I couldn’t help but (figuratively) shake my head when I heard the news.  Rush Limbaugh, famed conservative radio talk show host who has millions of listeners and millions of dollars, is getting another divorce.  Number three, to be exact.  Aye.

I’ve been listening to Rush for several years now, and while I don’t agree with him on every issue, I do agree with him on many issues.  He’s pro-life, albeit not overly outspoken about it.  He doesn’t subscribe to the homosexual agenda.  And he seems to recognize the libertine nature of the mass media.

Not too bad for a soon-to-be thrice-divorced rugged individualist, no?

Yet, the fact that Rush can’t seem to get his marital life in order is quite troublesome, especially considering the multitude of liberals who now are accusing him of hypocrisy because he has defended the institution of marriage against the onslaught of homosexual activism.  Not that these pro-homosexual marriage liberals have a leg to stand on, but still…

I obviously don’t know what caused the break-up of Rush’s marriage(s), but I do think there is an oft-overlooked, indirect factor in many broken marriages: the use of contraception.

So does Dr. Janet E. Smith, Chair of Life Issues at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit.  In a popular and published lecture titled Contraception: Why Not?, Dr. Smith discusses why the divorce rate doubled between 1965, when 25 percent of marriages ended in divorce, and 1975, when 50 percent of marriages ended in divorce (same as today).

Dr. Smith cites the research of social scientist Robert Michael, who concluded

“that as the contraceptive pill became more and more available, divorce became more and more popular.”  In fact, Michael attributed “45 percent of this increase [in divorce] to increased use of contraceptives.”  Why is this so?

There are three reasons, according to Michael.  First, his statistical data showed “that those who use contraceptives have fewer children and have them later in marriage…those who have the first baby in the first two years of marriage and another baby in the next couple years of marriage, have a much longer lasting marriage than those who don't.”  (Rush has no children.)

Dr. Smith observes that married couples who have children “become better people…almost instantaneously.”

Secondly, Michael found that “since contraceptives have arrived on the scene, there is much more adultery than there was before.”  Observes Dr. Smith:  “People have been tempted, for the history of mankind.  It's easy enough to think about wanting to have an affair but wanting a child out of wedlock is another story.  But if most every woman is contracepting, then most every woman is available in a certain sense and there is no real reason to say no.  Adultery is absolutely devastating to marriages.”

The third explanation, says Dr. Smith, is “that women are financially more independent.  They do have fewer children.  They do go into the work place.  And, again, when they have difficulties in the marriage, it's much [easier] to say, ‘Take a walk,’ than it is to work it out because they need their husband for one fewer reasons than they did before.”

Dr. Smith also says that widespread pre-marital sex and cohabitation has contributed to the increase in divorce.   Obviously, those who fornicate often use some type of contraception, and, if that fails, they can always have the unborn child killed through abortion.  

“So contraception hasn't made for better marriages,” concludes Dr. Smith.

Indeed.  Now consider that the divorce/separation rate for married couples who use Natural Family Planning - that is, periodic abstinence from sexual intercourse – is less than one in eight, according to Brian Clowes, Ph.D. of Human Life International (www.hli.org).

Sadly, many married couples are either ignorant of Natural Family Planning methods or have been duped into using contraception by the abortion industry, the pop-culture, and not a few “mainstream” doctors. 

It boggles my mind, too, that so many health-conscious people will buy all kinds of “natural” products so that they don’t have to put “chemicals” into their bodies, but seem to have no qualms about using artificial and even poisonous means of contraception.  Not to mention that most so-called contraceptives are actually abortifacients, that is, they can and do cause an early abortion by preventing implantation of the living human embryo into the uterine lining.

Look, I do realize there are several factors that can contribute to a divorce.  But I would submit that if married couples would use Natural Family Planning instead of contraception, far fewer of them would end up in divorce court.

Perhaps even Rush would still be married.

(For more information about Natural Family Planning, see www.ccli.org and www.popepaulvi.com.)

Matt C. Abbott