Bryan Fischer
Taxpayer-funded contraception: Nope, not even for married couples
By Bryan Fischer
Our public policy with regard to the family should be based on five principles: sex is good, sex is for marriage, marriage is between a man a woman, children are good, children are for marriage. That's it. Only policies that support these principles should be adopted, and any policies that subvert these principles should be flatly opposed.
Case in point: taxpayer-funded contraception. The utter disaster I call MussoliniCare may soon make contraception free (which means everybody else pays for it) to women in the U.S.
This is a perfectly terrible idea. If couples want to have sex outside marriage, and don't want to conceive children while doing it, let them buy their own contraception or get it from some non-taxpayer funded charity foolish enough to support sexual irresponsibility.
It is grossly wrong to force taxpayers to cough up dough to make it easier for other folks to indulge in sexual promiscuity. As Thomas Jefferson said, it is both "sinful and tyrannical" to "compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves." I'm with T.J. on this one.
To use taxpayer funds to subsidize contraception for unmarried folk is to subsidize sexual immorality, and you always get more of what you pay for. Ask yourself: is there anyone out there, anywhere, who is looking at our culture and saying, you know, the problem here is that we just don't have enough people fooling around?
So no taxpayer funded contraception period for unwed men and women. Period. Not another dime to Planned Parenthood since they insist on handing the stuff out to single people like candy while scarfing down hundreds of millions of tax dollars.
And we shouldn't force Americans to pay for married-couple contraception either. Many Roman Catholics, for instance, believe contraception itself is immoral. To force them to pay for other people to get it is to violate Jefferson's dictum.
If married folk want to have sex without having kids, let them get their own contraception. (To my squawkish friend on the left: note that I am not saying contraception should be illegal.) We want married couples to have more children, not fewer. Our problem is not that married couples are having too many kids, our problem is that they aren't having enough.
Our fertility rate right now is barely at replacement level, and that's with 40% of our children born out-of-wedlock — bastards, to use the quaint and correct term (dictionary: "bastard: a person born of parents not married to each other"). That's not name-calling, it's telling the truth.
Russia has seven million fewer people than it did twenty years ago. The native population in Europe is dying, and Europe is experiencing massive social problems with the Muslims they've imported to make up for the fact they aren't having children of their own. Japan's fertility rate is in such decline that Foreign Policy magazine estimates that the last Japanese child in history will be born before the end of this millennium.
The last thing we need is any public policy that encourages married couples to have fewer children. In fact, the American standard ought to be a minimum of three children per married couple.
God's original instruction to our first parents was to "be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth." This command, which theologians call the "Cultural Mandate," has never been rescinded. It's still in effect today, just as much in effect as it was when first uttered 6,000 years ago.
In order to "multiply" — that is, to grow in number — each couple has to have at least three children. If you have two, you're not multiplying, you're just replacing yourself. Now some couples may have infertility problems, or other medical problems. Such medical problems limited my wife and me, for instance, to two children. Those things are unavoidable in a fallen world.
But to adopt policies that make it easier to replicate by choice circumstances which are either tragic or unfortunate is foolish and short-sighted and harmful to America, its future, and its prosperity.
Capitalism and free enterprise, which together have made the United States the most prosperous, free, and powerful nation in the history of the world, requires one thing: people. An economy cannot grow unless its population grows.
As the ancient proverb has it, "In a multitude of people is the glory of a king, but without people a prince is ruined" (Prov. 14:28). It was true then, and it's true now.
The problem is that the Western world is breeding itself out of existence and our socialist friends in President Dude's administration want to help. It's time they were stopped.
(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)
© Bryan Fischer
November 3, 2010
Our public policy with regard to the family should be based on five principles: sex is good, sex is for marriage, marriage is between a man a woman, children are good, children are for marriage. That's it. Only policies that support these principles should be adopted, and any policies that subvert these principles should be flatly opposed.
Case in point: taxpayer-funded contraception. The utter disaster I call MussoliniCare may soon make contraception free (which means everybody else pays for it) to women in the U.S.
This is a perfectly terrible idea. If couples want to have sex outside marriage, and don't want to conceive children while doing it, let them buy their own contraception or get it from some non-taxpayer funded charity foolish enough to support sexual irresponsibility.
It is grossly wrong to force taxpayers to cough up dough to make it easier for other folks to indulge in sexual promiscuity. As Thomas Jefferson said, it is both "sinful and tyrannical" to "compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves." I'm with T.J. on this one.
To use taxpayer funds to subsidize contraception for unmarried folk is to subsidize sexual immorality, and you always get more of what you pay for. Ask yourself: is there anyone out there, anywhere, who is looking at our culture and saying, you know, the problem here is that we just don't have enough people fooling around?
So no taxpayer funded contraception period for unwed men and women. Period. Not another dime to Planned Parenthood since they insist on handing the stuff out to single people like candy while scarfing down hundreds of millions of tax dollars.
And we shouldn't force Americans to pay for married-couple contraception either. Many Roman Catholics, for instance, believe contraception itself is immoral. To force them to pay for other people to get it is to violate Jefferson's dictum.
If married folk want to have sex without having kids, let them get their own contraception. (To my squawkish friend on the left: note that I am not saying contraception should be illegal.) We want married couples to have more children, not fewer. Our problem is not that married couples are having too many kids, our problem is that they aren't having enough.
Our fertility rate right now is barely at replacement level, and that's with 40% of our children born out-of-wedlock — bastards, to use the quaint and correct term (dictionary: "bastard: a person born of parents not married to each other"). That's not name-calling, it's telling the truth.
Russia has seven million fewer people than it did twenty years ago. The native population in Europe is dying, and Europe is experiencing massive social problems with the Muslims they've imported to make up for the fact they aren't having children of their own. Japan's fertility rate is in such decline that Foreign Policy magazine estimates that the last Japanese child in history will be born before the end of this millennium.
The last thing we need is any public policy that encourages married couples to have fewer children. In fact, the American standard ought to be a minimum of three children per married couple.
God's original instruction to our first parents was to "be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth." This command, which theologians call the "Cultural Mandate," has never been rescinded. It's still in effect today, just as much in effect as it was when first uttered 6,000 years ago.
In order to "multiply" — that is, to grow in number — each couple has to have at least three children. If you have two, you're not multiplying, you're just replacing yourself. Now some couples may have infertility problems, or other medical problems. Such medical problems limited my wife and me, for instance, to two children. Those things are unavoidable in a fallen world.
But to adopt policies that make it easier to replicate by choice circumstances which are either tragic or unfortunate is foolish and short-sighted and harmful to America, its future, and its prosperity.
Capitalism and free enterprise, which together have made the United States the most prosperous, free, and powerful nation in the history of the world, requires one thing: people. An economy cannot grow unless its population grows.
As the ancient proverb has it, "In a multitude of people is the glory of a king, but without people a prince is ruined" (Prov. 14:28). It was true then, and it's true now.
The problem is that the Western world is breeding itself out of existence and our socialist friends in President Dude's administration want to help. It's time they were stopped.
(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)
© Bryan Fischer
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
