Dear Wheaton College Biology department faculty: Please correct Ryken’s mistake and/or lie regarding Plan B

July 23, 2012 By 19 Comments

TO: Dr. Jennifer Busch, Dr. Raymond Lewis, Dr. L. Kristen Page, Dr. Pattle Pak-Toe Pun, Dr. Nadine Folino Rorem, Dr. Rodney Scott, Dr. Gregory Vanden Heuvel

RE: Your college president is misrepresenting Plan B, either due to ignorance or intentionally for political reasons.

This is the sort of thing that ought to be mortifying for scientists at an institution of higher education:

Wheaton President Philip Ryken said that while evangelicals do not ascribe to the Catholic teaching against artificial birth control, the mandate requires coverage for so-called “morning after” pills like Plan B, to which the college objects. Ryken said Plan B is an “abortion-inducing” drug, though studies show that the pill apparently does not cause abortions.

Ryken invoked Francis Schaeffer, describing Wheaton as “co-belligerents” with the Catholic bishops. That’s not encouraging. Schaeffer’s culture-war disciples don’t have a long track record of respect for facts that don’t fit into their predetermined political agenda. They tend to be “belligerents” — warriors — far more concerned about winning arguments and elections than they are with those “absolute truths” Schaeffer was always on about.

But still, the facts are the facts are the facts, whether or not Ryken or the bishops care about them. And your college president has his facts wrong — publicly, proudly and defiantly.

That’s not cool. It makes Wheaton look bad. It makes each of you, personally, look bad. It makes the church look foolish (and not in a good, 1 Corinthians 1:27, kind of way). It makes the church look dishonest.

And it makes Ryken look less concerned with actually being “pro-life” than with posing as such.

What he is saying is just not right. It’s not factually right, and it’s not morally right. Choose whichever flavor of moral consideration you like — biblical Christianity or your professional ethical codes as scientists. Either way, what Ryken is saying is indefensible.

Perhaps one of you could talk to him about that. Or, given the apparent politicization of the president’s office at Wheaton, perhaps one of you could speak to whomever it is that you think might be able to speak to him.

That’d be swell. Thanks.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , 19 Comments
  • Mau de Katt

    Plan B is not the abortion pill.  

    And repeating the same lie over and over again doesn’t make it true.  Christians are supposed to know that….

  • hapax

    tl; dr:

    Dear Wheaton College:  Please observe Wheaton’s Law.  Thanks!

  • http://accidental-historian.typepad.com/ Geds

    I saw this on Friday.  My first thought was, “Hey, Wheaton, enjoy having the 24th failed lawsuit!”  Then I realized that it doesn’t make a lick of sense for Wheaton to join the Catholics since, y’know, Evangelicals don’t have anything against birth control (as long as it’s used within marriage, of course).

    So of course it was a misunderstanding of Plan B.  That little lie has a lot of traction in Evangelical circles for some reason.  I’m sure it has something to do with slut shaming.

  • flat

    I thought it was the people’s own damn choice if they take the pill or not.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_CE6FTHLHRMXUGOOGCMG3ROXBH4 David

    It makes the church look foolish (and not in a good, 1 Corinthians 1:27, kind of way).

    Just FYI, this is what 1 Corinthians 1 sounds like to unbelievers:

    “Today is double-fakeout opposite day, so anytime you say something smart, it’s actually stupid, and anytime you catch me saying something stupid, it actually becomes smart.”

    It was an absurd and obnoxious argument when you heard it on the playground in elementary school, and it isn’t improved any by hearing it repeated by supposedly educated adults.

  • Mark Z.

    Just FYI, this is what 1 Corinthians 1 sounds like to unbelievers:

    There’s a reason it’s not Paul’s Letter to the Unbelievers in Corinth.

  • http://thatbeerguy.blogspot.com Chris Doggett

    But still, the facts are the facts are the facts, whether or not Ryken or the bishops care about them. 

    Of course Ryken doesn’t care about the facts. He is following the bishops’ lead in embracing the spirit of Truthiness. Facts? Who cares about facts? Ryken knows that once a man has delivered his magic Jesus-juice into the lady’s hoo-hoo-dilly, anything that prevents a baby after that magical moment is uh-bor-shun! That’s probably Ryken’s operational definition of abortion, allowing him to include RU86, Plan B, IUDs, spermicide, (which just sounds violent) and probably some other birth control options I’ve left out. 

  • http://twitter.com/FearlessSon FearlessSon

    Here is the thing, how do you stop people from being dicks?  I mean, the fact that they are dicks means that they do not feel a need to respect Wheaton’s Law.  There must be something we can do to stop them.  

    A good public shaming would be effective, but they have gotten really good at isolating themselves in communities, both physical and virtual, where they are buffered against such shaming.  

    How can we remove them from such a setting so that leverage might be applied? They are not going to leave those communities by their own will, but they cannot be allowed to continue with their dickish behavior while hiding behind them.  Turning the other cheek when someone hurts you is one thing, turning aside when someone hurts someone else is a completely different thing.  They cannot be allowed to continue their hurtful actions, we need to adopt some kind of offensive measure to preempt it.  

  • Dan Audy

    I almost wish one of them would take you up on this.  I don’t actually want them to because then they’d be out of a job and that isn’t a kind thing to wish on anyone.  That said if one of them were sick of the nonsensical lies and had another job already lined up, I can’t think of a better illustration of the state of evangelical ‘education’ today than them getting fired for pointing out reality.

  • http://dpolicar.livejournal.com/ Dave

     

    Here is the thing, how do you stop people from being dicks? [..] There must be something we can do to stop them.  

    Well, it’s not too difficult, really. Humans are pretty fragile, all kinds of things serve to transform us into forms that prevent us from being dicks.

    Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of those things also prevent us from being kind, from being loving, from being happy, from being all sorts of good things.

  • flat

    The best way to do it is by making them irelevant.

  • http://twitter.com/FearlessSon FearlessSon

    Aye, and it is happening, but they are not making that easy.  The less relevant they get, the louder they scream, and the louder they scream, the more attention gets paid to them and the more important they seem.  

  • friendly reader

     It’s also in reference to a very specific thing, i.e. “Christ crucified.” The idea that is foolish and weak to the world is that the Messiah opted to die rather than crush the world. God being weak and self-sacrificing out of love was nonsense to most people at the time, and still is to many today – especially Christians who want their Rambo Jesus.

    You don’t get to go using that quote for any random thing you believe that can easily be debunked by evidence (creationism, Plan B is an abortifacient, etc.).

  • Tricksterson

    As Fred has noted in previous posts and as recorded in the book Broken Words evangelicals once had a more moderate stance on abortion as well.  That changed and it looks like there stance on birth control is headed that way as well.  Of course they’ve always been against birth control just as we’ve always been at war with Eastasia

  • Ursula L

    It makes the church look dishonest. 

    Correction.

    Telling lies does not make you look dishonest.  It makes you dishonest.

    And when the leadership of an organization tells lies, and tells those lies as a statement about what the organization is, in the leaders official capacity, it does not make the organization look dishonest, it makes the organization dishonest. 

    As President of Wheaton college, he speaks for the college.  And if he speaks lies in his official capacity, it does not merely make the college look dishonest, it makes the college actually be dishonest.  

    And to the extent that the college is a respected institution in the church, and the college leadership coincides with church leadership and internal authorities, it makes the church be dishonest, as well.  

    The problem is not that these lies make the church look bad. 

    The problem is that the lies make the church bad.  An institution which spreads lies for the purpose of interfering with the medical care not only of its members, but for all of society.  

    ***

    If one merely wants to stop looking dishonest, then one only needs to become a more effective liar, so that you don’t get caught.  

    But to stop being dishonest, you have to stop lying, start speaking the truth, and make a good and public effort to correct anyone who has been mislead by the lies you told in the past.  

  • http://wp.wiccanweb.ca/ Makarios

    As far as I can see, the whole “pro-life” schtick has nothing, nothing, nothing whatsoever to do with preventing abortions. If it were, then the churches would be passing out condoms at Sunday services, together with instructions for their use; and they would be lobbying for fact-based sex education in the schools rather than promoting “abstinence only.”

    It is not about abortions as such. It is about who controls women’s bodies. As a good friend of mine once told me, if a woman in the twenty-first century is not free to determine whether she will become pregnant, and when, then she is not free, full-stop. And think that we can tell where the Catholic bishops and people like Philip Ryken stand on this issue.

  • mona

    B plan is not a real pill .
    please visit

    important tips about
    biology

  • Joanbone

    It is interesting to me that evangelicals openly allow chemical birth control on a day-to-day basis yet want to oppose higher doses of such chemicals from being used after sex.  Quite frankly, if you believe life starts at conception, you would have to oppose all chemical birth control.  While most pills stop ovulation, they all provide back-up should the pill fail to prevent ovulation.  One of those back-up methods prevent implatation of a fertilized egg.  Read the pharmaceutical paperwork of any birth control pill and you will see this is a fact.  I guess for so many of these people, it is far tooincovenient to denounce chemical birth control from being used in te confines of a marriage over the small possibility that the pills back-up method be put to use.  It is crazy to me to think of how many pro-life women take the pill and openly convict others  for using plan b.  If these pro-life individuals were serious about life, they would stop the hypocrisy.  Where life is concerned are any risks ok with your Creator?

  • Joanbone

    To reply to everyone debating the whether or not plan b causes abortions, let us also remember that the answer depends on when one recognizes when life begins.  Physicians tell women everyday tat the stadard birth control pill does not cause abortions.  That is tru if you do not believe life begins at conception.  But for all of those that claim life begins at conception, truly no systematic chemical birth control is safe.  Read te parmaceutical paperwork.  ALL day-to-day pills use three metods to prevent pregnancy.  The third method, preventing implantation would be considered abortifacient by anyone that adheres to te mind-set that life begins at conception.  Watch them all cover their ears and eyes over this fact!  They will even ask their physicians if the pill can cause and abortion and of course the physician says, “No!” becasue most medical professionals do not consider disrupted implantation an abortion.  For those in denial, this just doesn’t fit into that neat little two child plan. Until the pro-lifers address this discrepancy amongst themselves, they need to leave everyone else alone.