Brochure of the Month

Brochure of the Month:  September 2019

Another Look at Contraception

     When the pill was introduced, it was welcomed as the key to enjoying sex without the consequence of pregnancy.  But as the years have passed, evidence has built up of serious negative consequences of contraception for women, children, family and society.  First of all, some oral contraceptives can act by causing an early abortion of a newly conceived child. Women using these contraceptives experience significantly higher risk of cancer and potentially life-threatening blood clots. IUDs also present other risks.
     Before the pill, few women were willing to risk pregnancy outside of marriage. The promise of sex without pregnancy led to the sexual revolution, and because so many women were now engaging in sex, out of wedlock births nearly tripled. Since the woman controlled the decision to contracept or abort, many men reasoned that they were not responsible for their children, leading to the “feminization of poverty.”  In 2015, 43 percent of children living in single-mother families were poor, compared to 10 % of children in married-couple families. Poverty and the absence of the biological father in the household are the two strongest predictions of poor academic, emotional, and behavioral outcomes in children.  Especially among teenagers, contraception is far from reliable.  Every year one million of the eleven million U.S. women on the pill get pregnant, and 40% of them undergo abortions.

The brochure is available at the Hospitality Desk in the Church and in the Ave Maria Family Life Center. Links to the text on the USCCB website are here:  English    Spanish.