Relations Between Birth Control and Religions Around the World

Relations Between Birth Control and Religions Around the World

 Within the 7.7 billion people our Earth has to offer, there are 8 main religions out of the estimated 4,200 around the world. The main 8 religions in which are Christianity, Islam, Mormonism, Taoism, Confucianism, Catholicism, and Hinduism.  More than half of the religions around the world believe sexual intercourse is strictly for procreation only. Procreation is the production of offspring/children. Contraceptives are ethical and beneficial to all religious and non-religious humans.

 Religion itself is a controversial topic of its own at times, with so many different practices, ideas, and rituals. However, the 8 main religions have much in common as well. The idea of contraception within the eye of a religious person is not always particularly good in a sense. The earliest documented evidence of birth control dates back to the Mesopotamia era around 1550 BC. Within the 1900’s, contraception was illegal in a

majority of the states but was soon legalized for the better.

         A majority of these reigions are against or do not condone the use of contraceptions.The Bible was not a big influencer on this “rule” or the way of life as so the church teachings. Wether or not you uses contreception as a Christian alteast, is all based on your perception of christianity. Beginning with the christians and evangelical protestants, their beliefs contain the idea of birth control being a barrier to God’s procreation purpose for the majority of the time.

         Evangelical Protestants believe all forms of birth control should not be used because it is a barrier between the two sexually active (married) people.The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America wrote in 1954, “to enable them to more thankfully receive God’s blessing and reward, a married couple should plan and govern their sexual relations so that any child born to their union will be desired both for itself and in relation to the time of its birth.” This is merely a safety measure to prevent unwanted pregnancies as well as making sure the parents are fit to have a child they desire and praise mentally, physically, and emotionally.

Judaism has an interesting story to acompany my opinion and some facts. Their religion does not have the best wishes with contreceptive methods but doesn’t go completely against them. The Torah promotes prolific childbirth; Orthodox rabbis believe that being fruitful and multiplying is a male duty. But many rabbis allow birth control in cases where pregnancy would seriously harm the woman. There is a refrence that the Book of Genesis shows,in which during intercourse, Onan “spills his seed” (withdrawl method) in which this is an “evil sight to the Lord” as after Onan is punished by death. This biblical story displays the idea of barrier methods are against their beliefs of procreation only intercourse. They prefer hormonal methods that prevent “spilling the seed” and methods that decrease bleeding on a females period as it is frowned upon in Judaism.

Hinduism encourages procreation in marriage but has no overall opposition to birth control methods. The traditional Hindu texts tells of how the hindu praise and appreciate larger families and bunches of kids. Family planning is seen as ethical good in hinduism,although some may believe having more than one child is against their belief of dharma (acting for the sake of good in the world) in which it hurts the environment. Abortions were made legal in India in the year of 1971, a majority of the population didn’t object it because of the mass overpopulation of the broad place.

Within the Islamic culture, there are various opinions towards the birth control debate. Some say it is an act against their lord because procreation is in the Qur’an as a good deed needed to be fullfilled by married couples. Others believe contreception that does not make someone sterile is approved by the lord, therefore it is okay to use.

Taoism and Confusionism date back to the early days in China in which family planning is important and always has been. A majority of both religions believe in the balance and harmony of the indevidual self, the family, and the society. Therefore, having too many unplanned children throws off the balance and harmony by a lot. Birth control is rationalized by the many negative effects of having an unwanted/unplanned child.