We hear all the time the argument that to lower the abortion rate, we need to provide greater access to contraception. This is a typical feature of the so-called “common ground” approach to reducing abortion, and we Catholics are looked at askance for failing to get on board with the agenda of expanding access to contraception as a way to reduce abortions.

There are lots of problems with that approach. One is that it is just plain false. Greater access and use of contraceptives does not reduce abortion. The facts speak for themselves.

Fact 1. Contraceptive use is already “virtually universal among women of reproductive age,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Alan Guttmacher Institute (the research arm of Planned Parenthood) reports that 89% of reproductive-age women already are using contraception and 98% have used it in their lifetime. Even among teenagers who are sexually active and wish to avoid pregnancy, only 7% don’t use contraception.

Fact 2. The typical use of contraceptives still results in pregnancy. Even among women who use contraceptives, there are still unintended pregnancies and abortions. With typical use, the risk of pregnancy over 12 months is 9% with oral contraceptives and 15% with condoms. The failure rate among teenagers is even higher. 48% of women who report an unintended pregnancy, and 54% of women seeking an abortion, were using contraceptives during the time when they became pregnant.

Fact 3. Contraceptive researchers and social scientists have concluded that increased availability of contraception fails to reduce rates of unintended pregnancy and abortion. In fact, it may have the opposite result. One British researcher has said, “It is clear that providing more family planning clinics, far from having the effect of reducing conception rates,has actually led to an increase.” American researcher Douglas Kirby concludes: “Most studies that have been conducted during the past 20 years have indicated that improving access to contraception did not significantly increase contraceptive use or decrease teen pregnancy”

Fact 4. Even the so-called “emergency contraception” doesn’t work to reduce pregnancy and abortion. Research in the U.S., Western Europe and China have all agreed that no effect on pregnancy or abortion rates was demonstrated with advance provision of “emergency contraception”.

Fact 5. The way to reduce teen pregnancy and abortion is to encourage chastity. Studies dating back into the 1990′s clearly show that the most of the reduction in teen pregnancy and abortion rates can be attributed to reduced sexual activity. This is also the most effective way to reduce the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV.

For more information about these statistics, see this report from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Pro-Life Secretariat.

The principal reason that contraception fails to reduce abortion is that it conveys a terrible, anti-life lesson. It teaches that a new human life is the enemy to be avoided at all costs, and certainly not welcomed. When contraceptives fail — as they inevitably do — this lesson leads logically to looking at abortion as a contraceptive of last resort.

This is bad for people, it is bad for society, and it is bad public policy. Don’t fall for it.

The recent document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Dignitatis Personae (“The Dignity of a Person”), addresses a number of thorny moral issues in bioethics. One of the most complex, because of its intersection with public policy, is the issue of so-called “emergency contraception” (EC, for short).

EC is yet another invention of the Culture of Death, the primary purpose of which is to facilitate immoral sexual activity by preventing an undesired pregnancy. That’s why it’s trade name is “Plan B” and it’s usually called “the morning after pill”. There’s no other purpose for this drug. It’s sole goal is to prevent pregnancy after sexual intercourse has happened. Talk about being anti-life — here it is, in very clear, unalloyed form.

Here’s what the United States Food and Drug Administration says about how EC works:

Plan B works like a birth control pill to prevent pregnancy mainly by stopping the release of an egg from the ovary. It is possible that Plan B may also work by preventing fertilization of an egg (the uniting of sperm with the egg) or by preventing attachment (implantation) to the uterus (womb), which usually occurs beginning 7 days after release of an egg from the ovary. Plan B will not do anything to a fertilized egg already attached to the uterus. The pregnancy will continue.

Let me lapse into medical lingo for a second. As designed, EC has two possible functions: as a contraceptive (stopping ovulation, so that conception cannot occur), and as an interceptive (working after conception to stop the new human life from implanting in the uterus). Medical scientists have been studying how the drug actually work in practice. Although some studies indicate that EC does not interfere with implantation, the evidence is inconclusive, and researchers are generally unwilling to rule out the interceptive effect of EC.

That’s the medical talk. In plain language, the “interceptive” effect of EC is actually an early abortion — it destroys a newly conceived human life by preventing it from taking the next stage in its development. Of course, the medical community tries to fudge this by re-defining “pregnancy” to mean the moment when the new human being has implanted in the womb, but the reality is that every life begins before that, at conception. And the entire purpose of EC is to prevent both conception and implantation, and anyone who uses it necessarily intends for it to work as designed.

Dignitatis Personae has a very clear statement about the immorality of using EC:

Anyone who seeks to prevent the implantation of an embryo which may possibly have been conceived and who therefore either requests or prescribes such a pharmaceutical, generally intends abortion… Therefore, the use of means of interception… fall within the sin of abortion and are gravely immoral. (23)

Here is where the public policy comes in. The FDA has approved the over-the-counter distribution of EC for women over the age of 18, but it must be requested from the pharmacist. For younger women, a pharmacist must fill a doctor-issued prescription. But what if a pharmacist does not, in conscience, wish to participate in the sin of abortion that that is an inherent part of the use of EC?

Can she refuse to fill the prescription or hand over the drug, citing her religious beliefs, or will she be fired for doing so? You would think that this is a no-brainer, and that the pharmacist couldn’t be forced to violate her religious beliefs. Yet this is precisely where the battle lines are drawn now. The pro-abortion, pro-contraception crowd is trying to enact laws and regulations to force pharmacists to distribute these drugs, regardless of their religious or moral beliefs. In fact, one of the legacies of the “Senate seat for sale” governor of Illinois is a noxious law that would compel pharmacists to provide EC, even if they object. The law is under challenge, and it’s far from guaranteed that the pharmacists will prevail.

(A much thornier moral issue is the legal requirement that hospitals provide EC to the victims of rape. I’ll blog about that soon.)

Some time soon, you should crack open your Bible and take a look at the Books of Maccabees. It’s a great story of God’s stubborn little people, fighting against powerful rulers who insist that they sacrifice at the altar of the rulers’ gods, and conform to the ruler’s ways, or else suffer persecution. Kind of like those pharmacists, when you think of it. Now, I’m certainly not advocating an armed insurrection, like the Maccabees. But there’s an important lesson to be learned from those stiff-necked rebels.

Discipleship demands that at various times we face the question posed to us by Christ — “Are you mine, or do you belong to the world?” Obviously, if I’m choosing to use EC, then I’m answering that question the wrong way. But if I stand up to the powers-that-be and refuse to give someone EC, because I believe in my heart that I cannot cooperate with an anti-life act, then I’m answering it right.

Which way do we answer the question? That makes all the difference.