Saving Lives
By Marcy Stenstrom
Last week we were driving south on 3rd Ave. and drove past Family Planning Health Services in Wausau. On the building’s exterior, on a brightly colored background, was the message “Condoms Save Lives”. I was perplexed and appalled by this message. What exactly does this mean and what kind of marketing tool are they utilizing? I don’t understand this “ad” for the services provided by FPHS. How is a little bit of latex going to save lives?
In my education and employment experience in marketing, advertising, and public relations, a message like this is to promote the organization’s agenda and the generation of sales. But the “ad” is misleading when it comes to morality. It is clear that FPHS does not care about morality but rather a stereotypical social ideology that thinks we’re helping people for their good and our own. So
perhaps they are daring to refer to conception. But then this condom statement is really an oxymoron because it is a fact that life begins at conception. Preventing this occurrence is not actually saving a life; it’s preventing it from ever existing. Or they could mean that by preventing conception, the couple’s lives are “saved” from having to sacrifice their own freedoms and enjoyment that are lost when one has to take care of a helpless, selfish baby. In effect, I think it’s the person putting their own pleasures ahead of their human responsibilities that is selfish.
The CCC states that through contraception, a husband and wife “are not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality.” (2370) But this does not mean that we should have as many children as humanly possible. In regards to procreation the church supports natural family planning methods as “it is our duty to make certain that our desire is not motivated by selfishness but is in conformity with the generosity appropriate to responsible parenthood.” (2368)
It is also difficult to understand and sympathize with those who do not have the full knowledge and grace of God and are being misled by this slogan and secular organization. This “ad” seems to put human reproduction on the same level as recycling and
saving the whales. But God holds human life standards on a much higher level than trees and melting polar ice caps. We need to keep spreading the message of our faith with compassion and conviction and forgiveness. As parents and mentors, we need to not only talk the talk, but walk the walk when it comes to the value of human life. Our examples in the home, in a healthy family will set the precedence for the future. I believe that some parents have low expectations for their children and have the attitude that their teens are going to “do it” anyway. But a condom or birth control does not stop the spread of diseases. Is a baby more horrible than an STD that we would rather have a disease than a new life? What we are not teaching is self-control and saying “no” not just to non-marital sexual pleasure but any other over indulgences that we think we need in order to feel loved, to feel better about ourselves. The people that flock to FPHS are the same as you and me. We are searching for love and acceptance. But only Jesus can offer us this kind of fulfillment. Through Him, we are able to realize unconditional love and offer it to others. This is why condoms do not save lives. Jesus does.