Betsy Kneepkens: Contraception has been a disaster, and Catholics can lead the way out

According to Planned Parenthood, artificial contraception did not become legal until 1965, and when it did, contraception was only available for married women. Before 1965, most women and men considered birth control a great harm and dangerous to women, marriage, and society. Therefore, the U.S. government did not permit its use before the ’60s. 

Betsy Kneepkens Faith and Family

Despite numerous concerns, “the Pill” was legalized worldwide and made lawful only after three doctor visits and a prescription. In 1968, the Catholic Church intentionally affirmed its teachings on love, marriage, and the openness to God’s gift that exist in the procreative union. In that encyclical, “Humanae Vitae,” Pope St. Paul VI professes God’s plan and invitation to work collaboratively with married couples. 

This document expresses the challenges inherent in raising families and family planning. And yet, the teaching affirms God’s masterful design, where married couples must remain open to God’s work by naturally interpreting the couples’ fruitfulness. Included is the proclamation Natural Family Planning is an effective way to manage fertility and stay steadfast in God’s plan. In other words, Humanae Vitae encourages couples to use their God-given ability to effectively manage fertility while keeping the unitive and procreative nature of conjugal love Christ-centered. 

In No. 17 of Humanae Vitae, the church lists consequences anticipated when there is a wide acceptance and use of artificial birth control. Fifty years later, we know Pope Paul VI was correct, I would even say prophetic, when he claimed that accepting contraception would increase marital infidelity and decrease moral standards. The dramatic increase in divorce rate from the 1960s to today would signify he was correct, as well as the dramatic increase in couples living together without the benefit of marriage. 

Another prophecy was a decrease in reverence due to women. The horrific reality of the large-scale human trafficking business and Internet porn are undoubtedly just a couple of glaring signs that girls and women are not respected. The pope also noted that when the government sees family planning within its purview, it will use its authority to regulate families for the country’s best interest and not in the interest of individuals’ families or God’s sacred plan. Again, Pope Paul was right, and we have seen this repeatedly, with one of the greatest offenders being China’s one-child policy. 

Within the last few years, a secular documentary called “The Business of Birth Control” (not a show for young eyes) highlighted the harm and danger of women using synthetic hormones or devices to manage their fertility. This documentary expresses that women essentially, if not medically required to suspend use, live with the challenging side effects and difficulties associated with the Pill or device use. The norm for most women in this country is to put up with, accept, and shut up about what contraception is doing to them. 

Worse yet, many women don’t even realize that the difficulties they experience, daily, have much to do with taking artificial birth control. As a person with seven sisters and female friends, I have been made aware of critical situations, including blood clots, mental health, and even death, because of contraceptive use. The answer to all these instances of medical malfeasance is professed in Humanae Vitae, yet that teaching is largely ignored, even by Catholics. 

No doubt Pope Paul IV was prophetic. However, I would say he did not go far enough. The world is experiencing consequences that will have long-term impacts, and few in the medical community, government, or the media are willing to address them. 

The legalization of “birth control” created a contraceptive mentality in the United States and nearly every other culture in the world. Children are perceived as burdens and financial drains. Marriage is no longer considered a complementary union that mutually supports the tendencies and struggles that bind husband and wife in a beautiful interdependence to achieve a common purpose. Marriage is no longer seen as an instrument that ties a father to his children. Young adults put off marriage and family to travel, pay off loans, and achieve career success and material wealth. The median age for first childbearing is the highest in all recorded history at 30 years of age. If a woman waits to have her first child at 30, there is now a 50 percent chance she will not achieve a pregnancy. Women who put off motherhood until 30 have far fewer children than those who start before middle age. 

A contraceptive mentality has a long list of cultural adversities besides less child bearing, including but not limited to an increase in sexually transmitted diseases, taxpayers’ appropriation void of family-centric policies, an increase in loneliness, acquaintance rape, mental health issues, and infertility. 

However, the most significant concern is the population crisis in the United States and globally. Different from what you will hear from the media, government, or classrooms around the country, we need more people supporting an aging population. Younger friends refrained from having children or had just one child because they bought into the lie that we are overpopulated. Those individuals must now solve the problem of how they age without the support of loving children in a society already overextended with the needs of the elderly. 

Because conjugal love is no longer considered a procreative act and we live with a societal contraceptive mentality, 70 percent of the world does not have replacement value. In other words, young children are being born at a lower rate than older members of society die. You need a 2.1 fertility rate to maintain a population. The United States is faring better than most with a fertility rate of 1.64; Japan is at 1.34, China at 1.28, and Korea at a tragic .84. The population will increase for a time until the pre-contraception generation dies off, at which time the world population will take a nosedive. 

What will this crisis look like? Experts say the most complex challenge to overcome will be loneliness. Friendship is a beautiful blessing, but when the elderly need care and support, children’s innate desire to protect and care for their parents depends on this social order. Friends will have their own family to care for, so childless elderly will be left to fend for themselves. 

Our culture will also need help finding enough employees to support the aging population’s needs and health care, and the cost of health care will skyrocket as there will not be enough employees putting in finances for what is being taken out. Real estate costs will plummet as the elderly move into small quarters, and there will not be the families to purchase all of our real estate. Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security will be dramatically underfunded and unsustainable. This crisis is beyond anything any culture has ever faced. 

A contraceptive mentality essentially neuters its populace, making the self the primary social subject. This condition threatens decisions primarily made for the sake of others and acts of sacrificial love. 

Instead of examining the endless list of woes our society has placed upon ourselves because of our contraceptive mentality, we have recently made artificial contraception available over the counter so that additional barriers stand in our way of living God’s plan. 

Catholics have solved nearly all the major crises since Christ established his church. I see this population decline as yet another way for our church to share the Good News of God’s plan. We must acknowledge this critical situation. We must bring the matter to the public square. We must oppose artificial contraception and any efforts to make it readily available. We must continue to point out that the contraceptive mentality is not working for our culture or the world. We must be wide accepters of the Good News that is shared in documents like Humanae Vitae. We must cooperate with our Creator and accept his fiat to be fruitful and multiply. 

As Catholics, we ought to wait until we are sacramentally bonded to experience conjugal union, manage our fertility in a way our Creator gifted to us, and be open to accepting God’s children lovingly and responsibly. This plan innately builds a balanced population, expanding the youth and caring for the elderly. 

Humanae Vitae beautifully expresses God’s plan for love, marriage, procreation, and rearing children. Our deviation from his plan has caused catastrophic issues. As always, he waits for our return. Let us Catholics be the ones that witness to the world his Good News, turn the tide of population decline, and come rest in him again. 

Betsy Kneepkens is director of the Office of Marriage, Family, and Life for the Diocese of Duluth and a mother of six.