Like many university health centers, there is a wall of health related pamphlets by the door for students to take and peruse. I noticed a couple of odd ones today that upon inspection were supplied by "One More Soul" a conservative Christian group. My best guess is that someone snuck them in there so I took them both for the sanity of future bored students and curiosity.

The breast cancer one is just obvious fear mongering (for a good refutation see here). But the contraception--->abortion was just chock full of wonderful bad social science. Because I'm too lazy to photograph each pamphlet page I found it conveniently typed on their website: http://onemoresoul.com/downloadable-pamphlets/the-connection-between-contraception-and-abortion-2.html

My first thought is, who the fuck is Prof Janet E Smith? Well her professional academic page tells us she is a PhD in theology and teaches at Sacred Heart Seminary. She is very anti-contraception and has even authored a book titled Contraception: Why not so you know this is going to be an unbiased piece of writing.

She starts by saying she is going to be brave and draw a connection between abortion and contraception unlike other so called pro-lifers, the weaklings. Then she dives into things like the Supreme Court proving we need abortion to support our "contraceptive lifestyles" and how most scholars ignore this in favor of ridiculous claims about overpopulation, which are totally untrue y'all. But she knows the truth and is brave enough to say it.

We have lived for about thirty years with a culture permeated with contraceptive use and abortion; no longer can we think that greater access to contraception will reduce the number of abortions. Rather, wherever contraception is more readily available the number of unwanted pregnancies and the number of abortions increases greatly.

There is absolutely no evidence that more contraception access leads to more abortions & unwanted pregnancies. Studies vary on how much free contraception reduces abortion rates - for example, one found that it cut them by 62%. But even if you want to contest that study there is no evidence that abortion rates are going up. In fact, those rates are going down and studies suggest it is probably due to better contraception not subject to human error the way condoms & remembering pills are. Also, let's be honest that our pre-legalized abortion numbers are very likely underreported because it was illegal.

The contraceptive mentality treats sexual intercourse as though it had little natural connection with babies; it thinks of babies as an “accident” of intercourse, as an unwelcome intrusion into a sexual relationship, as a burden. The sexual revolution has no fondness–no room for–the connection between sexual intercourse and babies. The sexual revolution simply was not possible until fairly reliable contraceptives were available.

Unmarried women were having sex prior to the invention of the pill. Let's get that out of the way. But they were stigmatized while men were not. The sexual revolution meant women got to use the pill in order to engage in the same activities men did without the repercussions. The birth control pill definitely impacted attitudes and activities. But Andrew Francis argues that the sexual revolution really began with a different pill - penicillin - and in the 1950s. When syphilis fears dropped because it was suddenly treatable, people started worrying much less about the consequences of sex and as a result things like teen pregnancy increased dramatically. In fact, teen pregnancy rates were significantly higher in the 1950s than they are now.

Much of this data suggests that there is something deep in our natures that finds the severing of sexual intercourse from love and commitment and babies to be unsatisfactory. As we have seen, women are careless in their use of contraceptives for a variety of reasons, but one reason for their careless use of contraceptives is precisely their desire to engage in meaningful sexual activity rather than in meaningless sexual activity. They want their sexual acts to be more meaningful than a handshake or a meal shared

I think she underestimates the meaningfulness of a good orgasm. But she's also building her case using a 1975 sociology book by Lurker which used 60 case studies of women who got abortions to make some wild claims. Even if her characterization of Lurker's work was accurate, it is highly unlikely that it reflects the norms today because many of the women explicitly state their rationale was based upon gender role norms and expectations of the time period. However, Lurker is highlighting the incredible tensions that attitudes like Prof Smith's create where women feel torn between "traditional" roles that include marriage & motherhood and the stigma of violating that which can lead to the perceived need to get an abortion to prevent a socially unacceptable outcome.

Ok there's more but I've ranted long enough. I am just annoyed that someone created official looking pamphlets to trick college students into thinking this is legitimately backed up by mainstream medical doctors and social scientists.