This business of simply prescribing the Pill for every problem pertaining to a woman’s cycle is an egregious practice, extraordinarily common and marks a lack of care for women’s health:

Pawlowsky said she had suffered from painful menstrual cycles for years and, in the past, had simply been prescribed the pill by doctors who investigated no further. Her doctor diagnosed her with polycystic ovary syndrome, a hormonal disorder for which she receives treatment. The doctors at CareMedics, she said, “are the first and only health care professionals to take my concerns seriously and to look into my case.”

The Pill doesn’t help with painful cycles, it only makes the pain more regular, and furthermore, it doesn’t uncover why the pain is so extreme. To find real care, well, it is like going on a freaking scavenger hunt. When you finally do get good care, in the form of doctors like the ones currently being maligned, it is a tremendous relief. And you start to find out things that have been wrong for twenty years but no one took the time to thoroughly investigate.

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Faye adds: My family doctor is actually one of those three CareMedics physicians. Guess why I sought that physician out? Because of that physician’s perspective on fertility and hormonal care and because I knew that subscribing to that philosophy, that physician wouldn’t simply give me a pill for my problems and send me on my way.

And heck, bonus, we share the same values. The joys of living in a society that mostly values pluralism and a variety of beliefs.

I’ve also been working with this physician’s Toronto colleague for over a year now. As I’ve described in other posts, this physician, using the same approach to medicine, found two significant medical problems that 19 other physicians missed in the preceding years. I also suffered for years with no answers. Until I came across these doctors. God bless them.

This week, I wrote both of them letters and expressed my gratitude to them for being my doctors. I do not take this quality of care for granted.

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Andrea adds: I feel like we might as well just come out and say it. The problem here is not that these particular doctors won’t prescribe the Pill. The problem is our medical system and the doctor shortage. Doctors are hard to come by. If this woman who made the initial complaint knew she could easily go off and find another doctor, I don’t think we’d be discussing this today. Then again, we might be, because there is a bit of a totalitarian impulse amongst those who think their sexual ethics are sacred. They want them publicly sanctioned, and a doctor saying “I don’t sanction it and won’t prescribe you this Pill you want” is tantamount to religious heresy. Our opponents on this who want “freedom from religion” are happy to burn someone at the stake (reputation wise) until they get exactly what they want from absolutely everyone.

Love Jennifer Roback Morse. If I could go to sunny San Diego for February 15, I most certainly would. She is having a day-long conference for those who have been victimized by the sexual revolution. Here’s an interview with her, where most every answer is worth reading. She explains the idea that where we are encouraged to believe a fantasy (ie. that sex can be consequence free) that moves us in the direction of totalitarian thought. Among other interesting points.

Why is the sexual revolution so appealing to people?

The sexual urge is obviously very powerful, and the idea you can have sex without consequences is a very appealing fantasy. But that’s what it is: a fantasy. Even if you successfully avoid pregnancy, you’ve got emotional consequences. The sexual revolution promises that if you just take the baby out of the equation, you can have all the benefits of sex without any of the costs.

Read more here.

…to make our point!

There are branches of the pro-choice movement that I just really, really don’t understand.

Mr. Rogers. Haven’t heard his name in a while. Watch this clip and see how wonderful he is with the small child in the wheelchair. Then watch him preach a message of hope and life at a Hollywood awards ceremony. Awesome.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI_9GegVoYk&list=PL00235130F80E0E3B]

Since porn is so pervasive, I post things like this from time to time. Chris Hedges discusses why porn is wrong  and disgusting. He talks about the chapter in his book that addresses it. “I wrote it graphically and brutally, intended to engender a kind of disgust… If you want to defend porn, you better understand what it is you are defending.”

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOZLdw6n2L4#t=24]

This also, of course, made me think that if you want to defend abortion, you better understand (graphic video at the following link) just what it is you are defending.

I mentioned this story a few months back. Good news for pro-lifers who rely on electronic petitions, which previously couldn’t be submitted to the House of Commons:

Having successfully garnered the approval of the House, Stewart’s proposal will now be sent to the procedure and house affairs committee, which will have 12 months to come up with a plan to turn his vision for an e-petition system into parliamentary reality.

Chief among the questions with which the committee has been tasked is the threshold for triggering a special House debate, particularly the number of signatures that would be required, and how many MPs would have to sign on as sponsors.

But now you can kinda feel like you did.

I’ve been working my way through the videos from the conferences, which include lectures and panels. Conference organizers seem to be posting new content every day. And the content is phenomenal. The speakers are engaging and challenging. And I just feel tingly and inspired every time the cameras pan the 2,600+ student audience. Wow. Wow. Wow.

Check out the videos here.

Many of you have probably already heard about baby Iver:

A Victoria woman who was declared brain dead is being kept on life support until doctors can deliver her unborn child.

Dylan Benson visits his wife Robyn in the hospital every day as their baby boy — already named Iver – grows inside of her.

Robyn, then five months pregnant, suffered a rare blood leak in late December that caused irreversible damage to her brain.

Now, doctors are hoping that they can keep her on a ventilator until the baby grows enough to be delivered via a caesarean section.

I guess this is why I have a blog. So that when I torment myself post media interview, I can indeed get “the last word.” If that matters.

I just did an interview with Ed Hand at AM 1310 and Kimberly Taylor of the Radical Handmaids.

We discussed the three doctors who won’t prescribe the birth control pill here in Ottawa. I said they were doing so for medical reasons. I spoke of the significant and consequential “side effects” like death, of the Pill.

Kimberly, quite rightly, said that most drugs have repercussions and we take them anyway.

I agree.

Here’s the point I wrote down ahead of time and did not make.

The repercussions must be in keeping with the illness. Death, or deep vein thrombosis or other repercussions are warranted where the disease you are eradicating is worse.

Example: It is worthwhile to do chemotherapy to kill cancer. Chemotherapy is no walk in the park, but if you don’t do it, you may die. The cancer may kill you. So it is warranted to go through chemotherapy, for that reason.

The Pill has killed women in Canada–for what? For their fertility. For something that is natural and normal and most importantly, could have been controlled in a different, non-invasive way. If we took the time to bother examining it more closely.

I don’t know about you, but if my sister, niece, daughter or friend dies in “treatment” I want to know that it was in cause of something greater.

Women are NOT being told that in order to “treat” the “disease” of their fertility, there are x, y, z side effects, sometimes severe. They are not being given the options they should be.

I don’t want to throw words like misogyny around. But where women die in “treating” something that is not a disease, well, I think that word could apply.

Since I can’t go back and say this on air, I write it down here. It will help quell the post-media interview blues.

I have a great deal of respect for Barbara Seaman. Here’s her obit in the New York Times. Not terribly popular to decry the Pill, but she did so consistently on behalf of women, til her death. I also recall how polite she was when she spoke to me, an absolute nobody journalist, when I interviewed her on this subject some nine years ago.

In a career that lasted four decades, Ms. Seaman would remain best known for bringing women’s health to the forefront of the national consciousness. In an interview with The New York Times in 1998, the 40th anniversary of the birth control pill, she spoke about its long history:

“It may be the most-studied pill we have,” Ms. Seaman said, “but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t need more study. There’s an awful lot we still don’t know. There’s still a yellow light of caution. It’s blinking a lot more slowly than it was, but it’s still blinking.”