Wednesday, April 22, 2009

More on "Brave New Britain"

Here is a story from the Washington Times on the recent decision by the British government to respond to higher rates of teen pregnancies by allowing condom and abortion advertisements on TV 24 hours per day. (HT to the ProWomanProLife blog) This policy is bound to increase the teen pregnancy rate, but that does not appear to bother the government as long as those extra pregnancies are teminated and the public is further desensitized to sexual promiscuity, contraception and abortion.

Pope Benedict XVI is being screamed at and called ugly names by the angry left because he dared to suggest that the problems of HIV/AIDS (along with other STD's, crisis pregnancies and abortion) have a moral dimension that cannot be resolved by mere technology alone (i.e. condoms). This action by the left-wing, British, Labour government, which has already proven itself to be morally and intellectually bankrupt in so many ways, is the policy best suited to accomplish the opposite of what the government purports to be concerned about.

As the Washington Times article points out, even some who are not opposed to contraception think that the policy is misguided:

"Pat Murdoch, who leads a branch of Cats Protection, was more dismissive. "Promoting contraception is great within a larger context," she said, "but just to bang on about contraception without any reference to self-control, I believe, is the road to disaster."

"Just promoting condoms and such," Mrs. Murdoch added, "is not addressing the fundamental problem of generations growing up lacking self-respect, self-control and respect for others.""

I would go much further and say that isolating a technological solution to the problem of unplanned pregnany from a moral context is ultimately self-defeating and that all moves to de-couple sex from reproduction are immoral. But, clearly, all reasonable people can all agree that the issue is more complicated than just getting more condoms into the hands of teenagers without a broader discussion of the purpose and nature of sexuality.

Gordon Brown and his government have forfeited its credibility with its extreme and unthinking worship of technology. It is time to go, Mr. Brown. Past time.

UPDATE:
Here is a good article from First Things by British journalist Peter C. Glover on the same topic. He claims that:

"The problem is that the government and media of Great Britain have put in place over the last few decades a determined program to abolish the influence of Christianity. It’s a little late now for believers to pretend surprise that such a program exists and has consequences . . ."

Read it all here.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Self-control is so 90's.