what exactly is responsible parenthood?

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Responsible Parenthood

10. Married love, therefore, requires of husband and wife the full awareness of their obligations in the matter of responsible parenthood, which today, rightly enough, is much insisted upon, but which at the same time should be rightly understood. Thus, we do well to consider responsible parenthood in the light of its varied legitimate and interrelated aspects.

[...]

From this it follows that they are not free to act as they choose in the service of transmitting life, as if it were wholly up to them to decide what is the right course to follow. On the contrary, they are bound to ensure that what they do corresponds to the will of God the Creator. The very nature of marriage and its use makes His will clear, while the constant teaching of the Church spells it out. (10)

I chose to highlight the end of part 10 because of what exactly i thought it meant. It seems to spell out that we do not have the right to act freely when dealing with the creation of our own children, it entails that we have responsibilities and that we are bound to certain religious guidelines. It ends with addressing the nature of marriage and basically summarizing that when it comes to children, the catholic church knows best. It seems to me that it is speaking out against abortion and birth control and trying to assert an amount of control over the very private action of childbearing.

I feel that this has bad economic, political, social, relationship, and identity consequences which run both deep and are far reaching within our society. To begin with though i would like to first say that i am a christian, but i also think that "the will of God the Creator" does not always translate to benefiting the economy, politics, society, and so on. The pill and abortion have had a huge benefit for the economy as well for crime control. To begin with they have sprouted a multi-million dollar market which ranges from contraceptives to plan b. At the same time a decrease in crime has been accredited to abortion... wait what? Yep that's right, experts believe that abortion has lessened crime because the majority of abortions occur in low income, high crime areas, with mothers who are unable/unwilling to care for there child, if a child is born into these circumstances there likely hood of becoming involved in criminal activities is multiplied drastically, having obvious positive implications for our society. I also believe that birth control and other non catholic sanctioned sexual practices are healthy for relationships as well as ones individual identity. A relationship that one is forced into based on a shared child/pregnancy in my opinion would be a very unhappy one. Just because the Church seems to believe that sex can only happen in marriage it does not mean this is the case, if there was no way of dealing with unplanned pregnancy's and all pregnancy's were only sanctioned within marriage i can almost guarantee that our already massive divorce rate would increase. I also believe that our personal identity should be our own to shape (as much as that is possible in the culture we are raised with) and i personally don't think i would want all of mine tied to a child. But as Andrea Tone said "the outcomes are not always what we expect", so keep in mind this could all be a rant from a guy who will never have to experience the full effect, both emotional and physical that come with children. As always i want to acknowledge that i am obviously shaped by me own cultural upbringing and in no way mean to insult anyone's faith or beliefs.

From a efficient/ McWorld perspective which is so common in our culture i have to say that i view what the pope said in this particular part as "nonsense". I feel that he lacks to account for anything more than old catholic tradition and a one sided christian view of morality, completely ignoring social, economic, and psychological consequences that can accompany it.