In Live Action’s final video in its Truth About Sex series, founder and president Lila Rose discusses concerns surrounding contraception, including the negative effects it has on individuals and society, as well as an alternative that exists when married couples remain open to life and utilize natural family planning.
Rose begins the video by noting that sex has two purposes: the procreative (which creates new life) and the unitive (which binds a man and woman together). Despite this, the culture today disconnects sex and procreation through the use of contraception.
Contraception is defined in the video as the use of artificial means to block conception (the sperm meeting the egg), also called fertilization, from taking place during sexual intercourse. Rose states that this violates the purposes for which sex exists — disconnecting sex from procreation, disconnecting procreation from a real commitment between the man and the woman, and therefore disconnecting sex from love and marriage.
Contraception’s negative effects
Rose explains that while there are a number of negative effects that stem from contraception, the biggest negative impact it has had is the increase in abortion. Contraception as a whole in society has led to a dramatic increase in sex between unmarried people who are unprepared and unwilling to be parents, which in turn has led to an increase in abortions. Nearly 9 in 10 women seeking abortions are unmarried, and about half of all women seeking abortion in the U.S. reported being on contraception the month they became pregnant, statistics show. Rose also notes that some forms of hormonal contraception have the potential to prevent the uterine implantation of the newly-fertilized human embryo, which has the effect of ending or aborting that life.
Rose also states that contraception has contributed to a decline in marriage rates and an increase in divorce. One of the most obvious effects of contraception, however, is that it treats women’s fertility as a disease rather than the sign of health that it is.
“This is the exact opposite of reality,” Rose points out, as she says that much of a woman’s physical, emotional, and mental well-being is tied to her fertility.
READ: ‘The Truth About Sex’: Fatherlessness is a crisis impacting human lives and human flourishing
Other negative impacts in a society that promotes contraception are listed in the video as well.
A natural alternative
Rose asks what, then, is a better and healthier solution for couples who are preparing for a family? This is where fertility awareness — often called Natural Family Planning, or NFP — comes in. NFP allows families to seek to conceive, to delay pregnancy, or to space children, though she also notes that part of the mystery and beauty of marriage and sex is a certain surrender of control to the creation of life.
“As human beings, we can plan pregnancy to a certain degree, but saying yes to marriage and sex is ultimately saying yes to the possibility of life with all its risks and joys,” Rose says.
“In conclusion, it’s highly destructive to us personally and to society when you disconnect sex from its unitive or procreative purposes. Embrace love, embrace marriage, embrace sex, embrace life. Sex is about more than just an orgasm,” Rose says. “Sex is about love, and love requires the gift of our whole selves to another person that we’ve committed our life to.”
