Many religious objections to birth control consist of “It’s actually abortion, just a bit more subtle”—preventing implantation of a fertilized embryo is the same as a surgical abortion, if you don’t distinguish between a day’s gestation and two months’. Most of the rest seem like generalized objections to sex—human biology being what it is, the punishment for that will inevitably fall largely on the shoulders of women. It doesn’t seem like it’s just a female-specific objection, though—I doubt your average religious objector would get too worked up at the thought of alimony or a shotgun marriage, and most seem to actively encourage adoption.
As for your proposed strategy, it seems like it’s basically trying to do the same thing, given how liberalized sex and liberalized religion are so tightly bound in practice.
The objections there are mostly “It’ll lead to evil nookie!”, and to a lesser extent “It’s not 100% reliable”(as though anything in life is...oh wait, abstinence can’t lead to pregnancy, because the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down—how could I have forgotten?). They’re stupid objections, but to people who literally believe that sex outside of marriage will lead to an eternity of torture, I can sort of see how they connect the dots.
If there are objections on the soul level, you should still expect to see a hierarchy based on preventing/allowing fertilization per birth control.
For example: Going by pure number of ‘abortions’ (counting as any termination of a fertilized ovum), there is a continuum for birth control. IIRC it’s pill → patch → condoms → spermicide+condoms → shot → implant → IUD → surgery. Implants and especially IUDs cause up to an order of magnitude fewer of these ‘instant abortions’ compared to the pill.
We should expect to see pro-life campaigns saying “get an IUD, NOT the pill!” (Or supporting vasectomy / tubal ligation, but fat chance on those.) But again, we don’t see that. Because those 99.9% effective things will lead to sin.
Many religious objections to birth control consist of “It’s actually abortion, just a bit more subtle”—preventing implantation of a fertilized embryo is the same as a surgical abortion, if you don’t distinguish between a day’s gestation and two months’. Most of the rest seem like generalized objections to sex—human biology being what it is, the punishment for that will inevitably fall largely on the shoulders of women. It doesn’t seem like it’s just a female-specific objection, though—I doubt your average religious objector would get too worked up at the thought of alimony or a shotgun marriage, and most seem to actively encourage adoption.
As for your proposed strategy, it seems like it’s basically trying to do the same thing, given how liberalized sex and liberalized religion are so tightly bound in practice.
What about ways to prevent the ovum from being fertilized in the first place, e.g. condoms or vasectomy?
The objections there are mostly “It’ll lead to evil nookie!”, and to a lesser extent “It’s not 100% reliable”(as though anything in life is...oh wait, abstinence can’t lead to pregnancy, because the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down—how could I have forgotten?). They’re stupid objections, but to people who literally believe that sex outside of marriage will lead to an eternity of torture, I can sort of see how they connect the dots.
If there are objections on the soul level, you should still expect to see a hierarchy based on preventing/allowing fertilization per birth control.
For example: Going by pure number of ‘abortions’ (counting as any termination of a fertilized ovum), there is a continuum for birth control. IIRC it’s pill → patch → condoms → spermicide+condoms → shot → implant → IUD → surgery. Implants and especially IUDs cause up to an order of magnitude fewer of these ‘instant abortions’ compared to the pill.
We should expect to see pro-life campaigns saying “get an IUD, NOT the pill!” (Or supporting vasectomy / tubal ligation, but fat chance on those.) But again, we don’t see that. Because those 99.9% effective things will lead to sin.