Conservative Anabaptists and Birth Control

Christian ethics and theology with an Anabaptist perspective
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mike
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Conservative Anabaptists and Birth Control

Post by mike »

Question from this thread
Wade wrote:Regarding the birth rates:
Are people that are calling themselves conservative Anabaptist's restricting the amount of children they have with forms of birth control today?
Absolutely. My guess is that the most common methods are what is called "natural family planning" and barrier methods. I don't think there is any explicit official teaching on the subject, other than the obvious against abortion and abortifacients. It is considered a private decision.
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Josh
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Re: Conservative Anabaptists and Birth Control

Post by Josh »

Wade wrote:Regarding the birth rates:
Are people that are calling themselves conservative Anabaptist's restricting the amount of children they have with forms of birth control today?
Conservative Anabaptists in general will use birth control, although I imagine some sects do not. Some Amish use birth control - typically when a doctor prescribes it for a woman's health.

Both still have large family sizes because getting married in early 20s and having children is something our culture values and thinks is more important than other things.

For example, I can think off the top of my head of 3 families who've had almost a dozen kids or over a dozen kids and then used birth control for health reasons after that. The methods I am personally aware of being used are IUD, oral hormonal, or vasectomy.

Average Amish fertility per woman is 5.0 - 6.0 and in some sects is higher; Swartzentruber is 9.0. I have not found any research in conservative Anabaptists as a group. My rough guess would be 3.0 or 4.0.

Conservative Mennonites are more likely to have single adults in them than Amish, from what I've observed.
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Wade
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Re: Conservative Anabaptists and Birth Control

Post by Wade »

The majority of doctors we have had will find any reason possible to tell us we shouldn't have any more children because of health reasons. If we would have taken their advice we would have only one child right now...
Interesting how doctors can do physicals on people going to war but yet it doesn't seem to be high enough risk to tell those people to stop because of health reasons... But yet we take advice to stop giving life?
Granted I do agree at times it may be wise to use it, but coming from where we have come from this is very sad and disappointing to hear.
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Josh
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Re: Conservative Anabaptists and Birth Control

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Wade wrote:The majority of doctors we have had will find any reason possible to tell us we shouldn't have any more children because of health reasons. If we would have taken their advice we would have only one child right now...
Interesting how doctors can do physicals on people going to war but yet it doesn't seem to be high enough risk to tell those people to stop because of health reasons... But yet we take advice to stop giving life?
Granted I do agree at times it may be wise to use it, but coming from where we have come from this is very sad and disappointing to hear.
Why is it sad and disappointing to hear that a family with a dozen children isn't having anymore?

There are groups of Christians who promote having as many kids as possible. Doug Phillips and the Duggars both being part of them. I have not seen them promoting kingdom values at all.

The kingdom of heaven isn't about trying to have as many kids as possible, or even having any.
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Wade
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Re: Conservative Anabaptists and Birth Control

Post by Wade »

Josh wrote:
Wade wrote:The majority of doctors we have had will find any reason possible to tell us we shouldn't have any more children because of health reasons. If we would have taken their advice we would have only one child right now...
Interesting how doctors can do physicals on people going to war but yet it doesn't seem to be high enough risk to tell those people to stop because of health reasons... But yet we take advice to stop giving life?
Granted I do agree at times it may be wise to use it, but coming from where we have come from this is very sad and disappointing to hear.
Why is it sad and disappointing to hear that a family with a dozen children isn't having anymore?

There are groups of Christians who promote having as many kids as possible. Doug Phillips and the Duggars both being part of them. I have not seen them promoting kingdom values at all.

The kingdom of heaven isn't about trying to have as many kids as possible, or even having any.
Because the choice to limit God's blessings except with possibly some major health concerns would be for me only selfish reasons. Maybe others can convince themselves otherwise but that is how it is for me.

Is refraining from something because others that are wrong are doing it just Protestant thinking?! Reminds of a Baptist Pastor saying, "even though the Bible uses the term Bishop, we don't - because the Catholics do...."

However, again I said nothing in support of having as many children possible. The idea of allowing God to have control also has to accompany accepting how little amount of children God allows us as well, if any.
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Re: Conservative Anabaptists and Birth Control

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Wade wrote:Because the choice to limit God's blessings except with possibly some major health concerns would be for me only selfish reasons. Maybe others can convince themselves otherwise but that is how it is for me.
I wrote an article on the subject a few years ago, and that was my basic point. Saying so doesn't really make you any friends, though. :-|

This point leaves open the question of whether selfishness is always a bad thing.
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Wade
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Re: Conservative Anabaptists and Birth Control

Post by Wade »

mike wrote:
Wade wrote:Because the choice to limit God's blessings except with possibly some major health concerns would be for me only selfish reasons. Maybe others can convince themselves otherwise but that is how it is for me.
I wrote an article on the subject a few years ago, and that was my basic point. Saying so doesn't really make you any friends, though. :-|

This point leaves open the question of whether selfishness is always a bad thing.
Sounds like you are saying the friends comment from experience?

Good read in your article - thank you for sharing.
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Re: Conservative Anabaptists and Birth Control

Post by Wade »

This is answer further Josh's question of why birth control saddens me.

It is also important to realize some of the birth control Josh mentioned are not 100% effective always at preventing conception. Manufacturers are aware of this and so they include abortifacient qualities into them as well. So admittedly they recognize that some birth control methods are causing abortions but going unknown to the user because the life is too small.

So if we are uncomfortable with abortion what does it say for us when according to Josh we are using products that cause them?
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Re: Conservative Anabaptists and Birth Control

Post by lesterb »

Wade wrote:This is answer further Josh's question of why birth control saddens me.

It is also important to realize some of the birth control Josh mentioned are not 100% effective always at preventing conception. Manufacturers are aware of this and so they include abortifacient qualities into them as well. So admittedly they recognize that some birth control methods are causing abortions but going unknown to the user because the life is too small.

So if we are uncomfortable with abortion what does it say for us when according to Josh we are using products that cause them?
I don't know how many people are using these, and Josh doesn't either. I do know that Dr Nolan Byler wrote about this last factor, and he said that almost always when he alerted women to the fact that some birth control methods caused abortions, almost all of them stopped using them. I suspect that this is a matter of ignorance more than anything else.

I have mixed feelings about all of this. I have seen conservative Mennonites who went down the trail that Wade is talking about. They used their wife as a baby factory, and didn't really pay any attention to load they were placing on them. For instance, a former friend was married to a man who insisted on ignoring the doctor's recommendations. Fortunately God intervened for her, and she had miscarriages instead of children. But it certainly appeared to me to be a case of a man refusing to sacrifice his pleasures, using a cloak of piety to cover the real problem. She was a very unhealthy woman and died young.

I'm certainly not accusing anyone of this. I'm just trying to insert the other side of the story. Very few people have the ability to properly raise an enormous family properly. While I'm not in favor of artificial birth control, I do think that it is right for people to practice self control in order to space their children far enough that each child has their chance to get proper nurture. God can still over rule in such cases, whereas using some of the other methods pretty well shuts God out of the picture.

I think a husband and wife should discuss such things together. Health issues, the mother's ability to keep the household organized, and finances are all things that can be considered. I agree that often selfishness is at the root of using birth control, but that is no reason to go to the opposite extreme.
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Re: Conservative Anabaptists and Birth Control

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Wade wrote:This is answer further Josh's question of why birth control saddens me.

It is also important to realize some of the birth control Josh mentioned are not 100% effective always at preventing conception. Manufacturers are aware of this and so they include abortifacient qualities into them as well. So admittedly they recognize that some birth control methods are causing abortions but going unknown to the user because the life is too small.

So if we are uncomfortable with abortion what does it say for us when according to Josh we are using products that cause them?
It's a myth that most methods of birth control include abortifacients, and it is already widespread among Christian people to avoid the few that might have a risk of this.

The main people pushing the idea that birth control uses abortifacients are Catholic sources who are militantly opposed to any birth control whatsoever, so I don't find them a credible source. Objective sources don't think birth control relies on abortifacients.
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