10 Reasons The Pill Sucks

I’ve done a few articles of similar nature, and have decided to create the definitive documentation of said contraceptive suckage. For those of you currently on The Pill: I in no way condemn you, I only wish to inform you. Keep an open mind.

1. More than doubles a woman’s risk of breast cancer. And not just any old breast cancer, but the most deadly subtype that exists; triple-negative breast cancer. Being some one who likes breasts a lot, and loves women even more, this is entirely whack.

The Evidence. (Boring, I know, but it’s worth your time to be informed): This was confirmed in the prestigious California cancer-research journal, Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, from which I quote the article Risk Factors for Triple-Negative BreastCancer in Women Under the Age of 45 Years: “Oral contraceptive use ≥1 year was associated with a 2.5-fold increased risk for triple -negative breast cancer.” One year! And, they go on to add, it gets worse. “Furthermore, the risk among oral contraceptive users conferred by longer oral contraceptive duration and by more recent use was significantly greater[...]Among women ≤40 years, the relative risk for triple-negative breast cancer associated with oral contraceptive use ≥1 year was 4.2.” The evidence is in. The Pill leads to the death of women.

It’s absolutely insane. Woman who regularly use the pill are 4.2 times more likely to get breast cancer. Husbands, boyfriends, men, do you understand that when you make sure your lover is on the Pill, you increase her risk of cancer? If you do – if you really, truly do – and you continue its use, I shudder for you. Women on the Pill, are you truly willing to do this to your bodies?

Meanwhile, the world is stunned that cases of breast cancer have risen by over 80% since the 1970′s. Hm, what else really took off in the seventies? Oh, it must have been that women stopped exercising, or that they simply don’t check themselves enough. It’s their fault. Of course.

All of which leads me to believe that St. Agatha is truly the woman for our times.

2. Racist, sexist, ridiculous origins. The creation of the Pill represents the worst approach to getting a drug approved since, well…

Shall we make a brief run through the Pill’s noble creation history? The brain-child (get it?) of Margaret Sanger – a flaming eugenicist and founder of Planned Parenthood – it was created specifically for the purpose of eugenics, to get rid of those dirty, unintelligent black people. Besides the men and women who participated in the study of the first human birth control pill, it was tested – without consent – on 12 female and 16 mental care patients. Classy.

Three women died in the studies. They continued the studies on women. Male cases showed some testicular swelling. They stopped all studies on men. (Need I note that it was a man running this study, Dr. Gregory Pincus?) In case you were wondering why men don’t have a birth control pill the answer – though I’ve looked high and low for another one – seems to be sexism. This is a rather common consensus amongst the feminist community, funnily enough.

In case you were wondering whether that sexism continued, above that woman's head are all the errands she has to run.

And so it went – the dosage of artificial estrogen was insane, the creators received reports from their ‘patients’ of 132 blood clots, 11 of which were terminal, but denied that it could have possibly been the Pill. It wasn’t until 1988 that the FDA finally managed to pull the high-dose pills off the market. But as we know now, from the long list of symptoms sung calmly over shots of flowers swaying in the breeze, the Pill still causes blood clotting, and women still die(Other Sources: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pill/peopleevents/e_puertorico.html, herehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_control#Early_history)

3. Makes it harder for women to find a good partner.

…and gives me my first ever excuse to visit the gossip columnists. The issue here is that women on the birth-control pill lose the natural ability to pick out – actually to sniff and kiss out – a man with an immune system that compliments their own. In the wild and wonderful world of mating, you’re going to be naturally, chemically attracted to a man with an immune system unlike your own, because two varying adult immune systems have a good chance of creating one healthy, balanced little-baby-immune-system. To put it simply, women on The Pill end up unnaturally attracted to someone – biologically – like their brother.

(It has been suggested that this is why our culture is so immodest. When a young woman cannot attract the man she wants just by being herself – that is to say by her natural pheromonal attractiveness - she must compensate. And compensate she does, with tube-tops, if we’re unlucky.)

What’s the problem with all this? If you come off the Pill – which so many contracepting couples do at some point in their relationship – you’re not likely to remain attracted to someone like your brother. Which leads me to the next reason the Pill sucks.

4. Divorce. Simply put, a contracepting couple is more likely to get divorced than a couple using some form of natural family planning. This can be attributed to all sorts of reasons. An openness to creating new life helps bring couples closer together. Methods of contraception put real barriers between man and wife, canceling the beautiful act of sexual communication, an act as essential as verbal communication. Women on the pill can’t find a man they are compatible partners with. But whatever the reason, the data is in. Those that use only NFP have a less than 0.2% chance of divorce. Compare that to the national average of 50% and you’ll understand what I’m talking about here.

Planned Parenthood knows better. The Pill creates healthy marriages for white people and foreigners! It's not creepy at all! (If you don't know what I'm talking about, play spot the difference between these two cartoons.)

Now it was posited, the last time I mentioned this, that the only reason this is true is because NFP users are usually Catholic, and the Catholic religion promotes long-lasting marriages. To which I say “hell yeah it does!” But this in no way takes away the guilt of the Pill (and other forms of birth control) in regards to our culture of divorce. Unfortunately, American Catholics are really no better than anybody else when it comes to artificial contraception, and the NFP/Contraceptive divorce rate is the same as the general population, even if there are overall less divorces. But even if that complaint were true, there’s still this:

I’m not saying that correlation implies causation. If anything – taking into account the earlier statistics on contraceptive use and divorce – I’m making a hypothesis: That the rise of contraceptive use in the late sixties/early seventies contributed to the similar rise in the divorce rate at the same time, and that the maintenance of our contraceptive culture aids to the maintenance of that incredibly high divorce rate.

5. Bad sex. This is the worst, as far as I can tell. And I know, I know, I’ve mentioned it before. But I only mention it again because I truly don’t mind being the guy who constantly stands up for women having better sex. So, Biology 101: A female most wants to have sex when she is ovulating. The Pill ends ovulation. A woman’s hormonal cycle flatlines, and guess what? That strong desire to have sex flatlines with it.

Now whenever I write this I tend to get a bunch of dudes protesting. This always strikes me as odd – and perhaps even just a wee, tiny bit sexist. So, men, why don’t you ask your wife/committed sexual partner whether basic science applies to her, instead of just assuming she’s having the time of her life. And then there’s the fact that men are most attracted to women when they’re ovulating. (Spoiler Alert: This is not a coincidence.) It’s interesting to note that, given 80% of our fertility-aged women are on birth-control, it’s distinctly likely that there are men out there who have no idea what it’s like to really, really, naturally want to have sex.

And looking from a Martian view of our sex lives, one would have to conclude this to be fairly well evidenced. One need only step into the media fray to hear the demands that sex be displayed on TV, free from moral scruples, taught in kindergarten, performed in groups, with friends, members of the same sex, oneself, improved by various mechanical devices, and discussed in magazines and talk shows. The divorce rate is sky high, infidelity rates likewise, and porn is more commonplace than Bible reading. We seem rather desperate to wring some joy and fun out of an action humanity has never needed to wring.

6. Attacks guys. This is a consequence that doesn’t get talked about as often, but is undeniably scary. Mostly because I’m a guy and I’m projecting. But seriously, imagine you’re a guy, with the natural inclination to mate, surrounded by women with whom you are not - chemically, biologically - inclined to mate with.

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Increase in confusion, violence, masturbation and homosexual behavior? All well and fine, a cute experiment, right? It’s what your average, American, teenage boy is growing up with! The truth is we don’t know exactly what it’s doing to the modern man, but it certainly isn’t something we can conveniently gloss over. We would never look at a chemical that causes cancer in monkeys and say, “Oh, but this couldn’t happen to us! We like this chemical!” And yet no-one seems to be worrying about The Pill’s affect on men. I am willing to bet my life that the rise in pornography-use/masturbation in adult men does not mirror the rise in hormonal contraceptive use by some strange and coincidental accident.

Then there exists the fact that women used to be more attracted to men like this:

And are currently more attracted to men like this:

…the reason being hormonal contraceptives turn women off masculine men. Manhood is attacked. You want girls to like you? Act more like a girl.

7. Destroys life. If you are already on the pro-choice side of the house, feel free to skip this part. After all, if life begins whenever you define it (instead of, oh I dunno, at the beginning) then the fact that The Pill causes abortions won’t be of any consequence to you. But for the sane among us, educate yerself:

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The Pill as it exists today does not just prevent life from ever coming into being, it destroys it after it is created. A human person is killed by The Pill.

8. Turns guy fish into guy/girl fish. It works like this: Woman takes pill. Woman urinates. Pill goes in water. Fish is in water. Fish gets a hit of estrogen. Fish gets deformed. OK, moment of honesty. I don’t care about the fish, as long as they are still tasty. I care about human beings. What’s happening when we bathe our children, when we drink from water fountains? Not to pretend that I’m a science major, but drinking estrogen-tainted water can’t be good for you. In fact, it has always been well-known that birth control can be distributed on a population-wide basis through the drinking supply. In 1977 Obama’s Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, John Holdren, wrote:

Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control. Indeed, this would pose some very difficult political, legal, and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems. No such sterilant exists today, nor does one appear to be under development. To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements: it must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets, or livestock.

O.K, new reason the pill sucks. People in power get scary-ass ideas.

9. Being a Jerk to Women. You ever noticed that the burden of contraception is entirely on women? Unless a married couple is using condoms every night of their life, then the lady is on a hormonal contraceptive. And thus she gets to risk any one of the long list of side effects – blood clots, strokes, breast cancer, nausea, breast tenderness, fluid retention, weight gain, acne, breakthrough bleeding, missed periods, headaches, depression, anxiety, other mood changes, and lower sexual desire – while the man gets infertile sex. I guess she might be taking one for the team, but what team? And even if she isn’t on the pill, every other birth control device, besides the notoriously ineffective condom, seems to be aimed at women, saying, “it is you who presents a danger, a risk, a problem that needs solving, your fertility that needs to be suppressed, your life and schedule that must change.” Thus we have patches and rings and shots and metals on strings and goodness knows what else, a whole array of weapons that take away a woman’s fertility, and it is women that pay. The point of the matter is this: The Pill is a device designed to make woman easier to handle for men.

10. The widespread use of contraception has lead to widespread increase in abortions. Admittedly, this is the fault of all contraception, not simply the Pill, but still a point that everyone should be aware of:

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There you have it. Feel free to tell I’m wrong below, but before you do, let me ask you this: What if there was a better way? What if there was an entirely natural method of birth control that not only avoided every one of those afore-mentioned problems, but also improved marriages, led to better sex; had positive benefits? What if that method had a use effectiveness greater than The Pill? What if that same method also had the capacity of targeting reproductive problems like endometriosis, polycystic ovary syndrome, PMS, and infertility – and could heal them? Ladies and gentlemen, there exists such a method. The Pill sucks. I give you in its stead, The CreightonMODEL FertilityCare System. Find a teacher, and change your life for the better.

  • Meryl Amland

    Awesome.

  • olivia demkowicz

    Nice post. Liked it a lot. I would also challenge anyone to read more of Obama’s “Education Czar’s” writing. It is the most debasing, chauvinistic tract I have ever read. As a woman I found it deeply offensive, and I cannot believe that this man is now in charge of America’s schools. Sickening. Here’s a link to some of the excerpts and commentary for anyone interested. http://zombietime.com/john_holdren/

    • Anonymous

      The ugly fact is, those ideas are actually the norm of the intelligentsia, and have been since at least the 60s. A ridiculous proportion both of US foreign aid, and the resources of various NGOs, goes into population control measures, many of which are just as jackbooted as the ones described in that article (e.g., making receipt of vaccines contingent on birth-control programs—or, as in one scandal of WHO doctors in Peru, piggybacking sterilization injections onto vaccinations, without telling the patients).

      It’s only moderately better under Republican presidents than Democrat ones; Bush 2 and Reagan reduced or eliminated our participation in such things, but Nixon, Ford, and Bush 1 were as gung-ho for them as Clinton, Carter, or Obama.

      • Penny Farthing1893

        It was actually the norm for the intelligentsia going back to the 30s, and even into the nineteenth century, only they didn’t have the insidious technology to do it on the sly. They had to use standard methods of sterilization. In the 20s and 30s, right here in America, it was commonplace to have court-ordered sterilizations of “unfit” women (meaning handicapped, mentally ill, and black, thank you Sanger). Again, they didn’t castrate “unfit” men, because in progressive circles, men are never the problem (unless they try to man up and protect women/society).

    • Anonymous

      Do you have any proof of this beyond this website? Because I have to tell you, that’s ripped straight out of my favorite sort of dystopia sci-fi novels. As a liberal, I hate President Obama’s guts for being a lying, spineless conservative who doesn’t give a good goddamn about progressive policy, instead of the center-left politician he pretended to be. This is a pretty common attitude in progressive circles. I’d be VERY surprised if the president was actually considering such a extremist, fringe idea. (What fringe, I have no clue. There is no possible political argument for that besides ‘mwa-ha-ha, I am dictator for life, and can squash you peasants beneath my feet!’) And frankly, if the government can actually get it together enough to sterilize only the people they want to, and none of the ones they don’t, and figure out a way to get a mass forced abortions bill passed in this country of all places, they can have control of my fertility. But I’m not holding my breath.

      • Penny Farthing1893

        Actually, see, the proof beyond the website she linked is on that very website. It has links to his book, and to other discussion of the issue. The book is called “ecoscience” and it’s not hard to find. Holdren is a well-known population alarmist, and it’s not like he’s trying to hide it – progressives never do, since they feel like they are right, and those who are shocked by their ideas just haven’t come around yet. I’m always surprised that they’re surprised when people are horrified by some of these guys’ records/past statements. All I can say is thank whatever powers you believe in that the government can’t get it together enough to pull anything of this scale – Washington gridlock has its upside (not that they would need Congress on this – regulatory agencies are making policy now at the behest of the executive branch)

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Sharon-Walker/503932093 Sharon Walker

        I must say, I truly enjoyed your responses. I fully agree with most things you said and I just wanted to point that out :)

    • Anonymous

      I would be interested in seeing what the quoted text looks like in its original context.

  • cmb

    You. SO. ROCK!!

  • http://impactingculture.com Tara J Stone

    Amen, brotha!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Mary-Corcoran/819167453 Mary Corcoran

    Aside from not having all the bad side effects of the Pill, natural family planning also leads to an openness and joy surrounding sexuality. My parents have always practiced NFP, so I grew up knowing far more about my own cycle than most of my friends.

    I especially remember my friend showing me a passage from The Vagina Monologues called “The Flood”, all about feeling ashamed of one’s fertile mucus (that’s another thing about NFP people. We’re not squeamish about bodily fluids). I told my friend how weird I thought that monologue was, because I’ve never felt awkward about my body, and she acted like that was a complete anomaly, that women are forced by society to feel that their sexuality is wrong and that the monologue was somehow liberating. Maybe if we weren’t expected to shove chemicals down our throats that block our bodies’ natural functions in order to be more available for men, then women could realize what liberation really means.

    • Penny Farthing1893

      I have had a similarly distressing realization that women today know nothing about their bodies. A friend of mine was on the pill, and her (quack) doctor told her it was OK to not take days off to get her period, so she hadn’t had a period in 2 years. Eventually this caught up with her and her doctor said she ought to have her period again (duh!) Well, she did, and eventually she had to stop taking the pill altogether until her body had established a cycle again. One day she was very upset, saying she had intense abdominal pain. Another friend said she did too, a few days ago, and this happened a little after each period. They were both worried. I asked them if it was always one to two weeks after a period. Yes. On one side or the other? Yes, how did you know. They were ovulating. Neither had any idea when or how ovulation occurs, and these girls were in college, taking a lot of women’s studies classes. Yet they knew so little about women….

      • Anonymous

        What kind of birth control pills was she taking? Mine have a weekful of brown pills that contain nothing but iron supplements, and I definitely have a period every month when I get to the brown pills. If they were skipping their brown pills, that is not OK, and I find it hard to believe that any licensed gynecologist would suggest such a thing. That person is a quack, and should have his license revoked!

        Also, I have been ovulating for quite a few years now, and it has never caused me pain. That always waited a couple weeks until the period started. :)

        As for women not knowing about their own bodies–human reproduction isn’t covered in schools anymore. I went to a prestigious Catholic high school, and the sum total of my sex education was a repeat of the article above. NO discussion on how either sex’s reproductive system naturally functions. I only know how my own body works (!) because my mom gave me a book on puberty that she had used as a teen in the 1970′s. We need to insist that every high school talk about how the reproductive system works.

        • Penny Farthing1893

          I totally agree. The basics of how reproduction works need to be taught, from how men’s and women’s bodies work, through all the stages of prenatal development. I also learned it all from my mom.

          Not every woman’s body is the same, obviously, and I know a lot of women who have no ovulation pains, but also many who have them very severely. The thing that dismayed me about my two friends was that they were both rather obsessed with the notion of women being in control of their bodies and owning their reproduction, and they hadn’t learned what all that entails. I don’t blame them, since you don’t know what you don’t know, but it is indicative of our society’s attitude of never talking about sex, yet giving people powerful drugs that supposedly put everything under control. I just think all medical decisions, even routine ones, ought to be informed decisions. I also think it’s a shame that people are surprised/upset by their own bodies.

          • Anonymous

            What bothers me most is, it apparently isn’t my school alone that’s failing to mention the biology behind all this. I did an informal poll of friends who were educated abstinence-only (in other words, not a scientific study :P ), and all of them said they had learned everything they know about sexual anatomy, female response, and What Sex Should Be Like from pornography!

            If that is even remotely similar to what’s going on in the general population, then we have a serious problem on our hands. Even if you don’t talk about birth control, STD’s, or “some people are gay,” it is an absolute MUST for both sexes to learn what menstruation is, how ejaculation works, and what is normal or abnormal for a developing human body. You can’t take care of your own health if you’re not sure what “normal” is!

  • Anonymous

    Ok, as a math geek/epidemiology nerd, I have to jump on the first point for a second. You cited a statistic that ” Woman who regularly use the pill are 4.2 times more likely to get breast cancer.”

    Talking about risk as a whatever-fold increase in chance of incidence is really common (even among science journalists, more’s the pity) but really misleading. If I have a 1-in-1000 chance of contracting a disease and a certain action brings me up to 3-in-1000, I’m three times as likely to get sick, but I don’t care very much because the risk is still very small.

    It’s best to just say what the old chances were and then tell what the new chances are after whatever independent exposure you’re studying. So, if you get the chance, you may want to overhaul the first point to revise the way you present the numbers so they’re clearer.

    • David

      Ok, that doesn’t seem like much of a difference for the individual, but think about it like this, to use your example with a 1 in 1,000 chance of getting sick: In a population of 1,000,000 people, 1,000 will get sick. If each person person performs an action that will triple the odds to 3 in 1,000, now 3,000 people are sick. That is VERY significant. A 4.2 times increase on the individual level does not seem big, but apply it to an entire population, and that’s a lot more breast cancer. I don’t think that the numbers are misleading. I think they portray a huge and important point.

      • Anonymous

        And if those were the numbers, that might be a pretty potent argument. The problem with using the percent increase conditional on exposure is that it camouflages the true incidence rate. Seeing a one in 1000 chance double is something we may care about. Seeing a one in 1,000,000 chance double is trivial. If you report only that the risk doubled, I have no way of knowing the actual risk.

        Again, my point mainly isn’t about the risks of abortion. I’m just pointing out that if folks want to have that discussion, this particular statistic isn’t very informative.

        • seekup25

          still ignoring the big fat fingers in all directions

      • oct2011

        no one in this forum is questioning the reliability of the study in question, which, as a scientist, I find disturbing. I’m not saying the study cited is incorrect, I’m just saying we need more than one piece of evidence, and we need to critically examine every bit of information that we have, which I’m pretty confident no one on this message board has done with the original paper.

        • Guest

          I question the breast cancer/pill/abortion statistics quoted by prolifers/anti-anything-but-NFP-birth-control people all the time, so much so that I just ignore anything they put forward on that subject. ;) I’ve seen so much BS promoted by that quarter that it’s all just highly unbelievable white noise at this point. Boy, wolf, all that.

          When Catholics are willing to have a reasonable conversation on this topic, when they’re willing to be honest about medical facts, when they’re willing to accept that NFP is often a source of marital discord, and when they’re willing to actually listen to what the other party is saying instead of just talking _at_ those who disagree, maybe I’ll take anything they have to say seriously. Haven’t seen it happen yet, though.

          • Marc

            I dunno , you’re not gonna much more legit than the medical journal quoted for the breast cancer facts. What more would you want?
            And as far as being willing, we’re totally willing! Yes NFP can be the cause of marital discord – it ain’t easy. But you’d hardly deny the divorce statistics, right? It seems then that there is something about NFP that makes it worth doing, despite potential discord. If I might make a suggestion – discord is the result of communication. When you know each other, then you can fight each other. When you’re on the Pill, there is very little communication about each other’s sexuality – and why would there be? Thus perhaps there is less discord – yet there is more divorce. Silence leading to an end.
            As far as medical facts, which ones are you speaking of? Again, I’m entirely willing to discuss this!

          • Anonymous

            And I suppose you also consider relativity spurious because it’s the “Jewish physics”.

          • Guest

            No.

            You have now proven yourself to be a complete troll and are now on my permanent “ignore” list.

          • Anonymous

            Me a troll?

            You were the one asserting that an argument is invalid because of its source. That’s ad hominem fallacy—and is, in fact, an argument anti-Semites make against relativity.

            If the brownshirt fits…

            And if you’re going to call other people trolls, make sure you haven’t just been making inflammatory accusations because it amuses you to piss people off.

            Oh, but then again, I know what “troll” means, n00b.

          • Guest

            Silly child. Aren’t you late for school?

            The reason I no longer read the Catholic “interpretation” of statistics regarding abortion/the pill is because they have a very poor track record when it comes to accuracy.

            Like I said, boy, wolf, and all that.

            I choose to look up statistics and studies, and read the full analysis of studies myself. I don’t trust Catholic sources any longer because of their actions.

            My choice. Deal with it. Or don’t. I don’t care what you think or have to say because, so far, you’ve had absolutely nothing constructive, illuminating, interesting or inspiring to say.

          • Penny Farthing1893

            You’re doing a great job ignoring him ….. *eyeroll*

          • C-apotamus

            Care to share some counter-statistics you say you’ve researched on this particular topic?

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=824940183 Melina Damgaard

      That would be a valid point Leah, but the dreary fact is that the incidence of breast cancer in the population is a heck of a lot higher that 1 in 1000; so multiplying that incidence by 4.2 is pretty scary. I wasn’t sure what the actual incidence was, but a quick google search brought up this info: http://www.cbcf.org/breastcancer/bc_whatbc_bc.asp (yes, it’s Canadian – so am I). Under “Trends”, it says: One in nine (11%) Canadian women are expected to develop breast cancer during her lifetime (this means by age 90). Leah, one in NINE. That’s pretty significant. Whether that is the multiple of 4.2, or the original amount, or somewhere in between, that’s frightening. So I would say that in this case, with all due respect, your argument doesn’t apply.

      • Anonymous

        If the 1-in-9 number were the incidence rate that increased 2.4x, that would be pretty scary. I went through the paper full-text and the increase is only for triple -negative breast cancer (for the other kinds of breast cancer they studied, the pill had no significant impact).

        I have no idea what the incidence rate is for this breast cancer subtype. I’m confident it’s below one-in-nine, but I have no idea how far below.

        So, again, citing only the percent increase camouflages the underlying incidence rate and makes it impossible for us to gauge the risk.

        • Stericka

          According to the nat’l cancer institute, 12.2 % of women in the US will have breast cancer at some point in their lives () Triple-negative breast cancer accounts for 15% of breast cancer cases in the united states (). That means nearly one in FIFTY american women will be diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer.
          However, here’s where my use as a statistician fails: if prolonged use of the pill quadruples your chances of this cancer, would that mean that 4 out of five of that 1.8% of women who are diagnosed with this cancer will be pill users? Because that would raise the BC risk by more than a percent, 1/100, which is not a negligible number.
          Can someone help with math?

          • Guest

            Assuming the 1 in 50 to be the post-birth-control-increase number, it means that the incidence of triple-negative breast cancer used to be less than 1 in 200

    • seekup25

      Well, I would look at everything as a whole, not just at the “4.2 times more likely” point. Everything is obvi pointing big “fat” fingers to one thing and to jump around like a hot sausage around what all the fingers are clearly pointing at shows a real cowardly conscience afraid of awakening to the truth. To treat fertility as a disease, to morph women into objects morso for the “comfort” of a man’s sexual ‘schedule’, knowing that it causes abortions, knowing that the pill has all this RE-diculous side effects, destroying all hormonal harmony……INSANE how anyone in this light could deny the truth of it all. thats why you call those people ‘suckas’.

      • oct2011

        the pill does not cause abortions. There isn’t even a documented case of it preventing implantation, despite what everyone on the board says. It just prevents a woman from ovulating, and believe it or not, she may chose to take it for her own reasons–it’s not just around for the comfort of a man’s sexual schedule, as you stated. Educate yo-self foo

      • Anonymous

        Who is doing this? I have honestly never seen anyone, liberal or conservative, claim that fertility is a disease. However, I have seen some conservatives (the Quiverfull movement instantly springs to mind) who view the ideal for a woman as “slave to a man’s sexual desires.” Obviously most conservatives are saner than that.

  • Cheaperbythehalfdozen6Liz

    GREAT compilation of facts!!! Thank you! Let’s get the word out there to the masses!

  • Bekkarules

    I enjoyed your article for the most part, however, it is wrong to say that natural family planning is a “natural method of birth control,” at least, not in the secular sense of “birth control.” Calling it so only encourages the contraceptive mentality, and the use and abuse of partners toward one another. Granted, with natural family planning one is abstaining during fertile times, and this is much healthier, physically, than oral contraception. But your article implies that mentality the thoughts are still thinking “safe sex,” that is, sex without accepting the possibility of conceiving a baby. If then, with that mentality, you are part of that 1 % who conceives while abstaining during the fertile period, your response will still be animosity toward that new life – the same as with artificial contraception. What we need is to be aware that there is a safe and accurate way to avoid pregnancy when it is not a good time for a baby, but we also always need to be able to accept God’s hand in things. And believe me, He likes to “mess up” the plans of man all the time, and for the better.

    • Guest

      NFP is birth control, otherwise why bother? Unless a couple is using it to target fertility to enhance their chances of pregnancy, they’re using to enhance their chances of NOT having a baby while still having sexual intercourse during their marriage.

      Couples who use NFP for the latter reason are using it with a contraceptive mentality. If they were really all about letting go and letting God, and all that, they wouldn’t even bother with NFP.

      To try and position NFP as anything other than birth control (unless it’s being used to pinpoint fertility with the intent of becoming pregnant) is what makes rational people look at you like you’re a bunch of crackheads.

      You might reach your target audience more effectively if you weren’t always resorting to lies. If you have to lie, there’s a problem, and that’s why I distrust NFP and those who promote it — the lies, the misinformation, the pretense. Ugh. No marriage can survive that kind of dishonesty.

      • Marc

        NFP – especially the Creighton model – is effectively used to target reproductive issues such as endometriosis, PCOS etc.
        NFP – especially the Creighton model – requires an immense amount of communication between the husband and wife, talking about their sexuality, being open with each other about their bodies. So many couples chart for this reason: Self-knowledge and the sharing of that knowledge with the love of their lives.
        NFP – especially the Creighton model – can be used during pregnancy to reduce the risk of stillbirth or other in utero problems.
        And yes, NFP can be used as birth control, working not artificially but within a women’s natural ecosystem, but – in the Catholic mindset – only if there is just reason. This ‘just reason’ could mean economic difficulty, health problems etc. This mentality is entirely different from the mentality of the Pill, which undermines a woman’s sexuality for the purpose of sex without consequence.
        No lies, just the way hundreds of thousands are living.

      • Anonymous

        NFP is birth control, when used to avoid conception. It can be used (mistakenly) with a contaceptive mentality, but it’s not contraception, because it doesn’t erect a chemical, mechanical or spatial barrier between the wife’s egg and the husband’s sperm.

        • Jill

          Wouldn’t abstinence be the ultimate spatial barrier?

          • Anonymous

            There is no barrier with abstinence, because there is no intercourse. A spatial barrier would be coitus interruptus, or mutual self gratification.

          • Anonymous

            Let me add that the above mentioned spatial barriers are wrong in themselves (fertility aside), because they go against the unitive meaning of the conjugal act.

          • onepercenter

            No, they go against the procreative meaning of the conjugal act, which is exactly what NFP does.

            You still can’t get past the intent factor. You’re still ascribing all kinds of virtues to an inanimate tool.

            The unitive aspect of sex exists more in the heart, mind and soul of the couple than it does in their reproductive organs.

            Sex comes off as so utilitarian, so robotic, when you describe it, which might be your first clue that you don’t really understand the wholeness of it. No matter what aspect of sex you’re describing, it’s always limited to the reproductive organs. The human beings to which those organs are attached don’t even seem to exist in your world.

          • Jacqueline_Y.

            They go against BOTH meanings. To separate intent(heart, mind and soul) from the bodily organs is manichean dualism. NFP keeps them together. I’m sure I could have put things more poetically; I was just trying to be concise and clear (not “utilitarian and robotic”). In my world human beings are whole persons, not hearts and minds with bodily organs attached. I’m truly sorry you don’t see that.

          • onepercenter

            I don’t see it because you’re not explaining it.

            I don’t see human beings as anything but whole persons. I’m not the one trying to compartmentalize various aspects of our sexuality and humanity. You are.

            You’re also the one taking intent out of the equation. You’re saying the intent isn’t as important as the method, as the means. It’s actually a form of idolatry. You’re idolizing NFP.

            People use NFP with wrong intent. People use barrier methods with proper (according to Catholic teaching) intent. Yet you’re saying that the use of NFP mitigates the wrong intent because NFP is, in and of itself, somehow holier or better or imbues the users with some kind of special virtue.

            By your logic, a couple using NFP during the entire duration of their marriage in order to avoid having children so they can amass obscene amounts of wealth and use that wealth only to satisfy their most materialistic, consumerist desires is more moral than a couple who uses a diaphragm briefly during a period of job loss or illness.

        • onepercenter

          What about the emotional barriers?

          The thing about most Catholic teachings is they all sound like the worst sort of legal doublespeak. You’re always looking for the loophole, trying to get off on a technicality.

          The _intent_ is to enjoy the physical gratification aspects of the thing that makes babies while lessening the chances that doing so will actually make a baby.

          Sex is where the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual all come together. You want to sort out the various aspects of sex and enjoy some without the baby-making part.

          That’s no different from contraception.

          In your head, you’re contracepting. You’re saying yes to sex, no to babies. Same thing as hormonal or barrier methods. It’s just that the barrier exists in your head and your heart instead of in a pill or some latex.

          • Anonymous

            There need not be an emotional barrier, nor is it a “technicality”, because a woman’s fertility is cyclical. Choosing to limit genital intimacy to the infertile times respects the gift of fertility, and can be a loving and responsible decision.

          • onepercenter

            It can be lots of things. It can be a power play on the part of the woman. It can be opting for various other sexual activities between husband and wife rather than engaging in intercourse. It can be a reason to have sex, fewer babies, and more material possessions. NFP itself is merely a tool, just like a diaphragm is a tool, or a condom, or even hormonal BC.

            Choosing to use a non-NFP method of BC can be a loving and responsible decision, too. Couples who use non-NFP BC may be just as open to an unexpected pregnancy as NFP users, and vice versa.

            You still can’t clearly explain how NFP is different than, say, a barrier method which has no adverse long-term side effects.

            The _intent_ (remember, we’re human beings, not lab rats — free will is _everything_ when it comes to these issues, and free will and intent go hand in hand)) is the same. A married couple wishes to enjoy physical intimacy while recognizing that having a baby at that time is not a prudent thing to do. They take steps to do this, and they make sure the steps they take are optimized to the best of science’s ability.

            Same difference.

  • Anonymous

    No more hormones! Out of a bad relationship and not going back again. I was on them for a long time, because I am a control freak. I have no idea what I might have done to myself. I should have known when I expressed concern about prolonged use and the doctor at that time told me, “Oh, you might as well stay on it — it reduces risk of (one or two diseases I wasn’t particularly worried about anyway) and it’ll improve your complexion.” Gosh, when you put it like that…

  • Laura

    I’d say marry me, but:
    1. You’ve mentioned you have a girlfriend
    2. You don’t care about the poor fish

    Great article!

  • Danpriest

    I bet many of the same people who protest eating foods that have hormones added have no problem when hormones are added to themselves. Ironic.

    • Jill

      Conversely, if we’re commenting purely on conjecture here, I bet many of the same people who protest using hormonal contraceptives have no problem eating foods that have much more harmful hormones added to them.

  • Brian A Cook

    Actually, I get the impression that different women just like different types of features. Not every man has to fit into an ultra-rugged mold. Yes, masculinity is good, but not every man has to be ultra-rugged.

    Furthermore, many claims about Obama’s officials have been debunked.

    http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201008030060

    http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/jul/29/glenn-beck/glenn-beck-claims-science-czar-john-holdren-propos/

    http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2009/dec/09/vote-now-lie-year/

    • Anonymous

      Media Matters? Yeah, uh, dude, they’ve been debunked to hell and back as the Soros-funded Minitru they are.

      Politifact is only slightly better.

  • Audrey Joy

    Love this article. Compacted into a single, readable, eye-opener. Muy Bien!

  • Guest C.

    I love your writing style – please keep up the good work. I appreciated this was an article I felt I could share to my eclectic group of friends, who range from devout Catholics, “cafeteria Catholics, only-Catholic-in-Name, non-denominational various Christians, Mormons and other religions, and agnostics/atheists. It is an important topic that needs to be presented in a factual yet non-preachy way.
    Keep on writing!! I would realllly be happy if you did a similar article on cohabitation. So many of my Catholic friends (many of whom I never thought would ever succumb to the pressure, and some who even stated they never would) are now “shacking up” and I’ve heard all the various arguments. It would be great if I could share an article like this one presenting counter-arguments coming from someone other than myself!
    Either way you rock.

    • oct2011

      really, you feel like you could share this with all those people? Because as a former Catholic it’s shit like this article that make me very happy I’m no longer grouped in with all you nutters. I would never share this with anyone, it isn’t well written or factual.

      • Anonymous

        It involves statements of fact, and you offer no counter-evidence. So your statement that it is not factual is, unlike the article, not factual.

        • Anonymous

          Spend 5 minutes on the CDC’s website. Voila. Instant counter-evidence.

      • Anonymous

        The hilarious thing to me is, in recent polls, a pretty consistent 70% of all Catholics deliberately ignore what the Vatican says about contraceptives and sex. You’d think that the higher-ups, who have never had sex in their lives, might pay attention to the experiences of people who actually have been there and know what they’re doing.

  • Beth

    How is one’s sex life any better using NFP? If you’re abstaining during your fertile times (while ovulating…when you naturally want sex the most), then you’re not “getting any” then anyway. Poor logic.

    • Marc Barnes

      Great point!

      The difference is this. While with the Pill a woman’s sex life is hormonally flatlined AND STAYS THAT WAY as long as she’s on the Pill, a couple having to abstain during their fertile periods using NFP develop self-mastery.

      I won’t sugarcoat it – at first this sucks. It’s tough. But when it becomes a practice, when you learn to love each other through it, and communicate about, instead of just settling for “put her on the pill, now I (guy) can have sex all the time even if she doesn’t enjoy it as much,” the overall sex life improves.

      Contrast that to the Pill, where you develop no self-mastery.

      The reward is that couples, once they’ve developed this self-mastery, can appreciate the entire gift of sex more, and improve their overall sex life. I know many couples who have become “in sync” with there spouses desire through NFP, and thus are free to truly enjoy sex.

      For some couples this is harder than for others. I know a couple who says that after every 5 days of abstinence, it’s like they get another honeymoon. I know another couple for whom it was hell. The point is that, through the bodies natural, chemical adjusting to your habit and through your own development of self-mastery, the whole ‘no sex’ part of NFP becomes a beautiful thing, and a thing that can actually improve sex itself.

      Am I making sense here?

      The other point is that NFP is never meant for the lifetime exclusion of children. If you are pregnant, and then breast-feeding, you can have sex all that time. But it’s the times of abstinence that give sex it’s value.

      • Ashley

        Or how about just have sex when YOU BOTH FEEL LIKE IT. Yes, that means when your wife is ovulating since (and you wrote it yourself) that’s when a woman wants it more and also when a man is more attracted to her, and trust that God knows exactly what he’s doing and will only give you the children He wants you to have, when He wants you to have them! :o )

        • Marc Barnes

          True, but there are times when a couple needs to avoid pregnancy for economic, health, or any other just reason.

          • Guest

            Self-Mastery as you called it above is very important. After a birth, there is a period of up to 6 weeks (I had one birth that put me out of commission for 12 weeks post partum) where the woman should not have relations. I’ve heard the stories and I know of one family personally where the husband could not control his urges and it resulted in cheating while his wife was left holding a newborn. Cheating is bad, cheating while under the control of post partum hormones is devastating. Trust, if it is ever actually achieved again, is much longer in coming.

            We live in a society that tells men that there is no consequence to acting on urges. There is widespread porn that is easily attainable on the internet without prying eyes to cause guilt, prostitution, hook-ups. Self restraint is critically important to self worth. When we fight our own urges and win, we find strength. When we fight our own urges and give up, we shrivel up inside :(

          • Guest

            There are women who actually go the 6 week post-partum no-sex distance…? Huh. I always had to have a pregancy test done at my first post-partum doctor visit after each of my pregnancies because I never waited that long. Maybe if a woman has had a C-section, she has to adhere to that advice, but I don’t know too many women who actually wait out the whole 6 weeks.

            That guy sounds like he probably would’ve cheated at some point regardless of the pregnancy situation. That’s his set of personal issues at play, and has nothing to do with NFP v. hormonal contraception.

            Men (and women) cheated plenty before there was any kind of contraception at all. Men openly kept mistresses, and women often looked the other way, even encouraged them to. Men have never really been expected to behave themselves sexually in any society.

          • http://www.allourlives.org/ TooManyJens

            “There are women who actually go the 6 week post-partum no-sex distance…? ”

            I did. In my case, it was a *really* rough delivery. Also, our girl was such a bad sleeper that having the energy for sex at that point was kind of incomprehensible. :) I can’t imagine we were the only couple in that situation!

          • Guest

            I guess, and of course a C-section would preclude sex too early, but I just, um, really, really like sex, lol!

            I think it was pretty much the only entertainment we could afford when all ours were little, so maybe that’s why we were so quick to get back in the saddle, hehe.

            My OB also had to chastise me for doing sit-ups and running again too soon, too. I’m also completely unable to sit still for more than five minutes. These days they’re totally cool if you run through your pregnancy, though.

          • Guest

            How sad to hold people to such a low standard :( Self restraint is a super important part of lasting love (not to mention a good society). Did you feel that John Edwards was justified in taking a mistress while his wife battled cancer? There are seasons in life and seasons in marriage. How degrading it is to women to tell them to look the other way and let boys be boys! I know plenty of REAL men who don’t feel that it is an unchangeable part of nature. I’m raising my boys to respect women and be loyal and trustworthy. I’m raising my girls to demand respect and hold people to a standard worthy of the dignity of each person. If you start out with such low standards, I’m sure that you will find someone to fit the bar. Each person is uniquely gifted and special. Each person deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. I refuse to let myself be treated as anything less than a person who deserves unconditional love. In the same way, I would never allow anyone to disrespect my husband or my children by treating them poorly. My husband would never ask me to pollute my body with chemicals for his pleasure and I would never ask the same in return. I have no right to ask that because it would be demeaning to him as a person!

          • Guest

            I’m not holding people to any standard at all. Just pointing out that the pill didn’t make men more unfaithul, and that our society is hardly unique in not having particularly high expectations for male sexual behavior.

            I imagine my own standards for moral behavior are pretty similar to yours. I’m not Catholic, however, and I don’t agree with the Catholic Church’s teachings regarding non-NFP birth control.

            That I don’t agree with your Church’s teaching about BC does not mean I don’t respect my husband, that he doesn’t respect me, or that we taught our children to disrespect anyone.

            For the record, I never used any BC, including NFP.

          • Anonymous

            I still don’t understand how using the bodies that God gave us is setting ourselves to a LOW standard.

          • Guest

            I didn’t say that having sex is a low standard! I said that it is not unreasonable to expect men to control their desires enough to not go out and “sow wild oats” as it were. It is not unreasonable to expect a husband to remain faithful to his wife even if she cannot have sex. Interestingly enough, there are ways to show affection for one another that don’t involve sex!! Intimacy does not exclusively mean sex. If the only way you feel worth and love in the relationship is to have sex, then maybe a nice marriage encounter weekend may be in order. You can’t build a long lasting, happy marriage on a good sex life. It’s important but it is not the ONLY important thing. Communication, mutual respect, tender affection outside of the bedroom, compassion and hard work just to name a few. Great sex is the icing on the cake ;)

      • Guest

        Marc, breast feeding, even exclusively, does not suppress ovulation in all women. Please don’t spread inaccurate information.

        There is as much inaccurate, even dangerous, information spread about NFP as there is about almost any category of therapies or health practices you can name, and that piece of misinformation is one of the worst women are told about NFP/breastfeeding/natural suppression of ovulation. It’s just not true for all women.

        NFP is a highly subjective practice. I know there’s some kind of unspoken conspiracy among certain Catholic circles to paint NFP as nothing but super fabulous and the bestest thing ever, but that’s just not true. NFP has been the cause of marital discord, even divorce. The onus is still always on the woman — she’s blamed for screwing up when it “fails” (not that NFP can fail if you’re Catholic, but I hear Catholics saying that all the time), she’s blamed for using it to avoid sex, she isn’t able to have sex when she’s most desirous of having sex, etc. NFP may not even be possible for some women depending on their personal medical situations. Its not the be-all/end-all for everyone.

        NFP is merely one method of avoiding pregnancy while enjoying sexual intercourse. Plenty of non-Catholics use it, too, and they merely change up their sexual routine during fertile days. NFP in itself does not lend any special spirituality, understanding, or knowledge of God.

        Also, the times of abstinence are NOT what gives sex its value. What gives sex its value is the deep commitment, trust, respect, love and intimacy between husband and wife, and, of course, the potential for creating new life.

      • Anonymous

        While with the Pill a woman’s sex life is hormonally flatlined AND STAYS THAT WAY as long as she’s on the Pill,

        As a woman on the Pill, whose sex drive skyrocketed when she got on the Pill and hasn’t noticeably decreased since, I call B.S.

        • Jill

          Agreed, 2.5 years of being on the pill and I still feel the same cycles of sexual desire. It can be really powerful one week and not as powerful the next, just like when I wasn’t on the pill.

        • Guest

          I have cycled on and off the pill for roughly 4 years now. And I do not take it only for purposes of birth control. I know for a fact that this statement is competely invalid because quite frankly my sex life has never been better. I have never felt a closer connection with somebody and I am still just as in love on the pill as off of the pill. Needless to say, I too call BS.

    • seekup25

      Poor logic? The poor logic is in your skull dude. The fact you are brainwashed into the way those on the Pill view the world….like children are a hindrance, like sacrificing those time when you would rather “avoid” having sex to not get pregnant for the ‘sake’ of love, not for the sake of pleasure. Welcome to reality. Children are blessing, and evil ones wish war against them, even if it means dying of cancer for the sake of artificially regulating fertility, treating it as a disease.

      • seekup25

        a couple having to abstain during their fertile periods using NFP develop self-mastery…sucka!

        • http://www.allourlives.org/ TooManyJens

          But it’s *pointless* self-mastery. Having to abstain from hugging my husband one week out of the month would develop self-mastery too, but why would we do that?

      • Guest

        Being brain-washed into believing that there’s a skydaddy which has no solid evidence of actually existing, now THAT’s what I called a disease.

    • Lovenaturally

      Men desire the woman during the fertile time more than any other time of the woman’s cycle; abstaining them is a sacrifice for both, when there is just cause to abstain. I want to point out that “getting any” is not consistent with true love. Instead, it illustrates the problem with modern western culture – we want ours, when we want it, with no restrictions. Marc has it exactly right; sex and parenthood are something we have to treat responsibly.

      • Anonymous

        And how is lying about birth control in any way respectful or responsible in regards to sex?

    • Sarah

      NFP isn’t just for avoiding pregnancy. It is also used to help achieve pregnancy and to monitor health. It gives the entire picture of what your body is doing so that you, as a couple, can decide whether or not to abstain or engage. Deciding to abstain during a fertile time can take will-power, yes, but it’s a wonderful, affirming thing to be communicating as a couple and making these decisions together instead of just disabling a woman’s healthy fertility.

      Also, while it’s true that women often experience the most desire for physical intimacy when fertile, women also report other times in their cycle when their libido goes up (for example, some women experience a spike just before menses). The Pill seems to suppress libido across the entire cycle (at least from what I’ve seen among those who have this particular side effect when on the Pill. The difference between being on and off the Pill is very dramatic for a lot of women). *Also* :) , as mentioned in another comment, some women can experience other physical discomforts on the Pill (increased risks for infections, etc) that can interfere with normal intimacy.

    • Heather

      You’re right Beth, it isn’t any better. The only time I have any sexual interest is when I’m fertile, but our family is already stretched to its breaking point in terms of finances and childcare, so sex during fertile times is out of the question. So I do my wifely duty 3 out of 4 weekends a month and pretend I don’t hate it. And then I’m not even interested during the fertile time either because I’m just stressed out and resentful about it all.

      Sorry to burst people’s bubbles, NFP DOES beat contraception in not having health risks, but the line about it improving marriage is total bunk. It didn’t save my first marriage from divorce, and it doesn’t help my second either.

      • Guest

        Thank you, Heather, for being brave enough to say this. Too often, NFP is idolized in Catholic circles, with glowing, breathless, trashy-romance-novel-esque raves about how NFP has ramped up the couples love life to a level of 24/7 nirvana. I know more couples who are unhappy with NFP than I do those who are, but they are afraid to say anything negative because they’ve been brainwashed into thinking that any criticism of NFP is sinful.

        • Marc

          that is certainly sad. NFP should never be glowingly romanticized – it is a tough, willful lifestyle. But there’s something about living it that makes marriage work.

  • Anonymous

    This is idiotic.

    • seekup25

      the idiocy is the one who can get on such a destructive lifestyle and pill…that is “pure” idiocy. but yet again, ignorance make people stupid. Amen to NFP!

      • Anonymous

        nope

        • guest

          I suggest giving an argument next time Sept2011. It will help others to understand what you are upset about.

          • oct2011

            there’s no point in arguing with religious nutters. You all don’t listen to reason or logic. Have you read your entire book? I mean cover to cover, and analytical reading. Once you’ve done that, lets chat.

          • Anonymous

            When you can tell the difference between Catholics and Sola Scriptura Protestants, you get an opinion. Until then: that hole in your face, did you know it also closes?

          • Guest

            Oh, hey, let’s all convert to Catholicism so we can be filled with love and light just like Sophias_Favorite!

            So far, Sophias_Favorite, your only arguments for your position are insults, name-calling, and sneering, antagonistic commentary.

            All you’re doing is turning people away from your position.

            Either put up an intelligent, rational, even-toned argument, or shut YOUR pie-hole, ‘k?

          • Anonymous

            You must have missed my repeatedly pointing out ad hominem fallacies, offering reductiones ad absurdum, and calling people on their hypocrisy.

            And maybe I wouldn’t sneer at you if you had the stones to actually sign a name, coward.

          • Guest#51

            Hahahaha! You’re funny.

            I guess your mamma christened you “Sophias_Favorite”? LOL!

          • Anonymous

            I sure have been shown the error of my ways by your admirable commitment to reasoned debate.

          • Guest

            When you can give us rock hard solid proof that your “God” truly exists, that’s when YOU get an opinion.

      • Anonymous

        I am on the Pill for hormonal reasons. I am not sexually active, and have not been since before I got on the Pill. Honestly, I consider the risks to be worth not being completely useless one day of every month (give or take–my cycle was never regular before the Pill either). I like not being dizzy. I like being able to do things EVERY day.

        • Penny Farthing1893

          And the Church considers it valid to use the Pill to treat other medical conditions (hormone imbalance, endometriosis, etc,) even if that means it also prevents pregnancy. It is called double-effect, and it’s a very important concept in the study of ethics, including medical ethics, whether or not religion is involved. You could look at it this way – a woman’s fertility is not a disease, therefore you should not “treat” it. But if the same medication treats an actual disease, then that treatment is fine. Every medication has side effects that must be weighed against the condition you are treating. Intent matters quite a bit.

  • Anonymous

    I can’t believe you idiots believe this stuff.

    • Marc Barnes

      I can scarcely believe you don’t! Let me know if I can help.

      • Anonymous

        I grew up on this stuff, and ONLY this stuff, and I don’t believe it. Why are you surprised that someone who’s just now encountering it doesn’t believe it?

    • Anonymous

      Which stuff, the health statistics, or the closely-reasoned moral philosophy?

      Actually, I don’t really think “belief” is in play here.

      But then, I know what the word means, O titan of intellect.

      Or troll, for short.

    • Penny Farthing1893

      I get the skepticism of the emotional/relationship stuff, but the medical side effects are listed in the actual packaging of the pill, and really fast at the end of all those commercials with the hip young women having coffee and talking about birth control….

      • Jill

        Every medication has side effects, where do we draw the line? And, just because they’re listed on the package doesn’t mean the majority of those taking it will suffer from them.

  • Nate

    ‎#11: The objectification of women and men: with the pill or any other form of contraception for that matter comes a mindset, and that mindset is consequenceless sex. The ability to completely enjoy the pleasures of sexual intercourse wit…hout any of those inconvenient babies to worry about. So what’s the problem?? Well if there is no consequences to ones action then there is no need to put any effort into that action. There is no need to take responsibility into account. So what happens is an explosion of promiscuity. It no longer requires love for your spouse… hell it doesn’t even require the spouse. Anyone will do so long as “I” am pleased. So the girl a guy will sleep with no longer need be good enough to be his wife and mother of his children, she need only be good enough for the night. The woman has become only an object of pleasure, and her personhood and dignity no longer matter. Same goes for a man in the eyes of a promiscuous woman.
    And why not commit adultery if one so pleases, the likelihood of being caught is now very slim. Contraception is indeed the great lie of the 20th century. It told us of “sexual freedom” and “safer sex” without the nasty consequences of parenthood. Instead it lead to increases in abortion, divorce, promiscuity, extramarital pregnancies, and a severely deficient understanding of the human dignity when it comes to sexual nature.See More

    • Anonymous

      I am trying to figure out how ANY of the things you said could possibly result from contraceptives, in and of themselves. A poisonous view of sex as “a thing you get from people,” instead of a wonderful sharing of love, body, and soul, is to blame, NOT the existence of little pills and pieces of latex.

  • Christy Hampton

    Great article! Sums up well the problems with the pill.

    FYI, due to being linked to this article I just realized that “I’m moving to Patheos” meant “the Blogger RSS won’t work”. And here I thought you were just working extra hard at college.

    Although there is the nice benefit of having 9 articles to read all at once

  • Gillosa

    You never mentioned sterilization… could you do a follow up on that?

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=597327154 David Rose

    Contraception just isn’t natural. A monkey can tell you that (and they have – #6 lololol). Put down the big mac, turn off gossip girls, and show some respect for your humanity!

    • Anonymous

      Neither is wearing clothing, driving cars, or using computers. Morality is not in any way related to whether or not something exists in nature. It is generally based on whether or not doing something harms people. :)

  • Oregon Catholic

    With regard to #3 and #4 relating to odor attractions/divorce, I’ve noticed that NFP proponents have jumped on this like gang busters despite the very limited scientific evidence in humans. I wonder if they have looked at MHC studies in mammals that pair for life vs those who don’t.

    You can’t embrace one side of the biological argument and ignore the other. I’m referring to the fact that if you accept the study conclusions that women who go off the pill (become ‘unpregnant’) then find their husband’s odor unattractive, you have to accept that women will find the odor of the man they chose for mating unattractive when they become pregnant. Since we don’t see a lot of pregnant women divorcing their husbands I think the conclusions may be suspect.

    • guest

      Actually, there is some truth in that. I have many happily married non-contracepting friends. One of which is pregnant right now, and during the first few months of her pregnancy she did have a hard time with her husband’s smell. You’re right, not a lot of divorces. But their marriage, though aided by natural chemistry, was formed on more than that. Not to mention the joy of a child actually growing in your womb!

    • Sarah

      You also have to remember that pregnancy is a temporary state… not something you experience for years and years on end with no change or progressrion. Also, a real healthy pregnancy progresses past the first trimester (when everything typically smells bad), and women often have an increase in libido in the second trimester.

      I’d also like to add to this wonderful blog post that I recently met a physical therapist who specializes in women’s issues (pelvic floor issues, etc), and she was telling me how she worries the most about women who have been on the pill for an extended period of time (7+ years). She noted that the pills changes the pH of the vagina, and they are much more prone to yeast and vaginal infections (often contracted after being intimate – another damper on the libido), as well what she calls “withering tissue.” She sees a lot of issues in her practice. It seems like many medical professionals I run into have noted downsides to prolonged use of hormonal contraceptives, and yet teens and 20-somethings are given prescriptions like it’s candy thinking they can just be on these meds until their early 30′s – when they play to have babies – with no worries.

      • Sarah

        ugh, sorry for all the typos. :)

      • Oregon Catholic

        Sarah, I hear what you are saying and I’m not an advocate of the pill.

        However, there are other very common causes for frequent vaginal infections and it could be dangerous to put too much blame on the pill. There can be promiscuity in the woman (aided by being on the pill) or her partner(s) or both, i.e., it is like having sex with all your partner’s recent partners. Women who are monogamous and suddenly start get vag. infections without an obvious cause need to seriously consider if their partner is unfaithful. Vag. infections are rare between 2 healthy monogamous partners engaging in normal intercourse. Our immune systems get used to our partner’s ‘flora’ and infections don’t occur.

    • Guest

      Not to sound mean, but if women divorced men just because they smell bad on occasion, the divorce stats would be way higher than 50%. Sorry guys – I love ya, but sometimes….

      Not that women are always fresh as a daisy – that is just an illusion we try to maintain :D

  • seekup25

    awesomeness b-UT……there are those insane people who actually think there is “love” and “harmony” in a marriage that uses contraception. The truth is that they ignore all the statistics of the dangers of the pill and the basic implication of what a “wife” on the pill truly means. It means still exactly what it means with those who use the pill outside of marriage. The woman is the man’s “Game” at any time of day, disrespects the actual “cycle” of her healthy fertility. And so, what is MOST healthy in a woman’s central sexual aspect, they choose to pop a pill to treat it as a disease…not to mention, it divorces the awesome sexact from what it ought be open to, even if they cannot conceive. Why? because that is the “nature” of it. They reject the very “nature” of what the act is. And thus, their love becomes morphed into something that denies the deepest aspect, the most profound aspect of a marriage…..the opening up to that 2 meets 1 flesh. So it still treats fertility as a disease. It is without say that it turns their marriages into “I’s” instead of “ours”.
    The truth is, there is no greater coward in this 20th/21st century than the lousy false feminist and false Male, who has very specifically “deceived oneself” into falling into an even greater form of slavery by men….and women.They have truly fallen into the trap of forgetting…..forgetting what sex truly means in its most natural form. NFP answers that well. There are too many idiots who are deceived, and unfortunately the True Artists who respect design as it should be respected in the name of Natural Law, must deal with the ridiculous task of having to “educate” the great idiots of this time to return to truth. for goodness sake.

    • Anonymous

      You are behaving very rudely, and you should shut up about the marriages of other people. You don’t get to say what love and harmony mean to other people in other relationships. You don’t get to judge what’s ‘healthy’ for a women and condemn her for her choices. You don’t get to declare how couples should decide to have children, not have children, when they have children, or why they have children. You don’t get to tell people what the ‘natural’ form of sex is. You are not god, you are not his voice, you are not the arbitrator of sexuality. You are one small, singular person, shouting out your self-important views of how other people should conduct their lives to better suit you. So kindly? Read the goddam bible you are so enamored with, starting with the bit about motes and logs in people’s eyes.

      • Anonymous_coward

        Hi.

        Don’t you think you’re being a bit….umm…judgmental? Or is this the rule? It is wrong to say that anything is wrong..and that’s the only thing that’s wrong…and anybody who does so is hateful, rude, mean, etc.

        • Anonymous

          Probably I am. I’m looking at it as the lesser evil since I’m commenting on one person’s specific behavior as opposed to the lives of a large number of unknown people. Juggling the commandment not to judge with the obligation not to let injustice pass silently is difficult. It’s a balancing act, one that I don’t always succeed at. Here, whether I succeeded or failed doesn’t matter so much to me, since I do believe what he said is harmful. I’m sorry I got mad and didn’t take the time to respond more gently. There I failed. I believe that not responding at all would have been a larger failure. Judgement like the above hurts people. It makes them feel guilty for necessary compromises. It drives people who might need the church away because they feel shamed. It makes couples second guess themselves and what they’ve done in their relationship. It hurts people. And it’s wrong to hurt those people for the sake of claiming moral certainty. I apologize for the hurt my words can cause. When I’m my best self, I don’t want anyone to be hurt. But I can’t be that self without challenging things like this post.

      • Anonymous

        And you get to say what others get to say, because…what?

        I’m pretty sure that, given that “nature” is (at least in most senses of the word) a knowable external reality, he isn’t making an argument from authority. He is arguing from facts, rightly or wrongly interpreted. Your only valid counter is to dispute those facts. This you do not do; you merely accuse of fallacies that are not present, appeal to emotion, and commit ad hominem attacks.

        That is identical with conceding the debate.

        • Anonymous

          Declaring what is natural without evidence is not arguing from fact. I can claim it’s unnatural for men to not contribute to their child’s upbringing, but without presenting evidence, I’m only claiming an opinion.

          And I don’t consider this a debate, since the subject he is discussing is outside of either of our authorities or right to involve ourselves. I’m not debating his claims. I’m challenging his right to make them.I think declaring what other people do and say and feel without a shred of evidence to support your claims is stupid at best, and incredibly condescending at worst. That’s not a subject to debate. Either he feels he has authority to say how other people should live, or he doesn’t. Either way, the conversation is finished, because if we agree, we have no further need to discuss anything, and if we don’t, our ethical structures are so alien to each other that meaningful discussion is impossible.

          • Anonymous

            If there can be no discussion, and neither of us wants the other’s policies, the only thing left is to fight.

          • Jill

            What? Are we in a dramatic 80s movie suddenly? What does that even mean? Why is fighting the only option?

          • Anonymous

            You said there can’t be a discussion.

            We don’t want to live by your standards and you don’t want to live by ours, but they both have public-policy implications: one of us is going to have to put up with something they don’t like.

            Unless we simply establish separate communities, one of us is going to have the other’s views imposed by force (or as it’s called in polite company, “law”).

            I was simply saying, we better hope we can have a discussion, the alternative isn’t as pleasant.

          • Jill

            I didn’t actually say we can’t have a discussion, that was another commenter. However, something like the pill does not need to be touched by law. If Catholics don’t like it and non-Catholics do, Catholics can not use it and non-Catholics can. It doesn’t need to go to public policy, it doesn’t need to go to Parliament, it doesn’t need to be resolved by fighting. And if it can’t be discussed, it doesn’t have to be — we can all just leave it alone. A Catholic’s rights aren’t being interfered with by the mere existence of birth control. However, a woman’s (and a man’s) rights are being interfered with if the existence of birth control is revoked.

          • Anonymous

            You’d have to abolish all state-funded health insurance so Catholics are not coerced into funding things they view as immoral—or at least have that insurance not cover contraceptives.

            Now do you begin to see the problem?

          • Jill

            But it’s so much more wide-reaching than that. What about people who think that universal healthcare is immoral? Welfare? WARFARE? If everybody got to pick and choose what they were to contribute to with tax dollars, nothing would ever receive a justified amount of funding.

          • Anonymous

            We don’t want to live by your standards and you don’t want to live by ours, but they both have public-policy implications: one of us is going to have to put up with something they don’t like.

            Well, yes. I put up with people smoking outdoors, even though I don’t like smoking. I put up with people having annoying cellphone ringtones. We all put up with a lot of things we don’t like. It’s called LIFE. :)

          • Penny Farthing1893

            Yes but where public policy comes in is if your tax dollars were buying the cigarettes and ringtones. This is the problem with subsidizing things. And yes, with publicly funded healthcare. The only fair way to do that without compromising health workers’ right to conscientious objection would be if the government helped fund health savings accounts, and people could spend it on whatever health care they want. This would also lower the cost of health care, and increase accountability. I’d be all for the government paying in for people who can’t afford it (and only those people) while employers and employees contributed to accounts too (like we do now for medicare, only not bankrupt and filled with waste) But as long as the government is intent on micromanaging what insurance we buy and deciding what to reimburse doctors (a pitifully small percentage) don’t look for any meaningful improvement any time soon.

          • onepercenter

            Our tax dollars pay for the negative impact smoking and eating like a pig have on those who choose to shovel crap into their faces and smoke and who refuse to exercise. Our tax dollars pay for all the feel-good pills people take because they can’t grow up and deal with life without going into whiny victim mode. Our tax dollars pay for many things individuals may be morally opposed to. Why do Catholics think they’re so special they should get to deny others equal coverage of perfectcly legitimate birth control methods? You don’t see Christian Scientists whining about covering your medical treatment, do you? America is not only for Catholics.

      • http://www.allourlives.org/ TooManyJens

        Thank you. The way contraception opponents think they know all about other people’s marriages just because those marriages don’t conform to their particular view of the One True Sexuality is disgustingly arrogant.

    • Guest

      Sex in its most natural form doesn’t include the highly technologically advanced version of NFP being taught today. Actually, sex in its most natural form doesn’t include any kind of NFP, including the old rhythm method (aka Vatican roulette).

      Your tone and your language indicate a deep disrespect for both men and women. The scare quotes around “wife”, the implication that any couple not using NFP is merely objectifying each other and using each other for physical gratification, calling people who disagree with your Church’s teachings “idiots”, etc., indicate a lack of respect for anyone and everyone, and most of all, a lack of respect for God.

      You don’t know anything about what is between another man and woman. It’s not your business to know, either. It’s certainly not your business to judge.

      Catholics such as yourself seem to think sex is merely about orgasms and babies, and you forget your own Church’s teachings on the “unitive” aspect of sex. Unitive does not merely mean feeling good, or physical gratification. It’s not about the woman making sure the man gets enough physical gratification that he isn’t tempted to seek out companionship elsewhere. It’s not about the man using his wife around her cycle as opposed to using her _in spite_ of her cycle (which is the scenario you’ve described here).

      The unitive aspect of sexual intimacy goes far deeper than the physical sensations of sex. That aspect of intimacy is either there or it isn’t in ANY marriage, regardless of the method of birth control you use. To claim NFP automatically guarantees that aspect of intimacy is not truthful. NFP is just a system of charting fertility and arranging your sex life around it to suit your purposes. That’s all it is. It’s not anything else. The other stuff comes from the heart, comes from an intention, an active decision to love, respect, honor the other.

      And that is where Catholic NFP promoters (there are those who promote NFP for non-religioius reasons, which is why I use the qualifier) lose me every time.

      Once you start judging my marriage and insulting my husband and myself, I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in what you have to say about anything, much less what you have to say about God. You’ve pretty much already showed me what you think about God when you insult other people like that.

    • Anonymous

      I have never encountered a man who thought that way. And yes, I have had sex, WITH a condom every time. Sex can still build an emotional connection, even if you have on a condom. I still remember my ex-boyfriends fondly. :)

  • Anonymous

    1. Yes, the pill carries an increased risk of breast cancer. We need to find a way to mitigate that. (Along with the rest of the many, many cultural and environmental factors that result in America’s appalling rate of breast cancer, and it’s equally pathetic survival rate, which hasn’t much changed since the days of double mastectomies.)

    2. Yes. The pill’s history is ugly, ugly, ugly. Yes, it has potential side effects that can kill. Both those things are true about the anti-depressant I take. Or my amphetamine-based medications. If we discard anything with a sexist, racist, classist, etcetera past, we have to scrap all of western civilization and start anew. To discard what little good that came out of the vast grasping pit of ugliness is to spit in the face of those who suffered. It makes what little meaning that can be scraped up out of tragedy into nothing.

    3. Just like to point out that lesbian and bisexual women take the pill too, which brings to mind the question of how they select female partners, because it’s probably not on basis of genetic compatibility. And whether it matters for couples, gay or straight, who never intend to have kids, and thus never go off the pill. At any rate, biology as destiny is slightly iffy, considering the powerful force culture has on every aspect of our identity, including our sexuality. Next- Our culture isn’t immodest, it’s misogynistic. Check the cultural pressures to perform a artificial, male oriented sexuality before going off into the realms of biochem.

    4. Couples who use birth control differ substantially from families that use natural family planning. I suspect the latter may be a much more liberal bunch than the former. There are too many unmeasured variables to draw any conclusion from the correlation.
    (As an aside, a Pagan acquaintance of mine introduced me to her religion’s marriage tradition- handfasting to come together, handparting to come apart. Handpartings are viewed as ‘something done when the relationship has run it’s course’, not as failures)

    5. Oh really? The pill ruins your sex life? That’s a bit of a surprise to oh- me, my friends, most of my online acquaintances, various former classmates, my mother (Do not ask how I found out. Please. I don’t want to talk about it.) and untold other women in my life…
    In all seriousness- infidelity was enshrined as a cultural institution in many cultures, including countries like England. (See mistresses, knocking shops, Victorian porn, the common narrative of the fallen women.) And we have evidence of stone age dildos and stone age porn, for crying out loud.
    Choose a mythology from just about any country in the world, and I can point you to at least a story that is all about sex, and probably a dozen more besides. Ra, for example, was cut into 13 pieces by his jealous brother Seth. Ra’s wife, Osiris, searched the world to gather up all thirteen, to resurrect her husband. She found twelve. The missing thirteenth was Ra’s penis. So she replaced it with a stone dildo, and had sex with her husband’s dead, re-assembled body. Seriously.
    We’re not doing anything new when we cheat, tell raunchy stories, watch porn, or get kinky. It’s not because we’re trying to wring enjoyment from suddenly joyless sex. It’s that we have cultural permission to talk about it, and we love it so much that we don’t shut up.
    Point the second, Sex is best when you’re happy, not anxious. Worrying about pregnancy is a big anxiety inducer. If A, then B. If not A, then not B.

    6. I am more than my hormones, my partners, and my sex drive. I can chose not to be an asshole, a maladjusted pervert, or a criminal, even when my romantic life sucks. I think that most adults, including male adults, are capable of the same. Why don’t you?
    Also, queer girl here. Not amused by your attempt to claim my queer brothers are just frustrated heterosexuals. Not. amused. at. all. And what do you have against feminine men? Why shouldn’t women be attracted to them?

    7. The pill stops ovulation. No eggs to meet the sperm, no zygote. No proto-baby. No clump of cells. Nothing attached to the uterine lining. Are you getting where I’m going with this?

    8. Yes, absolutely, the water situation sucks. Have you ever read about what antibiotics, common cleaning products, and industrial pollution are doing to our water supply? It’s frightening. The pill, ultimately, is a small part of a much, much bigger problem. Trying to eliminate that without addressing the other contaminates is just re-arranging the deck chairs on the titanic.

    9. Yes, the current expectations about birth control are unfair. That’s because we’re in the great backlash against feminism. (which you are a part of, by the way. This post being a prime example.) Sexism is on the rise. Sexism cannot be cured by going backwards, retreating to old models of behavior. It can only be cured by moving forward. I expect more. I expect men to take an equal part in controlling and planning their fertility. Because I firmly believe men are capable of such, if they start to hear the message that they too bear responsibility.

    10. I’m sorry, no. Any person whose credentials are writing a book against birth control is not a credible source for proof of a abortion/contraception link. Actually, I’m not sorry.

    Now, the things you don’t mention about the pill:
    *It functions to regulate abnormal periods experienced by a significant fraction of the female population. It prevents loss of function due to pain, anemia (yes. That can happen.) and fatigue from said abnormal periods.
    *It significantly reduces the chances of an unwanted pregnancy, which in turn reduces the number of battered and neglected children, abortions, and women dead from attempts to induce miscarriage.
    *Pregnancy is a potentially fatal condition. Some women inherit genetic legacies that predispose them to fatal pregnancies. Those women may and often do decide they don’t want to gamble on those odds. and the pill is the most reliable form of birth-control that is a) commonly available and b) completely controlled by the woman.
    *Access to birth control is strongly correlated with greater equality, lower abortion rates, and increased social stability in the world index studies.

    • Marc Barnes

      You make some great points, some from a lack of information though. Would you be at all interested in discussing this with me over email?

      • Anonymous

        Certainly. I’m always interested in honest debate. I’m at ecpomes@yahoo.com. Please tag your first email with ‘Pill debate’ so I can find it if my spam filter grabs it by mistake.

        • Oregon Catholic

          LectorElise,
          1. As a self-professed queer I think you are no more qualified to speak about heterosexual marriage than I am to speak about lesbianism. And it’s a little hypocritical to deny Marc the same right to criticise behaviors he doesn’t engage in that you take for yourself.

          2. I don’t know what planet you live on if you cannot see that the increase in abortion since Roe v Wade is positively correlated with the same increase in use of birth control. It is also positively correlated with an increase in aid to poor mothers and increased social acceptance of having children out-of-wedlock. All 3 of those issues; lack of female birth control, poverty, and social stigma were cited as problems for women that caused them to seek unsafe abortions, therefore justifying legalization. And yet abortions only increased as those problems faded.

          • Anonymous

            So…treating single moms as the human beings they are, instead of shunning them as whores, is a BAD thing?

            Also, shouldn’t an increase in aid to the poor be considered GOOD by people who claim to live by the Corporal Works of Mercy and the commands of Jesus?

    • Anonymous_coward

      I agree with points 1 and 2. Chemotheraphy can do severe damage to the body, but even that is justifiable for the countervailing benefits. The question is whether the chemical, temporary sterilization of women serves such a benefit.

      As to point 3–our culture is not immodest, but misogynistic. Why not both? How skanky must young women, old women, girls dress before you’d call it immodest?

      Point 4–agreed.

      Point 5–agreed, it’s an overstatement to say it’s destroyed. But by natural design, ovulation provides significant benefits–for both the wife and the husband. Many of your friends, and many American women, despite all their sexual enterprise, may very well have experienced such sex once, or at most twice, in their lifetimes.

      As to your catalogue of sexual immorality, it proves nothing. The fact that there has been rape, adultery, child molestation, ritualized prostitution, bestiality, homosexual sodomy, or any other conduct for which, say, the Canaanites were vomited out of the land, doesn’t make it right or wrong.

      Point 6 And if the Bible, or any other aspect of Catholicism, offends you, you picked the wrong blog to read.

      7. The Pill blocks implantation as well as ovulation, thus resulting in the death of a small homo sapiens.

      8. Agreed with your point here. If it’s worth the cost, then ladies, keep popping those pills.

      9. There’s no backlash against feminism. There’s some, apparently feeble resistance to the last wave of feminism, with its embrace of the sexual revolution as the standard for human flourishing, the equal “right” of women to fornicate, commit adultery, consume pornography, use modern (not just stone age!) mastubatory paraphanelia, etc. and the consequent necessity of abortion as a necessary back-up: it’s tough being a female Hugh Hefner with a baby or two to take care of.

      10. Agreed–I share your non-sorrow.

      • Anonymous

        On 3- it’s not a matter of presentation, it’s a matter of philosophy behind it. Women and girls choosing to display their bodies because they find them beautiful, because they want to show off what they’ve made of themselves, that’s immodest. We have different opinions of whether or not that’s a good thing, obviously, but that’s not the issue right now.
        In a misogynistic culture, girls are pressed to perform sexuality to gain male approval while simultaneously being chided for acting too vulgar or too raunchy. The pressure between those two points results in more extreme behaviors, and early sexualization, as girls and women struggle to reconcile the irreconcilable.

        5. I think we’re going to have to disagree on the sex question. We can pull out antecdata all we want, but we probably won’t convince each other.
        It proves my point that sexual immortality is not the direct result of the pill. My opinion of it’s rightness or wrongness wasn’t really important.

        6. I don’t believe the bible is clearly and unmistakably against homosexuality, which I’m assuming is your point here with the disagreeing with the bible assumption. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

        9. That’s exactly my point here. It’s okay for a women to be a female Hugh Hefner. But it’s not okay for her to own her sexuality on her own terms. It’s not okay for her to pursue an identity that’s primarily non-sexual. It’s not okay to demand to be seen primarily as a person instead of a sex object.
        The sexual revolution was a success. The feminist one was left with the mess of ‘sexual equality’ without everyday equality. So now women get hit from both sides. Sexual freedom is seen as all of feminism. conservatives respond by attacking sexual freedom because it appears to be the cause of the problems you mentioned, not sexism interacting with sexual liberty. Liberals then assume that women who don’t have primarily sexual identities are just bitter reactionaries who missed the boat. So feminists end up waging a two sided war, defending the right to have sex from the conservative side, and the right not to from the liberal side. It can be very tiring.

        • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_7VBPFNMTYF6BHMCIPKAZVWOJTA ChristianG

          Your first point, about Mysognystic cultures, describes America exactly. Ever notice how a guy is considered a player while a girl is a whore? While that activity is not at all morally sound, this is pretty much one of the most sexist of public opinions I’ve heard.

          • James H

            And, have you ever noticed that it’s the church which disapproves of both Players *and* whores?

            Just saying…

    • Anonymous

      Pagans didn’t consider women people. Go look up the reconstructed Indo-European kinship terms: from the early Bronze Age on, all families, all society, and all relationships were determined by the presence of men. Men were not the head of household, they were the household. Women in ancient Rome had no first names, only the feminine of their clan name: because all daughters after the first were left out for the wolves (if they were lucky, they’d be picked up by a brothel). Women were the wards of their fathers or husbands, with essentially no legal rights, and could be killed on little or no provocation with—at best—the husband who murdered them having to refund her parents her dowry. You probably think things are bad for women in India; well it’s better than any European pagans treated their women.

      The Catholic Church, all by itself, and based solely on its doctrines, changed all that. By the 12th century, women in France and England could own property, practice trades, file lawsuits, and vote in any assembly men could. They were not only taught to read just as often as boys, they bought more books. Noblewomen and abbesses exercised all the same rights and duties as their male counterparts, and frequently had more actual influence.

      The Catholic Church invented feminism, fool. It was the “Renaissance”, bringing back Roman and Greek mores, and with them skepticism of Christianity, that returned women to their old status as no higher than their own children.

      I agree, the only way to go is forward, not back—but then I also know the concepts “modern” and “progress” were invented by the architecture school of Chartres in the 11th and 12th Century. Again, Catholic Church. We are the party of progress. You are the contemptibly, pusillanimously conservative counter-revolutionary striving desperately to preserve your quaint, parochial little variation on the Renaissance/Enlightenment antiquarian fetishism (and also Protestant individualism—there is nothing you value that is not actually a petty local tyranny, whatever pretty words it’s learned to dress itself in).

      Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if your view of the body wasn’t some sort of warmed-over Catharism. They, remember, taught that, at best, femininity did not exist, being only a part of the body (which they considered evil, a prison for the soul—orthodoxy considers the soul to be the identity of the body). Many Cathars took it a step further, believing (they were Gnostics) that women’s salvation entailed becoming men.

      Now ponder, please, the phrase “Queen of Heaven” and the fact that, at the Wedding at Cana, a woman was permitted to alter the timetable of Christ’s mission.

      Which one of us is more feminist?

      • Anonymous

        I’d say me, just because I’m not telling an entire religion what they believe. Not defining an entire group in ways contrary to their self-identification being one of the core concepts of ‘not being an asshole’, which is a major part of being a good feminist. Because, you see, modern pagans aren’t historical pagans, unless you’d like to me to believe that modern Christians are in support of the Inquisition.
        I don’t care what the catholic church did, I care about what it’s doing now. And right now, it’s no ally to women. Maybe it will be in the future. But we won’t get to that future by pretending it already exists.

        Because, believing women have rights to their own body, and rights to how they control their own fertility, is conservative. Right. Mind pointing me towards those conservatives? Because I’ve never met one like that. Ever.

        My view of the body? That it is the sole property of the one inhabiting it. That it is never anything else. That there is beauty inherent to it, found in every person on earth. And that no one on this earth has a right to tell you what to do with it. Nobody, not your parents, not your pastor, not your spouse. It is yours, and no one has the right to try and take over. And no, I don’t remember Catharism, since it has nothing to do with my ethical system. I don’t consider fertility evil, actually. That’d be kind of stupid since evil can’t be inherent to a bodily function. I consider it belonging to the person whose fertility is in question, to do what they will with it. Whether they decide to join the quiverfull movement, or the voluntary human extinction movement, or anything in between.

        So? Why should I care about the Wedding at Cana? What relevance does it have to women today? The record of past goods cannot weigh out current cruelties. Please don’t try to argue past record when the issue at hand hasn’t been addressed.

        • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_7VBPFNMTYF6BHMCIPKAZVWOJTA ChristianG

          But is the child in the womb a womans own property? No. If one doesn’t want children, one shouldn’t do what is designed to bring children into the world.

          • Anonymous

            To have sex is to HAVE SEX. When I have sex I am not promising my body and soul to anyone. I am giving and receiving pleasure for the sake of pleasure. It feels great! Feeling great is awesome. Sometimes I love the people I’m experiencing this pleasure with, sometimes I do not.

            Sex is sex. It is nothing more than that unless YOU want it to be. I respect your right to make sex into some sort of “holy sacrifice,” but you do NOT have a right to make my sex into that.

          • Marc

            true, and no one’s going to pop into your bedroom and enforce that you take it seriously. But your body and your natural chemical makeup will. That’s why every time you have sex you produce floods of the chemical oxytocin, that binds you to the person you’re having sex with. Aka why so many women stick with jerks, aka why so many men have a hard time forgetting their first lover, even though they’re married. The body takes sex seriously, even if you don’t.

          • Guest

            So if I give you a high five what does that mean? is that just a high five? Or doesn’t it convey that I am pleased with you in one way or another? If I put a gun to your head doesn’t that show that I am angry or sad or whatever? Our actions show things and say things even when we don’t intend them to.

          • Anonymous

            The fact that you are comparing having sex with a high five or putting a gun to someone’s head is… astounding. Sex can mean different things to different people; putting a gun to someone’s head cannot.

          • http://www.allourlives.org/ TooManyJens

            “Sex can mean different things to different people”

            I feel like conversations about sexuality would go so much better if everyone were able to admit, “There are people whose take on their sexuality is different from mine, and that doesn’t necessarily make it invalid.”

          • Jake D.

            However to think that we have different values of sexuality leads us to realize we compare this sex to a standard of sexual goodness? Why not believe there is an objective “best sex?”

          • @anonymous

            guys,i used pill 12 years till now but i am still in good health..i never feel of what you’ve saying..much better take a pill than to use condom,i know a lot of woman agree of this.

          • Anonymous

            And…how is cutting people down with a very sharp sword any different? I am not destroying rational creatures with rights, I am merely displaying my skill with a sword. It feels great! Feeling great is awesome. Sometimes the people I cut down pose an immediate threat to me, sometimes they don’t.

            Killing is killing. It is nothing more than that unless you want it to be. I respect your right to prattle about a “right to live” but you do NOT have a right to make my glorious rain of blood into that.

            (Ladies and gentlemen, this has been Reductio ad Absurdum theater.)

          • James H

            Because you only use sex (and by extension, use others for it) for pleasure, you are incapable of understanding any deeper meaning. Just as an alcoholic is incapable of appreciating good beer.

          • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003096443517 Dawn Watrous

            And this is why no one in our culture understands that the real purpose of sex is INTIMACY and CHILDREN. Because it’s all about getting pleasure out of using another person. Vile.

          • Anonymous

            Please don’t be so cynical. It’s most often about mutual, initimate pleasure between a couple. The beauty of contraception is that it doesn’t have to be about children at all.

          • Jake D.

            The pill allows use. Without the pill a woman’s natural processes have to be respected if children do not want to be had.

          • Tg135

            If you’re not getting pleasure out of sex, using or not using birth control is the least of your worries

          • Jake D.

            No they don’t! Enjoy your shallow hedonistic experience!

        • Erin2314

          “So? Why should I care about the Wedding at Cana? What relevance does it have to women today? The record of past goods cannot weigh out current cruelties. Please don’t try to argue past record when the issue at hand hasn’t been addressed.”

          In your original comment, you argued that the rise in contraception use is not linked to the rise in pornography ,etc because there is evidence of pornography, etc in previous societies such as Victorian England, Ancient Egypt, and the Stone Age.

          You did exactly what you are complaining about here: You used past examples without addressing the issue at hand. You mentioned that these things existed, but did not address whether the use of them has risen along with the rate of couples using contraception. Just because there is evidence that Victorian porn existed, does not mean that every little Victorian boy kept a copy hidden under his bed. Also, since various forms of contraception have existed since ancient times, it should be no surprise that pornography and the like have also existed right along with it.

      • Christianity, it’s a plague.

        Actually… The people of scandinavia had a more equal look on women before the Christians came and ruined that for centuries to come. Suck on that for a while.

        • Anonymous

          Two words, shame-stroke (punitive rape).

          That is all.

          Oh, but some of us know a thing or two about the history of pagan Scandinavia.

        • Penny Farthing1893

          Care to offer evidence?

      • Anonymous

        Modern Pagans consider women and men to be equal. I know because I am one. We consider all people to contain the Divine within themselves, and base our love and respect for others on this belief. Neither gender contains more or less of the Divine than the other.

        The Catholic Church, meanwhile, has abandoned all pretense to feminism: observe that a morally upright woman who feels a call to serve as a priest cannot be ordained in the Catholic Church, whereas a male priest who confesses to sexual abuse of a child is allowed to continue to serve as a priest.

        Which one of us is more feminist in this century? ;)

        • C-apotamus

          The_L1985,
          As a seminarian, I can tell you that no man has a ‘right’ to be a priest any more than a woman does. Priesthood is something that men are called to, shown in the Bible as only men, and it is a long process to determine if a man’s call is genuine. If you are Christian and believe in the Bible as the word of God, you should understand the apostles were all male for a reason. And even still, when Mary told Jesus to begin his public ministry, he did. When the Bible says women should serve their husbands, it says that men should sacrifice for their wives like Christ sacrificed for his Church and died. There is nothing anti-feminist in the Catholic Church, unless you are using the neo-feminist idea of creating an almost genderless society. Men and women are different, and called to different things. Get over it.

          • Anonymous

            Then explain why in the book of Acts, Priscilla’s name is listed before that of her husband, Aquila, implying that she was a person of equal or greater importance in the Church. Acts 18: 24-26 describes both of them acting in a priestly role.

            Romans 16:17 refers to someone named “Junias.” Such a name did not exist at that time–however, Junia, a female name, did. It has been suggested that as the status of women fell, an “s” was added to change the gender of the name (and thus, of one of the early Church leaders). This isn’t much of a stretch, as this sort of biblical tampering is known to have gone on in ancient times–hence curses in many ancient texts on anyone who would change the words therein.

            There is also clear archaeological evidence of:

            An early bishop (the feminine Greek episkopa was used, further implying a woman) named Theodora.

            a “presbytis” (priest or bishop) named Epiktas (feminine name).

            A “presbytera” (note the feminine form) named Ammion.

            A man named Artemidoras, whose mother is decribed in an inscription as “Paniskianes, being an elder” (presbytera).

            Society in southern Europe became increasingly sexist between the first and fourth centuries. Remember, the Council of Nicaea did not codify Christian belief until the fourth century, and biblical canon, while unofficially standardized at this time, was not formally set in stone until the Protestant Reformation and the Council of Trent. In other words, Catholic doctrine was officially codified at the time when European society was most prejudiced against women. So no, it’s not much of a surprise that women can’t be ordained according to fourth-century rules.

            Frankly, this hypocrisy towards female priesthood despite clear Biblical and archaeological evidence of female priests in the early Church is one of several reasons I am no longer Christian.

          • Erin2314

            Do you have sources for the existence of these female priests and bishops in the early church? If it was as common as you suggest, how come there are no “Church Mothers” along with the Church Fathers of the first 400 years?

            “Then explain why in the book of Acts, Priscilla’s name is listed before that of her husband, Aquila, implying that she was a person of equal or greater importance in the Church. Acts 18: 24-26 describes both of them acting in a priestly role.”

            Maybe Priscilla’s name was listed first out of the Church’s great respect for women, it does not follow that her role in the Church was high than her husband’s. As for the fact that both of them are shown acting in a priestly role, I think you should have quoted some of Act 18. Here, I will do it for you: “He (Apollos) began to speak boldly in the synagogue; but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him and expounded to him the way of God more accurately.” (verse 26)
            I don’t know about you, but in my life I have had parents, teachers, youth ministers and friends all correct me when I misunderstand Church teaching and talk out of turn, that does not make them priests. It makes them parent, teachers, youth ministers and friends. All of us are called to help each other better understand the Gospel, it does not fall on priests alone. We are even called to help our priests when they misunderstand the Gospel and misrepresent it to others.

            The bible is pretty clear in both the OT an NT that “acting in a priestly role” means offering up a sacrifice to God and that is not what is described in Acts 18:24-26.

          • Anonymous

            Paragraph 1. I just mentioned Junia and Priscilla. The names of other church mothers would not have survived the extremely patriarchal environment of the Middle Ages.

            Paragraph 2. I would buy this if the name Priscilla appeared before and after that of Aquila a roughly equal number of times. In ancient times, people were generally listed in order of descending importance. The ONLY time Priscilla’s name is mentioned after her husband’s is in Acts 18:2, a passage in which Paul clearly meets Aquila first. I can certainly see first-century Christians seeing women and men as roughly equal, but to consistently place the woman first implies that this particular woman was of greater importance than her husband.

            Paragraph 3. But there are also people–both male and female–who are called specifically to a priestly role. I myself have felt that call particularly strongly (I am female). To relegate them to the lesser role of teacher, lay brother/sister, or youth director is to imply that you know their own vocational experiences better than they do, or perhaps better than the Christian god (which is blasphemy).

            Re: sources, I got my information from this page on Religious Tolerance.org, and like all other RelTol pages, it’s extremely thorough in citing sources.

            Re: sacrifice, I’m sorry but the Eucharist as traditionally viewed by Catholics is not a sacrifice. A sacrament, certainly, but not a sacrifice. The word sacrifice implies something has been given up: animal sacrifices were consumed by fire, rendering them inedible by humans; human sacrifices required villages to give up a beloved friend or family member. Invoking Divine presence into bread and wine and then ingesting it does not involve giving anything up to a deity (unless you were to posit that you are crucifying Jesus all over again, which is counter to the beliefs of every Christian denomination I can think of, including your own). Sacrament and sacrifice are not the same thing. :)

          • Addie

            That’s actually not quite right. Actually it’s wrong. The following paragraphs are directly from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

            “1362 The Eucharist is the memorial of Christ’s Passover, the making present and the sacramental offering of his unique sacrifice, in the liturgy of the Church which is his Body. In all the Eucharistic Prayers we find after the words of institution a prayer called the anamnesis or memorial.

            1363 In the sense of Sacred Scripture the memorial is not merely the recollection of past events but the proclamation of the mighty works wrought by God for men.[182] In the liturgical celebration of these events, they become in a certain way present and real. This is how Israel understands its liberation from Egypt: every time Passover is celebrated, the Exodus events are made present to the memory of believers so that they may conform their lives to them.

            1364 In the New Testament, the memorial takes on new meaning. When the Church celebrates the Eucharist, she commemorates Christ’s Passover, and it is made present the sacrifice Christ offered once for all on the cross remains ever present.[183] “As often as the sacrifice of the Cross by which ‘Christ our Pasch has been sacrificed’ is celebrated on the altar, the work of our redemption is carried out.”[184]

            1365 Because it is the memorial of Christ’s Passover, the Eucharist is also a sacrifice. The sacrificial character of the Eucharist is manifested in the very words of institution: “This is my body which is given for you” and “This cup which is poured out for you is the New Covenant in my blood.”[185] In the Eucharist Christ gives us the very body which he gave up for us on the cross, the very blood which he “poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”[186]

            1366 The Eucharist is thus a sacrifice because it re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of the cross, because it is its memorial and because it applies its fruit:
            [Christ], our Lord and God, was once and for all to offer himself to God the Father by his death on the altar of the cross, to accomplish there an everlasting redemption. But because his priesthood was not to end with his death, at the Last Supper “on the night when he was betrayed,” [he wanted] to leave to his beloved spouse the Church a visible sacrifice (as the nature of man demands) by which the bloody sacrifice which he was to accomplish once for all on the cross would be re-presented, its memory perpetuated until the end of the world, and its salutary power be applied to the forgiveness of the sins we daily commit.[187]

            1367 The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice: “The victim is one and the same: the same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different.” “In this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner.”[188]

            1368 The Eucharist is also the sacrifice of the Church. The Church which is the Body of Christ participates in the offering of her Head. With him, she herself is offered whole and entire. She unites herself to his intercession with the Father for all men. In the Eucharist the sacrifice of Christ becomes also the sacrifice of the members of his Body. The lives of the faithful, their praise, sufferings, prayer, and work, are united with those of Christ and with his total offering, and so acquire a new value. Christ’s sacrifice present on the altar makes it possible for all generations of Christians to be united with his offering.
            In the catacombs the Church is often represented as a woman in prayer, arms outstretched in the praying position. Like Christ who stretched out his arms on the cross, through him, with him, and in him, she offers herself and intercedes for all men.”

            Sorry it’s long, I was trying to be thorough. The point is, the sacrifice of the Mass, which is the sacrament of the Eucharist, is in fact the very act of the sacrifice of Christ on the altar. It is re-created in the Mass so that we can participate in his ultimate sacrifice and suffering, and thus participate with Christ in His sacrifice, and thus take part in the act of our own salvation and redemption.

          • Anonymous

            I was a Catholic for 22 years, and went to CCD/PSR every week for 12 years, and Catholic schools for a year and a half. I know damn well what it looks like from your perspective, because I was reminded of it every single week of my life until I moved out of my parents’ house. But you cannot control how others see your rituals.

            If the bread is not-Jesus one minute, and contains the very essence of Jesus the next, then clearly something has happened to the bread. You can’t really argue against that without making the whole Liturgy of the Eucharist pointless and empty. The Catholic interpretation is that God is working through the priest to recreate the miracle of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. The Wiccan interpretation of the Eucharist is, quite simply, that the priest is invoking the essence of a god-form into bread. That’s all I’m saying. :)

          • Jake D.

            The bread does not contain the “very essence” of Jesus. It IS Jesus, in the flesh. You are correct to say that to argue against that would make the liturgy empty, but to undervalue the Eucharist itself is a great depravity.

          • The_L1985

            I am honestly surprised that you find a difference between the two. To me, the fact that the bread contains Divine essence is what makes it Jesus. Or to quote the film, “The best symbol for a thing, is the thing itself.”

          • Tg135

            good lord get over yourself

        • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003096443517 Dawn Watrous

          Modern paganism tells a woman that she ought to suppress or destroy an essential part of herself–her fertility–for nothing more important than personal pleasure or, more often, for the convenience and pleasure of a man. The Catholic Church tells women they are beautiful and perfect as they are, and tells men they have no right to ask a woman to suppress or destroy the women’s unique, life-giving dignity.It says a man must take the woman as she is and work with HER body’s natural processes. I know which one makes me feel empowered as a woman, and it ain’t the paganism!

          • Anonymous

            Actually, modern Paganism celebrates fertility and women. We feel that a woman should have a choice as to when to bring children into the world, so she will be best able to give them the love and attention they deserve. As a Wiccan, I am far more empowered by a religion that tells me that men and women are equally strong, nurturing, and wise, than by a religion in which celibate old men tell grown women, in exacting detail, what they can and cannot do with their own bodies (note: here I am talking solely about sex itself, NOT abortion).

          • aksoprano

            I think you missed the part about Natural Family Planning. Working WITH a woman’s fertility – not suppressing it.

          • Anonymous

            I didn’t miss it. However, NFP has a 24% failure rate according to my high school biology textbook. That’s a lot higher than the failure rates for anything else short of full-on abstinence.

          • PL, MD

            According to the Mayo Clinic, NFP (Sympto-Thermal Method) only has a failure rate in pregnancy prevention of <2%. When and by whom was your high school textbook written? And are you sure they aren't talking about the old "rhythm" method?

          • Anonymous

            1996. I forget the publisher. And frankly, I see no difference between NFP and the “rhythm” method, and no explanation of NFP has made any reasonable difference between the two clear to me. Isn’t the point of both to have sex only on “non-fertile” days of one’s cycle?

            Fancy monitoring systems don’t change the fact that a woman is fertile for most of her cycle: sperm can live in the birth canal for up to a week, and ovulation occurs, on average, every lunar month (and the egg’s journey takes about a week). The day which has the least possibility of producing pregnancy is the first day of menstruation, but unless your cycle is really regular it’s hard to time that. I had a roughly 35-day cycle before starting on the Pill*, and often misjudged the first day of my period by several days.

            Unless you have a method of cleaning out the…leavings afterward (not sure what the RCC says on that), the only sure-fire ways to prevent pregnancy are to either use a form of contraception, or to abstain completely until you are ready to try for children (even if you’re already married).

            Considering that the vast majority of Catholic women have used a contraceptive (granted, many of them are not using them for birth-control purposes), I fail to see why the Pill is so badly demonized. I suffered severe cramps and dizziness for AGES without doing anything about it, because I had been so strongly conditioned against birth control that I was afraid to use the Pill even for non-contraceptive reasons. It was not until I became an apostate that I finally decided, as a non-sexually-active woman, that the Pill was worthwhile as a method of keeping me from being bedridden once a month. Articles like this one are a large part of the reason why.

            * for PMDD. I am not currently sexually active.

          • Marc

            Naw, the Creighton Model FertilityCare System is 99.5% method effective (perfect use) and 96.8% use effective (typical use)
            http://www.fertilitycare.org/

            So yes, there is a way to effectively, naturally avoid pregnancy.

          • Jake D.

            Still, your view on children is that of a burden, not a gift. That fundamental assumption shapes your view.

            Also, again, you display clear ignorance about how your “enemies” work. Claiming that your ignorance allows you to be correct in stating that the “rhythm” method is no different than NFP shows you have not done your studying. Please, stop this.

          • The_L1985

            To the contrary, I see them as both. A child conceived in love, borne of that love, is the greatest gift that exists. I am currently waiting for a time when I am ready to accept and receive that gift, because I’ve wanted to be a mother my entire life.

            However, children should not be forced on anyone. An unwanted gift of the kind that cannot be easily given away or removed (as you and I would both agree that children are–to lightly “throw away” a child is callous and disgusting) does, in fact, constitute a burden. If a woman cannot afford to feed her child, then that particular child is a burden on that particular woman. If a woman is forced to choose between a pregnancy that she knows will kill her, and the chance to live and bear another child someday, then that particular child is a burden on that particular woman. Once again, your inability to accept that morality is highly dependent upon context and compassion baffles and disturbs me. You are arguing that man was made for the Sabbath.

            Pregnancy and childbirth are dangerous. Women accept that danger because children are such a blessing. But that doesn’t change the fact that, even today, even in a sanitary hospital environment with the best possible care, women still die in childbirth. Any discussion of reproduction and contraception must take that fact into account, or it is utterly lacking in compassion.

            NFP, from all I’ve seen, is rhythm method + deeply-invasive levels of scrutiny. That level of scrutiny increases its effectiveness somewhat, and may be acceptable to those who choose NFP, but most married women don’t want to stick a swab into themselves every single day just to see if it’s OK to show their affection for their husbands in the form of a physical act.

            Further, prior to 1968, the Church was strongly in favor of birth control, and 98% of Catholic women today have used contraceptives of one form or another. The Vatican is in error in choosing a less-compassionate stance on contraception in the vain hope of preventing abortions (and in saying so, I am taking a far more conservative position than you probably think, as the gravely-mistaken doctrine of papal inerrancy only dates back a century or two).

            Like it or not, condoms and birth control pills exist. They prevent conception without affecting the implantation of an embryo. They are safe, require very little effort, and their availability has been proven time and time again to decrease the number of unwanted pregnancies and thereby dramatically reduce abortion rates. The battle against them has already been lost. The general rejection of an anti-contraceptive stance among the laity (remember, those 98% of women are dating or married to men, mostly Catholic men) should prove something. After all, Church tradition states that in order for a papal injunction to be valid as Catholic doctrine, it must be accepted and followed by the laity, and the laity has yet to do so.

            Also, today is the first time I’ve commented on this article in a year. I’d honestly forgotten it even existed until you made some rather demeaning and blasphemous statements about women in response to my old comments.

            Please, think about all the consequences of your arguments before you speak.

          • Jake D.

            Textbook written by what group?

          • The_L1985

            I don’t remember which publisher–this was 15 years ago! But it was the biology textbook approved by the State of New York for use by Regents-bound students.

            And I used that biology textbook in a course at Sacred Heart Academy in Hempstead, NY, which is a Catholic high school run by the Sisters of St. Joseph.

        • Jake D.

          Men clearly give something, sperm, in the sexual act. God came to Mary and through the action of the Holy Spirit implanted in her the son of God. The sexual act is meant to mirror the Immaculate Conception, in that the unity of the Man and Woman, bringing about the existence (or simply being open to the existence) of a child reflects and imitates the union of God and Man and the procreative act of Jesus’s conception.

          To give a woman the “rights” to be a priest would be to deny that there is a certain inherent difference between the sexes, although an explicit equal dignity. The Father is a Father because he is life giving and all loving. The priest is supposed to reflect this role. This is upheld in the Catholic Church not for misogynistic reasons, but for a Holy purpose — to continue to reflect the Immaculate Conception as the giving of life to Mary in the form of Jesus, who is One with the Father.

          Don’t assume you know what you speak of — the best way to defeat an enemy (intellectual enemy mind you) is to best know their arguments.

          One last point — women are not men. They have EQUAL dignity, but they are fundamentally different. While every social right that men have should and rightfully are (or are struggling to be) given to women, women need to take care to realize they are not men, and men should realize they are not women. Blurring the lines between the genders does nothing for making each holy and upright in their own way.

          • The_L1985

            1. Insemination takes less than 15 minutes and requires absolutely no lifestyle changes whatsoever. Incubation of a fetus takes 9 months and requires a woman to change her diet and exercise habits, avoid taking ANY medication–even aspirin!–and abstain from even the smallest sip of Communion wine, all in order to avoid harming the new life that is growing inside of her.

            Please explain how a man’s role in “giving life” is somehow greater than, or more important than, a woman’s role, because I’m seriously failing to see it here.

            2. “there is a certain inherent difference between the sexes, although an explicit equal dignity.”

            Sorry, pal, “separate but equal” didn’t fool my African-American friends, and it’s not going to fool me either. If women are equal in dignity, then why are we no longer allowed to officiate the Mass, as our predecessors Junia and Priscilla undoubtedly did? Remember, these women were clearly Church leaders on par with priests or bishops, as is made clear by the way they are referred to in the Bible. (Priscilla, for example, is always named before her husband Aquila, a common way for writers of the time to indicate that the first person named is of greater importance than the second.)

            To say that men can and should officiate the Mass, but women should not, is to say that women are inferior. And to imply that a loving god–ANY god–would feel this way about half of His own worshippers, and deliberately create them so that half of them are constantly lording it over the other half, is the most shocking and horrible blasphemy I can imagine, second only to child sacrifice or pederasty.

            This is very obviously not the way things were in the early years of Christianity. It was created in order to preserve a hierarchy that rose up later and is entirely male. Peter may have been leader of the Church, but the rank of pope in the first century didn’t mean anywhere near the amount of earthly power it would come to imply as time went on.

            3. “Don’t assume you know what you speak of — the best way to defeat an enemy (intellectual enemy mind you) is to best know their arguments.”

            I grew up with these arguments. I know them intimately. I was raised to believe that God’s will could be thwarted by a piece of latex, that sex somehow isn’t loving if you’re not forced to think about the possibility of having a baby Right Now, that women should always make the greater sacrifice whether the sex act that got her pregnant was consensual or not. I was taught that even if a baby is burdened with deformities that are guaranteed to kill it, slowly and painfully, during infancy, a woman is not allowed to act as an angel of mercy before its birth, but should instead ensure that it lives only to suffer and die. I tried to remain devoutly Catholic, but because of the constant insistence that your Lord gifted me with a priestly calling that he forbids me to act upon, I was driven away from the Church as a young adult. If your Lord doesn’t want me at His table, then I will serve my Lady instead, as I have done these last four years. If He does want me to share in the Divine Mystery with Him, then maybe His followers should do a better job of acting like it.

            Telling me to know my place and to stop interrupting while the oh-so-important men are talking, just because I have a uterus and they don’t, is what drove me away. Think about that. Ask yourself if this is what your God really wants. Because I’m not the only woman leaving the Church over this, by a long shot.

      • http://mediumandlight.blogspot.com/ Helen Lee

        awesome awesome awesome awesome

    • KSchafer

      Amen sister, this is ONE happily married man who agrees with you on ALL points.

    • TraderTif

      Actually, there are ways (healthier, safer, better) ways to regulate periods without resorting to birth control pills. OB/GYNs routinely chuck “the pill” at almost any woman coming in complaining of abnormal periods. Yes, the pill induces artificial periods, and may relieve symptoms and help to prevent cancers from hyperplasia……but it also masks the underlying CAUSE of the dysfunctional bleeding, which, left untreated, may worsen and cause all sorts of problems.

      The doctors behind the Creighton Method, mentioned at the end of this post, actually treat the underlying causes behind dysfunctional bleeding, without using birth control pills. (Obviously, as a result, they also have very high rates of treating infertility, and a much higher pregnancy rate, compared to IVF, for couples wishing to have children.) Google “NaPro Technology” and check it out.

      I would also argue with your 3rd point – abstinence, it seems to me, is the MOST reliable form of birth-control that is commonly available, and completely controlled by the woman. (Also completely free of charge, and free of health side-effects.) Short of that method, very conservative forms of NFP, practiced correctly, are just as effective as the pill, and even more “readily available” and “completely controlled by the woman”.

      • Anonymous

        Astinence is NOT completely controlled by the woman, because if an abstaining woman gets raped, she can still get pregnant. No one can control whether or not she gets raped.

        • Guest

          True, but a moot point in any kind of healthy marriage or relationship.

    • TraderTif

      Actually, there are ways (healthier, safer, better) ways to regulate periods without resorting to birth control pills. OB/GYNs routinely chuck “the pill” at almost any woman coming in complaining of abnormal periods. Yes, the pill induces artificial periods, and may relieve symptoms and help to prevent cancers from hyperplasia……but it also masks the underlying CAUSE of the dysfunctional bleeding, which, left untreated, may worsen and cause all sorts of problems.

      The doctors behind the Creighton Method, mentioned at the end of this post, actually treat the underlying causes behind dysfunctional bleeding, without using birth control pills. (Obviously, as a result, they also have very high rates of treating infertility, and a much higher pregnancy rate, compared to IVF, for couples wishing to have children.) Google “NaPro Technology” and check it out.

      I would also argue with your 3rd point – abstinence, it seems to me, is the MOST reliable form of birth-control that is commonly available, and completely controlled by the woman. (Also completely free of charge, and free of health side-effects.) Short of that method, very conservative forms of NFP, practiced correctly, are just as effective as the pill, and even more “readily available” and “completely controlled by the woman”.

    • Lovenaturally

      Dear Lector: There’s so much to respond to, where to begin.

      1. When you find an environmental factor that causes the pill and decide “it’s just one of many, so let’s ignore it”, there is something else you believe more important than breast cancer. So what it is? The rest of us would like to determine for ourselves whether it’s worth the risk.

      2. You make a lot of assumptions here, in particular that there isn’t something better. There is, it’s called modern Natural Family Planning. What’s wrong with educating women (and men) about fertility and asking them to treat it (and others) with respect? It may be a new concept if one has been raised with hormonal contraceptives as the norm, but it doesn’t have any of the awful side effects.

      3. I don’t understand. Lesbians and bisexuals choosing to (apparently needlessly) pollute their bodies, and the environment, says absolutely nothing about whether it’s right.

      4. I have absolutely no idea what you’re trying to say. You need to explain your point so others who are not as smart as you are (like me) can evaluate it.

      5. I have met dozens of married women come off the pill and tell me how much better their sex lives are afterwards. If you know people who haven’t tried it, you should recommend it to them. I should also highlight that everything you describe is a form of lust, not true love. Sadly, most people never get beyond physical lust to understand true intimacy. Intimacy is worth every moment of the self-sacrifice it takes to get there.

      6. If you are trying to equate homosexual relationships with heterosexual relationships simply because they both exist, why not add pederasty and pedophilia as well? Don’t they exist too? You must do more than assume equivalence. Nature made men and women to “fit” together, and you have a high bar if you’re going to find some kind of genuine equivalence.

      7. There are any number of medical studies that establish a failure of hormonal contraceptives at preventing conception. The secondary effect of the pill is preventing implantation. That sounds like artificially ending a human life to me.

      8. You’ve got to be kidding. Advocating for the pill, which pollutes the environment in much the same way as DDT did, is not like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, it’s more like urging the Captain to go a little faster and a little further north, “because we’re doomed anyway.”

      9. Once again, I miss your point. Please explain why whatever you are suggesting is superior to educating men and women about fertility and letting them make responsible decisions?

      10. Do you disagree that abortion has simply become a back-up method of contraception? What leads to that conclusion?

      * The pill has nothing to do with periods. Women on the pill don’t have periods at all, they simply bleed from short vacations from the pill. The pill only masks real problems. To get back to “normal”, women need to say “no” to the pill and ask doctors to take the time to figure out the real problem. For all we know, the real problem is the fact that we’re all taking the pill through our drinking water – OK not everyone, only those unlucky enough to live downstream from a wastewater treatment plant.

      * This is the same tired old argument that I grew up with that failed. In 50 years, the pill has not done anything about these societal problems because teaching men to use women, and women to act as objects, will not solve anything.

      * Driving is potentially fatal. Should I kill all other drivers so none of them can kill me? Your argument here makes no sense. You must establish that the fetus is not a human life before you can make a statement like this.

      * Conclusory statements will get you nowhere.

      • http://www.allourlives.org/ TooManyJens

        “7. There are any number of medical studies that establish a failure of hormonal contraceptives at preventing conception. The secondary effect of the pill is preventing implantation. That sounds like artificially ending a human life to me.”

        Actually, the secondary effect is changing the cervical mucus to make it less likely that sperm will reach the egg. Prevention of implantation is a theoretical effect, but has not actually been observed. It’s arguable whether the inhospitable endometrial conditions that are theorized to prevent implantation even exist in a cycle when the woman has ovulated, since ovulation is the event that triggers the preparation of the endometrium.

        • Laura Attales

          You’re suggesting that the pill only hypothetically prevents implantation? Even though that is what it was designed to do? What the fine print that comes with the contraceptive’s literature will actually admit that it does?

          • http://www.allourlives.org/ TooManyJens

            Where are you getting that it was designed to prevent implantation? The literature often says that it is a *possible* mechanism of action, but again, that’s hypothetical.

          • Lovenaturally

            Jens: Thank you for replying to my post. I researched this issue about six years ago but do not have access to my research at the moment; it’s in storage. Doctors have confirmed this for me as well. The best I can do on short notice is the following website, which is written by a pro-lifer, but cites to a number of primary sources, including pill manufacturers. The bottom line is that the pill mostly prevents conception, but sometimes fails and causes an abortion, and sometimes fails and leads to pregnancy. God bless.

            http://www.epm.org/resources/2010/Feb/17/short-condensation-does-birth-control-pill-cause-a/

          • http://www.allourlives.org/ TooManyJens

            Yes, I’m familiar with arguments such as the one at EPM. However, it’s not the slam-dunk that Randy Alcorn claims. The fact is that the effect is entirely hypothetical; it has never been observed. Alcorn’s answer to the question of whether the endometrium is hospitable to implantation in an ovulatory pill cycle is weak. He cites an abstract (which I can’t find to verify whether he’s interpreting the study correctly, and you really shouldn’t rely on an abstract anyway) and a paper from 1980 in which the researchers used old and indirect methods to determine whether ovulation had occurred. Therefore, the women who had insufficient endometrial development may not even have ovulated. A study in 2008 (described here http://lti-blog.blogspot.com/2008/07/new-information-on-effect-of-ocs-on.html), found a much lower rate of breakthrough ovulation even with missed pills.

            And of course, even if ovulation occurs and the endometrium is unsuitable for implantation, it doesn’t follow that an embryo is prevented from implanting. The secondary effect of thickening of cervical mucus may prevent fertilization from taking place in that scenario. In short, nobody has ever shown that this theoretical effect is a reality.

          • Anonymous

            Arguably, though, err on the side of caution—if you don’t know if the thing behind your car is a pile of rags, or a hobo with a lot of ragged clothes, it’s irresponsible to back out.

          • Lovenaturally

            I don’t understand. He cites far more sources than you allege. ore over, my sister was conceived when my mom was using the vastly more powerful pill of the 1960s. And my sister is not the only pill baby out there. It stands to reason that if you can conceive children while taking the pill, and carry them to conception, you can conceive them and have the secondary effects of the pill prevent their implantation. This is true even if a child is conceived because a woman forgot to take her pill for a day or two. Finally, I do not understand your position that the abortifacient effect of the pill has “never been observed.” Tell me, how does one “observe” such a thing? It seems to me your position is like denying the existence of quarks.

        • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003096443517 Dawn Watrous

          If breakthrough ovulation doesn’t occur, why are there so many people pregnant despite being on the Pill?? I’m pretty sure a baby indicates that ovulation DID take place despite the hormones! Even Planned Parenthood says that 60 percent of its abortion clients were using contraception when they conceived.

          • GUEST

            This is because many women do not use the pill properly. They sometimes think that using it for a couple days before copulation will prevent anything from happening, when in relaity, it takes your body weeks to realize it’s hormones are changing. It also depends on what kind of contraceptive you’re on. Progestrone thickens your lining making implatation more difficult for a fertitized egg, if fertilization takes place. Estrogen based pills prevent ovulation from happening. These two elements of the pill prevents your body from going into menses. This is when the HcG hormone of pregnancy tells your body to start preparing you for a fetus. Hormones are a delicute thing to mess with, and if inconsistencies occur, you can count on your pills to be unreliable.

      • http://mediumandlight.blogspot.com Helen Lee

        perfect.

        Especially this: “The pill has nothing to do with periods. Women on the pill don’t have periods at all, they simply bleed from short vacations from the pill. The pill only masks real problems. To get back to “normal”, women need to say “no” to the pill and ask doctors to take the time to figure out the real problem.”

        • smartass

          no. no. not perfect. Woman who are getting irregular periods, can go on the pill temporarily to rest themselves. Its not a permanent mask for a problem, its a solution.

          • smartass

            reset*

            I know a couple of friends who only needed BC for a few months to get their systems on track.

          • Jake D.

            What gets me is that people take a harmful pill to fix something that is not broken. Patience and timing (NFP) are safer and just as effective alternatives to this carcinogenic drug that allows us to have intercourse with no responsibility.

            I don’t know about you guys, but isn’t everything found in moderation? I enjoy alcohol, but if I have too much I am an alcoholic. I enjoy sleeping, but if I sleep too much I am called lazy. Why then do we push for free sex when clearly we recognize all other things are found in moderation? Even breathing is harmful if you do it too much (hyperventilation).

            I’ll stick with my archaic beliefs here, that sex waited for and sacramentally committed as a union of body and soul is the best sex.

        • Alicharest

          Yes, one that bleeds while on the pill isn’t bleeding because they ovulated and the egg was not fertilized. You bleed during the time of taking the placebo pill because your body suddenly isn’t receiving a high dose of progestin (fake progesterone that the composition of more closely resembles testosterone), not because their body is doing what its supposed to naturally be doing.

        • Mir

          Actually, I went from months to not having it and bleeding too much and loosing too much blood to being regular with still a lot of blood but not as bad. I know maaany females who now have regulated periods.

      • Hfhfgfg

        Homosexuality, bisexuality, heterosexuality etc are sexual orientations, pederasty and pedophilia are not — that’s why you can’t equate them as well.

      • FollowingChrist

        Lovenaturally, THANK you… well said!

      • Vivian_sarmiento

        Our body is a temple of God so we need to take very good care of it! I agree with all your bullet points!

        • guest

          Please don’t be so ridiculous.

          • Jake D.

            Please don’t discount other beliefs simply because you have an opinion.

    • James H

      You need to brush up on your Egyptian mythology, by the way.

      It was Osiris who was cut up by Seth. And his sister-wife (ew!) who re-assembled him was Isis.

      Funny how a Catholic knows more about genuine pagan religions, innit?

      • Jill

        Yes, because that was the most important thing to draw from her response.

    • Busybee247

      since widespread use of contraception, abortion rates have sky-rocketed. The pill = plan A. When plan A fails, plan B = abortion. Statistics don’t lie, and according to the Guttmacher institute, 54% of women having an abortion were on birth control the month they became pregnant. So…you’re wrong. Thanks.

      • Anonymous

        Wow… You are truly an idiot. You need to take a statistics course and learn what cause and effect are. Don’t play with the smart kids when you can’t hang.

        • Anonymous

          Actually, though, the lack of correlation does imply lack of causation. And since use of the pill is not statistically correlated with a reduction in abortions…

          Don’t try to cow your betters with posturing, nameless coward, it only makes your defeat that much more ignominious.

          • http://www.facebook.com/people/Levi-Schmidtstein/577390740 Levi Schmidtstein

            You know what? You’re living in the goddamned 1870′s, while the rest of this damn planet is moving onwards towards the goddamned super-future. Get your head out of history and come play with the rest of us, turd. Jesus is dead, and he hasnt come back yet, so perhaps we should figure something a little bit more contemporary for us to follow? Something that has a more meaningful frame of reference in respect to our lives?

          • Anonymous

            Or, maybe, just MAYBE, the two rates are not caused by each other, but are both caused by something else. Why this rarely seems to occur to people baffles me.

          • Lovenaturally

            Make a suggestion then. What else, besides the fact that a woman doesn’t want to have a child, causes the fact that a high percentage of women taking contraceptives seek abortions when the contraceptive fails?

          • Anonymous

            1. Couple are carriers of a severe recessive genetic disorder, and cannot afford the often-extremely-expensive care that such a child needs and deserves. Upon failure of the contraceptive, they have amniocentesis done and discover that their child indeed has Severe Disorder X, and are forced to make a choice: abort the child, or bring it into a world where they can’t afford to care for it properly.

            2. In such severe cases as Tay-Sachs, the child is guaranteed to die in infancy, probably in excruciating pain. The hour of pain from an abortion would be far less than the months of agony the child would endure if it were born. Such a child is already doomed never to walk and talk, never to learn about this wonderful world or its creator, never to go to school or fall in love or any of the other things that make life rich and beautiful. An abortion, in such a case, really is the lesser evil. If such a couple does want a child, they generally choose to adopt. (However, in such a situation, the husband is also likely to get a vasectomy if he can afford it, thus making this reason for abortion much more rare.)

            3. The couple does want a child, but has recently fallen on hard times financially and can barely make ends meet without the extra burden of a child. They would prefer to delay childbearing until the husband makes enough to support the family during maternity leave. Better social safety nets, and a progressive tax rate, would decrease the frequency of this situation dramatically. It is not caused by a desire not to have a child.

            4. Why is a woman’s not wanting children such a horrible thing? There will always be enough women who want and have children that the human race will continue to survive and flourish. I don’t believe that any god wants ALL women to have children, and given that you support nuns, I doubt you do either. As long as childfree folks aren’t trying to stop people who do want children from raising them, I see no problem with letting them remain as they are.

          • Patricia Welther

            “Why is a woman’s not wanting children such a horrible thing? There will always be enough women who want and have children that the human race will continue to survive and flourish.”

            Actually, that’s not quite true. According to the CIA Factbook, countries such as the US, France, England, Germany, Japan, etc where contraception and abortion are readily accessible, have shrinking fertility rates that are getting dangerously low. The U.S. is 2.06, France is 1.96, U.K. is 1.19, Germany is 1.41, and Japan is 1.21. All of these fertility rates are below the replacement rate of 2.1 which means we are not replacing in the new generation the same about of people who are dying in the oldest. You can check it out for yourself here: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2127rank.html

            Japan is trying desperately to encourage couples to have more children, but there rate keeps falling and they are close to a demographic crisis: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/oct/25/japan-birthrate-decline?newsfeed=true

            So, no, there will not always be enough women who want and have children. At the moment our society sees children as either a burden or a commodity instead of a blessing and contraception is just one example of this.

          • Anonymous

            Children are both burden AND blessing. We hsould encourage people who want children to have them, but trying to force motherhood on unwilling women will only backfire horribly.

            Most childfree types either despise children, or fear that they will be horrible parents. Putting a child into that sort of household isn’t good for the parents or the child.

            I might be more concerned about low European birthrates if there were not also both high birthrates AND overcrowding in India and the urban areas of Japan. There is a reason for the celebrity trend of adopting kids from the other side of the world–there are more unwanted children there to adopt.

      • Jill

        There are SO MANY OTHER FACTORS at play here, a correlation between birth control and abortions is weak at best. Not to mention, those are documented abortions. There are plenty of abortions that go, unfortunately, undocumented because some women have no other choice than to do it themselves, with incredible health risks. So while the number of documented abortions may have increased, that doesn’t necessarily mean the amount of abortions total have increased.

    • Guest

      True — my only personal experience with the pill (or at least one form of it — it’s not like there’s one birth control pill out there) was when I was suffering from severe menorrhagia, to the point I had become so anemic I ended up in the hospital, and also to the point where I could barely leave the house for long periods of time. I eventually underwent endometrial ablation, but my gynecologist prescribed the pill to begin with, a) to see if the pill alone would alleviate the problem, and b) to thin out my endometrium should we end up doing the ablation.

    • Miranda O

      I wish I could “like” your comment a billion times.

    • KSchafer

      LOVED your rebuttal. I am 59 and “the pill” saved my mothers life. After 6 sons(I am the oldest), her doctor put her on the “the pill’” to regulate her periods(her knew that this was allowed under Catholic teaching) until she entered menopause because she was a very petite woman and another pregnancy would’ve killed her. As it turned out, she had a hysterectomy at age 44 because of fibroid tumors. I aksed her if she ever regretted taking “the pill” and until her daeth in 2009 at the age of 83, she said unequivically “NO”>

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=733270301 Abby Benz

      bless this post!

    • Sekhmet

      “Ra, for example, was cut into 13 pieces by his jealous brother Seth. Ra’s wife, Osiris, searched the world to gather up all thirteen, to resurrect her husband. She found twelve. The missing thirteenth was Ra’s penis. So she replaced it with a stone dildo, and had sex with her husband’s dead, re-assembled body. Seriously.”

      You just gave me a headache.
      Osiris was the MALE deity who ruled over the underworld. ISIS was his wife. And his sister. And at the barest minimum, he was cut into fourteen pieces. The number is important, even though it changes from retelling to retelling. (It was usually 14 or sixteen, though occasionally even forty-two. The numbers represented districts of Egypt. One piece for each district.) And the phallus was made of gold. She sang a song to his body, turned into a falcon, and flew over him. I’m sure there’s some sex metaphor in there, as this resulted in their falcon-headed son, Horus, Egyptain god of the Sky, War, Protection, and a symbol of new life.

      Moral of the story? Don’t rouse the nerd-rage of someone who wanted to be an Egyptologist for years.

      Seriously, there could be CHILDREN reading this. Do you want to forever screw up their knowledge of Egyptain mythology? ;)

    • guest

      This is all I’ve got to say to #10. I hope it makes sense:
      http://lmgtfy.com/?q=ad+hominem+circumstantial+source+argument

      You can’t say someone’s claims are invalid because of the source they are using. It’s considered a fallacy.

    • Guest

      Turns out life is ALWAYS fatal…good luck!

    • JRJ21

      The pill has altered your brain,this is the point, you are the pill talking,you can’t even smell a real man.

  • Recovering Catholic

    Excuse you. When you grow a uterus (maybe if you start the pill??), you can talk to me about what to do with mine.

    • Anonymous

      And when your upper-body strength increases to the level of an average male, you can have an opinion about who I get to pummel to death.

      That’s the same argument, genius.

      • http://www.allourlives.org/ TooManyJens

        Do you seriously think using contraception is in any way comparable to pummeling someone to death?

        • Penny Farthing1893

          It’s hyperbole. Actually it’s reductio ad absurdum. The analogy here is that RC was acting as though only people who have the same exact circumstances can comment on another person’s behavior (or just generally about a type of behavior), when clearly, that is not the case. The magnitude of the behavior may be different, but here’s the thing about logic – if a statement is true of one “size” of a scenario, for lack of a better term, it is true for others.

          If someone who hasn’t got the physical strength to pummel someone to death can still make the general statement that it’s not a good thing to do, someone with no uterus can make a general statement that the pill is not a good idea.

          I personally would have gone with a closer analogy, like if a woman knew that a medication was likely to give men prostate cancer, she could still say it is a bad medication, even though she has no prostate and it might be a medication that men really find really helpful. Likewise, I can say that bodybuilders shouldn’t take steroids, because they cause sterility, hypertension, and – oh look! – other side effects of the Pill, even though I am not a body builder. Perhaps Sophia’s Favorite’s analogy was a bit heavy handed, but reductio ad absurdum often is. It doesn’t make it any less valid.

          • http://www.allourlives.org/ TooManyJens

            “If someone who hasn’t got the physical strength to pummel someone to death can still make the general statement that it’s not a good thing to do, someone with no uterus can make a general statement that the pill is not a good idea. ”

            Except for the *slight* difference that the person pummeling someone to death has a victim, and the person using birth control doesn’t. I think that matters, don’t you?

          • http://www.facebook.com/people/Mary-Corcoran/819167453 Mary Corcoran

            I believe they would be their own victim, since the pill is harmful to their own body and sexuality. All actions which are classified as immoral have a victim, even if the victim is the same as the perpetrator (such as self-harm and suicide. You are quite literally hurting yourself).

            Also, Sophia’s_Favorite was making an analogy, which is a comparison of two sets of scenarios. He isn’t comparing the Pill to Pummeling, nor is he comparing men to people unable to pummel other, he is comparing two types of opinion holding by two groups of people. Another way to say it would be “Men are to a Women using the Pill as People with low upper body strength are to People trying to pummel others”. Analogies compare relationships, not their parts.

            If I said “men are to women as peacocks are to peahens” I am not saying that Men are flashy and beautiful (a comparison between men and peacocks) and that women are plain (a comparison between women and peahens). I am obviously saying that both relations ships are about the male and female of a species.

            Sorry for such a long comment, but the misreading of analogies is a huge pet peeve of mine, because (A) I’m an English teacher and (B) I have had huge misunderstanding come up when people didn’t understand that I was using an analogy and not a direct comparison.

          • http://www.allourlives.org/ TooManyJens

            I’m not actually incapable of understanding analogies. This was just a really bad one.

          • Anonymous

            OK, I’ll bite: How is my sexuality harmed by the use of birth control?

            I have sex for one and only one reason: Emotional connection to a person with whom I have a strong romantic love. Physical pleasure, for me, is simply a part of establishing that connection. Guess what? When I was sexually active, it was ALWAYS on contraceptives, and the condom didn’t make me feel any less love for the man in question. On the contrary, I was glad that he respected me enough to use one.

          • Jill

            Hear, hear. Sex is also a lot more enjoyable when a baby isn’t a side-effect. Seriously, I love kids, and I’m excited to have them one day, but they would ruin my life as it is now and I’m not willing to take that chance.

          • Anonymous

            Not really. The morality of an act is determined by proportions. It may be right to kill someone, if they pose a threat to others that requires lethal force for its removal.

            Contraceptive sex is a disharmonious, disproportionate thing; it can never be moral. Arguably, it is (from an ethological/evolutionary standpoint) the equivalent of a dog eating its own vomit.

          • http://www.allourlives.org/ TooManyJens

            Wow. I’m really glad that yours is a fringe view in our society. I like to think most of us can tell the difference between an act with a victim and one without.

          • Guest

            The biggest problem with his (hers?) argument is that it argues against all BC, including NFP, which is where NFP-promoters always get stuck.

            It’s a classic case of wanting to eat one’s cake and have it, too.

            AFAIC, once you start actively and intentionally (key word there…) working to enjoy sexual intercourse while doing your best to avoid pregnancy, you’ve already conceded that your will regarding sex and its purposes supercedes God’s. That Catholics do this, and have turned fine-tuning the process to a 99% effective degree, well…the rest is ridiculous.

            Catholics are fine with the notion of birth control, but they want to make it look like what they’re doing is perfectly “natural” according to God’s design.

            In the end, they’re arguments ultimately devolve into ad hominem attack (“nyah-nyah, our marriages are better than yours because of NFP”) because they have no logical argument for their position. They also tend to fall into a form of idolatry when they start ascribing all sorts of supernatural, spiritual aspects to NFP.

            And then, of course, it’s all true because they (or someone they’ve allowed to speak for them) says it’s true.

          • Anonymous

            Preventing a thing is not the same as avoiding it.

            Or is a preemptive strike the same thing as a retreat?

          • Guest

            The intent, however, is to bypass God’s natural design and still get to have sex. And not all non-NFP BC methods prevent ovulation.

          • Anonymous

            Who said they did? They prevent conception.

            NFP is birth control, and nobody ever said otherwise. It is not contraception.

          • Anonymous

            Not really, because God’s natural design includes the infertile phases of a woman’s cycle.

          • onepercenter

            Yes, but to limit your sexual intimacy to the infertile periods exclusively is not part of God’s design. Again, it’s all about INTENT. You INTEND to have sex but you do NOT intend to have babies. That’s an act of will

          • Anonymous

            1. God never said anything about contraceptives. A bunch of celibate old men did that.

            2. The argument that contraceptive use supersedes God’s will implies that God is so impotent, his will can be thwarted by a bit of latex. That sounds downright blasphemous to me!

          • Penny Farthing1893

            God’s will is for us to use our free will to freely choose actions which are rightly ordered (read Augustine for a def.) He doesn’t force anything on us, doesn’t play gotcha games like “Ha I smote you condom! What do you think of that?”

            People have to try and make the best decision every time, with the knowledge they have, and if we fail, the best thing is to realize it and ask forgiveness, then try again. I’m not trying to convince you here, just explaining how it works. It involves a lot of reflection and thought.

          • Anonymous

            I like to think most of us know that the wrongness of an act is not purely contingent on whether it has a patient or not—morality is not ergative grammar.

            Whether the patient of an act is a victim, or its agent a wrongdoer, depends on the act.

            Also, what about acts whose agent and patient are the same—reflexive acts, in other words? One can victimize oneself.

          • Penny Farthing1893

            I said it was heavy-handed. And your rebuttal to my other analogy, about medication or steroids?

      • Guest

        No, it’s not.

        There are female athletes who have greater upper body strength than some men, and who’ve achieved that through perfectly natural means. There are women who are faster, women who have greater endurance, etc., than many men, and they don’t need to take steroids or any other performance enhancing drugs or supplements to maintain that level of athletic prowess.

        There are men who are in incredibly poor physical shape, and they are that way naturally, too. I am probably in much better physical shape and I’m definitely faster and have greater endurance than an average sedentary male.

        You keep forgetting that you cannot compare men to women when it comes to pregnancy because men cannot get pregnant.

        As for pummeling people to death — why waste your time and energy? Get a gun. Great playing field leveler, that…

        • Anonymous

          See pennyfarthing1893′s explanation, above. Also, you might want to look up the phrase “reductio ad absurdum”.

          • Guest

            I know what the phrase means, and that you insist on using it, sprinkled liberally with personal insults, rather than dialing down your decidedly sneering tone, shows that you’re incapable of rational, even-toned discussion. Until you control your nastier inclinations, you’ll be talking to the moon as far as I’m concerned.

          • Anonymous

            Show me one error of reasoning I have committed.

            Otherwise, forgive me for not maintaining perfect angelic calm in dealing with this buffet of fallacies, presented with wholly-unwarranted self-righteousness and condescension.

          • Guest

            Who cares about your “reasoning” when you’ve been nothing but a douche-bag from the moment you showed up in these comboxes?

            Your attitude sucks.

            Everything about you is a complete turn-off and only solidifies my belief that there is something wrong with Catholicism.

          • Anonymous

            Except that I am a shitty-ass Catholic, and not in the way Marc means it.

            But the fact I do not live the truth does not mean I cannot point it out.

          • Guest

            Just makes you a total hypocrite and makes it clear your religion is a joke since all you do is shove it down everyone else’s throats while justifying your own choice not to adhere to it.

            You’re a troll, an asshole, and a creep. Pretty par for the course when it comes to Catholics, tho’. You’re a good example of what THEY are.

          • Anonymous

            1. Hey Granny, don’t misuse another generation’s terms. That’s not what trolling is.

            2. Again, you really are a much better example than any Catholic could ever be—I mean, you’d certainly never make bigoted statements about whole groups, the way we do.

          • Guest

            Oh, keep responding…please…you are proving CAtholicism to be the joke it is SO much better than I can…

          • http://twitter.com/rev1842 D$

            “You’re a troll, an asshole, and a creep. You’re a good example of what THEY are.”
            Guest, you just called 1.8 billion Catholics a troll, an asshole, and a creep.

            “One who regards or treats the members of a group with hatred and intolerance.-Definition of bigot.

            Defend yourself,please, because your statment is that definition.

          • http://twitter.com/rev1842 D$

            “You’re a troll, an asshole, and a creep. You’re a good example of what THEY are.”
            Guest, you just called 1.8 billion Catholics a troll, an asshole, and a creep.

            “One who regards or treats the members of a group with hatred and intolerance.-Definition of bigot.

            Defend yourself,please, because your statment is that definition.

        • http://www.facebook.com/people/Mary-Corcoran/819167453 Mary Corcoran

          See my previous reply to TooManyJens for how analogies work

          • Guest

            Yes, and then read it again yourself, dear.

            Sophias_Favorite is making bad analogy after bad analogy.

            The problem with both your take and Sophias_Favorite’s take on these analogies is that it denies the natural differences between men and women, which is a surprising thing coming from Catholics.

            If one or another hormonal method of BC is problematic for health reasons, fine. I agree with you — I wouldn’t take sythetic hormones unless the risk of taking the hormone was less than the risk of not taking them to treat a specific health condition (see my post below). We can also discuss unnecessary medical testing that leads to greater health risks, experimental and non-traditional treatements, “lifestyle” drugs, et al.

            But we’re not talking strictly about health factors here. We’re talking about individuals and their choices, we’re talking about marriage, faith, society, etc., so the analogies have to be a little more fine-tuned than what you suggest.

          • Anonymous

            Who’s being condescending now, hypocrite?

            And with much less right.

          • Guest

            /eyeroll

            Does your mommy know you’re playing on the ‘puter again, baby-boy?

          • Anonymous

            Gee, thought you were going to permanently “Ignore” me.

          • Guest

            I’m ignoring everything you say on the subject. You’ve lost any and all credibility. Now run along home, mamma’s boy, and stop trolling the grownups. Go on…run along…short bus is almost at the door…time to go to spayshul edjoocashun class!

          • Anonymous

            You’re sure showing me.

          • Guest

            Likewise, douche-bag. And now I’m done. The conversation has been moved and set up again at my blog. You’re not invited. ‘Bye!

          • Anonymous

            Dude, just because she’s being irrational and condescending doesn’t mean you can be a total d-bag to her. (Is it a her?)

  • Anonymous

    Thought experiment.

    If there is a society where men are almost never depicted in any media without reference to their strength, where every “men’s issue” in politics is related to the use of their strength, and where it is routine for wealthy women to divorce their husbands when their strength begins to fade, in favor of younger, stronger men—and that society expects men to take steroids (whose side effects are similar to those of the Pill, mostly because the Pill is a steroid) to keep up their strength…

    Does that society love or hate its men? Think hard now.

    • KSchafer

      REALLY? You want some cheese with that “whine”. And I’m a happily married 59 year old guy.

      • Penny Farthing1893

        Uh, he wasn’t saying that we actually do that in our society, he was giving an example of EXACTLY what we do to women, only flipping it so it applies to men. The point being that we would never tolerate objectifying men in this way, but somehow it’s OK to do to women. It’s an analogy. Try to follow along.

    • Guest

      That society already exists. It’s not a thought experiment at all. Men are already taking testosterone supplements as they age. Women are already outpacing their husbands in earnings and are divorcing them and marrying “up”, or are seeking out younger men as sexual partners.

      However, the experiment doesn’t work because men can’t get pregnant.

  • Anonymous

    I will respond to your argument with all the seriousness I believe it merits.

    Awoogawoogawoogawoogawooga.

    Thank you.

    • Anonymous

      I will respond to your comment with all the brainpower it merits. _______.

  • Sarah

    I don’t have time read every comment (totally breaks blog commenting etiquette right?), but just wanted to say this is a great piece. Even before I was Catholic, I remember opening up the little piece of paper that came with my birth control pills and unrolling it like a scroll. The side-effects are numerous, and yes, it’s plainly stated in black and white that it increases your risks not just for breast cancer but many other cancers. I decided to stop using them after one year because it just didn’t seem right. It honestly surprises me that in this “green” generation, we aren’t more against the Pill. I can’t count the number of women I’ve met who said the Pill killed their libido (a VERY common side effect), gave them migraines, made them break out, etc. What often happens, though, is women end up hopping from one brand to the next trying to find one that has the least offensive side effects. Some will just finally throw them away because it just doesn’t seem right to be taking medications when they’re actually not sick at all. I hope that becomes a bigger trend.

    Oh, and as one who teaches the Creighton – I definitely encourage women to check this method out! It’s awesome; not only are there no crazy side effects but you actually learn about your body and your health. Educating women and giving them power to monitor and maintain their own health? Sounds like something feminists should be cheering about!

    • Anonymous

      Seriously, what are these libido-killing BCP’s and where can I get some? Mine only ramp my sex drive up to 11, but I keep seeing comment after comment saying that they kill your sex drive.

  • http://caritasestveritas.wordpress.com/ Jessica

    Wow, I had no idea about all of these health risks. No one ever tells you this when they write the Rx! Looking into it more, it also can affect your vision too.

    (http://www.nature.com/eye/journal/v25/n5/abs/eye201134a.html)

    I’m going to look into NFP, thanks!

    • Marc Barnes

      awesome! :D

    • Anonymous

      And soon you’ll be a Mommy! :-D

      • Guest

        My husband and I have been using NFP (STM method) for over a year, and many of our friends said we’d be parents 9 months from our honeymoon… We aren’t. If used correctly NFP is MORE effective than the pill and especially the condom.

        • http://caritasestveritas.wordpress.com/ Jessica

          Thanks for the tip, I truly don’t know anyone who doesn’t use the pill, so this is a whole new concept.

        • onepercenter

          The pill is 99.9% effective. Are you saying NFP is 100% effective? Also, are you sure NFP is the reason you haven’t conceived? Until you try to conceive, you don’t really know if NFP alone is the reason you haven’t yet. Maybe you or your husband have undetected infertility issues.

          If used perfectly, the pill and NFP claim they have the SAME efficacy rate, but to claim NFP has a 100% efficacy rate is dangerous and inaccurate. And maybe even actionable, depending on the circumstances. I’d be very careful about making claims like that if I were you.

          • Guest

            It has been 100% effective thus far, for us. No matter what method a person chooses, IF issues are almost never found out until TTC.

            Don’t knock it till you try it.

          • onepercenter

            Exactly. It’s been 100% effective for you…so far. It is 0% effective for couples who use it, following the method to a tee, and conceive anyway. And until you try to conceive, you have no idea if that 100% effectiveness rate has anything to do with NFP.

            I have five children and already have grandchildren. I never used any BC, including NFP.

            I’m not knocking NFP at all. I’m knocking specious claims based on faulty logic and lack of clear analysis of available data.

            When someone tells me NFP is not only more effective than the pill every time out of the gate for all users, and when people tell me NFP cures endometriosis, POS, infertility, PMS, et al., a lot of red flags go up. If the pro-NFP argument is based in deceit, lies and manipulation of data, then I’m not going to be very wary of glowing reports about NFP.

            There is a parallel conversation to this blog going on elsewhere, and two devout, practicing Catholic women are being very open about their NFP experiences. The sad thing is they both feel they cannot approach their Catholic friends and family with their issues because they know will be ridiculed and sneered at. It is verboten among certain Catholic circles to ever say anything negative about NFP.

            Also, I find it very, very odd that Catholics, who base their moral reasoning behind NFP on an openness to life, speak of NFP “succeeding” and “failing” when it comes to whether or not they get pregnant/avoid pregnancy when THEY want to. If the whole point behind NFP is that you work WITH natural fertility cycles and that you’re always and primarily allowing for God’s will to ultimately determine your family size, then, yeah, NFP is alwayas, for everyone, no matter what the circumstances, 100% effective whether you get pregnant or not. From a Catholic perspective, NFP _can’t_ fail. Even if you’re pregnant with your 10th kid in 10 years in spite of trying to avoid pregnancy year after year, by Catholic teaching and Catholic logic, NFP has been an outstanding success.

      • Mme Jly

        You say that like it’s a bad thing! :-D

  • Angusteriyakisauce

    This is perhaps one of the most ignorant articles I’ve ever read.

    • Anonymous

      And your actual rebuttal is?

      If only we could all be as thoughtful and erudite as you.

    • Marc Barnes

      deep.

    • Socrates4God

      Please, inform me of how this is an ignorant article. If you are going to make a statement, you should be able to back it up. Did you follow the research trail? Did it end up that his research was flawed? Or did you not like what you read, and therefore chose to believe what you have heard (not researched) in the past? Did you just want to comment to seem like you knew what you were talking about? Or perhaps you can’t handle the truth, and so your mind makes things up to prevent yourself from learning the truth? None of this is against you. The parts that may seem like it (mind making things up, etc.) are actually directed at all of human nature. We all have those flaws, some in different areas than others. But please think about why you claim it is ignorant, and please share with us.

      • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=733270301 Abby Benz

        i’ll back it up. there is no scientific evidence for any of this. any of it. Contraception doesn’t even work like this article says it does. the pill contributes to less than 1% of all divorces. there isn’t enough of the medication in the pill filtered out into the urine to effect any part of the fish, water that is flushed down the toilet goes through a large amount of filtration and sterilization that prevents any solvents in urine to escape. Ask any guy and about 30% of them will say they wish there was a male form of contraception, and there is a lot of science going into finding one. that figure that is used to she the divorce rate is not a good example for anything in this article. all it does it say the divorce rate went up, not why. bad sex is just straight up a terrible reason. really? complaining about bad sex? that is very bigoted. and being on birth control does not decrea0es sexual desires, it regulates them. it makes a woman’s cycle more regular and easier to control. contraception does not increase abortion rates, it is directly correlated with DECREASING them. this whole article is full of lies. i’m offended as both a catholic and a scientist.

        • Vivian_sarmiento

          If you are an offended catholic then you should know that in Genesis and Matthew readings it stated in there that anything that prohibits procreation of life is not acceptable by God and that is including the Pill! The only acceptable safe sex under Catholic dogma is the rhythm method. You are missing the point here, if you are a married couple and the wife is on the Pill, it stops her from ovulating and the reason why God intended for women to ovulate is because it invites procreation!

          • http://twitter.com/CaffdCatholicMa Karianna

            Just a small correction… The Rhythm Method is passé. The Church promotes Natural Family Planning, aka The Fertility Awareness Method. It is not the same as the Rhythm Method.

        • http://twitter.com/CaffdCatholicMa Karianna

          OK, I’ll bite at this one. I’d like to see the documentation to your rebuttal. How do you, as a scientist explain the increases in estrogens in the water? Can you rebut this publication? (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21557264) Yes, water goes through filtration to remove solvents, but hormones, especially water soluble ones, are especially tricky to filter out… meaning they can’t. One can try to chelate them, but what municipal water treatment is going to go through that process?
          One methodology of the Pill is to suppress ovulation and how does it do that? By using artificial estrogen and/ or progesterone, but as a scientist, I am sure you knew that. Let’s boil it down to basic biology… if you are not ovulating, you are not going to be in “heat” therefore you are not going to feel as much sexual desire as someone who does not monkey with their endocrine system and allows their body to function as it was designed to. The same decrease in desire is seem among breastfeeding mothers. When breastfeeding, a woman’s progesterone levels are sky high (they are also high when pregnant as progesterone supports the pregnancy. Which is how the pill “mimics” pregnancy) and high progesterone levels lead to low sexual desire. As a fellow Catholic and scientist (BS-Bacteriology. MS- Clinical Pathology) I’d love to see the support for such statements as “about 30% of them will say…”
          And, if there was really a desire to find a male equivalent for birth control, you bet it would be found. Look what happened when a heart medication was found to have additional effects on men. Welcome, Viagra.

          • Bbb

            This is an old post so this reply is less about Karianna and more about future readers:

            Humans are not dogs. Unlike other mammals, they do not have to in “heat” (or estrus) to have sexual interest. I’ll spare you, the reader, the details, but more often than not, if a woman’s sexual desire is negatively effected by a pill (“a pill”, because there are plenty to choose from) she is taking, she can choose another. If the doctor won’t let her, she can find a more sympathetic one. She has options.

            I do agree with one thing: the pill does prevent ovulation. But that is why this article is wrong when it says it kills life. It doesn’t, which is why some women can still get pregnant (and do!) on the pill. If for any reason the pill did not prevent ovulation (human error, antibiotics, sickness etc.), that fertilized egg is headed for that uterus. From then on, it’s up to that woman’s body and the strength of the fetus to create the perfect storm that results in that viable pregnancy. Once a woman finds out, she must stop taking the pill of course, but some women find out after taking it in the middle of the second trimester and have healthy babies! Even Plan B, which is basically a lot of daily pills at once, won’t abort a little bean that’s already cozy in the uterus.

            I have no problem with anyone hating on the pill, just do so for the right reasons.

            -B

          • ChicaMama

            Nope. We use NFP, and as a woman, I can tell you, I definitely go in ‘heat’ for about 3 days every month.

          • Bbb

            But to imply that no ovulation would mean no sex drive is false. Again, “in heat” is estrus, which occurs is mammals who only have sexual desire during estrus. The author may not be using the term that literally, but he is implying that the concept of estrus (“in heat”) and the reality of female desire play by the same rules, i.e. only occurring/the strongest during ovulation. That is not the case.

            Also, fun fact, if human females experienced estrus, they wouldn’t experience a menstrual period, they would just reabsorb the lining. This is why if your pet dog is in heat and she doesn’t mate, you rug is safe.

            So, again, if the pill is driving the woman’s libido down, she is free to choose another. It doesn’t depend on when she ovulates. She is not a dog.

          • Tstan131

            Um… I just wanted to put it out there that my dog clearly has a defined period that has ruined a number of our blankets/bed sheets in the house, and we have to be cautious about picking her up at that time bc she leaks. She has never been alone outside and definitely has not ever mated.

          • Tina

            The argument is true, when I was on the pill, it made chastity so much easier. However, if you are strictly using NFP to avoid pregnancy- you cannot have sex during the period near ovulation, therefore the argument that sex is “better” because she is more in the mood is somewhat flawed.

          • naturalwoman

            I have to agree with you, ChicaMama. We also use NFP, and since I know when it is that I’m ovulating, I can see a definite correlation between my increased sexual drive (sky-high for about 3 days) and period of ovulation (happens on the 2 day of sky-high interest). Those things definitely DIDN’T happen when I tried out a pill. Which was one reason we decided to go with NFP. I think women should be able to enjoy sex as well.

        • Henery

          Abby, you sound just like an advertisement for the pill, just believe what they tell you because “they” can’t be wrong can they?
          The company selling those drugs has no reason to lie to us do they?

        • Pat

          The only thing I have to say about this is that it in NO WAY makes a woman’s cycle MORE regular. Without birth control is what a REGULAR cycle is – all natural. Preventing life in a way that allows you to have your fleshly, sexual desires fulfilled is not something that Catholics support.

          • Lindsey

            Alright, you know what? I’m so sick of people assuming every girl takes the pill so she can sleep around. Why don’t you remember that while some of you women get minor aches and pains and maybe a little bit cranky SOME OF US have to go through REAL pain? And why don’t you also think about the girls who practically go in psychotic fits every month because “your Almighty God” made us that way? First of all, keep your fantized creator in your imagination and out of my vagina. Secondly, stop making innocent women who are in more physical and emotional pain than you’ll ever feel like whores because your Holy Book that’s been tampered with by old, power-hungry men says to be natural. Nature can go fly a kite, I want to be able to live a normal life, too.

        • Guest

          What about the killing of human life? That has been unmistakably proven by science. As a Catholic and a fellow human being, I am offended.

    • Tired of people like you

      To bad there isn’t a “dislike” button for you comment.

      • Guest

        This article has a dislike button and only shows the number of likes smartass ;)

    • guest

      I disagree with your statement. It would have been ignorant of the writer of this blog to make assumptions that weren’t based on facts. It would have been ignorant of him had he failed to provide sources to back up his arguments. The writer used scientific and historical evidence to support all of his claims, AND he offers an alternative method of family planning that is easier on women’s bodies.

    • guest

      I disagree with your statement. It would have been ignorant of the writer of this blog to make assumptions that weren’t based on facts. It would have been ignorant of him had he failed to provide sources to back up his arguments. The writer used scientific and historical evidence to support all of his claims, AND he offers an alternative method of family planning that is easier on women’s bodies.

    • Elizabeth 39

      I was thinking absurd, but ignorant works too

  • studentdr

    This is absurd and ridiculous and FULL of lies.

    • Anonymous

      Pics or it didn’t happen.

      Seriously, though, name one lie.

    • Jacandmic

      Yes, please do name ONE lie. One falsehood. A true falsehood, not a ‘in my opinion’ one.

      • onepercenter

        That NFP can heal POS, endometriosis, infertility, et al.

        That’s not only a deliberate lie, it’s written in a manner that suggests women stop all other therapies and use NFP exclusively to address those issues, and it’s written by a boy with no medical training at all. That’s not only a lie, it’s quite potentially actionable, it’s such a dangerous, manipulative falsehood.

  • Heather

    This article really should be called “10 reasons today’s world sucks,” because half of the reasons are endemic to society now and you can’t escape them simply by choosing not to take the Pill yourself. Effeminate men who constantly see being a jerk to women being held up as normal. Endemic pornography. Messed up hormones in everyone from the Pill getting in the water supply. Women who have to work to support their families because men don’t get paid a family wage anymore and all the necessities are more expensive now, so couples who have to pay five-figures a year for childcare per child can’t afford to have sex when they actually have any interest in it. Divorce laws from the early 70s that no longer do anything to protect innocent spouses and/or women who do stay home with their kids.

    Now, I’m no defender of the Pill. I’ve never used it. I use NFP and wouldn’t do anything else. But I am very disturbed at the “over-selling” of NFP. It is no silver bullet. It doesn’t solve ANY of the problems I just named. It has the benefit of not piling more health stresses on top of the already bad environment, but that’s about the only positive benefit of NFP.

    Correllation is not causation. Most of the supposed benefits of NFP actually are benefits of having strong religious values and a traditional family lifestyle. Very few people use NFP at all, and certainly not long-term, who don’t have strong religious values that compel it. It is also very difficult to use NFP consistently when mom has to work full time and pay for childcare so that having a lot of kids is prohibitively expensive.

    So here’s the honest truth, ladies: don’t expect NFP to make the men around you any better. It doesn’t. My first husband agreed to use NFP and he was still turned out to be a substance-abusing narcissist. And my now-husband is committed to not using contraceptives too, and we have two adorable kids, but he is still infantilized by our culture, and our sex life is still entirely dull.

    If you really want a better life, ladies, don’t expect NFP alone to do the trick. Hold out for the rare guy who actually makes enough money that you don’t have to work while raising children. Among my several practicing Catholic friends who use NFP, the ones who are stay-at-home moms are happy, the ones who have to work are miserable. It’s that simple. Sorry this may sound very “backwards” but it’s an honest assessment from bitter experience.

    • Guest

      Well, we don’t want to teach women to be gold-diggers, do we? No matter who the primary breadwinner is at the beginning of any marriage, there are no guarantees that’s going to remain the reality. People lose jobs, unforeseen expenses come up, you may find staying home drives you up the wall. There’s no one-size-fits-all situation here.

      No matter what the preferred form of birth control (hormonal, barrier, NFP), and no matter what sexual restrictions your religion requires (missionary style intercourse only to whatever cranks your tractor), it’s always going to be the level of respect, trust, love and commitment that determine the longevity and quality of any marriage.

  • In posession of a uterus.

    *ahem* If you are so worried about women taking the pill then here’s your other option: vasectomy.

    • Anonymous

      But not a brain I see, ad hominem user.

      • Jill

        What’s wrong with her comment? It’s a totally valid option.

        • Penny Farthing1893

          It’s a valid option, but not a valid argument. See logically, it doesn’t follow, nor does it advance the conversation. And guess what – a major issue of sterile sex, no matter who is sterile, is that it is not a fully open or giving relationship anymore. So maybe we ought to think of the implications of what is actually being discussed, rather than one-upsmanship or just throwing things out. I refer you to the “Argument Sketch” in Monty Python.

          • Jill

            Is it a major issue to every couple, or is it only a major issue to those who are religious?

          • Socrates4God

            Unfortunately, there are no easily-accessible studies on the subject. So we will have to leave it to reason. Say your spouse gets a car, but he won’t let you drive, and won’t even let you sit in the front seat. Would this improve the relationship between the two of you, or hurt it? I would think it would hurt it, seeing as he does not trust you with his car. Anytime someone is selfish in a relationship, it harms it. No studies, but it is a common fact, and anybody who is human can agree: “The family is the thing hurt the most when selfishness exists in a marriage, but it can also spill into relationships with friends and other associates.” (http://www.marriage-advice-for-a-better-marriage.com/relationship-problems.html); “Human relationship is so much full of quarrels, misunderstandings and hurts because it is based upon selfishness” (www.sriaurobindosociety.org.in/qstarch/qstsep02.htm); and much more is out there, if you wish to go check for yourself. Now, where does this get us to? Well, when the woman is holding back their fertility, or the man is holding back the support of her fertility, are they not being selfish? Most of the time, they are doing it because they do not want to deal with it. It was never really about the other person. It would be more understandable if both partners were thinking about the other, but, for other reasons, it would still be wrong. Fact is, that is rarely the case. It is normally all selfish acts, and, as is a commonly accepted view of human nature, selfish acts can destroy relationships. Does this sound like a healthy relationship to you? Would you be upset if your spouse only cared about themselves? Do you care about your spouse? Have you ever wondered if you could be in a better marriage somewhere? Think about all of this.

          • Jill

            Why is it only ever selfish? There are plenty of couples who BOTH agree that, at whatever point in time we’re talking about, they aren’t ready for a child. And, in a relationship, compromise is in order — if one wants children and another wants to wait, that’s not selfish. If one person thinks the other is being selfish by being sterile for life, then they can end the relationship. I agree that there should be no selfish motives when both parties are involved but in a healthy relationship, it usually involves compromise. Neither my partner nor I want children at this moment. In several years we will. Are we both being selfish at this point?

          • onepercenter

            NFP works by men and women “holding back their fertility” from each other. That’s what it _is_.

            Catholics like to play all kinds of twisted logic games to make it something else, but saying the only time we’ll have sex is when we can pinpoint and avoid fertile periods is doing exactly what Catholics accuse non-NFP BC users of doing.

          • Anonymous

            There is no “holding back” of fertility by couples practicing NFP, because a woman’s fertility is cyclical. NFP respects the way a woman is made. Contraception says “God made me wrong, and I’m going to fix it so that I’m never fertile, but always sexually available.”

          • onepercenter

            If NFP respected the way women’s cycles of desire are made, it wouldn’t automatically disadvantage her and her alone.

            A barrier method and hormonal methods of BC exist “say” exactly the same thing NFP “says” — “God made sexual intercourse for a variety of purposes, one of which is to create new life. However, we’d like to take advantage of one or more of sex’s other purposes while avoiding that particular one. ”

            NFP works by pinpointing fertile periods and the couple only have sex if we can take fertility out of the equation, just like the pill, just like a diaphragm. NFP is all about separating fertility from sex.

            You still can’t explain the difference.

            Birth control is birth control. Period. It’s either okay, or it isn’t. Period.

            To say the use of NFP in itself makes your _intentions_ loftier, or more about God’s will, than any other method is ridiculous. Your intentions are what they are BEFORE you choose the method.

          • Nat m.

            Contraception and NFP are completely different in that the former suppresses and ignores the natural rhythm of a woman’s body while the latter works in harmony with it. An example would be that when couple uses contraception, it is much easier for the man, and the woman for that matter, to view their partner as an object for pleasure because she can’t (in theory) get pregnant. This is opposed to an NFP couple where both the man and woman need to step outside themselvs and think about the good of the other and the couple as a whole.

    • Socrates4God

      He offered another solution in the article. I bet you could find another article on vasectomy if you so desired. If your point was to get across that there are worse options, well, it really doesn’t work. Did he not state the option he suggested, the one he deems as best? Does he not give you a link to find more information on it?

      However, if you truly think that vasectomy is a better option, than you should search for an article on that, and offer research. You should do research on both the pros and the cons before offering it as an option at all. What would happen if our doctors did not know the benefits and costs of certain medicine? What if we ignored the side-effect labels on everything, never pausing to realize what we were getting in to? Research is an important part of living a healthy long life. If yo do not care about your life, than why waste another day on the planet? This question is not saying that you should go kill yourself… quite the opposite. It is saying that something within human nature keeps us alive, a common desire to live. So, if you are a human, you normally have a desire to live. (Granted, it can get to a point where life diminishes that desire, but with the right tools one is able to reignite it.)

      So, offer your research on the option please. And do not offer any more options without research unless you wish for someone to challenge you on your option again.

  • a concerned citizen

    This article is disgusting.

    You have a valid point about hormonal contraceptives being bad for women over all but that’s not really what you’re after. If it was you would point out that there are alternative non-hormonal contraceptives that are highly effective such as the copper IUD. You could also point out that scientists should work harder on finding an effective male contraceptive.

    No, what you really want to say is that people don’t have a right to have sex for pleasure and just for pleasure. That it’s wrong and that if you do that you have to allow your life and the life of a child possible to be ruined by having an unplanned pregnancy.

    I find this attitude, your attitude, the attitude of the Catholic church, morally repugnant and abhorrent.
    People should be free and encouraged to enjoy themselves sexually before, during and after marriage in safe and healthy ways. This is categorically a good thing, physically and psychologically.

    Having a child is a big deal: pregnancies should be planned. Natural Family Planning is a terrible method of birth control. The failure rate for perfect use is 10%, for typical use is 25%. This is unacceptable. It’s a recipe for an unplanned pregnancy, something which could ruin a woman’s life, a man’s life and a child’s life.

    You’re a discredit to manhood.

  • a concerned citizen

    This article is disgusting.

    You have a valid point about hormonal contraceptives being bad for women over all but that’s not really what you’re after. If it was you would point out that there are alternative non-hormonal contraceptives that are highly effective such as the copper IUD. You could also point out that scientists should work harder on finding an effective male contraceptive.

    No, what you really want to say is that people don’t have a right to have sex for pleasure and just for pleasure. That it’s wrong and that if you do that you have to allow your life and the life of a child possible to be ruined by having an unplanned pregnancy.

    I find this attitude, your attitude, the attitude of the Catholic church, morally repugnant and abhorrent.
    People should be free and encouraged to enjoy themselves sexually before, during and after marriage in safe and healthy ways. This is categorically a good thing, physically and psychologically.

    Having a child is a big deal: pregnancies should be planned. Natural Family Planning is a terrible method of birth control. The failure rate for perfect use is 10%, for typical use is 25%. This is unacceptable. It’s a recipe for an unplanned pregnancy, something which could ruin a woman’s life, a man’s life and a child’s life.

    You’re a discredit to manhood.

    • Anonymous

      People don’t have a right to kill in anger and just out of anger, anymore than to have sex just for pleasure. Life and death are serious shit. If you don’t take the serious shit seriously, well, you’re—at best—a fool. Possibly evil. Conceivably, both.

      And if he can’t say some sex acts are wrong, who the hell are you to say that some attitudes are morally repugnant?

      You’re a discredit to hypocrites.

      • Jill

        What? I don’t even…
        Since when is killing a basic biological function? An instinctual desire? That’s one of the worst analogies I’ve heard in a while. Well done.

        And, the point of birth control, is that people who use it ARE taking life seriously — more seriously than people who have unprotected sex, get pregnant, and raise a child in a negative environment.

        • Anonymous

          Since when is killing a basic biological function or instinctual desire?

          Uh, the Cambrian Explosion? Possibly earlier. Seriously, do you know anything about animal behavior?

          • Jill

            Really? So everyone is walking around having strong urges to kill? I’ve gotta say, most people I know don’t have any underlying desires to murder, but hey, we’re not Catholics. Sex is something I have an urge to do on a daily basis (despite being on the pill, FANCY THAT). Killing? Never once has it been an instinctual urge for me. Although you’re right, I haven’t studied biology since high school, I do have an understanding of evolution, and how certain traits (killing to compete for mates, for example) diminish over time.

            (Now, I wonder which PHIL100 level fallacy you’re going to throw at me.)

          • Anonymous

            Killing to compete over mates most certainly does not decrease over time; I don’t know where you got that but it’s not any form of evolutionary theory I’m acquainted with. Killing to compete over mates only decreases if the particular strategy a species is pursuing does not reward that.

            And guess what? The social strategy that tends to decrease aggression, is monogamous nuclear families. Dominance displays among wolves, jackals, and cape hunting dogs are far less aggressive than among great apes and lions, because for canids, all the other group members are full siblings, or parents. Among polygamous species, on the other hand, dominance is much more violent, because half-siblings have less incentive to spare each other, since evolution doesn’t reward their genes as much for it, and—since a young male can kill his father and instantly have a harem of all his father’s females but his own mother—all of a dominant male’s sons are potential rivals to him.

            But that’s a great crack about “but hey, we’re not Catholics”. I suppose you also reflexively toss in sneers about Jews, if you’re debating with them?

            Bigot.

          • Jill

            Right, I’m the bigot.
            I wasn’t saying that Catholics have underlying desires to murder, I’m saying that no one I know is Catholic and none of us have those desires. But, I also don’t have any experience with Catholics so for all I know, those desires may be there. I’m only arguing semantics of course, but from your other comments, I know there’s no use in engaging in any serious discussion.

          • Anonymous

            If you’re going to seriously discuss, there certainly is use. It looked like you were trying to imply Catholics are murderous, but I think I can see your interpretation.

            Humans are great apes, and we do in fact have instincts for aggression that, in extreme—and actually, remarkably un-extreme—circumstances, lead us to kill. “That’s bad, I better break it” is a pretty basic instinct (it’s probably the evolutionary explanation for anger).

          • Jill

            I do understand that we have instincts for aggression. However, I don’t think that that leads to the desire to kill in many cases. I really don’t think, for normal people, that it could ever be an instinct on the same level as that of sexual desire.

        • Fred

          “And, the point of birth control, is that people who use it ARE taking life seriously — more seriously than people who have unprotected sex, get pregnant, and raise a child in a negative environment.”

          Thats a horribly broad brush stroke. You can’t say that just because you take birth control that you take life more seriously. I would argue the opposite. You see just as many families with fewer kids that live in a negative environment. Most large Catholic families that you see tend to be wonderful loving families that take life very seriously. There are exceptions to the large family rule, such as the abundance of welfare mothers, but that statement you made is completely false.

        • James H

          Obviously not a guy – killing is an instinctive desire, even for the best of us.

          Especially for cockroaches, but that’s the most benign case.

          • onepercenter

            Killing is a disordered desire, much like homosexual desires.

    • Socrates4God

      -please, share with us where you get your information. The article had some good resources and research that it could quote. You seem to want us to take you at your word. So, offer evidence if you want us to listen. Otherwise, you really are just looking like a fool rambling on. We don’t know you. Give us someone who has credit that we can trust who agrees with you. But, before you do, you might also want to check their credentials. Don’t just quote any doctor who could have been paid off (works the same for both sides of argument). Studies are the best things to quote… studies, not observations. Studies can define a correlation. Observations and Doctor’s words can not. So, I beg of you, offer a specific study for your point of argument.

      • Guest

        Why don’t you offer a specific study on solid, scientific evidence that God exists?

    • No Truth without Love

      The method effectiveness for the two most widely used forms of NFP are both in the area of 99.5% – which would yield a failure rate of 0.5% not 10%. Secondly, as for the Creighton Model, which is the one I am most familiar with, the Use effectiveness rate is 96.8% (which includes people who utilize it ineffectively and those who are taught ineffectively). This would yield a failure rate of 3.2% not 25%. These statistics show that NFP can be as or even more effective than the prevalently available contraceptives. Simply put, You really should get your facts straight.

      The truth is that children do not destroy lives. Adults and young adults destroy each others lives by using each other without regard to natural consequence. What is disgusting is that women have grown so used to being used that we are willing to accept socially acceptable but sexually abusive relationships with men who are not interested in loyalty, lifelong friendship, or total daily acceptance and love of the woman for who she is physically, mentally, & spiritually. What is disgusting is that most women have been abused for so long and are now so jaded that we can no longer recognize goodness nor can we appreciate ideals.

      This blogger is a credit to men. BRAVO to him!

      • onepercenter

        All efficacy rates are based on perfect usage under perfect circumstances. The actual efficacy rates for any method of BC are lower than the perfect-scenario efficacy rates. A woman’s age, her personal health, other medications she’s taking (something as innocuous as cold medicine, for example, can cause false readings for NFP users), adherence, et al., all impact efficacy rates for any method of BC. “Can be X% effective” is not the same as “is X% effective” for any particular couple. Your statistics re the Creighton model sound specious at best. Do you have clinical trials to back that figure up? And, of course, the thing to remember about statistics is that they don’t mean much on an individual basis.

        Children don’t destroy lives, but irresponsible parenting does, and part of irresponsible parenting is acknowledging that there may be a limit to the number of children you are capable of parenting. Your own Church acknowleges this. Why do you think those who use non-NFP BC are somehow bad for acknowleging the same thing is?

        There are women of all backgrounds who are living in abusive relationships, and that includes Catholic, non-pill using women. There is no data at all that use of the pill as a BC method increases a woman’s chance of being abused by her husband or boyfriend. That implication is just bizarre.

        You make sweeping, unfounded generalizations about women being abused, being used sexually, and about the nature of other people’s relationships, yet you present zero evidence for your claims. The worst thing is, in all this talk of supposed “abuse”, is that you allow women themselves no voice at all. And that really IS abuse.

        The blogger is a boy who has no experience at all with marriage and parenthood and the responsibility those life experiences include. None whatsoever. He is glib and narrow, he is smug and self-righteous. He is a joke compared to genuine humility, to mature manhood, to self-sacrifice, self-giving, and to the kind of compassion and love required of anyone entering into marriage and parenthood. Hopefully he’ll do a little more growing up before he inflicts his priggish, narcissistic self on anyone else.

        • Marc

          Here’s some of there citations of clinical trials and peer-reviewed publications. http://www.creightonmodel.com/references.htm
          perfect-use effectiveness rate of 99.5%
          typical-use effectiveness of 96.8%

          And yes, I am a joke compared to genuine humility, and have waaay more than a ‘little’ growing up to do.
          Thanks for reading!

        • Sarah

          Here’s a reference for the peer-reviewed and published research on the Creighton Model System: http://www.creightonmodel.com/references.htm

          I’d also say it’s a stretch to claim that the blogger has “no experience at all” with family life given that I suspect he was born into a family and grew up in one. Not the same as being married, no, but still, his points have been lived out by those who are married and do face all the complex realities that come with it.

          • onepercenter

            Sarah, here’s the thing: For those couples where NFP was not effective, the efficacy rate is 0%.

            That’s the problem with statistics. They never tell the whole story.

            Plus, those results are based on best-case scenarios.

            It’s not a stretch at all to claim a boy who is not married and is not a father, has not sustained a marriage over decades and raised a large number of children to adulthood has no experience with these things. It’s just a fact.

            Being somebody else’s kid is not the same as being some kid’s father.

            His “points” are highly subjective and are being presented from one, narrow perspective, and are being presented with a specific agenda in mind.

            When you make sweeping generalizations about the quality of other people’s marriages, relationships, sex lives, etc., with zero knowledge of the specifics of individuals’ relationships, you lose all credibility.

            Had his perspective been presented with more humility, with love, with kindess, with sincerity and with an openness to the notion that he might be wrong, he’d have had a better conversation on the topic.

            His comboxes are a reflection of his own pride and arrogance.

          • amjd

            As someone who has met and spoken with the author, I can honestly say that he is not self-righteous, not narrow-minded, and is most definitely humble, kind, and sincere. If you don’t know someone, please don’t judge them.

          • onepercenter

            He has judged others quite happily. Now I’m judging him. He’s a little asshole, he’s ignorant and he is deliberately spreading false information that could be medically dangerous. Stupid little boys who don’t know anything about marriage and parenthood should shut up and stop telling other people what to do. He should definitely stop spreading lies. Telling women NFP cures POS, infertility, PMS, endometriosis and that breastfeeding will suppress ovulation 100% of the time for all women is stupid and dangerous. It’s a pack of lies.

            He has exhibited no humility, no kindess, no sincerity whatsoever in any of his writing. Mostly, he just wants to post pics of nekkid chicks and pretend he’s all about the “art” and not the titties. /rolleyes

      • Guest

        Those statistics (the 99.5%) efficacy ones are bogus because they throw out all the people who had sex during the period when the woman was fertile.
        They say that up front in the papers and studies published. They assume that if you have sex during the fertile window that you’re abandoning birth control and consciously deciding to have a child, rather than exercising poor judgement or succumbing to the very human desire to have sex with the attractive person next to you in bed during the period when a woman is most aroused. If you include people who don’t have the self-discipline for this method, the efficacy stats drop dramatically.

        The intellectual dishonesty and self delusion in the anti-contraception movement are so profound it’s maddening. If anti-contraception crusaders weren’t so determined to promulgate their ignorance I would pity them as it is I am sickened by them.

        • aksoprano

          When it’s used correctly, you don’t have sex when fertile, so I don’t see how those numbers are “bogus.” 99.5% effective (perfect use – no sex during fertile periods) vs 96.8% (typical use – probably means they slip up every once in a while and have sex during fertile periods).

          And are you suggesting that lack of self-discipline is acceptable? I would disagree most vehemently.

        • OSBORN FRANCIS

          Er, stats on condoms don’t include people who got drunk and fucked without them. So really…what’s you point here?

  • Fuckyou

    You and your followers are absolutely batshit insane.

    • Marc

      But remarkably good-looking.

  • http://www.allourlives.org/ TooManyJens

    I’m just going to make a general recommendation. When someone makes a sweeping statement about human sexuality, and their sole reference for that statement is a link to Time magazine or a newspaper article, it’s safe to ignore that sweeping statement.

  • IM_NOT_YELLING.

    You know, I was about to get angry and then I realized I was on a Catholic blog. Of COURSE it’s going to be an ignorant, inaccurate, offensive, subtly homophobic and blatantly sexist article. That’s what religion is best at doing, inspiring bigotry and stupidity in everyone.

    Congratulations, author of the article. You’re a GREAT Catholic.

    • Anonymous

      “I make blanket, nasty, snide, prejudiced remarks, uninformed by any facts whatsoever—and then I call others bigoted!”

      There, I put your comment in context for you.

    • Marc

      cheers!

    • Socrates4God

      Hey. So, I’m wondering… if you are so upset that someone who offered research (which, you probably did not follow, as most humans wouldn’t) wrote an article explaining his research, why did you write a comment not showing your research? All you really did was insult another human being. Where is the credential in that? If you want people to really take you seriously, would it not be better to ask questions that poke holes in people’s arguments? Or even offer research? How do you figure that Catholics are less intelligent? And as for your description of the article, I believe you may want to reread it. I’m pretty sure it had parts where it was standing up against sexism. Also, if you never offend anyone, it is better to stay silent for fear of offending them, correct? We would never speak another word again if that were true. Get this: Truth hurts. Have you ever heard that quote before? Do you know why it hurts? Isn’t it because it IS offensive to the people who refuse to believe it?

      Also, wouldn’t you just laugh if someone told you the sun rose in the west? You have strong enough evidence that (from our point of view) it rises in the east, and so would you not just laugh of the ridiculous argument that it rose in the west? You would not take offense, right? Well, same thing with all other beliefs. If you have enough evidence that what you believe is correct, would you really take offense at challenges to what you believe? So, if you found it offensive, does that suggest you are not secure in your beliefs?

  • Cj Creswell

    I’m surprised to find a guy who is so dead on regarding women’s health and what these false hormones actually do to women’s bodies.
    And why is it that they are the blanket “cure” for a slew of real medical issues with women. Irregular cycles…try the pill, heavy periods…try the pill, cysts…pill, fibroids…pill, PCOS, endometriosis, acne, migraines…try the pill. oh… and lets add on an antidepressant…
    Hey I got an idea! Why don’t we, and by we I mean the medical community of which I am a part, actually diagnose and treat the disease process that is crippling all these women. And then teach them how their bodies really work.
    I guarantee you if women knew what it feels like to “f” up the hormonal symphony that is happening inside them, knew what misery it causes to be hormonally imbalanced, no one would chance synthetic hormonal contraception…
    It’s time to go green people. And not just in the environment. In our bodies as well.

    • Guest

      What, then, is your non-hormonal therapy for severe menorrhagia for a younger woman who wants to maintain her fertility?

      Ablation was an option for me as I was in my mid-forties at the time and preserving fertility wasn’t much of an issue (I already had five children), but a younger woman who wants children doesn’t really have that option. The pill might be able to even out her hormones and prevent heavier bleeding and reverse her anemia until she is ready to have children, or even until an underlying cause can be treated (although there often isn’t a discernable underlying cause OTHER than erratic hormone cycles).

      People die from anemia, you know. The one Catholic doctor I visited, after having heart palpatations, after collapsing from anemia, after becoming housebound due to excessively heavy bleeding, after not being able to sleep at night due to excessively heavy bleeding (well, not unless we were planning on buying new bedding every month…), told me to “just deal with it” until menopause. Seriously. That was the Catholic treatment. I’m in my fifties now, still not at menopause, so I guess I’d be dead if I followed his advice. I’m glad I didn’t. I’m glad another doctor immediately prescribed the pill, which allowed me to regain my health and then make a more informed decision about a more permanent treatment.

      • Anonymous

        Uh, that Catholic doctor is a moron, because you’re allowed to prescribe the pill as a hormonal therapy for things like menorrhea—Catholic ethics is not based on taboos. If the purpose is not contraception, a medicine with a contraceptive effect can be prescribed for something else.

        That’s Catholic Bioethics 101, “Double Effect”.

        • Guest

          Hmmm. Must be related to you. The similarites are striking…

          • Anonymous

            Yeah, because I explained the principle in question: I’m just like a guy who didn’t know it!

            It’s so obvious now, thanks for clearing that up.

          • Guest

            No, because the arrogance, condescension, ignorance and overall suck-ass attitude are the same.

            I know he was a moron. There are others who may not. The person to whom I was responding (as opposed to YOU) implied there is no reason to prescribe hormonal therapies for medical conditions.

            No one was even talking to you, but you had to stick your nasty, shitty, mean-spirited, douche-y little nose in and insult me in the process.

            You’re disgusting. No wonder you’re all alone and will never have actual sex with anyone. Who’d want anything to do with you? I bet your own mother can’t stand you.

          • Anonymous

            He also wasn’t following the Church’s teaching, and you were—with breathtaking intellectual integrity—trying to imply that it was Catholicism that made him refuse you treatment.

            Blood libel, I think that’s called. It’s certainly in the ballpark.

            And I wasn’t even impolite in that first response, you’re reading that in.

            Projection, maybe?

          • Guest

            You were impolite. You just don’t know what manners are. Of course, it’s probably not your fault since you were raised in a whorehouse by some filthy old cumbucket and you don’t even know who your daddy is.

            No fucking shit he wasn’t following Catholic teaching. Could you possibly have missed the point MORE?

            He was Catholic, and he told me he couldn’t prescribe the pill because he was Catholic. _I_ know it’s not Catholic teaching. The point, you ridiculous little fuckwit, is that too many Catholics themselves, like the person I was _actually_ responding too (as opposed to YOU, you fucking asshole) don’t know what Church teaching is and women end up paying the price.

          • Anonymous

            So you say both that the Catholic Church is a joke, and that its teachings should be more widely disseminated?

            Ah. And I’m the fuckwit.

            But you certainly have taught me to only say nice things, as you do.

          • http://www.facebook.com/people/Mary-Corcoran/819167453 Mary Corcoran

            Um…. Guest, can I just say that this last comment of yours has got to be the most sexist thing I’ve read in a while? Why are you insulting Sophia’s_Favorite’s mothers instead of him? Why should the woman who raised him be to blame? People are individuals, so if you have a problem with a person, take it up only with them and not the innocent women who raised them. Additionally, way to completely dehumanize women who are (usually) forced into prostitution by calling them “cumbuckets”. That is beyond the pale.

            Secondly, don’t you think you are being incredibly rude? I don’t care if this commenter or the original blogger or anyone else disagrees with you, or is even being rude back. You have crossed the line from civilized disagreement into barbarism. You are being disgusting just for the sake of being disgusting, or worse, just to try and hurt another human being verbally. I know blogs and forums can bring out the worst in people, but please think before you type and consider that it is an actual human being with a life and feelings (and if you’re religiously inclined, I’d also add a soul) to whom you are speaking. It’s okay to be angry, but not to let that anger grow into something ugly.

          • Guest

            Ah. Sophias_Favorite has two mommies. It all makes sense now…lol!

          • Penny Farthing1893

            Wow. I’m really appalled. Why do you hate lesbians? Don’t you think they could do a good job raising kids?

            “You’re a troll, an asshole, and a creep. Pretty par for the course when it comes to Catholics, tho’. You’re a good example of what THEY are.”

            “Oh, keep responding…please…you are proving CAtholicism to be the joke it is SO much better than I can…”

            “Of course, it’s probably not your fault since you were raised in a whorehouse by some filthy old cumbucket and you don’t even know who your daddy is.”

            I think you just conceded the debate. There is such a thing as “netiquette”, and generally resorting to ad hominem attacks means you are out of ideas. Also, with regards to trolling, it is not customary or polite to hide behind a guest login. That’s what trolls do. You should establish a consistent web identity and post under it.

            I’m assuming all the above quotes are from the same “guest”, but since you won’t put a name, who knows. I think I recognize your particular brand of rhetoric though. Unfortunately. This is the absolute most immature thing I’ve ever read on the internet. And I argue on a lot of forums. Sophia’s Favorite was being condescending to your arguments, whereas you were being personally insulting and vile. If you can’t spot the difference, then I’m truly sorry for you.

          • onepercenter

            Oh, please, Claire — after the filth you, your sister and your fuckbuddy post all over the place? And why am I not suprised you’re progay marriage and gay adoption?

          • Marc

            please stop.

          • Guest

            Also, when you scold your fellow “Catholics” for the same behavior you scold others for, you’ll be credible. Until then, you’re no different than Sophias_Favorite.

          • http://www.facebook.com/people/Mary-Corcoran/819167453 Mary Corcoran

            I might have missed it (he has many, many posts), but I don’t recall him using any sexually lewd insults towards people’s mothers. He’s condescending, I’ll give you that, but about half of the people on here are also being condescending. I really don’t care if people think (and act like) their beliefs or lack thereof are better than others, but I do care when it starts getting disgusting and sexist. The comments are going to get heated. This is the internet after all. Now they’re just getting gross. When people start referring to women in the unfortunate
            position of prostitution as nothingmore than buckets to recieve men’s cum, I think it’s time to stop. Thatis what really made me mad, and if A Catholic said similar, I’d call them out on it too

      • KSchafer

        Really? That’s even WORSE than what happned to MY wife when she went to a Catholic Doctor shortly before we were married. She was there about her recently diagnosed diabtes and the FIRST thing out of of his mouth was “IF YOU AREN’T MARRIED DON’T ASK ME FOR BIRTH CONTROL”. Needless to say , my wife nver went back to him and we now share a female, Protestant doctor because, quite frankly, we get better treatment and it’s cheaper as well.

        • onepercenter

          The attitude of some (not all, but definitely the ones who put their agenda before a woman’s health) Catholic doctors is appalling. One wonders if they become doctors just so they can use their profession and the authority and power that go along with it to abuse women. Some of them are so misogynistic it’s pretty sick. Good news is you can file a complaint with your state medical board, which at least puts them on record as having behaved unethically.

  • http://www.allourlives.org/ TooManyJens

    I have to say, the number of comments here using analogies that liken sex to beating people up or killing them is really freaking me out. Consensual sex is not evil. It’s not akin to violence. It carries a lot of responsibility, yes, and should be taken seriously, but it’s really got nothing whatsoever in common with cutting someone’s head off with a sword.

    I’m glad my partner sees sex with me as a mutual, pleasurable, loving activity, and not the way some of the commenters here seem to.

    • Anonymous

      I merely desired to demonstrate that any argument that is alleged to hold true for one part of morals, must hold true for all of them. “Sex only within marriage” is fundamentally no more immoral than “killing only in self-defense”—but far more people in history would disagree with the latter than with the former. Why are they wrong and you right?

      Forgive me if I didn’t make that intention clear.

      And by the way, Catholics invented the idea of consensual sex, and your idea of it as “mutual, pleasurable, loving” comes from our theological discussions of the sacrament of Matrimony. Before us, it was only the Jews who had that idea, and even they were sketchy on the idea of consent (they denied a man sexual rights to his slaves, but mainly to avoid adultery, rather than for the slaves’ rights—still, “no raping your slave-girls”=glass half-full). All pagan civilizations considered sex to be for procreation (love and pleasure being merely side-benefits), primarily for the sake of begetting heirs who could perform ancestor worship. Many of them, like Greco-Roman and Neo-Confucian cultures, actually embraced a sharp division between the procreative and unitive aspects of sex: the former was with (“mere”, to them) women, while the latter was with other men. Homosexuality was valued in Greece, Rome, and China primarily because it was seen as contemptible to fall in love with a “mere” woman.

  • Penny Farthing1893

    Hey all – let’s not respond to “guest” anymore unless she refrains from profanity and personal attacks, and responds to the actual arguments. Don’t feed the trolls, after all.

    ps, Marc, the quality of your trolls has declined since moving to patheos. Still, I wouldn’t miss a word of it. Keep up the good work.

    • onepercenter

      Hey “Penny Farthing1893″, why don’t you, your sister and your homeboy stop pulling the same crap here as you do everywhere else you go ,eh? Your nasty little menage a trois is getting tiresome all over teh interwebs.

  • Anonymous

    Responses from an ex-Catholic who has heard all of this before at least a dozen times:

    #1. I’m not taking it for contraceptive reasons, but to cope with severe PMDD. If my choice is between maybe getting breast cancer, and definitely not being able to drag myself out of bed one day a month (thus likely losing my job), I think I’ll go with the one that preserves my sanity. We are not talking about a teensy cramp here. We are talking about severe pain and dizziness to the point of not being able to stand upright. I do believe I’ll take my chances with the Pill.

    #2. Source for the eugenics thing? Because the only sources I’ve ever seen for this are–surprise!–Catholic texts about the alleged evils of birth control.

    #5. Really? Because the first thing I noticed when I went on the Pill was that my sex drive skyrocketed. It was annoying–I wasn’t sexually active, but I was constantly craving sex.
    As for your bizarre statement about sex education, nobody wants to teach kindergartners ANYTHING about sex beyond the sentence, “if a grownup tries to look at or touch your private parts, that grownup is a Bad Person and you should tell a parent or teacher right away.” They aren’t ready to hear any more than that. Now, pubescent teens are another story–they’re curious by that stage, and if we don’t teach them the FACTS, they’ll learn all kinds of weird things from porn. (And they WILL find porn, one way or another, and yes, they WILL assume that everything in it is the way sex is supposed to work.)

    And how do you know that ALL that pornography consumption is by men? Remember, skyrocketing sex drive!

    #7. Okay, so it prevents the blastocyst-stage embryo from implanting in the uterine lining. You know what? Even without The Pill, an estimated 50% of embryos fail to implant. If an embryo doesn’t implant, it can’t obtain nutrients from the mother, and thus can’t grow into the adorable bundle of joy you take home from the hospital. If God were angry about the blastocysts that die as a result of birth control pills, I’m pretty sure He would do something about half of all blastocysts dying anyway. A lot fewer than half of fertile, sexually-active women are on The Pill.

    #8. What? Birth-control pills are made out of the exact same hormones that a woman’s body produces when she’s pregnant. That’s the whole reason they work–your reproductive system isn’t going to work on trying to get pregnant if it thinks you already are. If this whole urination-contamination thing were true, then the urine of pregnant women would have exactly the same effects as the Pill. And we’d have had intersex fish like crazy, in every heavily-populated region, ever since the local population rose above the level needed to give us enough pregnant-woman pee. Not to mention that a surprising number of fish species naturally change sex during their life cycles anyway.

    #9. Um…when properly used, condoms have a lower failure rate than birth control pills. (And, as a barrier method, it’s pretty much guaranteed not to act as an abortifacient.) Also, for long-term birth control, generally the husband gets a vasectomy nowadays, or the woman uses a 5-year IUD–both options are significantly less expensive in the long run.

    Typical condom use (which actually means “I’ll use one when I feel like it, and to hell with the package instructions”) has an 18% failure rate (i.e., 18% of people using condoms for a year will get pregnant during that year). Ideal condom use (which actually means “I use one every time I have sex and follow the directions on the package”) has a 2% failure rate, according to the CDC. That’s not what any sane person would call “notoriously ineffective.” Note that that’s not even saying that 2% of condoms fail–I’m pretty sure the people that the CDC studied all used more than one condom in an entire year.

    #10. OK, this one pisses me off. NFP has a 24% failure rate. This is well-documented, and is mainly because a woman cannot easily tell, even with fancy fertility-monitor devices, when she is and is not fertile. You know what is 100% guaranteed to prevent unwanted pregnancy? Keeping semen out of a woman’s body and away from her genital region. All barrier methods accomplish this (save for the rare cases in which a condom breaks–see my response to #9), as does abstinence, as does a vasectomy. I can’t say anything about the alleged effectiveness of the model you’re advertising (the site is remarkably opaque about what, exactly, FertilityCare involves), but it appears to be NFP with more gadgets. Again, well-documented 24% failure rate according to the CDC.

    Also, assuming that an increase in abortions happened because of contraceptives, just because they happened at the same time, is the logical fallacy known as post hoc ergo propter hoc. The Pastafarians have used this same sort of “reasoning” in their parody religion.

    If you feel the need to resort to propaganda rather than honesty (and I highly doubt that NFP will do anything about the symptoms I mentioned in #1), then you’re probably not going to win anybody over. Nobody will pay attention to a tiny, glittering nugget of truth when it is buried in a massive load of stinking lies. They will focus on the lies, and will not believe the truth.

    It’s one thing to say “birth control is against my religion.” It’s quite another to make birth control sound evil by fabricating data.

    • Anonymous

      The ONLY 100% GUARANTEED WAY TO AVOID UNWANTED PREGNANCY IS TO NOT TO HAVE SEX.

      • Anonymous

        Granted. However:

        1. Most women who use The Pill for birth control purposes (as opposed to those who use it to treate PMDD) are willing to live with a 3.25% risk that they will become pregnant over the course of a year. Similarly, people who use a condom every time they have sex, and follow the directions on the package carefully, only have a 2% risk of becoming pregnant over the course of a year. If this level of risk is not acceptable to you, then don’t have sex. But please don’t judge the people who make a different choice. Each of us has a different idea of what amount of risk is acceptable for various activities, sexual and otherwise.

        2. There is a disturbing tendency among abstinence-only sex educators to avoid talking statistics. When someone says condoms fail “sometimes,” without putting a number with it, that implies a failure rate of about 24% (actually the failure rate for NFP/”rhythm method”) rather than the actual failure rate of 2% (for the usage patterns mentioned in part 1) or 18% (for people who only use condoms “when I feel like it” or don’t follow the directions every time). In addition, some people may see failure-rate statistics and assume that they refer to the chance of getting pregnant each time a person has sex. They aren’t. Birth-control failure rates (both artificial and NFP) are based on whether or not a couple, using that birth-control method, becomes pregnant over the course of an entire year. Since most sexually-active people have sex more than once a year, this means that the odds of an individual condom or Pill failing your are probably much less than most people think.

        3. If (gods forbid!) you’re raped, you weren’t exactly in control of whether or not to have sex at that moment, were you? The glorification of virginity in our culture, to the point of fetishization, has resulted in guilt or outside shaming of rape victims for no longer being “pure”–even though rape is in no way the victim’s fault! Abstinence and modest clothing do not protect you from ever being raped–it can happen to anyone, anywhere, and can be done TO either gender BY either gender. A woman who becomes pregnant as the result of rape may feel guilty because of the sheer amount of pressure our society (especially in the churches) puts upon women to abstain.

        Our culture expects women to look sexy, to be sexually objectified by men, but forbids them to actually have sex. This is a dangerous double standard that encourages rape and harms women.

  • Dsr12

    Lies from beginning to end.

    • http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thecrescat Katrina Fernandez

      Nope. All accurate.

      • onepercenter

        Nope. Not. Marc’s interpretations of a handful of studies are not accurate facts. The breast cancer figures alone, after more indepth analysis, do not paint an accurate picture of the increased risk of breast cancer for women on the pill. That the pill turns guys into jerks isn’t even based in science. Some guys? Maybe. But there are Catholic guys who are anti contraception who are complete jerks, too, and who treat women like crap. Bad sex? Highly subjective. Maybe for some, maybe even for most, but not for all. Telling ALL women they will DEFINITELY experience “bad sex” (and this from a little virgin who hasn’t a clue…really…for all we know the poor girl who ends up with him will have the worst sex life ever due to a tiny penis, premature ejaculation issues, or just plain inept behavior) is not “accurate” by any means. And so on.

        If you have to lie or make sweeping generalizations to make your argument, there’s a problem with your argument.

        If Catholics want to have a real conversation about this with real people who have a broad variety of real experiences among them, then they’d darned well better stop with the lies and manipulations and deceitfulness.

        Until then, y’all sound like you’re brainwashed cult members.

        • http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thecrescat Katrina Fernandez

          And you sound like someone to arrogant to consider any opinion not your own.

          • onepercenter

            And you’re wrong again.

            The behavior of the Catholics has turned this into a contentious discussion.

            We have ignorant little twerps like Marc implying that NFP can heal polycystic ovary syndrome and endometriosis and that breastfeeding along will always suppress ovulation in every woman, which is downright dangerous misinformation to be spreading. We have the Corcoran trio pulling their usual tag team bullshit. We have the usual holier-than-thous telling anyone who isn’t Catholic and who doesn’t use NFP (even if they don’t use ANY BC) that their marriages must therefore suck.

            There are people of many faiths who have good, loving, solid marriages (not that you, Miss More Catholic Than The Pope, would know anything about THAT). Just because they don’t buy into the twisted logic that Catholics use in order to have their cake and eat it too, or the legalistic doublespeak Catholics use in order to create loopholes and technicalities that allow them to do one thing while saying another, doesn’t make them immoral people, or bad people, and doesn’t make their marriages bad or unloving, or their sexual intimacy something less.

            Not one single one of you smug, self-righteous, know-it-all prigs has any idea what goes on between another man and woman in their marriages, regardless of the method of BC they choose (or DON’T choose, for that matter). Not one of you, and ESPECIALLY not some divorced single mother who doesn’t even care enough about her own kid to stop poisoning herself into an early grave out of sheer piggery — God’s natural design for our bodies, my dear, includes proper nutrition and proper exercise as well as proper sexual behavior.

            For this little boy to LIE about women’s health, to sit in judgment on other people’s marriages when he has yet to know what real marriage is (and, yeah, he was judging, as were his commenters, so shut the fuck up about that before you even start), is ten thousand times as immoral as a loving couple using a diaphragm to space their children instead of NFP. Ten thousand times as immoral.

            Maybe when mamma’s boy Marc and his drippy little girlfriend find out that marriage isn’t just one big long prom night, he’ll understand that, but until then, he ought to grow a little humility and decency, some manners, and shut his fucking stupid face on the topic.

            You wanna call me arrogant, fine. If I am, it’s because I’ve seen way too much evil coming from the likes of you and the other internet Catholics who sit on their fat fucking asses criticising, sniping, snarking, smirking and dehumanizing everyone who doesn’t worship at the altar of their egos.

            Yeah. I’m arrogant. Deal with it. Or don’t. You’ll be dead before you’re forty by the looks of you, so who cares what you have to say about anything?

          • Marc

            Quick point: While NFP itself obviously does not heal PCOS, the Creighton Model is an incredibly effective way of spotting it (as a diagnostic tool) and then, based on that diagnosis, their partners NaproTechnology are the ones who heal, through the administration of progesterone or laser surgery as the case may be.

          • Marc’s Girlfriend

            lol drippy

          • onepercenter

            I was being kind. But as long as you’re lauging, you can add fugly to that qualifier.

          • Marc

            snuggly?

          • Marc’s Girlfriend

            hahaha my hair’s way too short to be stringy! next time you should call me a lesbian, you know, it’d just be more effective.

          • onepercenter

            Nope. It can still be stringy. Why would I call you a lesbian — there are lots of very pretty lesbians out there. And why would it be “more effective”? I’m just telling you the truth. If you’re not a lesbian, calling you one makes no sense, and it’s not a perjorative anyway. Educate yourself…oh, wait…

          • Marc

            heehee roflin up in huuuurr,
            although man, this is making me miss your hair lainey. Know what I like? Scrufflin it. I’m so psyched to see you again!! 7 days! Also, I wrote you a sonnet.

          • Marc’s Girlfriend

            well thing is that i’m not ugly either, so whichever insult you choose, it doesn’t make a whole lotta sense. Anyway, hey Marc, you’re great, I miss you!

          • Marc Barnes

            Ahhh me too lady. It’s been far too long. We should hit up chick-fil-a and i’ll show you my baaallling swing dancing.

          • Marc Barnes

            roflin up in here. WTF MARRIAGE ISN’T A BIG LONG PROM NIGHT? that sucks, because as everyone knows we’ve NEVER had relationship problems. p.s, you’re cute.

          • onepercenter

            Aw, did you have widdle welationship pwobwems in high school? At Stupidville?

            Have you sat up all night in a hospital with a sick child, Marcy-poo? Have you weathered 18 months of unemployment with five children to feed? Have you gotten through cancer and chemotherapy together? Have you had the burden of caring for children and aging parents suffering from dementia?

            Or are your “relationship problems” confined to OMG we don’t live within driving distance of each other for a little while?

            She’s ugly. And so are you. And your mother looks like a man. Change the security settings on your FB pages, idiot. Your life is an open book.

          • Marc

            haha, man that’s creepy!
            I dunno Elaine, what’s the hardest part about our relationship? I think it’s that you don’t like Faulkner, but that’s just me…it could equally be the cheesecake addictions. p.s you’re gorgeous.

          • Marc Barnes

            haha, man that’s creepy!
            I dunno Elaine, what’s the hardest part about our relationship? I think it’s that you don’t like Faulkner, but that’s just me…it could equally be the cheesecake addictions. p.s you’re gorgeous.

          • Marcs’s Girlfriend

            I think the biggest problem is how sometimes you don’t coordinate your clothes to match mine. i love you!

          • Marc Barnes

            ah, true. You know, you deserve better. Hey, you wanna have 9 kids?
            i love you so freaking much it’s ridiculous.

          • onepercenter

            Spoken like a child. Oooh…let’s have 9 kids! And we’ll get somone else to pay for them all! Just like a welfare sycophant.

          • onepercenter

            Well, you’d have to “love” him, wouldn’t you? Who else would put up with your nasty stringy hair and your cheap polyester dresses?

          • onepercenter

            It’s your generation’s world. You wanted it. Now you have it, for better or for worse.

            Whatever you are, Marc, you’re not a good and faithful Catholic, that’s for sure.

            You’re smug, self-righteous and a liar. You spit on people you don’t know, you spit on God, and you deny the Holy Spirit.

            That pretty much makes you as evil as it gets.

  • Laura

    *Sigh* See what happens when you move over to Patheos? The previously smart and polite combox gets filled with trolls who can’t wrap their heads around the concept of self-control…

    • onepercenter

      Idolizing self-control for its own sake is idolatry. Catholics keep throwing around this “self-control/self-mastery” stuff as an end unto itself. You can call us names, you can insult us, but you can’t seem to elaborate and help us understand where you’re coming from. Cheap shots and sneering seem to be all you can manage when asked to explain your position. Plus, I’m having a real hard time figuring out where Christ is in your comment — aren’t you supposed to be doing all this for the greater glory of God? Seems like it’s more about a personal ego trip than anything else when your only response is condescension and name-calling.

    • http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thecrescat Katrina Fernandez

      Yes. I have the very same problem at my blog as well.

  • http://www.nfpblog.com NFPworks

    Decent post, Marc. Four things:

    1) I would *love* a caption for the third picture (nurse/ “patient”)–one funny, one serious
    2) Thanks for linking to the Fred Hutchinson CRC study. I hadn’t heard of it.
    3) Don’t forget about Chris Kahlenborn’s Meta Study on breast cancer risk published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings.
    4) “Those that use only NFP have a less than 0.2% chance of divorce. ” –With stats and studies, please site a source. You won’t be able to find a reliable source for this one, because they aren’t there. There are two main sources to this “stat” (which are actually between 2-5% not .2%) are from two studies with questionable (read: not representative or adequately vetted for faults) methodology. I’m on your team, but we just need to get our research totally clear, because we’ll get hit over the head with it.

  • Entertained Guest

    I will not express my viewpoint on this matter as I am more entertained by the comments related to this “article”. So many of you are accusing people who have any sort of rebuttle to this article of a lack of research. It appears to me that a numerous amount of the resourses the author has provided as hyperlinks are also inadmissable. There are no official references and there is no bibliography. This person is taking their interpretation of everything they read and making the pill out to be a monster. For those “Christians” in the audience I would love to remind you of Luke 6:37 “Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven”.

    So unless you feel like you are personally being judged for your own actions keep the fact that you think pill users and believers are sinners, to yourself.

    And oral contraceptive isn’t acutally the abortion pill, it prevents an egg from being released preventing fertilization. If the egg is never fertilized no life is ever formed.

    • Jacandmic

      “And oral contraceptive isn’t acutally the abortion pill, it prevents an egg from being released preventing fertilization. If the egg is never fertilized no life is ever formed.”

      Incorrect. The pill is supposed to “suppress” ovulation. Not prevent entirely. That is what the break through bleeding is, an egg being released. It can also happen without the tell-tale break through bleeding. The pill DOES, however, thin the mucus lining of the uterus, making implantation impossible for the growing baby (fetus, or whatever ‘scientifically correct’ term you prefer) to continue it’s growth. Thus killing the new life.

      This can be found in any literature on the pill. You can just google “what does the pill do” and look at any link.

    • Just trying to help

      Just to add on what Jacandmic said, the abortive factor of the pill is the back-up, back-up method if you will. The problem with the pill is you never know if it worked because it suppressed ovulation, it prevented the sperm from getting to the egg, or if it prevented an already fertilized egg from attaching itself to the uterine wall. If you don’t believe life begins at conception than it won’t matter to you, but if you do, then you never know if the pill worked by preventing conception, or by not letting an already-conceived baby (fertilized egg) survive.

      Here is something I cut and pasted from americanpregnancy.org

      Hormonal Methods:
      Whether administered as a pill, patch, shot, ring or implant, hormone medications contain manufactured forms of the hormones estrogen and/or progesterone. Hormonal methods work in one of three ways: 1) preventing a woman’s ovaries from releasing an egg each each month; 2) causing the cervical mucus to thicken making it harder for sperm to reach and penetrate the egg; 3) thinning the lining of the uterus which reduces the likelihood that a fertilized egg will implant in the uterus wall.

      Again, if you don’t believe life begins at conception, then it won’t matter to you, but if a person does, then this is something they need to seriously think about.

      Hope that helps clear that up a bit.

  • loveandserve

    @Entertained Guest, ” It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him.” Luke17:3. No one is judging, as he says at the beginning “I in no way condemn you.”

    And some pills are abortifacients it’s in the fine print or if you miss a day of your pill.

    As far as the legitimacy of the article goes why don’t you look up the information yourself. Are we not suppose to interpret what we read? I don’t know how else to read. Unless you let the information go in one ear and out the other.

    “Truth irritates the enlightened but does not convert.” -Thomas Dubay

  • Guest

    I can’t say it any better than this: “Pregnancy is not a disease, and fertility is not a pathological condition to be suppressed by any means technically possible.”

    Like my mother told me, ‘if you don’t want to get pregnant, don’t have sex.’ Pretty simple. (Not to say that every time a couple engages in sex that they will get pregnant, of course. The egg is only viable for 24hrs and sperm only live 5-7 days)

  • Kendra

    Thank you Marc for your wisdom (and amazing class when dealing with the trolls!)

    As a married woman who has never been on the pill, I can assure the commenters here that I am extremely satisfied with my sex life, and you could not pay me enough to purposely take a pill to alter my fertility. Looking through the comments here, I suppose I should be extremely grateful I have a husband who cares for me, my body, and our marriage enough to respect my fertility as designed :)

    • onepercenter

      As a married woman who has never been on the pill, I find the blogger’s attitude to be judgmental, condescending, sneering and poorly informed.

      I’m also extremely satisfied with my sex life. My only experience with hormonal therapy was when I used a version of the pill briefly to address a specific health issue.

      I am extremely grateful for the man I’m married to, both as a husband and a father, and most especially as a man who allows me my own voice and respects my whole person.

      And I’m not Catholic and never used NFP either. Go figure. :-D

  • Tess

    This is a BEAUTIFUL article. Thank you for writing it.

  • http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thecrescat Katrina Fernandez

    Goodness Marc… isn’t patheos a fun place? ;-)

    • onepercenter

      That’s what happens when you strike a bargain with the Devil… ;-)

  • Llyrlion

    After reading quite a few of the comments/arguements here, it is really apparent that these kinds of issues are almost pointless to discuss with good results when there is even a small difference in basic Theology, and that arguing from statistics is never going to be effective. I think the only real way to “convice” anyone (bearing in mind that Augustine said something to the effect that no one was ever argued into the faith) that artificial birth control is bad is to show them that it is immoral, which you cannot do unless they first accept the basic tenents of the Faith. Sadly, the majority of Catholics never learn those basic tenents. They do not have the vaguest inkling of what God-love looks like, nor the relationship of man to God, nor the relationship between soul and body in a human being. It really is a far stretch to expect the kind of Christ-like sacrifice that NFP entails when a person still wants to be a god. Paul says that Jesus did not consider divinity to be something to be grasped at, but instead took on the form of a slave. Even in the sacrificial love of the Cross, Jesus humbled himself. NFP takes a kind of humility that most people do not understand or value anymore. You have to acknowledge that you cannot have everything you want when you want it, whether that be sex, children, money, whatever. Even when we try to avoid pregnancy, we do NOT use the Pill partly because NFP DOES have a failure rate – room for God to work!

    • onepercenter

      You limit God when you claim you know that other people don’t know what a real relationship with God is just because they don’t happen to agree with you about something.

      Also, on the one hand, we have ignorant people asserting that NFP has a 100% effectiveness rate based on their extremely narrow, anecdotal, personal experience with NFP over a very short period of time and compared to nothing else, and then we have you saying it has a lower effectiveness rate because it “leaves room for God”. Um, your God can’t act unless YOU leave room for Him? That’s not much of a god, is it?

      If your message is the right message, you wouldn’t have to rely on limiting God, on spitting on other people’s relationships with God and with their spouses, and on the deliberate and willful spread of dangerously false medical information.

      If your message is right and true, it would speak for itself. But it isn’t, so you have to twist and sneer and judge and lie. And all that belongs to Satan.

  • Joan Larnsien

    #1-#10:
    This is why we can’t have nice things.
    Faith is a very wonderful thing. I believe in God; His Son, and The Holy Spirit.
    However… Convincing others of something they do not want to hear will land on deaf ears. In fact, much like trying to get a child to eat their Broccoli, the more you try, the greater the resolve against it.

    If anything this pushed people away, as both FACT and OPINION where mixed in this article making us all look like nutjobs.

    We Are Saved, God gave his only begotten Son for our sins.
    Who do we think we are? What is it that give us the RIGHT to meddle in gaining followers? If someone comes to me and shows interest in being saved, I will help them.
    But I am not so ARROGANT as to manipulate the Will of God.

    Leave the heathens be and do as they please, as it is already known to Him as to their destiny.
    Meanwhile, we will do as we know is right.

  • Joshwow

    This is the most retarded and incorrect thing I have ever read in my life

    • Anonymous

      www (dot) r-word (dot) org
      Check it out Joshwow

  • Mkerfamily

    This is perhaps one of the most well-researched and correctly presented articles I’ve ever read.
    As a woman who tried the pill but mostly uses NFP, I can back up the claims in many of these, especially #5. Thanks for writing this.

  • Ann

    This article fails to mention that the CDC has categorized the Pill as a carcinogen.

    • onepercenter

      But they also note that the pill may actually prevent certain types of cancer while being a risk factor for breast cancer, and they also express more concern over post-menopausal hormone therapy (which presents a risk for heart attack in women as well as cancer). As with all pharmaceuticals, whether or not the small risk attached to the pill for certain breast cancers is a greater risk than the benefits it may provide a particular individual is always a discussion to be had betwen that individual and her doctor(s). Not anyone else’s business, ever, and for someone to use their religious beliefs to attempt to deny some women valuable therapy is hideously evil.

  • Patty

    I LOVED your article. I think it’s way past time for women to realize what they are sacrificing for so called ‘freedom’ from the consequences of sex.

  • Promoter of Brotherly love

    Only God can forgive me of my sins. No priest, No bishop, no Pope. ONLY GOD. I will only seek forgiveness from God through Jesus. I don’t need to ask Mary to open Jesus’ ears so only then will he mediate between God and I.

    I find it funny that people who pray to idols, which is a sin in itself have the nerve to cast stones on others for their personal choices. It amazes me how judgemental so many of you are yet deny that you are judging individuals for their choices.

    On the other side of the coin, many of the people who are completely anti-Catholocism and disagree with this article are also guilty of judging.

    We are all entitled to beliefs and opinions regardless of what others may thing. The line I opened with is my belief and opinion. I dare anyone to judge me for what I believe in. If I am wrong I want to hear it from God and God alone. He is the only one who may condemn me.

    John 13:34 “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye alove one another; as I have loved you, that ye also blove one another.”

    Nobody’s intentions should be attacking the beliefs of one another.

    • Guest

      The thing a LOT of Catholics themselves get wrong is that the priest forgives sins. He doens’t. Even the Church asserts that God forgives sins.

      However, their notion that God can’t forgive your sins unless you go through a priest is just as bad as saying only priests can forgive your sins.

      As usual, they perform a lot of smarmy, half-assed “intellectual” (or what passes for intellectual these days — homeskooled little boys pretending they have all the answers and know everything, including how to cure medical conditions by charting fertility markers, but I digress…) acrobatics to get to the point where, yeah, that God guy, whoever He is, forgives your sins, but you can only be sure they’re forgiven if you go to a priest and he performs his woo-woo magic incantation and says so. Because, of course, God’s word isn’t good enough.

      But that’s Catholics for ya — God’s name is a great hook, but after that it’s all about arrogant men and their control issues, nothing more, nothing less.

    • emily

      If your prayers are intended to please only God, it is okay to look to a mediator, it is okay not to as well. Catholics won’t shun you if you pray to God without asking for intercessors…

      What is too bad, is that some Catholic(s), have given you the impression (and themselves the false permission) to cast stones. As Catholics, we are called to know the difference between right and wrong, live it, and invite others(usually through our deeds) to join us. Labeling an action is not casting a stone at a person. Some people may feel offended if they hear that something they are doing is wrong….however, if they can open their eyes, they will realize that all of us are doing something wrong, even if we are trying not to. So if someone is casting stones at PEOPLE and calling them a sinner, or trying to rank someone as worse than someone else, they are guilty of judging. (Jesus gives a very frightening reminder to these consequences in the Bible.)

      Basically, many Catholic and nonCatholics alike are guilty of judging people, but be aware that the Catholic Church does not condone it at all. Just because an action is labeled a sin, doesn’t mean a person guilty of it is ranked as more of a sinner than anyone else. The church teaches that our very life is a gift, and even the Pope is a sinner not deserving of the great love of God….and I think the ones who are truly the saints in our world, realize their sins more than anyone else.

  • Page_no4

    God be will you! Thank you for your post.

  • Guest

    It’s not an article… its an advertisement… LOVE that last line… quite the “gotcha” moment!!

  • d m

    What you didn’t mention is that while NFP allows the woman to ovulate and actually really want sex, NFP makes the couple avoid having sex during that specific time if they are trying to avoid having a child. So I think it’s very frustrating, actually.

    And there are several other methods of NFP besides the Creighton Model, you should mention those as well. The Creighton Model is the method my husband and I were using when we accidentally got pregnant with our first child, less than 6 months into our marriage. Something like the Sympto-Thermal method is much more accurate, but again you always have to avoid the fertile, high-sexual feelings times.

    • emily

      I didn’t see this when I posted. I have had success with the Creighton, but you’re right, #5 happens with NFP too.

  • Anonymous

    Fabulous post! National School Based Health Centers are anxious to dispense hormonal contraceptives. And look at what Oregon’s Contraceptive Care Program looks like: http://www.ccare.oregon.gov/ I’ve studied their social marketing plan; they would love girls to use the IUD now. That’s next because girls hear about the side effects of hormones and voila! will – theoretically – get an IUD instead.

  • Amy

    “O.K, new reason the pill sucks. People in power get scary-ass ideas.”

    You know, I think the current people in power who are trying to completely restrict my right to get an abortion and do whatever the hell I want with MY own body is a pretty fucking scary thing to have to think about.

  • emily

    We use NFP, Creighton Model, we love it, and it has been effective for us. I will say, though, that #5 is as relevant to an NFP using couple as a contracepting couple, if they are trying to avoid a pregnancy. But, for someone with a relatively high drive, the abstinence/fertile times during NFP might make a person eager for the infertile times…which would not be a factor to a pill user.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003096443517 Dawn Watrous

    Love. this. article!!!!! I especially love the “this is so ignorant!” comments from people who can’t be bothered to actually think about these points and review the evidence you provide.

    I am now Catholic but I came to NFP as an atheist after the Pill destroyed my health and wrecked our marriage’s sex life. I’d rather deal with abstinence every month than to have my entire libido flatlined, gain 40 lbs no matter how well I eat, and generally feel like killing myself all the time because I’m given chemical emotions. Thanks for a great list. I knew all of these things (being an NFP instructor myself now), but never compiled in a succinct list!

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003096443517 Dawn Watrous

    I also would like to point out to those who claim the Church is sexist because it doesn’t allow female priests: was God sexist for allowing only women to conceive new life and give birth? How many women who have felt the privilege of feeling their child move beneath their own heart would give that amazing experience up? My husband does not get that privilege; I do, precisely because I’m a woman. Isn’t that what you’re saying–that because one sex does not get to have the exact same experiences as the other, then it’s sexist?

    I’ve found that women who seek ordination are not in the Church to serve it, but to serve their own desire for power and pride. Not every man is called to be a priest, in the same way that not every woman is called to be a mother. But in the same way, those roles have been specifically defined by God as being for only one sex. It doesn’t make it sexist; it just makes it a different calling.

    • Bailey

      Apparently you don’t know the right women. I know plenty of women who are ordained and they live to serve Jesus, not themselves. You shouldn’t make generalizations.

  • Elizabeth

    I understand where most of these arguments come from. In fact, they are all logical, well thought out, and for the most part, correct. But the author fails to acknowledge the fact that some Pill users need to take oral contraceptives for medical reasons. For instance, if a woman has heavy or excruciating painful periods, then the pill helps regulate and relieve her of an irregular cycle. Along with period problems comes Endrometriosis, a serious condition where in-uterine tissue growth builds up, and can cause scarring, pain, and even infertility. And I must disagree here when Marc says that using the Pill can lead to cancer. The Pill can actually prevent ovarian and endometrial cancers by more than 70 percent over twelve years! I would know, as my grandmother tested positive for ovarian cancer early on, and later died from it, as she never took any steps toward a solution that seemed to compromise her values. But I don’t think that the Pill itself is a sin, I think it is rather what intentions you use the Pill for. You can be a healthy, happy, and morally secure Catholic when taking the Pill. It is the intentions, actions, and moral values of the user that matter when debating the benefits, and the negative views, of the Pill. I am on the Pill for medical reasons, yet I am secure in my faith, because though I have the power to terminate life, as all humans do, I choose not to dishonor my faith and my God by having premarital sex while taking the Pill. It all depends on intentions.

  • carolyn3

    Many of your points are correct. Can’t help but point out that if you use NFP, you’re also not able to take advantage of the ovulation-induced sexual desire. I am Catholic, the mother of three and my husband and I always use condone because a) I can’t afford anymore children and b) I had a huge tumor in my chest and have been advised against pregnancy. It might name me a bad Catholic in your eyes, but I’d prefer not to leave 3 children under 10 without a mother.

    • carolyn3

      Condoms — autocorrect Fail

  • enness

    Hey Marc, yet another reason the Pill sucks — you’re at the mercy of somebody else’s human error!

    http://news.yahoo.com/pfizer-recalls-1-million-packets-birth-control-pills-170412523.html

    One MILLION packages recalled. Seriously.

  • Anonymous

    Hey Marc, I found another one (apparently I am so good at this I do it without even trying) that I don’t remember anyone ever telling me about:

    “Birth Control Pills- change the levels of your hormones and because of this, women are prone to periodontal disease, an infection that occurs because your immune system can’t “compensate for the amount of bacteria in your mouth”

    (If you’re taking The Pill, periodontist Nicholas Toscano says, you should see the dentist every three months for cleaning)” – From an article about things that will damage teeth

    Now I don’t know about you, but I’m lucky to get there twice a year, like they recommend. I went off the hormones around the beginning of October. In December they discovered my first cavity in years. Don’t want to make too much of what might just be a coincidence, but it does sorta cause one to wonder.

  • Daisyduck7

    My problem with the Family planning method is that it goes completely against the natural desire. A women desires her husband most when she is ovulating but with this method that’s the time when they AREN’T able to fulfill those desires if they do not wish to produce a child yet.

  • medstudent

    I am surprised people are still allowed to post statements this inaccurate in a public forum…(obviously not actually surprised…1st amendment…) The author of this article obviously has a 5th grade level education when it comes to the female reproductive system. As a medical student I can say that I find direct contradictions to at least three of his points in my text books. Interesting that he never mentioned the health benefits of taking OCP (oral contraceptive pills). There are several, which include decreased risk for Endometriosis, Endometrial Carcinoma, and Surface-derived Ovarian Tumors (Most common ovarian tumor). Source; Goljan: Rapid Review Pathology.

    • mvv

      Hello medstudent (: I am sure, since you are a med student, that you are aware that the best way to avoid unwanted side effects of medications is by not taking them if you don’t need them, right? SO–> OCP have ‘some’ health benefits, so do most antibiotic treatments and profilactic surgeries… we don’t go around offering them to people because they have ‘some’ health benefits, right? Oh, but of course you are aware that the reason the vast majority women take OCP is to avoid pregnancy, not cancer…

    • Anonymous

      …but as Dr. Angela Lanfranchi and others have said (though they’re often censored), the Pill ‘MAY” help with endometriosis and prevention of one form of cancer, but it has been found to CAUSE 3 other cancers!
      Even the WHO lists the Pill as a ‘known carcinogen.’

  • KF
  • Strohmcsmile

    :)

  • naturalwoman

    I have to say, from my own experiences with The Pill, that it really does suck. I was nauseous, moody, and felt like someone had flicked a switch to “OFF” on my sex drive. I was exhausted and became very depressed after just a week on The Pill. My husband and I figured that if I wanted to feel pregnant, I may as well BE pregnant. We educated ourselves about Natural Family Planning and have ever since (6 years) enjoyed a much happier sexual relationship and I have appreciated my own body more. I am in tune with what stage of my cycle I’m at and have accepted that my female body is meant to procreate and if I don’t want to be pregnant, I need to find more wholesome ways to avoid it. I don’t think that women should put up with all the misery in the struggle to avoid pregnancy, and I do believe that The Pill, in part, contributes to women’s overwhelmingly negative self-valuation since their innate child-bearing abilities have become a liability and a problem in our society. I know that The Pill is very valuable for some women who have difficulty controlling their cycle, but I was not one of them. I have a great deal of distrust for an optional medication (optional meaning that it’s being used to treat a condition that doesn’t need treating) that causes such terrible symptoms.

  • Stopthewaronwomen

    The pill leads to much better sex if you ask me! Who are you to judge that? Sex feels the same to you pretty much all the time.

  • Anonymous

    Regarding #5 Bad Sex
    NFP leads to bad sex. It is completely UN-natural!!! It requires abstaining during a woman’s fertile/ovulating time. This is exactly the time when she is, typically, MORE responsive and interested in sex? She changes hormonally and physically to want physical intimacy…but NFP says NO!

  • W7j93w0

    I really hope you’re trolling, People aren’t attracted to eachother based on immune systems you ignorant fucktard. If a fat ugly ass bitch has the perfect”opposite immune system” of mine, I wont be attracted to her in the slightest cause shes a fat ugly cunt. People are attracted based on looks and personallity, looks moreso for men, not some stupid immune system shit. A lot of these reasons are biased and opinons ex. 5, 7, 10. And you claim it causes bad sex? I think thats bullshit. Condoms cause bad sex, at least for males, it restricts the pleasure you could be getting if the skank bitch didnt want you to wear one. Condoms suck. Give that hoe a pill.

  • Guest

    You Catholics are always trying to promote your religion’s views using scientific facts.
    Give us some scientific evidence that God exists and we may believe you.

  • Napa1991

    This is an interesting article, and it makes some interesting points, however there is an astounding amount of experimental bias. The author is specifically searching for reasons to not take the pill and ignores most arguments and evidence against his points and opinions. True scientific research seeks the right answer, not the answer you want. Although doing research without bias is near impossible no effort was made here, and as such this article is of little scientific value and only useful as a starting ground to look into some of the points brought up. I’m not saying that the points brought up are wrong, merely that this is invalid as a scientific resource and more research and proper rebuttal and refute process is lacking.

  • Jake

    I agree with Abby and shes a female. I am disappointed in your love life as a guy, but maybe you had some hard times with it?

  • Gt4444

    “This is perhaps one of the most ignorant articles I’ve ever read.” : drug corporation.
    Hormones are vital part of how we function, and thus think, go ask a bio chemist what they think of birth control. Facts are Facts. Stop messing with our society you stupid PIGS

  • Gt44444

    Oh and lay off leo hes not that bad a actor

  • http://ideasaboutgodandtheworld.wordpress.com/ Alejandro

    Condomns also kind of suck since it’s like having a wet sock in your foot. Not that I know of it, but it does make sense, and worse if it has spermicide.

  • wth?!

    Ok, see, I hate the pill because of the mental and emotional side effects/messing with the natural sex drive and cycle – but I fully support my fellow women who can tolerate it, and do use it for contraception. What I DO NOT agree with here is the whole anti-choice abortion BS. the pill DOES NOT CAUSE ABORTIONS. It prevents pregnancy by preventing ovulation, and thickens mucous so that even if an egg were to someone get out there, it wouldn’t be able to implant. This is not killing life. Even if you define life as the moment a sperm hits an egg (which is bullshit, btw), that’s not happening, so that’s not killing “life”. On a related note, I soooooo don’t agree with your definition of when life begins (you say pro choice people arbitrarily “decide” when it begins? How about you’re making an arbitrary decison?! Just because you say life begins at XYZ point, how is that any more valid than those who say it begins at any other time? We obviously disagree on this, so whatever – just stop with the f’ing hypocrisy). There *is* an abortion pill out there, not in the US, but it is not the same as the birth control pill.

    Stumbled across this article, thought it was all woman empowering, taking back your fertility/reproductive health…and it turns into some religious nutjob trying to use God as an excuse to deny women their reproductive rights and choices. How can you pretend you’re for female empowerment (better sex, not putting the BC responsibility on the ladies), when you think it’s up to you and your personal religious beliefs to control women’s bodies?

  • Rocker_chick-96

    This is a ridiculous article created by ignorant religion. Just because the author cites things as “facts” does not make it true in actuality. As a female on oral contraceptives this article bothers me. I am in no way a masculine female, my male partner is not “girlie” and our sex is faaar from unpleasant. But of course im sure I’ll get this thrown back at me with someone saying the pill has made me irritable, and I am clearly inclined to hurt someone out of rage. No, actually. Oral contraceptives have balanced out irritablility related to PMS.

    I suggest before you write another “article”, you talk to someone with actual medical experience in the field.

  • jkliv

    i find this very uninformed, biased, and none of this information is backed by current studies and there is no proof that the pill has any link to ‘more abortions.’ and the pill does not end ovulation. The only way anyone is at a higher risk of getting breast cancer is if they already of a family history of breast cancer. the pill doesnt magically give you cancer. i take the pill and i have great sex and i have found a great partner to enjoy great sex with. again, biased and uninformed.

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    Bravo, Bravo, Bravo!

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  • DFD

    When you say that the pill has caused an increase in male masturbation and pornography usage, have you considered that correlation does not mean causation? People, both men and women, have always masturbated, masturbation is not a new trend caused by birth control pills. It is more plausible to say that an increase in pornography is because an increase in mass media, especially the internet.

    Everyone is attracted to different types of people. There isn’t one universal man that is attractive to every woman, and there isn’t one universal woman that is attractive to every man. There are still many women attracted to traditionally masculine looking men, just as there have always been women attracted to less masculine looking men. Our culture dictates what is considered attractive, and that changes over time. People that were considered beautiful during the Renaissance would be considered fat today, and during the 1920′s flat-chested women with boyish figures were considered chic.

    Attacking women for a “decline in masculinity” is misogynist. Birth control pills and the women who take them are not responsible for your perceived attack on manhood. Hugh Jackman, Daniel Craig, and Eric Bana are all very masculine looking men who are currently famous and considered attractive. If a man cannot find a woman willing to have sex with him it is not birth control’s fault, it just means that no one wanted to have sex with him.

    Birth control pills have not caused an increase in homosexuality. Once again, correlation does not mean causation. There have always been homosexuals, but in the past homosexuals had to hide their behaviors; just because we didn’t see it in the past doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. Today we live in a more accepting society so we see more homosexual behavior.

    Birth control pills do not stop the implantation of fertilized eggs. Birth control pills work by stopping ovulation, so no egg is ever released. Because no egg is released there is no egg that can be fertilized.

    The reason that the burden of birth control falls mainly on women is because women can get pregnant, men cannot. Birth control pills were not made so that men can control women, birth control pills (and other forms of contraception) give women control of their own bodies. Historically, women’s bodies have been controlled by men, contraception enables women to control their own reproductive lives.

    Contraception use does not increase the abortion rate. The abortion rate in the US had decreased steadily since the 1970′s because of an increase in contraception use. If people use contraception, they won’t have unintended pregnancies. If people do not have unintended pregnancies, they will not have abortions. If you are actually interested in decreasing the number of abortions, you should encourage sexually active people who are not ready for children to use a highly effective form of contraception, such as the birth control pill.

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  • Taylor

    I find this all to be untrue. I am exactly the same as I was before I started the pill but safer and now I have a regular period instead of having one every 28 days-3 month cycles. My attraction to my boyfriend has increased and I find him to be more amazing because he comforts me because I have become a little more sensitive. I enjoy the pill and see it as the safest decision