timeimmortal

Count Roland writes in with a commentary on this CBC article, in which birth control advocates claim that “millions” need access to “family planning” and safe access to information about contraception…and that in the absence of this information, the result will be millions of deaths.

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/07/14/f-birth-control.html

“Millions of mothers” die because there are no birth control pills? The quoted figure of “one per minute” only yeilds 525K [deaths per anum].

And contraception is not necesarily a part of ‘essential health services’ — how about we make sure there are the antibiotics and other drugs needed, qualified health professionals, and sanitation services rather than ’safe contraception’?

That would, O Reader, be smart. Indeed, much could be done in e.g. Africa if the average African male could be persuaded to remain faithful to a single sexual partner (this would also do wonders, as has been seen in the case of Uganda, to reduce the spread rate of e.g. HIV and AIDS — two birds, one stone!).

But then, it might be too generous to label most birth control activists as “smart”, wouldn’t it? They are, at least, too ignorant to realize that they are solving (or attempting to solve) the wrong problem, as the good Count points out; adequate health care and access to effective medication would do as much — if not much, much more — to reduce the mortality rate associated with pregnancy in the poorer countries on the world than access to birth control ever could hope to.

Personally, I find this little quoted tidbit of information to be particularly odious, as it is reflective of a reasoning that is becoming more and more common in the birth control industry and lobby:

Birth control can prevent 2.7 million newborn deaths each year.

This is classic Screwtape. Okay, yes, technically it is probably true that birth control could prevent over two million infants from dying each and every year. But hidden in this vague truth is a more terrible truth: the method of prevention has nothing to do with properly caring for those infants and seeing that they are given adequate nutrition, and in fact has everything to do with preventing the infants themselves from ever existing in the first place.

And therein is the lie.

The other day, my wife was looking to buy some particle board (long story, don’t ask). She bought one sheet at a cost of just over $5, but had to go back for a second sheet. The second sheet didn’t have a price tag, and eventually the clerk must have found a product SKU he could use…and the sheet rang in at $34.99. Thinking this couldn’t possibly be correct, my wife followed things up with the store’s manager, and he actually let her have it for $1. I joked that were this a Dilbertian office, she could claim on her achievement report that she had just saved the company $33.99.

Of course, that would hardly be truthful…but that’s exactly the sort of logic that is being employed in the above argument for birth control: let’s prevent over two million deaths by preventing over two million births!

On one hand, it is good that the pro-contraception lobby can be shown up as liars without much effort. On the other hand, far too many people are being swayed by what are obviously flimsy lies that crumble under even the slightest analysis (remember: one death per minute does not yield millions of deaths each year: in a typical year, it yields 525,600 deaths…and arguably, most of those deaths are not due to a lack of access to birth control either — they are probably due to lack of nutrition and lack of access to normal, effective pre-natal medical care).

Update: Welcome, UnAborted readers!

~ by Kenneth on July 18, 2008.