Planning is a good thing. Right? You plan vacations, you plan moves, you plan parties. You can plan anyting except, according to some, planning to get pregnant and have a family is evil. Why?

That is silly!!! It takes the worry out of the equation, and puts you in charge. If you are an adult, you are supposed to be in charge of your life, so why not be in charge of one of the most important decisions you will ever make. But for those who choose spontaneity , that is great too!!

Wrong. Having relations without the intent to have a child is bad. Please listen to The Pope. Thank you.

Planning is good.  Using abortion to stop an unplanned pregnacy is bad.  Abortion is not contraception....abortion is not planning.

Because that's not what social conservative/religious objection to birth control (and, to some extent, abortion) is about.

There is an empirical reality to be dealt with. Sex is one of the most powerful motivating forces in human beings and, in the absence of measures to manage consequences, sex can lead to negative outcomes such as:

A) Unwanted pregnancies

B) The spread of venereal diseases

C) Jealousy and sexual competition, which some people express through crime/violence

The social conservative view for dealing with this reality is to limit sex to very narrow circumstances (by legal and/or social sanction) which are least likely to produce negative outcomes.

The alternative approach is to manage and mitigate the negative outcomes (via birth control, medical interventions, and a social emphasis on personal autonomy).

This two approaches are not compatible. One cannot say 'Only have sex when God/the law says so" and then provide birth control methods, legal abortion, and legal indifference to sexual liasons outside the accepted framewok. People tend to see through and exploit such hypocrisy.

I would argue that the evidence of history suggests the social conservative approach does not work, any more than prohibiting psychoactive drugs has stopped people from getting drunk or high. But social conservatives are reluctant to accept that. Libertine behavior (whether it's drugs or sex) is seen as an affront to Legitimate Authority and a desecration of  Human Purity, so social conservatives (i.e. Authoritarians) have a difficult time accepting the morality of the alternative (consequence management) approach.

"social conservative/religious objection to birth control "   I am a social conservative, I have not issue with birth control.  I don't know anyone who has an issue with birth control.  Abortion yes I got problems with that.  Birth control is fine. There is NO war on birth control...no body is trying to make it illegal.

So what are the eggs? Chopped liver? Mahalo for your reply OS and Happy Wednesday.

Abortion is NOT planning m2c. There is nothing planned about it .  Why do so many folks CONFLATE the use of birth control with abortion? Birth control PREVENTS abortion. There is nothing to ABORT if you take birth control pills. Yet you and others continually bring it up as if it is equitable. It is not equitable. The use of birth control PREVENTS the need for abortion. When there is nothing to abort what would you have to abort? The anti-abortion crowd who are also anti -birth control make me crazy. You don't sound like you are one of them but you are using the same conflating tactic. Why? If you KNOW BETTER why don't you stick up for it?  Planned Parenthood and Family Planning clinics dispense birth control information and pills to PREVENT ABORTION because they will prevent conception.. I cannot understand what is so difficult to comprehend. I can't. Can you? Thank you for you reply m2c.

Not planning?   Well, there is a BALANCE to be considered.  Not planning  and just spitting out kids and screwing till the cows come home is beyond evil.  It is careless and stupid beyond measure.  Kids are expensive.  Plan for that at least. 

The use of birth control eliminates the need for abortion.    How can that be such a difficult concept to grasp? Why do so many CONFLATE the use of birth control with abortion? It makes me crazy. Mahalo for your answer OS. So sex is bad and the excuse for it is to have kids. Anything that prevents  that is bad. How simple!   :(

@m2c -- I accept your assertion and believe it to be genuine. However, I will note two things:.

1) Not all social conservatives share your...um. liberal view on birth control. Or, at least, they exploit birth control as a tool for bashing TEH STOOPID EBIL LIBRUHLZ. Witness the attempts to defund Planned Parenthood (even though tax funding for abortion has long been illegal, cf. Hyde Amendentment) and the Rush Limbaugh/Sandra ("She's a slut") Fluke incident.

2) If social conservatives in general are so against abortion, you'd think they would be in favor of effective methods for stopping unwanted pregnancies. One of those methods is widespread availablity of contraceptives and sex education. Social conservatives have been generally hostile to efforts to expand the availablity of birth control methods and birth control information (e.g. the Limbaugh/Fluke incident centered on requiring health insurance plans to provide contraceptives as part of coverage). Also witness the promotion by social conservatives of abstinence-only sex education, which has been empircally shown to be essentially useless.

Such opposition leads to the suspicion that social conservatives' real agenda is to stop people from having sex, unless they are the Right People in the Right Circumstances, which is the short version of my original assertion.

You are welcome to try to present evidence to refute my claim, but I think you would be hard-pressed to do so. There is a pretty clear pattern going back many decades.

@DJAM -- There are societies where the rate of youth/unmarried sexual activity is comparable to the United States. Many of those socities have rates of unwanted pregnancy MUCH lower than those of the United States. When one looks at those societies, one finds they tend to have early and thorough sex education, wide availability of contraceptives (at little or no cost), and a social ethic which promotes economic and social equality for women.

Here in America we have Rush Limbaugh calling Sandra Fluke a "slut" for wanting her health care plan to provide contraceptives, and abstinence-only sex education (from which parents can still opt to excuse their children).

I think that's very telling.

m2c~~