Also in today’s Bucks County Courier Times is a Guest Opinion from Theresa Strenge, R.N., of Lower Makefield, who lambastes Planned Parenthood and its founder Margaret Sanger as being a racist bigot and a supporter of Hitler. I’m not going to do research into Sanger’s life to try and refute these charges since it’s quite possible Strenge is right. However, Henry Ford also supported Hitler as he documented his philosophies on the workplace, including theories which Hitler and the Nazis parroted in their own propaganda (you can look that up). Does that mean that we should never buy one of his company’s automobiles again? I have my own reasons for avoiding Ford for all time, but the company founder’s philosophy isn’t one of them.
Strenge puts out some genuine crackpot stuff in her screed, saying that government funding of contraception for the poor is “adored by adult male predators,” and she rails against contraception saying that it increases divorce, child abuse, and both teen and unplanned pregnancies without offering a shred of statistical evidence to back up these fantastic claims.
The true goal of Strenge’s column, though, is to extol the virtues of Natural Family Planning. This is of interest to me because I said a week or so ago in a post called “Those Who Can’t Shouldn’t Teach” that NFP is not a means of birth control, but is instead a means to determine the optimum conditions for conception.
Not being a woman or a medical professional, I can’t speak authoritatively on the effects of birth control pills or other forms of contraception. However, I believe it is better for our kids to have the best information and means at their disposal when it comes to issues of physical health, which this is first and foremost. Abstinence is the best policy for many reasons, but if something happens with our kids, they deserve protection instead of being left to fend totally for themselves when it comes to pregnancy and the spread of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. And according to the polling data I see on this subject, the vast majority of the people in this country agree with me.
One more thing: Strenge describes herself as stay-at-home mom for the last 10 years with 6 kids. Hmmm…just a hint of a double standard there, do you think?
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