Contraception, Catholics and public health

I am fascinated by the possibility of schism, as the truth about Catholic women/couples, and women's health care choices comes out in broad daylight. The truth is, families in America are smaller, and partly because women need to work in order to contribute to the income of the family. Also, women have gotten educations, and want to exercise their talents beyond the home. I think the hierarchy had not seen this- they keep seeing "leave it to Beaver" as the model. Most Catholic couples have never liked being constricted by Humane Vitae, and never thought it was "do-able". They are struggling to keep doing all the rest of the things they have to do, and having more children than they can afford to raise is not practical. Most women are grateful to be able to get their family planning paid for, as the insurance policies are so expensive for the family, and co-pays and medication costs have risen outrageously since the carte-blanche given to the pharmaceutical industry from the Bush administration. The great promise of the ACA reform is that it will cover all preventive care. It needs to have large risk pools of patients to accomplish it. The data show that $1 of contraception saves $3.50 in pregnancy care coverage. Ultimately, my faith says that in another 50 years, pregnancy will be truly scarce, and THEN Humane Vitae will be looked at as a prescient and precious promise to protect fertility and the right of people to have children. But til then, the practical need to reduce family size, in order to fit our economic model and society, is foremost in the minds of most mothers and fathers. Family planning choices are now much safer, and many options are available. For the last 10 years, most moms I know are bringing their daughters in to see us, to get them on an appropriate medication, at the appropriate time. We have frank discussions, and they choose what will suit them best. Almost none of the young women I know are celibate. Almost none of the young men I know are celibate. Many people are afraid of marriage, and of commitment to it, and many young women are terrified of the job of mothering, in this society. The great holy men of our faith tradition had saintly mothers who were very self-sacrificing. Such women are increasingly rare. It is known by women that single moms fall much more deeply into poverty, and their children are more at risk. They have to have jobs to keep their insurance benefits, and their access to medical care. Catholic women still hold that life is sacred, for the most part. They do not want to have abortions-- so they try harder to get their contraceptives to be really effective ones. We have excellent contraceptives now-- with failure rates about 1/1000. This information is easily accessed by every young woman. When we think of the idea of personhood, the richness of relationships is more important than the single sex act. Most young women are building much healthier relationships than the ones in our generation. They can walk away if the man is immature or irresponsible, or a bully. I am excited for them, looking at the future. I want them to build strong and fine families. God help us to build a better society!