The Pope represents a whole lot of people, many of whom agree with much of the Democratic party platform, but who side with the Republicans based primarily on abortion. So it makes a lot of political sense for a Democratic president to convince the Pope that he’s trying to reduce abortions, and thus has plenty to do with the Pope.
What do you call people who use the rythm method?
Parents.
I don’t think that’s right. If some irresponsible kids have a baby they can’t take care of, we should take care of that baby regardless of how bad its parents are. In fact this is one of my main criticisms of the pro-life crowd. I don’t think the pro-life crowd realized how badly it is being exploited by people who could care less if the children of unwanted pregnancies starve in the streets.
If the abortion issue didn’t exist, the Republicans wouldn’t win elections. Most pro-life folks I know would vote for a fiscally conservative Democrat if it wasn’t for the abortion issue.
It should be noted that Natural Family Planning, the one birth control method condoned by the Church, is not the same thing as the rhythm method, and in fact is reasonably reliable. In both the rhythm method and NFP, the idea is to not have sex while the woman is fertile, but the difference is in how you determine when she’s fertile: In the rhythm method, you determine based only on the time since her last period, while NFP also uses data from temperature, mucous thickness, etc.
I would think that having to stop and test mucous would kind of kill the mood. And I used to think having to put on a glove was a drag.
That’s why the method is so effective. Duh. =P
Do you mean Knaus-Ogino method, which combines thermometer and calendar? Because I’Ve heard that in the evaluation of effectiveness of contraceptives (condom, pill, spiral,), usually given in pregnancies per 1 000 couples per year, it’s ridicously high, that is, uneffective. (I don’t have a proper cite right now, but it was in the ballpark of condom 3, Knaus-Ogino 50).
Wouldn’t better sex education reduce abortions?
It is something the federal government can have a hand on if I understand correctly…
snerk
Sorry. My inner 12-year-old escaped. 
Seriously, though, better sex-ed, better access to contraception, better programs to enhance self-worth, better official attitudes to actually DEALING with teen sex and with sex in general. Of course, half of those are not going to be accepted as “kosher” (if you’ll forgive the religious-metaphor-mixing) by the Church, especially the contraception, and the better sex-ed isn’t going to be greeted with Alleluias by the rank and file Catholics out there. Catholic sex-ed is still “abstinence” with a dash of “here’s how you check your mucus and temperature for when you want to avoid having a child with your HUSBAND!”
Well, the feds could subsidize sex ed, but schooling in the US is almost exclusively managed at that state level. It might be difficult to get a sex ed “stimulus” bill (pun intended) through Congress, even with the Dems in control.
This always kinda confused me. Why is timing your intercourse so that you do not conceive any worse than using a prophylactic to avoid conception? Its not like timed intercourse is any less “recreational”
The snarky answer is: The Pope/RCC approves of Knaus-Ogino method of prevention and not condoms, because it doesn’t work, so people will continue to live in fear when having sex.
The offical answer is that the Pope(s) in the encyclicas dealing with contraception, have declared in their wisdom that Knaus-Ogino is natural (against the biological evidence), while the pill and condoms reduce the women to a mere sex thing, because the men can then have sex every time they want (against the evidence of real life, where e.g. many men using the Knaus-Ogino method have more sex on the unfertile days to compensate for the fertile days when they have to abstain…)
I should have said, same in aims. Both strategies aim at reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies and therefore of abortions. The difference is that sex-ed and contraception-ed might actually work for that end, while abstinence-only ed never will.
No, that’s another misunderstanding of it. Abstinence education has no hope of reducing STIs or pregnancy. Simply because it works on almost no one. Of all the people I know in life, none but one of them was a virgin upon marriage, or will be should they ever get married.
People who use the rhythm method are some people who have children they cannot afford, also it is not good for a marriage to have sex only when one cannot concieve. I know many couples who had problems over this issue.
A responsible person will use a contracepion product, have a vasectomy or have their tubes tied, and will think before they concieve a child they cannot take care of (or not want).
Yes, I agree we have to look out for the children after they are born, they are innocent of what their parents do. But when some one keeps having children and neglects them (or as in some countries) have several children and they are all starving to death, that is not being a responsible parent.
Kids who are taught the proper way to use their sexuality responsibily are least likely to have a child. Some schools have a child carry around a doll who can act like a baby and they have to take care of it just as if it were a real child and if their parents teach them to be responsible it also helps. abstinence only may be the surest way, but lets face it there are a lot of babies born to people who practice just such a method, and as Sara Palin’s daughter showed, it doesn’t always work.
You can tell the Pope is a man. The woman is more receptive to sex when she is fertile( that is biology). People who have better sexual experiences will make better parents. I know of women who have complained about having sex only when they cannot concieve, having a lot of children they do not want, but must take care of, is not a good idea either for a man or a woman. People who are better educated about their sexuality are better parteners than those who are not.
I can look back 70 years and remember over hearing conversations from people who were in such situations. My parents had many arguments about such issues and took their frustrations out on us. A woman who is pregnant all of her fertile years is not (in most cases ) the best Mother! Who can blame her, she can see that the more stess she has the harder it is to be a good parent and the father who has to wait is also not the best dad.
Worse, he’s an old eunuch who never had either sex or the problems of parenting. As is the rest of the curie who do the thinking about the moral ethics of the Catholics.
Peter de Rosa, in his books about the RCC (Vicars of Christ had a lenghty part explaining about the changes in attitude towards sex leading up to the Pill encyclica; and his third book is entirly about the Sex morals of the RCC) remarked that when the last Popes wrote and spoke about the joys of big families, they were remembering things from their POV as children … where they didn’t see the whole picture, and all the problems the parents had keeping all children fed and clothed, or how stressful it is to be a parent, and then want to cuddle, but not dare because it’s a fertile day.
Having trouble working up any outrage on this one…I think the goals are great, and it’s also pretty cool that Obama is able to take the time out from all the other stuff on his plate to start working on this as well.
I’m not sure what the Pope is going to think of such a program of education and ramping up on birth control, but as long as he isn’t reading between the lines then everyone is happy. And, frankly, if the Pope isn’t happy he can go and pound sand for all I care. 
-XT
There are very few babies born to people who practice such a method. The problem isn’t the people practicing it; it’s the people who intend to practice it but don’t.
Of course, to be fair when comparing methods, if you’re going to include people who plan to abstain but don’t in the statistics for abstinence failure, then you should also include people who plan to use condoms but don’t in the statistics for condom failure.
But whenever a person who relies on abstinence only falters, they are necessarily having risky sex each time.
When a person who relies on condoms and what not, each time they have sex, there’s only a possibility of it being risky.
So, abstinence only failure rates always result in risky behavior whereas safer sex methods only rarely do. See the difference?