Free Contraception For All

This week we began our Lenten Season on Ash Wednesday; and our communion service began with the unison reading of the fifty-first psalm. As we read together, I was momentarily distracted when we came to verse five; and where it reads: “Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.” What distracted me was the truth expressed in these words of the psalmist. I realized that the scriptures say that conception is something that happens in the womb of a woman. Conception marks the beginning of a pregnancy.

Most doctors will agree with this Biblical fact. After a fertilized egg attaches to the woman’s uterus, (and a placenta becomes the needed support system), then there is viable life. And only a natural or artificially-induced abortion will interrupt the pregnancy once started. For theologians to construct and alternate reality, and a different definition of conception is ridiculous. Especially when it can be applied to something that happens outside a woman’s body, and is not connected to the beginning of a pregnancy at all.

Based on that ridiculous idea of when conception takes place, a group of people representing various faith traditions were led to make an appearance before a United States Congressional Committee. There, the all male panel, were asked to comment on the issue of women’s health, and making contraception available to all. They came across as incentive and out of touch with people’s lives. They also seen to be at odds with the Scriptural picture of a pregnancy beginning with conception.

To be opposed to abortion is part of a consistent ethic of life, and to be commended. But to be drawn into a social struggle over the distribution of contraception, not only to prevent unwanted pregnancy, but to treat many other conditions that women can suffer, is harmful to the witness of the Church. I pray that throughout this Lenten Season, those involved may reflect upon what happened in Washington D.C., and that they may choose a more faith-full path in the future.