Thomas White: Birth Control Pills are Murder

According to Thomas White, a professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, using birth control pills is "murder." He also admits that he and his wife used birth control pills earlier in their marriage, but he seems awfully comfortable with admitting to being a murderer — indeed, by his own standards he's a serial killer with a large number of murders to his name. If he really believes that he's a murderer, why doesn't he act like it?

Well, if actions speak louder than words, we'd probably have to conclude that he doesn't really believe it — as with most anti-choice Christians, "murder" is simply a rhetorical device that is employed to increase people's negative emotional reaction to the subject, not to seriously communicate anything true or factual. This is one reason why it can be so hard to take anti-choice arguments seriously: so few anti-choice activists act like they really believe what they are saying, so why should anyone else?

"The reason that we did it was my own selfishness," White, also vice president for student services and communications, told the students. "I wanted kids, but I wanted kids - not in God's timing, but in my timing. I made the mistake. I don't want you to make the mistake."

Source: Star-Telegram (via Pandagon)

Amanda Marcotte really makes it clear just how inconsistent Thomas White's attitude is with his rhetoric:

Can you imagine excusing a real murder that way? “Well, I wanted him dead, but my problem was that I wouldn’t wait around for god to strike him dead, so I stabbed him to death with my own hands. The sin here is taking away god’s chance to murder the bastard himself. But I have no doubt that god wanted the son of a bitch to die a horrible, painful death.” No, that’s not why murder is wrong.

She also points out that besides misleading people about birth control being "murder," Thomas White is also actively passing along lies about how birth control works:

I’m coming to see these lies as having a function beyond just tricking unwilling women into becoming pregnant, though that’s obviously part of it. It’s about making women’s liberation seem impossible---between this and the rumors that abortion is a hugely profitable industry, anti-choicers convince themselves that it’s impossible for women to be free agents. All women are owned by someone, and the struggle is defining who owns women---the men in their family or strange men who run corporations?

Once you recast the struggle that way, it’s easy to see that it’s better to have your husband own your body and mind than some corporate behemoth. But of course, the real struggle is between whether men will own women’s bodies or women will own their own. But admitting that would make it clear to the wingnutteria that they’re in the wrong, so they set up a series of myths to convince themselves that they’re the real good guys.

Too many conservative Christians simply can't handle personal autonomy in general, but especially female autonomy. Personal autonomy is wrong because it allows people to make decisions about their own lives, or jointly make decisions about governing a community, without regard to what some god supposedly wants. Female autonomy is especially bad because not only does it permit women to make decisions about their lives without regard to what some god supposedly wants, but also without regard to what men in the community want.

So in the end, it really is all about power: will people be permitted to have power over their own lives and the liberty to make choices about how to lead their lives, or will a small number of privileged people be given the power to make such decisions for everyone else? Will human relationships be more horizontal, with people generally being equals in how their relate to one another, or will human relationships be more vertical, with clear hierarchical relationships determining who has power over whom who is privileged over whom, and who must submit to whom.