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National victory begins in our local communities

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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.

More evidence that sex and pregnancy are indeed related

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This study from the Guttmacher, says:  

Half of respondents had experienced at least one unintended pregnancy. Respondents described three categories of pleasure related to pregnancy ambivalence: active eroticization of risk, in which pregnancy fantasies heightened the charge of the sexual encounter; passive romanticization of pregnancy, in which people neither actively sought nor prevented conception; and an escapist pleasure in imagining that a pregnancy would sweep one away from hardship. All three categories were associated with misuse or nonuse of coitus-dependent methods.

Now I have not read the Guttmacher study in full. But my translation on the “scientificese” above is this: Pregnancy is linked–strongly–to sex and sometimes women get pregnant the result of having sex. Furthermore, oftentimes unintended pregnancies are not unintended at all.

You know, I don’t like the idea that everything we do, including pregnancy, ought to be fully and completely planned. All it nurtures is a sense of failure if you can’t get pregnant the very moment you so desire, and a sense of failure if you get pregnant when you did not so desire. (If life is aaaaaalllll about planning, I might add that I’m way off track as per the official Andrea Mrozek 1995 high school graduation power point. See graph four, slide 15 for more information…)

A lesson in prevention

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Evan Harris from the UK, Monday, had this to say to the press.

What, really, the number of abortions tells us is the number of unwanted pregnancies. That’s the fundamental issue. And the best way to tackle that, as other countries have shown, is to have much better sexual relationships education than we have and much better access to … contraception. (emphasis mine)

He seems, like so many other pro-abortionists, to bring up the issue of unwanted pregnancy like it’s a sort of illness to avoid. Usually, government will offer the obvious methods of disease prevention. Don’t want lung cancer? Quit smoking. Don’t want to be obese? Eat sensibly and exercise. Don’t want to be pregnant? Here’s the kicker. The answer should be ‘refrain from sex outside of a committed relationship.’ But this simple solution evades us. Instead, a more complicated answer is offered, and this cleverly disguised as ‘comprehensive sex education.’

It’s a bit like if government were to say, “Well, the people are going to eat poorly anyways, so let’s start endorsing the latest diet craze or weight-loss pill.”

How much you wanna bet…

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… that this isn’t going to turn out to be “good for women” after all?

OTTAWA – The emergency contraceptive pill Plan B will now be sold on the front shelves of Canadian pharmacies without any medical consultation after a landmark decision came down Thursday to make the drug more accessible.

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Andrea adds: Oh but Brigitte, clearly you missed the nightly news. It’s 95 per cent effective! says the broadcaster, who clearly did not have time to do anything other than rewrite the pharmaceutical company’s press release.  

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Tanya explains: This was a smart move, right?  On http://www.drugs.com, on levonorgestrel (AKA Plan B) they give the following directives:

“Use levonorgestrel exactly as directed by your doctor. If you do not understand these directions, ask your pharmacist, nurse, or doctor to explain them to you…

 

“Talk to your doctor and pharmacist before taking any prescription or over-the-counter medicines, including vitamins, minerals, and herbal products, while using levonorgestrel.”

 

Now that no one is required to consult either a doctor, pharmacist, or nurse, I’m sure every 15 year old scared stiff of being pregnant will have self-discipline to do so. 

 

My favorite find, on HealthyOntario.com has to be:

 

“It can be harmful for people to take this medication if their doctor has not prescribed it.”

 

The big inconvenience here, I suppose, is that HealthyOntario.com will have to update its site to reflect NAPRA’s “landmark decision.”

 

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Véronique says: You know, this says a lot about the pro-abortion (or anti-children) culture our previous post was touching on. Here, we see that unplanned pregnancy is is to be avoided at such a cost that we are willing to forgo proper medical follow-up to ensure that no unplanned pregnancy goes “unadressed.” This move is so obviously anti-woman it should make feminists want to burn their bras all over again. What this decision tells women is: “we don’t care how sick you get taking Plan B, just as long as you remain sexually available and barren.”

 

This make me sick. Plan B side-effect sick.

 

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Rebecca does the math: 95% effective means 1 in 20 of the women who take this – without advice from a doctor or pharmacist, and therefore without any follow-up by a medical professional – will continue to be pregnant after taking Plan B.  How many of these women will assume the drug “worked”, or avoid taking another pregnancy test out of sheer denial and wishful thinking, and thereby go without the medical care that they need? What are the effects on the fetus of taking Plan B if it doesn’t work, does anybody know? Are we going to have a wave of women and babies harmed by Plan B and its side-effects a year or two down the road?

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Tanya attempts to answer Rebecca’s question:

Even if the “morning-after pill” fails and a woman becomes pregnant, there is no increased risk to the health of the mother or baby, research suggests…

In studying the newborns… researchers did not find significant differences in the length or weight of these babies… Additionally, there wasn’t any increased risk to the “exposed” babies of having malformations.

The study authors note that since failure of the “morning-after pill” doesn’t appear to negatively affect the fetus, mothers pregnant with exposed babies shouldn’t opt for an abortion because they fear for the baby’s health.

These conclusions based on a study involving 116 women, 36 of whom used “Plan B.” Not exactly exhaustive or very large in scale.

Contraception and peace of mind

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A recent study shows a correlation between emotional distress and imperfect contraceptive use. Read more here.

Between 10 and 20 percent of women reported that noncompliant behavior with their current method negatively affected work activities and their relationship with their partner, and about 3 percent had missed days of work or school. A higher percentage of pill users reported that they were ‘worried’ or ‘scared’ (68.8 percent and 22.6 percent respectively) compared with women using the skin patch (61.7 percent and 19 percent) or the vaginal ring (58.3 percent and 16.4 percent).

 

60 to 70 percent of hormonal contraception users regularly feel worried? Many have problems at work and in their relationships? This is definitely a stark contrast to the confident, liberated women portrayed in the commercials. Where’s the disclaimer that states “results not typical?”

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iU90rwIy7GY]

The “freedom” of hormonal contraception

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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.

Have a good one

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Today, March 25, is “National Back Up Your Birth Control Day,” south of the border. Celebrate by getting Plan B emergency contraception at a great discount. Read more here.

No mention as to whether they’ll be giving out balloons and cotton candy.

Plan B emergency contraception provides a larger dose of the same hormones found in birth control pills…

Those hormones are estrogen and progesterone. Don’t worry, though. I’m sure it isn’t the same estrogen and progesterone which have been shown in extended doses to contribute to coronary heart disease and invasive breast cancer, just to name a few.

As part of this momentous celebration, Planned Parenthood will also be “lobbying members of Congress to permit over-the-counter access to EC regardless of age.”

What a proud day for women everywhere! Ladies, mark your calendars. This is something to be sure to celebrate every year.

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Andrea adds: It is very difficult to view unfettered access to Plan B for any age as being pro-woman and on this it really doesn’t matter whether you are pro-life or pro-choice. Many of the women using Plan B repeatedly are young girls–not women. Marketing the morning-after pill like this makes it sound as though it’s a piece of cake. You take a pill, et voila! your problem disappears. But many girls can’t tolerate those high doses of hormones and end up throwing up. At which point, one can’t be sure the pill stayed down. So back for a second over-the-counter dose. Repeat the agony, which is heightened because you are alone (no doctor’s supervision is the whole point). That’s not health care. That’s a joke.

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Andrea adds again: It’s also International Day of the Unborn Child. I’ll admit though, that whether on my side or the other side, “International Days” of most kinds don’t thrill me. I gather this day aims to change our culture, to recognize and accept the unborn, and I’m glad.

The day was expressly started on the Feast of the Annunciation, making this particular day for the unborn more or less a Roman Catholic celebration. That’s not to say it couldn’t broaden out, but I firmly believe we need all peoples and faiths to join the fight against abortion, and I’m not sure that linking pro-life events to Roman Catholic holy days will achieve this goal.  (I’m well aware that other faiths are not exactly out there leading the charge on this one, so I appreciate the RCs doing it.) Some convoluted thoughts then, on this day for the unborn. Would that we lived in a culture where such a day was completely unnecessary.

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