Birth Control

[Pizzaguy]

I hope this hasn't been recently discussed, but here we go.... I got this from someone's sigline, sorry, can't find who it was now, but it was on this site. Anyway, I think this idea is way too extreme: that all birth control is wrong! I surely agree with the site about abortion. I don't even like "The Pill", but I think that sterilization is fine.

Have a read. If it's too long to read, just go down to "Hard Cases" and read to the end. The 'best' of what I take to be sillyness is there.

Hard Cases

Much more difficult to discuss is the occasional "hard case" wherein, for example, the wife almost dies in birth and is counseled by a doctor against getting pregnant again. Her husband, as an act of protection for his wife and an exercise of dominion over her health and his family's future, chooses to avoid pregnancy. Is this acceptable, or is this sin?

The following principles would seem to apply:

1) God is still in charge, and none of his children will die apart from his will....

2) God does have special grace for women in the process of bearing children....

3) Any measure of "control" the couple seek to exercise should be through abstinence (as above). Measures that alter the body or render the sex act sterile are never appropriate. By submitting to God's plan for sexual relations the couple will be within God's will and will be open to his plan if he should choose to overrule their efforts.

4) The couple must have a humble heart that is ready to acknowledge that any decision of theirs may be wrong and the Lord has a better way. If there is fear in their hearts, they should confess it and ask for grace to trust him and wisdom to know how he wants them to proceed.

Seems almost cult-ish to me. Must we all live as third-worlders to be "good Christians"? Think of the standard of living we'd have if every family had so many children!

[JesusFreak1986]

Well pizza, I have a few comments. First I don't think that many birth control methods are wrong, for example:

A man and his wife have been married for 5 years, they show their love for each other very often. However, they are not mentally ready, or finacially ready for a child. So the man uses a condom, and his wife takes the pill. This way they can express their love & attraction for each other, without throwing their life into turmoil.

[None]

Abstinence, yes, but "no birth control" - haven't found any solid, convincing Biblical grounds as of yet.

And, just as suspected, the only example the author of that link you gave had was Onan:

While the term "birth control" is not mentioned in the Bible there is one example of its practice (this provides us with a pattern to be avoided): "Then Judah said to Onan, 'Lie with your brother's wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to produce offspring for your brother.' But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so whenever he lay with his brother's wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from producing offspring for his brother. What he did was wicked in the Lord's sight; so he put him to death also" (Gen. 38:8-10).

Onan had an obligation, later codified in the Mosaic Law (Deut. 25:5,6), to give his dead brother's wife a child to carry on the name of the deceased and inherit his land and goods. He refused this obligation by practicing a form of birth control. His goal was to prevent his brother from having an heir, and his method succeeded as well as if he had murdered the heir. God killed him for his sin.

Completely taken out of era and context. His sin was disobeying the command to give an heir.

Nothing to do with birth control. To say so is like saying "don't eat -ever- because eating is gluttony".

[kittylover0991]

I just want to add one comment, "the pill" is not always used as a means of "birth control"... There are many other things in which a doctor may perscribe say, "the pill", and it isn't so that one does not get pregnant, but for those other medical reasons.

What is really wrong with the pill though if it prevents one from getting pregnant? I've heard from someone that if there is a child that is concieved, then the pill then does not allow the child to attach or wahtever, and thus kills the child. Does anyone know?