it would be akin to a holy edict stating that the maximum weight used during strappado torture has just been lowered down to 5o pounds from 55 pounds. Woo ya!
Woo! Thankgoodness for papal mercy!
It is really a shame that we are still shackled to bronze age mythology and that the Vatican, with a straight face, proclaim that based on two “miracles” they can declare someone to be a saint.
“At the time Mary MacKillop answered the prayers of a woman dying of leukaemia, there was a lot of static in the air. In China 43 million people were dying of starvation in one of the world’s worst famines.
Thirty years later in the 1990s, when MacKillop answered the prayers of a woman dying of lung cancer, 3.8 million were dying in the Congo wars, 800,000 in the Rwanda genocide, a quarter of a million in the Yugoslav wars.
My question is when the 43 million were dying where was our so called benevolent deity? I mean really, you think a little magic toward the 43 million would save more lives than one person dying of leukaemia in Australia? The sense of scale being established is this really setting a good precedent?
“If MacKillop were being canonised because she was a good woman who did exceptional deeds while on earth, there would be less need to be querulous about the excessive and sycophantic coverage of her impending canonisation. To many Australian Catholics it is a big event, and the media can hardly ignore it. But the issue at the heart of the canonisation is the power of prayer to bring about miraculous medical cures through divine intervention. It is misleading and potentially dangerous for the media to endorse such an idea.”
We are giving way too much attention to mystical bullcookery based reality these days. It needs to stop.
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