Be afraid, be very afraid
"Pre-marital sex is really modern germ warfare." --Eric Keroack
"Contraception is the gateway to abortion." --John Mallon, "Death by Sex"
The frightening thing is not simply that people believe these things but that they represent a growing anti-contraception movement and, worse, that one of these two men has recently been appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs. In other words, he is the new head of the Family Planning Program within the Department of Health and Human Services and is being given power to control Title X funds that are dedicated to providing "low-cost, confidential family planning services that would otherwise be out of reach for many women" (Center for Reproductive Rights).
Eric Keroack has been associated with such organizations as The National Abstinence Clearinghouse and A Woman's Concern, which states in its official policy that "birth control . . . is demeaning to women, degrading of human sexuality, and averse to human health and happiness." Their mission is to prevent women from having abortions (predominantly by convincing women to delay having an abortion and by using ultrasound techniques to "help" them see and love their baby) and to learn "how to establish a vital relationship with Jesus Christ and His Church." Keroack himself travels the nation preaching abstinence and condemning not only abortion but contraception and pre-marital sex in general.
For instance, Keroack argues that pre-marital sex is an addiction (like an addiction to cocaine, he says). It has pleasurable side effects--at first--and we develop a tolerance to those pleasurable effects over time. The only solution, he says, is abstinence. Refraining from the drug (sex, in this case) will allow damage to the "bonding center of the brain" to heal. Furthermore, as this site reports,
Oxytocin is a hormone whose actions are associated with pregnancy, breastfeeding, and maternal-infant bonding -- and, according to Keroack, it's the tie that binds in marriage, as well. People don't fall in love, but into hormonal bondage. Therefore, the most important rationale for sexual abstinence isn't faith-based at all, but purely physiological. Unfaithful men and promiscuous women are created by misuse of the "emotional glue" of attraction, an abuse leading to a "perpetual cycle of misery."
With such a man in charge of the nation's family planning resources, we can be sure that the battle for women's reproductive rights is going to become a major political issue and public policy battleground and very soon. Roe v. Wade has been under fire for years and recent debates over pharmacists' rights to refuse to fill prescriptions for Plan B pills have further endangered women's ability to get the medical care they need, as well as their ability to freely make their own choices regarding reproduction. This is something that demands our attention.
Researching Eric Keroack, though, opened the door to many other frightening sites and people affiliated with the anti-contraception movement. This is much more widespread than I could have imagined.
Here is just one example. Mary Worthington, one of these anti-contraception activists, is interesting for the shocking nature of her claims, the pseudo-feminist rhetoric she relies upon, and the organization she represents. Worthington runs the No Room for Contraception Campaign, and, in her blog The Revolution, she criticizes "the on-going agenda of the Planned Parenthood: eugenics" and goes on to say that
It is quite misleading to claim that women want to have birth control imposed on them. Furthermore, Albuquerque calls for empowering of women against abuse. But, can't birth control be considered abuse? Men get to expect unlimited sex from women without regard for her health or the natural consequences of sex, children.
What? Planned Parenthood is involved in eugenics? Way to overlook the connections that still exist between race and class in America and the continuing unavailability of sufficient healthcare for the underclass (and not just for reproductive and sexual health). And good job equating women's freedom to choose with domestic abuse. The problem is absolutely not that women are stuck in abusive relationships and have nowhere to turn; the problem is that their men and their Planned Parenthood clinics are forcing them to (oh, the humanity!) take the Pill so that they can't get pregnant. Right.
In reality, birth control can only help women who have little money and little power. More children means more mouths to feed and more bodies to clothe and care for. With no money to do these things, the obvious solution is to provide women with the option to control their family size, to keep it manageable, to be able to adequately care for and love the children they choose to have. More children also means more people to try to protect in an abusive family situation and more at stake should the abused woman try to leave. With no power with which to strike back at the abuser, the obvious solution is to keep from giving the abuser even more leverage over the abused, in this case in the form of children to tie the two together and to threaten.
But, many religious anti-contraception activists say, it is not for us to decide what the limits of our families should be. God knows. He will do our family planning for us. The Quiverfull movement I wrote about here is only one instance of this ideology in action.
This is just what we need: on the one hand, we have a government full of people who believe abstinence is the only way, contraception is demeaning and immoral, and abortion is the work of the devil, and on the other we have a growing group of people that not only support such beliefs but use their time and energy to promote such misinformation as the idea that birth control is part of an anti-feminist eugenics campaign and that sexual education is useless and even counterproductive, preferring ignorance and faith in an unseen deity's family planning techniques to informed decision and personal choice and even, dare I say it, responsibility.
"Contraception is the gateway to abortion." --John Mallon, "Death by Sex"
The frightening thing is not simply that people believe these things but that they represent a growing anti-contraception movement and, worse, that one of these two men has recently been appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs. In other words, he is the new head of the Family Planning Program within the Department of Health and Human Services and is being given power to control Title X funds that are dedicated to providing "low-cost, confidential family planning services that would otherwise be out of reach for many women" (Center for Reproductive Rights).
Eric Keroack has been associated with such organizations as The National Abstinence Clearinghouse and A Woman's Concern, which states in its official policy that "birth control . . . is demeaning to women, degrading of human sexuality, and averse to human health and happiness." Their mission is to prevent women from having abortions (predominantly by convincing women to delay having an abortion and by using ultrasound techniques to "help" them see and love their baby) and to learn "how to establish a vital relationship with Jesus Christ and His Church." Keroack himself travels the nation preaching abstinence and condemning not only abortion but contraception and pre-marital sex in general.
For instance, Keroack argues that pre-marital sex is an addiction (like an addiction to cocaine, he says). It has pleasurable side effects--at first--and we develop a tolerance to those pleasurable effects over time. The only solution, he says, is abstinence. Refraining from the drug (sex, in this case) will allow damage to the "bonding center of the brain" to heal. Furthermore, as this site reports,
Oxytocin is a hormone whose actions are associated with pregnancy, breastfeeding, and maternal-infant bonding -- and, according to Keroack, it's the tie that binds in marriage, as well. People don't fall in love, but into hormonal bondage. Therefore, the most important rationale for sexual abstinence isn't faith-based at all, but purely physiological. Unfaithful men and promiscuous women are created by misuse of the "emotional glue" of attraction, an abuse leading to a "perpetual cycle of misery."
With such a man in charge of the nation's family planning resources, we can be sure that the battle for women's reproductive rights is going to become a major political issue and public policy battleground and very soon. Roe v. Wade has been under fire for years and recent debates over pharmacists' rights to refuse to fill prescriptions for Plan B pills have further endangered women's ability to get the medical care they need, as well as their ability to freely make their own choices regarding reproduction. This is something that demands our attention.
Researching Eric Keroack, though, opened the door to many other frightening sites and people affiliated with the anti-contraception movement. This is much more widespread than I could have imagined.
Here is just one example. Mary Worthington, one of these anti-contraception activists, is interesting for the shocking nature of her claims, the pseudo-feminist rhetoric she relies upon, and the organization she represents. Worthington runs the No Room for Contraception Campaign, and, in her blog The Revolution, she criticizes "the on-going agenda of the Planned Parenthood: eugenics" and goes on to say that
It is quite misleading to claim that women want to have birth control imposed on them. Furthermore, Albuquerque calls for empowering of women against abuse. But, can't birth control be considered abuse? Men get to expect unlimited sex from women without regard for her health or the natural consequences of sex, children.
What? Planned Parenthood is involved in eugenics? Way to overlook the connections that still exist between race and class in America and the continuing unavailability of sufficient healthcare for the underclass (and not just for reproductive and sexual health). And good job equating women's freedom to choose with domestic abuse. The problem is absolutely not that women are stuck in abusive relationships and have nowhere to turn; the problem is that their men and their Planned Parenthood clinics are forcing them to (oh, the humanity!) take the Pill so that they can't get pregnant. Right.
In reality, birth control can only help women who have little money and little power. More children means more mouths to feed and more bodies to clothe and care for. With no money to do these things, the obvious solution is to provide women with the option to control their family size, to keep it manageable, to be able to adequately care for and love the children they choose to have. More children also means more people to try to protect in an abusive family situation and more at stake should the abused woman try to leave. With no power with which to strike back at the abuser, the obvious solution is to keep from giving the abuser even more leverage over the abused, in this case in the form of children to tie the two together and to threaten.
But, many religious anti-contraception activists say, it is not for us to decide what the limits of our families should be. God knows. He will do our family planning for us. The Quiverfull movement I wrote about here is only one instance of this ideology in action.
This is just what we need: on the one hand, we have a government full of people who believe abstinence is the only way, contraception is demeaning and immoral, and abortion is the work of the devil, and on the other we have a growing group of people that not only support such beliefs but use their time and energy to promote such misinformation as the idea that birth control is part of an anti-feminist eugenics campaign and that sexual education is useless and even counterproductive, preferring ignorance and faith in an unseen deity's family planning techniques to informed decision and personal choice and even, dare I say it, responsibility.