"Contraception denigrates me as a woman"

It's seemingly impossible to articulate to the world why the Catholic Church finds contraception against the dignity of the human person, why the HHS mandate is deeply flawed, and why we find all of this so offensive. It's not some arbitrary line of morality. It has to do with who we are.

Jumping into the debate with a will to articulate these truths in a very limited amount of words, is my good friend Valerie Pokorny, who guest blogged on CNN's opinion site this week. Her answer?

Should I so easily accept the implication that I need to alter a part of myself that’s working properly in order to be free or fulfilled? I find this premise tremendously offensive. To me, this exerts pressure tantamount to that felt by women who purge after eating to attain or maintain a particular body image. It encourages women to think that their value is somehow intrinsically tied to how sexually available and desirable they are.

Read it all here. If you read even a couple of the comments, it will become even clearer what sort of a cultural catastrophe we have on our hands.