Birth control

National victory begins in our local communities

May 18, 2015 by Natalie Sonnen Leave a Comment

When the mainstream media decides to champion a cause, it can mean millions, if not billions of free advertising for that particular issue. The acceptance of same-sex marriage in our society would be a good example.

Conversely, what the media chooses to ignore is often tragic and catastrophic. Canada’s National Marches for Life attracting tens of thousands from across the county would be a good example. The Ottawa March consistently draws more people to the steps of Parliament Hill consecutively, year after year, than any other single issue.

But the fact that the media has chosen to ignore this issue is such a great disservice to women that it is difficult to fathom.

Her name was Kate. She was a 28-year-old business woman whose story is told in “What Every Woman Needs to Know about Blood Clots” posted on the National Blood Clot Alliance “Stop the Clot” website. Kate’s symptoms started while she was in Hawaii on her honeymoon. She suffered pain in her calf that was so intense it woke her up at night. She went to an orthopedic surgeon, who ordered scans, found no problems, and dismissed her. She forgot about it. Seven months later she passed out in an airport following a flight. Medical personnel said she was dehydrated. Completely unknown to her, Kate had developed deep vein thrombosis in her calf.

Women who take their daily hormonal contraceptive are not told that it raises their risk of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) 300 to 500 fold. DVT causes stroke, heart attack, blindness, brain damage, and death. The pill also puts women at increased risks for various cancers, other sexually transmitted diseases, and it acts as an abortifacient.

According to a lone, but significant CBC report, there are at least 23 deaths from the birth control pill in Canada alone, and numerous other serious health affects. Bayer has paid out over $1 billion to settle lawsuits against their birth control pills, Yaz and Yemen.

So when the media ignores an issue, it is up to us to take up the rallying cry. American Life League is campaigning to stop the horrors that Planned Parenthood perpetuate, and they are also focusing on the birth control pill.”Organize a local event”, their web-page encourages. Don’t wait for big media outlets to take up this cause, get active in your local community.

National victory begins at the local level. Planned Parenthood, local pharmacies, and other contraception distribution points and manufacturers are excellent venues for your event. Stand on sidewalks or other public right-of-ways. Make yours a peaceful, prayerful presence. You can hold signs about contraception and our Pill Kills signs, if you wish. Be sure you comply with all local laws.

Women deserve to know the truth about artificial birth control.

Reflect and ponder

July 5, 2008 by Véronique Bergeron Leave a Comment

Read in this morning’s Ottawa Citizen in the letters section (sorry, I couldn’t find the web version of the full letter):

Under no circumstances should sex lead to a life sentence.

I daresay, this letter-writer has learned her pro-choice lesson well. Sex? Leading to pregnancy? No way! But on a lighter note, her statement reminded me of a joke, you know, the one about life being a sexually transmitted condition leading to death?

Among other letters, we also read the testimony of a woman who found herself in the leftover 1% for whom the pill is not “efficient” and who had an abortion as a result. She writes: “But birth control does fail some women who are then faced with unplanned pregnancies that, for various reasons, they cannot continue.” So much for birth control making abortion rare. Sex shouldn’t lead to babies and we need abortion because we have relatively effective birth control, not in spite of it.

Interesting.

Woman, if you want to get pregnant, why are you on birth control?

May 16, 2008 by Tanya Zaleski Leave a Comment

A recent study explains that a considerable portion of the female population is both using birth control and desiring to get pregnant.

The researchers also found that many women who are lax about birth control are simply ambivalent about preventing a pregnancy and confessed that they would be very pleased if they found out they were pregnant.

Of course, this article doesn’t claim these women want to get pregnant. It refers to them instead as “women who are the least motivated to avoid pregnancy.”

So why are these women on birth control? Is it trendy? Is it fun? Am I missing something?

Perhaps it has to do with a social imposition. Generally, men expect “their” women to be on birth control within an unmarried sexual relationship. However, a woman generally has an innate desire to have a child. Try as we might, biologically, we can’t successfully separate sex from procreation. Thanks to modern feminism, our gender-image has been so warped that a sexually active woman wanting to get pregnant (out of that perfect context) is unreasonable, flighty, and even creepy.

So here we have loads women happily getting pregnant from intentionally inconsistent birth control use. Now they need to tell the new, clueless father-to-be. The result of this mix? Perhaps it’s this:

…up to 64 percent of abortions every year are a result of violence and coercion – a practice… that brings unbearable and life lasting trauma to thousands of women.

Way to go, modern feminism! Just look how well the sexual liberation of women is working out.

Having fun with image databases

May 6, 2008 by Véronique Bergeron Leave a Comment

Been browsing the History of Medicine Division of the U.S. National Library of Medicine image database in preparation for a presentation on c-sections. Of course, when you type “birth” in the keyword field, you get images about — no, not birth — birth control. This ad from Planned Parenthood was too good to pass. So giving out information about the physical and emotional complications of abortion is a scare tactic but this isn’t, eh? Still, pro-life kudos to PPH for recognizing (for once?) that women don’t get pregnant on their own.

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Andrea adds: I find this ad fascinating–what year is it from? If the feathered hair is any indication, I’m going to guess the 80s. The thrust of pro-choicers today is very different from the spirit of this ad. Today, abortion is private. A woman’s matter. Men don’t matter. The pro-choicers of yesterday, then, were more sensible–if I don’t get pregnant on my own, how come the whole thing is so very private in the end?

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Véronique searches but: I couldn’t find the year. It said Utah Planned Parenthood, 19–

My guess would be the 80s too.

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Tanya objects: Let’s not knock this ad too much. It may be what inspired maternity-wear designers to bring out jeans for pregnant women. Seeing this, they surely said to themselves: “If a man can pull off something other than a mu-mu or overalls while pregnant, surely a woman can, too!”

The “freedom” of hormonal contraception

April 6, 2008 by Tanya Zaleski Leave a Comment

Pro-lifers are commonly criticized for not getting behind contraception initiatives. While personally, I have no religious opposition to the use of contraception, the claim that it is the salve to high unintended pregnancy statistics irks me. Aside for the fact that 54% of abortion seekers claim to have been using some form of contraception at the moment of conception, hormonal birth-control methods especially come with their fair share of dark, shadowy problems. Here’s one example:

For years, Johnson & Johnson obscured evidence that its popular Ortho Evra birth control patch delivered much more estrogen than standard birth control pills, potentially increasing the risk of blood clots and strokes…

But because the Food and Drug Administration approved the patch, the company is arguing in court that it cannot be sued by women who claim that they were injured by the product — even though its old label inaccurately described the amount of estrogen it released…

More than 3,000 women and their families have sued Johnson & Johnson, asserting that users of the Ortho Evra patch suffered heart attacks, strokes and, in 40 cases, death. From 2002 to 2006, the food and drug agency received reports of at least 50 deaths associated with the drug…

The F.D.A. did not warn the public of the potential risks until November 2005 — six years after the company’s own study showed the high estrogen releases.

Pro-abortion feminists are all too eager to talk about the sexual freedom these hormonal infusions provide. I guess I’m the sort of feminist who would rather think about a woman’s overall best interests in matters of health and well-being. So sue me.

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UPDATE, mid-afternoon: After reading this article again, I decided to call a friend of mine who is on the patch. We had recently been discussing the role of birth control in her life and relationship.

“You’re kidding!” she gasped, “and it was going so well with the patch, I thought.” Like many women, she’d struggled in the past with many forms of contraception with mediocre to very unfavorable results; weight gain, acne, allergies, cramping, decreased libido, you name it.

Her stunned silence was followed by, “But I can’t get pregnant now. I have no choice.”

Ah, the ‘freedom’ of hormonal contraception. Ain’t it grand!

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Brigitte wonders: You know what I don’t get? Is the number of women who are extremely careful about what they eat, who spend small fortunes on organic, “chemical-free” food and whatnot (as though all chemicals were bad – we’d sure look funny without H2O…), but who don’t hesitate one-third of a second before pumping their bodies full of hormones.

Excellent Ottawa Citizen letters page today

March 17, 2008 by Andrea Mrozek Leave a Comment

Why such a good page, you ask? Because there are two ProWomanProLifers on it all on the same happy day. Very much unplanned. My letter, here and Véronique’s here.

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Rebecca adds: The insistence that if one opposes abortion, one must support birth control is a fine example of question begging. (For the record, while I reject the notion that abortion is a consequence-free private decision that is the prerogative only of the woman involved, I believe birth control to be none of anyone’s business but the couple’s, informed by medical, theological and other considerations that matter to them. Although I do have some serious qualms about the medical basis for a number of birth control methods.) But the argument takes as a given that a) sex can be severed from reproduction and b) perfect birth control, or close enough to perfect, is achievable. Neither of these is true.

The world would be a happier, better, saner place if fewer teenagers (and, dare I say it, unmarried adults) had sex. This is partly the case because of the inevitability of unplanned pregnancies. No birth control method is 100% effective; sterilization comes pretty close, but even then, whether through a faulty procedure or natural regeneration, sterilizations sometimes don’t work. And the numbers typically given for the effectiveness of the pill, diaphragm, condom and so on are usually “perfect use” statistics; in reality, very few users reproduce these circumstances, and the “”real world” reliability of most birth control methods is much lower. This may tie in well with certain political or religious views, but it is not a political issue or a matter of opinion, it is a matter of fact.

So we create a culture in which sex is separated first from reproduction, then from marriage, and finally, in the age of the hook-up, from commitment or even affection. We raise a generation with the mantra of safe sex (omitting the fact that some diseases can be transmitted even while using a condom) and provide them with flawed tools to prevent conception. And inevitably, we end up with unplanned pregnancies, men leaving smoke behind them in the manner of the Road Runner as they head for the hills, and women convinced that their lives are ruined, who try to flee by terminating their pregnancies.

The fact that only abstinence is guaranteed to prevent pregnancy is also a matter of fact, not opinion. Young women (and men) who think their lives will be ruined, or (less melodramatically) recognize that premature and single parenthood will radically alter their plans, should keep this in mind. As a society, we can have “consequence-free” sex or we can value all life. We can’t do both, and no matter how hard we try (and many people have tried very hard indeed) we can’t sever sexuality from reproduction. Which is, I believe, part of the teaching of the Church on this matter.

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