There are many opinions about Christians and birth control. If Christian parents know their kids are having sex, or even considering it, should they put them on birth control? Is it better to protect kids from the potential consequences of their decisions, or does providing birth control actually encourage sexually sinful behavior? Here are five things to consider:
Putting your child on birth control communicates that it is not possible to exercise self-control.
Giving your child access to birth control sends a message. You’re telling them you don’t believe in their ability to exercise self-control. It’s a mixed message. “Don’t have sex before marriage.” And, “When you have sex before marriage, this will help you avoid consequences.”
We want to teach our children that God gives us the ability to resist temptation in all ways, including when it comes to sex.
Putting your child on birth control communicates that there is something called “safe sex.”
There is no such thing as safe sex outside the confines of marriage. Birth control may protect from unintended pregnancy or STDs. But, the consequences of violating God’s design for sex are much deeper. Self-esteem, shame, guilt, reputation, Christian witness, and more are impacted.
Just because someone uses a condom or birth control, that doesn’t make pre-marital sex safe.
Birth control makes sex before marriage easier to do without consequences.
If there was no penalty at all for speeding, would you speed? Probably. What if there were no adverse consequences to drinking as much alcohol as you wanted, would you do it? There’s a good chance that you would. Or how about if you could eat as much of anything as you wanted without gaining weight or having any health problems—you’d probably indulge!
Before I was married, I lived as a celibate man for 19 years, and I never once purchased a pack of condoms. Because I knew that if I purchased them, I would be tempted to use them. But as long as I didn’t have access to them, I was still hindered from having sex because of the potential negative consequences. The more educated kids are about the adverse consequences of premarital sex, which should create in them a healthy fear of experiencing those consequences, the better chance there is that they will succeed.
Putting your kids on birth control communicates permission.
You can sugarcoat this all you want. You can lecture them about not doing it, whatever you want to do. But as soon as you give them a pack of condoms, or as soon as you put your daughter on the pill, you’re telling them that you believe they’re going to have premarital sex. And you’re condoning it by giving them a supposedly safe way to go.
When you put that safety net in the back of their mind, it just makes them more likely to give in to temptation when the situation arises.
What does this say to the outside world?
We have to be aware of what messages we communicate to the non-Christian world with the way we lead our families. What message does it send if we as Christians put our children on birth control? We’re doing the same thing as the world in terms of sexuality.
With every decision we make as Christians, we need to be thinking about our witness. What will it do to your Christian reputation, as well as the reputation as Christians as a whole.