Isn’t using birth control better than having unwanted teen pregnancies and abortions?

Because of the widespread use of birth control, more people than ever have sex without intending to have children. Sex out of wedlock has become far more common, and more sex means more babies. Some argue that teaching people how to use contraceptives will alleviate the problem. But research shows that “programs in safer sex education and condom distribution have not reduced the out-of-wedlock birth rates among sexually experienced teens. . . . The fact is, increased condom use by teens is associated with increased out-of-wedlock birth rates.”[1]

In Colorado, one school began passing out condoms to the students. Within three years the birth rate rose 31 percent above the national average, and in one school year one hundred births were expected among the twelve hundred students. The administrators were described as “searching for explanations.”[2]

When unwanted pregnancies occur, many turn to abortion as a solution. In fact, studies show that about half of all unintended pregnancies end in abortion.[3] Some argue that increased use of contraception could have lowered these abortion rates. However, the research institute of the nation’s largest abortion provider admits that most women who receive abortions had been using birth control during the month they became pregnant![4]

Such couples feel that the “fault” of the pregnancy can be blamed on the failed contraception, but by contracepting they have already set their wills against new life. Since contraception treats pregnancy as if it were a disease, many people conclude that abortion must be the cure. I once saw a condom advertisement that called pregnancy “the mother of all nightmares.” With this mentality it is no surprise that the sex researcher Alfred Kinsey said, “At the risk of being repetitious, I would remind the group that we have found the highest frequency of induced abortion in the group which, in general, most frequently used contraceptives.”[5] Even a former medical director of Planned Parenthood admitted in 1973, “As people turn to contraception, there will be a rise, not a fall, in the abortion rate.”[6] Fifty million abortions later, no one can dispute his prediction.

Lastly, it should be noted that anyone who believes that contraception decreases abortions ignores the fact that hormonal birth control can cause abortions.[7] Click here for details on that.

Mother Teresa did not need to see the statistics. She was well aware of the connection between contraception and abortion when she said in a speech in the presence of Bill and Hillary Clinton:

“The way to plan the family is Natural Family Planning, not contraception. In destroying the power of giving life, through contraception, a husband or wife is doing something to self. This turns the attention to self and so destroys the gift of love in him or her. In loving, the husband and wife must turn the attention to each other. Once that living love is destroyed by contraception, abortion follows very easily.”[8]

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[1]. The Consortium of State Physicians Resource Councils, “New Study Shows Higher Unwed Birthrates Among Sexually Experienced Teens Despite Increased Condom Use” (February 10, 1999).
[2]. Jana Mazanee, “Birth Rate Soars at Colorado School,” USA Today, May 19, 1992, 3A.
[3]. Stanley Henshaw, “Unintended Pregnancy in the United States,” Family Planning Perspectives 30:1 (1998), 24–29, 46.
[4]. Rachel Jones, “Reported contraceptive use in the month of becoming pregnant among U.S. abortion patients in 2000 and 2014,” Contraception 97 (2018) 309–312; Rachel Jones, et al., “Contraceptive Use Among U.S. Women Having Abortions in 2000–2001,” Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health 34:6 (November/December 2002), 296.
[5]. Mary S. Calderone, ed., Abortion in the United States: A Conference Sponsored by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the New York Academy of Medicine (New York: Harper and Row, 1958), 157.
[6]. Malcolm Potts, Cambridge Evening News, February 7, 1973, as quoted in “The Connection: Abortion, Permissive Sex Instruction, and Family Planning,” Life Research Institute (January 2000).
[7]. Walter L. Larimore and Joseph B. Stanford, “Postfertilization Effects of Oral Contraceptives and Their Relationship to Informed Consent,” Archives of Family Medicine 9 (February 2000), 126–133.
[8]. Mother Teresa, February 5, 1994, National Prayer Breakfast, Washington, D.C.