Contraceptives May Double Risk of Stroke.

My favorite line: “benefits [of contraception] still outweigh the risks for most users.” Growing numbers of “most users” would disagree.

Just found this new blog, Sweetening the Pill, which is all about spreading the bad news of the BCP, and empowering women to find something better.

Take her poll: Have you experienced negative side effects of the Pill?

Huh.

Can anyone out there think of an alternative to the Pill that’s *not* an IUD , an abortafacient? Something that’s marriage building, mutually used, can be used to help diagnose the causes of infertility? Something that people use for religious as well as non-religious reasons?

Exactly. The funny thing is that most of the people commenting (Yay, Canada!) on the article are NFP/FAM fans, and at least one person comments on the interesting fact that the author completely misses the other half of her point, failing to mention natural methods of family planning. We’ll consider it an act of accidental ignorance, rather than a prejudicial act (far too common, unfortunately).

The Lolek Young Adult group in Elm Grove will feature rockin’ speaker Vicki Thorn, founder of Project Rachel. Vicki’s topic will be “What they didn’t tell you in sex ed,” aka “What you didn’t learn in sex ed,” which is a talk we featured last February in the Diocese of Madison for our St. Therese Lecture series. I love Vicki Thorn, and I love her down to earth way of communicating science as common sense.

Vicki’s talk will cover the science of attraction and bonding and the impact of the Pill on wrong partner choice, how we are changed by our sexual partners, how women carry cells from every child they have ever had and men are hardwired for fatherhood during the pregnancy.

Facebook users, find more info here.

No, it’s *not* actually a surprise to NFP fans the that Pill isn’t a panacea. Modern NFP has been around since the 60′s, and more widely known since the 70′s and 80′s. But to those outside the NFP-world-niche, the fact that “Women Look Beyond the Pill” is news.

A Red Tent Sister, an object of my recent post on FAM/ecosex entrepreneurs, gets quoted in this recent article out of The Montreal Gazzette, a Canadian publication.

A Highlight of my favorite part of the article:

The continued popularity of the pill doesn’t indicate it is the best form of birth control for women, said Laura Wershler, executive director of Sexual Health Access Alberta in Calgary.Instead, she said, it indicates women don’t know enough about their options.

“What I see in our communities is an absolute failure to move beyond the idea that hormonal birth control is the be-all and end-all,” Wershler said. “What’s happening is we’re not developing support programs and advocacy for women looking for non-hormonal methods.”

Natural family-planning methods, or fertility-awareness methods, whereby a woman determines the fertile and non-fertile times of her monthly cycle, aren’t often taken seriously by physicians, she added.

“There’s this lack of knowledge and understanding within my own field,” Wershler said. “Women are going to sexual health clinics and being laughed off by the doctors and clinics for looking for alternatives.”

For a related message inviting women to “look beyond the Pill” , listen to my talk, “Think Outside the Pill.” (Trademark phrase of mine–some day I’ll actually trademark it!)

Now, if feel strongly about this, you may be interested in the American Life Leagues “The Pill Kills” campaign. I agree with their fundamental premise, and the great need to address this function of the Pill and other contraceptives (I guess “IUDS kill” or “Depo Kills” isn’t as catchy) for unsuspecting pro lifers. However, this campaign will change few hearts for the undecided or the pro choice person. For the latter audience, I think there are better ways to go about this conversation. Some will think this makes me pusillanimous or weak, but I think it’s simply a better approach.

If you read Dustin at Engaged Marriage’s What You Want to Know About Natural Family Planning, this is Kathleen at Project M‘s reply, which begins

I am an educated, fancy-pants, trendy individual. I have two completely useless liberal-arts degrees to prove it. So of course, like other liberal-arts-educated and trendy individuals, I am drawn to the word “natural.” It makes us organic-eating tree-huggers think of healthy bodies, uncorrupted oceans and virginal rainforests. Read the rest at Dustin’s blog.

You’ll see that she has a major change of heart, going from “It doesn’t work” to “it’s probably a preferably form of birth control,” and not just because of the natural element. Though she’s ambivalent about the abortafacient factor (still discerning this–she is Pro Life), she gets the relational and grassroots Non-Big Pharma social factor of it. A glaring misconception (no pun intended) that still exists for her is that NFP is contraception. Yes, for non-Catholics it can be used that way, but it’s inherently different than contraception because of the way it works. Further, Kathleen is trying to get pregnant, and she misses the point that NFP can be used to achieve pregnancy as well! An early commenter lets K in on the little achieving secret, which is good. Something I hope to add to the conversation is that it’s also an infertility treatment alternative.

What are your best thoughts and evidence on the abortafacient effect of the Pill? What did you think of the entry? Overall I thought it was honest, forthright, tolerant, and well written.

What I think will resonate deeply with readers is the anger of never receiving this information, of being lied to by the medical community, and of never being invited to the beauty of the Church’s teaching–all too common of an experience.

I was angry because I found out that contraceptives had abortifacient properties.  I was angry that those in the medical community had morphed the definition of the beginning of pregnancy to be when the embryo implanted, thereby negating the life that exists from conception.  And I was angry that no one (save our priest during our pre-marriage counseling) had ever offered to us that NFP was a viable alternative.  Our families, our friends, fellow Catholics…no one stepped forward and made us think about looking into Natural Family Planning.  As a matter of fact…that anger still rises on occasion, because we do not have the support of some people close to us and we are looked down on…like we must simply not know any better…and we see disappointment in loved ones’ faces as we announce the pending arrival of another blessing.

My friend Emily, the new Family Planning Coordinator in the Diocese of Madison, just emailed the link to this commentary on the TIME article and a little bit about my work in Madison. It was posted on Catholic.org by Catholic PRWire, which found it through a press release from Chicago CCL (promoting its classes). Thanks Chicago CCL for the mention! While I don’t exclusively endorse CCL, this is a great example of harnessing buzz about NFP to promote classes. Well done, Chi-CCLers.

Time Magazine Notes Another NFP Benefit: It Keeps the Rivers Clean

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA ADVISORY
Catholic PRWire

GLENVIEW, IL (November 10, 2009) – Sexual morality isn’t the only attraction to draw couples to Natural Family Planning (NFP) these days. Those concerned with the environment are finding that NFP doesn’t pollute the waterways with synthetic hormones and other chemicals.

A recent Time magazine author related how NFP rates high for such reasons. “Like all good Catholics, my husband and I had to attend church-run marriage prep before we tied the knot last year,” wrote Kathleen Kingsbury in Time’s Oct. 26 issue.

“I was surprised, however, during the hard sell on natural family-planning, that this updated version of the rhythm method was being advertised not only as morally correct but also as ‘organic’ and ‘green.’ I was even more surprised when I found out that some of the most popular instructors of NFP — known in secular circles as the Fertility Awareness Method — are non-Catholics who praise it as a means of avoiding both ingesting chemicals and excreting them into rivers and streams.”

The article, sprinkled with terms such as phthalates and bisphenol, also looks into the use of chemicals in the makeup of sex toys and tracks a trend of earth-friendly production materials in these products.

The article also says that the Catholic Church is catching on to the organic trend. “People pay $32 for eye cream because they’re told it is good for them and the planet,” says Jessica Marie Smith, whom Time says repackaged the NFP program at the diocese of Madison, WI. “We figured we could do the same with NFP.”

Ingest, Poke and Patch

In an article on the Madison diocese’s website, “Green is the New Black: How NFP is good for your soul and the earth,” Smith, the diocese’s [former] family planning coordinator, says, “Doesn’t it seem interesting that we’ll go to great lengths to ensure our meat, dairy and other grocery products are ‘all natural’ and hormone free, but then we’ll turn around and ingest, poke or patch our bodies with all sorts of synthetic hormones, the ramifications of which we’re still discovering?”

A recent article in a Denver weekly by Susan E. Wills, Esq. Unfortunately, the print is a little small, but it’s a good piece. The danger of contraception is not news to me, but one of the top search terms to find my blog consistantly is “dangers of birth control,” so I think it’s news to someone.