Contraceptive or Abortive?

Clearly as Catholics, we're not supposed to be doing either one, nor do I have any desire to, but in regards to questions of conscience and regulation the facts of the matter are clearly important. It's been discussed often in pro-life circles over the years that oral contraception is designed such that it sometimes allows fertilization but prevents implanation -- thus in effect causing a spontaneous abortion several hours after conception. This is generally applied even more so to "morning after" pills, which is a reason why some pharmicists have conscience objections to dispensing such medications. Given that that Protestant half of the pro-life movement is often fairly comfortable with birth control in concept, this "the pill causes abortion a certain percentage of the time" argument has often been used to help unify the pro-life movement against birth control.

Regardless of whether it's true, I think that clearly the contraceptive mentality and the approach to sex it entails is certainly a major cause of support for abortion.

All that said, I'd very curious as to the reaction of Catholics more educated in the precise medical details of human reproduction than I am to this Slate post, which argues that the evidence for abortificant properties to The Pill and Plan B is slim to none.

I've no particular interest in endorsing Saletan's opinions generally, he's the one who made the to my mind rather nutty argument a while back that Planned Parenthood was overall an anti-abortion organization because contraception prevents unwanted pregnancies. But if it's correct as a matter of medical science that it's very, very rare for oral contraceptive and even "morning after" pills to cause spontaneous abortions, we'll do nothing but make ourselves look unconcerned with the truth (and the scientific truth of embryology is very much on our side when it comes to what the pro-life movement says about abortion as opposed to what the "just a clump of cells" people say) if we keep pushing it.

Feedback from those with medical or scientific knowledge of the issue would be appreciated.

Getting Involved in a Land War in Germania

Generally speaking, the Romans pulled back on making further progress into northern Germany after the massacre at Teutoburg Forest late in the reign of Augustus. However, archeologists appear to have found a battle site just south of Hanover (in Lower Saxony) where a Roman legion squared off against Germanic tribesman in the mid 3rd Century A.D. Science Magazine has one of the more complete versions of the story.

Year in review

Via Melanie, the Blog in Review Meme:

Post the first sentence of your first blog post of each month. You can also add a favorite picture from each month.

No pix because I didn't feel like it, but here are the sentences.

January

When the Darwin children tore the wrapping off their Christmas presents last week, they bore tags like "From Mom and Dad" and "From Grandma" but not "From Santa".

February

UPDATE: TS writes to inform us that an update has been posted to the link below, in which CleanFlicks denies that the offender ever worked for or was associated with them.

March

I got a call from my younger sister tonight. "Darwin, do you know if a consecration with bread that is probably leavened is valid?"

April

A National Review piece by Arthur C. Brooks today notes an interesting study result:
In 1996, the General Social Survey asked a large sample of Americans whether they agreed that, “The government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality.”

May

My daughters' preferred method of selecting library books is to sweep an armful off a shelf into a basket and stagger over to a table to peruse them.

June

“Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.

July

Over at Teeny Manolo, Glinda has put up a list of the pros and cons of having only one child.

August

A couple weeks ago, MrsDarwin and I drove by the tea shop in the "old down town" of our area (a single street with difficult parking which is not within walking distance of anywhere and not easy to get to, but features a dozen picturesque old buildings on each side of the street and the public library down at the end) and saw that it was closing its physical premises and becoming an online-only business.

September

Our ability to speak, not just communicate but truly use language, is one of those things that sets us apart from the rest of creation.

October

I had to run out and do some errands during lunch, and then picked up a hamburger to eat at my desk.

November

As if to make sure I can't spend too much of my time reading and writing political blogging, the job has me in training the first half of this week.

December

Taking a quiet Saturday morning to catch up on reading the newspaper, I was perusing a WSJ article on the lost virtue of prudence in our modern American society when I came across this jarring note: "The puzzling thing is that, under normal circumstances, our Americanus prudens should be flourishing."

I'm glad to see that one of these features what seems to be our most popular jump-off: "I was reading this article in the WSJ..."

Happy Epiphany

20
C + M + B
09

For those of us who are gentile Christians, the feast of the Epiphany holds a special meaning, as it recalls that Christ was done homage as a king by Magi from the East at the time of his birth. Though Matthew's gospel provides few details, the Magi are traditionally recalled as three, with the names Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar.

The traditional date for Epiphany is January 6th, but since our bishops have seen fit to put the feast on the nearest Sunday, I hope that no one will take it amiss if I wish everyone a happy Epiphany today.


I first encountered this classic orchestration of We Three Kings by Eugene Ormandy when I was a child, watching my dad give the annual Christmas Star Show up at the Griffith Observatory. Since the recording is hard to find, and there too it the music provided background to a montage of artistic representations of the Three Kings, I took the liberty of putting together a YouTube video for the occasion.

History Bleg

Does anyone have any suggestions for a book on early American history that would put things in perspective for a 15-year old guy having a hard time keeping the details straight?

Catholics and Gun Rights

Should you be so interested, I have an extended Catholic take on the 2nd Amendment up over at American Catholic.

Buckle Your Seatbelts

This is going to be a fun ride.

The blogger formally known as The Raving Atheist is now The Raving Theist, and shows that conversion in no way impairs one's sense of humor.

Just so.

Reading some of the "I wonder how this guy went from being so rational to being a godidiot" comments (getting linked to by PZ Myers doesn't exactly raise the tone of one's commentariat -- though to be fair the "godidiot" term was one used frequently by Raving Atheist before becoming a Christian) I've been rather struck by degree to which those who spend lots of hours frequenting online atheist watering holes refuse to admit that one can be rational and still be a theist. For people who supposedly take all their pointers from science, this seems a rather odd view, since one of the obvious corollaries of the scientific method is that there are almost always multiple rational explanations for a given set of evidence. However, two different explanations as to what underlying process produces the evidence will generally produce different predictions about the world. And the scientific process involves trying to see which (if any) of these sets of predictions bears out in reality.

The question of God's existence gets prickly, in part because atheists and theists often not only do not agree on what the predictions of theism and atheism would be, but they also don't agree on what evidence currently exists. Speaking for myself, I think that a form of atheistic materialism is a rational conclusion given a certain body of evidence that one might have personally experienced or read about -- however I think that the predictions which atheistic materialism would make about reality do not fit with my experience of reality. (For instance: I do think that free will exists. And I do think that qualities such as Justice and Goodness have objective existence.) Thus, I reject atheistic materialism. However, I think one can hold it perfectly rationally -- so long as one is willing to also assent to its implications.

The difficulty with the louder of the Raving Theist's commenters is that they do not seem to see it as remotely possible that one could be rational and come to the conclusion that theism is true. The which suggests to me, at least, a certain narrowness of viewpoint -- and perhaps a lack of understanding of how evidence, theory and prediction work when applied to something philosophical or theological rather than the question of which ball will fall faster off the Tower of Pisa.