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Brantly Millegan on Why Defending Life & Marriage Has Gone Badly
Just 27 percent of Americans supported so-called same-sex marriage in 1996, according to a Gallup poll taken in May of that year. The same poll taken in 2013 put support at 53 percent. Another Gallup poll taken in 1996 showed that 30 percent of Americans believed abortion should be illegal throughout pregnancy. The same poll taken in 2011 put support at 29 percent for that position. Gallup polls over the last four decades have similarly shown little change in opinion on abortion. While there have been pro-life successes over the years, there are certainly no signs of a decisive cultural victory in the near future, as there increasingly seem to be for the cause of homosexuality.
What explains the difference? Why have activists for homosexuality been so successful over such a short period of time, while pro-life activists have been unable to make significant progress?
The answer is complex, of course, and entails many factors, including the positions taken by those in the news media, entertainment industries, and academia; practical errors made by those in the pro-life and marriage movements; and even the influence of malevolent spiritual forces. But there is another factor, one that is seldom discussed, yet is essential to a full explanation of the difference: the ubiquitous acceptance and use of contraception.
Implications of the Contraceptive Mentality
The act by which spouses give of themselves to each other in total according to their sex—and that expresses and consummates their marital, one-flesh union—is the same act by which they can conceive a child. The use of contraception changes the act in that one of the spouses withholds an essential aspect of his sexuality, specific to his sex, from the other (for example, by using a condom, the man prevents himself from giving his seed to his wife; and by taking hormonal contraception, the woman withholds her natural fertility from her husband). Thus, contraception denies both the unitive and procreative aspects of the conjugal act, and it does so by denying some sexual difference between the spouses.
So if the use of contraception is acceptable, its implications are clear: sex is not inherently ordered to procreation; it is not a total physical gift of self that would imply the lifelong commitment and unity of marriage; and it does not require respect for sexual difference or the integrity of our bodies. With this understanding of sex, people can feel free to have a series of sexual partners and varying kinds of sexual relationships. This contraceptive mentality has so deeply infiltrated our culture's shared understanding of sexuality that it affects most people whether they use contraception or not.
Facilitator of Abortion & Homosexuality
The pro-life movement has been unsuccessful in dislodging abortion from mainstream American culture because it has not challenged the primary instigator of the sexual culture that requires abortion. The availability of contraception, with its promise of pregnancy prevention, has led to an increase in casual and uncommitted sexual relationships. But the order of nature is not easily squelched: no method of contraception is 100 percent effective, even when it's used properly, which it often is not. As a result, unwelcome pregnancies have become more common instead of less. Such pregnancies often occur between people with no interest in living together permanently, let alone raising a child.
Abortion is the necessary fail-safe for such situations, the final solution that ensures that the unwanted child can be disposed of so that his parents can remain sexually liberated. It is the child sacrifice required to maintain the contraceptive culture. A contracepting society, even one that finds abortion repugnant, will still remain unwilling to give up all legal recourse to abortion, just in case their failed contraception, or their non-contracepted promiscuity encouraged by the contraceptive culture, ever leaves them with an unwanted pregnancy. They don't want their daughter "punished with a baby."
The contraceptive mentality has also paved the way for the acceptance of homosexuality. If sex need not be directed toward procreation or conjugal unity, and if sexual differences need not be respected, pleasure or some other kind of personal fulfillment becomes the primary goal—a goal that can be attained by all sorts of misuses of one's body and with any assortment of partners. If the use of contraception is acceptable, there is no principled reason why homosexual acts should not be.
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