A new birth control pill that eliminates a woman’s menstrual cycles was approved yesterday by the FDA. What are some of the critics saying?
But some critics say the elimination of a period as a “lifestyle choice” could be bad for women’s health. “Menstrual suppression is unnatural,” health psychologist Paula Derry wrote in an editorial in the British Medical Journal.
“Unnatural? Are you serious? It is after all my body and it is my choice!” You know it. You know that would be the response to such argument.
My argument is that such a pill –in a greater anti-life context–has negative effects not only on women and their health, but more importantly on our own understanding of human nature as a society that could ultimately lead to the doom of our civilization. When we deny or undermine the meaning of human life by perverting the essence of woman, we deny God as Creator, because He chose women to be the direct sharers of His divine plan.
A reminder of a woman’s role in God’s plan
Let us be honest for a second. No woman looks forward to her menstrual cycle. The degree of pain, anxiety, and discomfort associated with the cycle differs from woman to woman and from month to month. Many women experience anywhere from intense pain to subtle aches and from radical mood swings to none at all. Regardless, it is still not something any of us look forward to each month.
However, if as Christians we understand ourselves as carefully planned and conceived by our Creator, then we should also be able to interpret all aspects of our human nature—the good and the bad—in the light of this same loving and gratuitous action. I have no intentions of painting the menstrual cycle of a woman in romantic terms, because it is, in fact, far from being a romantic experience, but let us see it through the lens of our faith and what we believe about creation.
I asked Michael one day if he could come up with a theological explanation for woman’s monthly period—perhaps because I needed to hear it and forget about my pain. He thought about it a bit and then he told me: “It is a cycle: the complete symbolic cycle of life and death…and that cycle takes place inside a woman.” I thought that was so powerful. It was life at first—the egg waiting to be fertilized—but because the male counterpart is not present, then it becomes death—a woman’s monthly period. What a reminder! And a monthly one, for that matter, so that we would not forget who we are and where we come from. A complete cycle that expands from life to death and that actually takes place inside a woman. What a privilege!
During these days, we are usually weak, experiencing pain and discomfort, so we may need a break or a bit of help from those who are around us. Granted, sometimes we experience mood swings and stress, but nonetheless, these few days are a reminder of our weak nature and of the need to sit back and reflect on our role as women in our families, parishes, and society as a whole. We are the child bearers and it is exactly that aspect of our nature that makes us reflective and contemplative creatures and, like our Blessed Mother, we not only keep our children within us for nine months, but we keep thoughts and feelings and reflect on them in our hearts (Lk 2:19).
But men do not experience any of this. And you might say, well of course, only women do, we are the child bearers after all. But why? Why did God set women apart in such a way? Obviously, it is a mystery, but one that has to be embraced and one that should be a cause of joy for all women. We have been chosen by our Creator to fulfill a specific and important role in His plan of creation—in fact, women are the direct sharers of God’s ultimate plan. Men also take part in this plan, of course, through the marital embrace, but women are directly responsible for bringing life to this world. Regardless of whether you are a single or a married woman or even a religious, the reminder of the menstrual cycle to all of us is the same: we carry within us the ultimate cycle of life—women are the living and breathing reminders of the divine mission of all human beings as granted by God since the beginning of creation.
Heaven on Earth (on our own terms)
This all sounds very beautiful and nice, but of course when you take God out of the picture, the menstrual cycle simply becomes an inconvenience—an inconvenience that has to go away. Hence, the creation of a birth control pill that eliminates a woman’s monthly period altogether.
The problem is that as a society we have and continue to heavily and solely rely on our human capacity to achieve a better civilization and in doing so we have forgotten who we are and where we come from. We have become overly confident in our own scientific and technological advances that we hope to achieve heaven on earth—a heaven in our own terms—without the intervention of God. This “humanly-conceived” heaven has people exchanging information as fast—and as impersonally—as possible. This same “heaven” has people exploiting their bodies and minds, subordinating them to their passions and impulses. This man-made heaven has women becoming like men and denying their divine and unique vocation to be the bearers of life.
Eschatological implications
Women are different than men. The nature of a woman should serve as a simple reminder of such fundamental difference. If we have concluded that women are the bearers of life and the living reminders of God’s plan for humanity since the beginning of times, then if women are to deny this difference, which constitutes their ultimate essence, then humankind will lead itself to its ultimate destruction. If “in the beginning was the Word” (Jn 1:1) and the Word became flesh through a woman, then we should understand the key role of women in the history of salvation. A civilization will successfully achieve its self-destruction if the true essence of women and their important role in society is either denied or perverted, because it would be ultimately denying God’s Word Incarnate. Hence, in the midst of a continuous and rapid degradation of the true meaning of womanhood, it becomes of uttermost importance to safeguard and stress the essence and God-given privilege of being a woman. It should be a scandal for every Christian in every corner of the world that women are degraded in such unspeakable ways–from pornography to birth control. All together, as a people, we have to look at women as signs of life and hope. After all, the hope of the world, Jesus Christ, came to us through a woman.
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