Dear Baptist Press, contraception is not ‘embryocidal’

I write this in an effort to clarify the basic functions of birth control.

It’s important for Christian women to know they should not be wary of “contraception culture,” as a recent article published by Baptist Press’ David Roach claims.

Roach interviewed Evan Lenow, an associate professor at Mississippi College and director of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary’s Clinton, Miss., extension. Lenow holds a Ph.D. in Christian ethics from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

And according to Roach’s article, Lenow challenges his ethics students to consider “that a married couple’s efforts to prevent pregnancy might be morally problematic.”

He describes the use of birth control to prevent pregnancy as “commodifying children,” arguing married couples should not have in mind a “perfect number of children” to have, but instead should view children as a blessing.

To cover his bases, the article says Lenow believes there “may be situations where having a child would be unwise” and that “contraception may be warranted” (emphasis mine) for those suffering mental illness, financial strain or a medical issue “that needs to be resolved before a woman gets pregnant.”

But in general, it seems Lenow believes hormonal birth control in general is an immoral thing to partake in.

Roach’s article also considers the perspective of OB-GYN Jeff Barrows, former senior vice president at the Christian Medical and Dental Associations.

Barrows is part of a minority of obstetricians who assert that life begins at fertilization and that some birth control methods have the potential to destroy unborn life. He describes these as “embryocidal,” a term used by anti-abortion advocates for medications that destroy human embryos.

However, it is important to note the way this term is used in Roach’s article is not accurate to its true meaning.

“Contraceptive medications cannot destroy an already fertilized embryo.”

“Embryocidal” is a faux medical term used by anti-abortionists to equate abortion with murder. It is a term referring to medications that terminate pregnancies, which are called “abortifacients.” Popular examples of these medications are mifepristone and misoprostol, although there are others.

These medications are wildly different from contraceptive medications, such as the birth-control pill, IUDs, condoms or even the morning-after pill.

Contraceptive medications cannot destroy an already fertilized embryo — they are preventative medications that stop the egg from being fertilized by the sperm in the first place. Contraception does not (and cannot) terminate a pregnancy.

Abortifacients, on the other hand, do terminate pregnancies by causing cramping and bleeding that empties the uterus, expelling any embryo tissue that may be present.

To understand these terms more clearly, let’s take a moment to review basic reproductive science.

It can take an entire menstrual cycle for pregnancy to occur following sexual intercourse. When an egg is fertilized by a sperm, it is not necessarily true that it will become an embryo. Conception takes time.

After fertilization, the egg must implant into the uterus. This does not always occur, but if it does, it is here that these cells may continue to multiply, ultimately growing into an embryo. But even when a fertilized egg implants, it is not a guarantee the process will continue. These steps can occur without leading to pregnancy.

Contraception prevents these steps from beginning. Abortifacients stop the process once it has begun (and are only effective until about eight to nine weeks in). These are different processes.

So, the idea that contraception is “embryocidal” is a factually wrong attempt to blur the lines between pregnancy prevention (contraception) and termination (abortion). Arguments about the moral permissibility of contraception cannot ethically conflate the two, because they are very different.

The ethical risk of this conflation (aside from providing misleading medical advice) is that it utilizes misinformation to promote theological guilt among women and other birth-control users who are attempting to make responsible and safe choices. Use of terms like “embryocide” further confuse and frighten media consumers as well, since they conflate both these medical terms with murder.

But Lenow explains the deeper reason we ought to want children is because of Psalm 127’s insistence that a “quiver full” of children will make a man happy. He says when couples use contraception to prevent these children from being born they view children as a commodity, valuing them by their financial burden or reward.

But in the ancient Near Eastern context, this Psalm is precisely referring to the economic value of having children in a time when life expectancy was very short.

Culturally and historically, a person’s economic well-being hinged upon the production of children so they could carry on family legacies, such as working a family’s farmland and eventually inheriting it.

Children also were important to social life; daughters were considered marriageable once they began menstruating, an economic exchange that often centered social and economic status more so than romance. But having sons was the jackpot, since they would grow up to be men with economic agency who could care for their aging parents and eventually carry on the family legacy.

So, the psalm is evidence that children were a very hot commodity to ancient Near Eastern parents. The same is not true for our society today, so the application of this verse for modern readers must be more nuanced.

“The real ethical issue at hand throughout anti-contraception arguments like these is not about the Bible at all.”

But let me be clear: The real ethical issue at hand throughout anti-contraception arguments like these is not about the Bible at all. It is about demonizing women’s choices about their bodies.

This is not an ethical understanding of contraception. This is a way of controlling women’s bodies. If it were a real consideration of how contraception impacts families, these conversations would include the voices of women who use it.

The entire argument, in fact, centers the choices made by heteronormative married couples. The “ethical” expectation, it seems, is that married women make a choice about their own bodies with the permission of their husbands. The piece (and anti-contraception propaganda in general) leaves no room for conversations about why women and others with uteruses who are not married would choose to use contraception.

Is it because unmarried women ought to be virginal and pure for their future husbands? Is contraception evidence of promiscuity? Could there really be no reason other than sexual deviance that a person might want or need to use birth control?

Now is a good time to note that women with disabilities encounter numerous barriers to contraception access due to assumptions they will never be sexually desired by a partner, yet they are one of the most likely demographics of people to become pregnant following a sexual assault. If contraception is abhorrent, where is the ethical choice for these women?

But I digress. None of the sources cited in the BP article were women, and it is unsurprising. Anti-contraception propaganda — wrapped in the paper of theological ethics or not — is not about women at all.

It is about access and control over women’s bodies.

It is about ethical and religious guilt that shames women for basic medical care. It is about men dictating what is possible for women.

 

Mallory Challis is a master of divinity student at Wake Forest University School of Divinity. She is a former Clemons Fellow with BNG and is a North Carolina native.