This is not breaking news, but a oldie but goodie article link I didn’t get a chance to post before.

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.

Many people would consider the phrase “contraception-free pharmacy” an oxymoron, but I think it’s a badge of honor. It shows a pro-fertility, pro-family mentality that is well aware that not only is the Pill (and other contraceptives) not a panacea, but that it has terrible side effects that wreck the physical, mental, social, relational, and spiritual state of women and families, and thus is bad for society at large.

DMC Pharmacy, one of the rare contraception-free pharmacies in the United States, near Washington, DC, has closed its doors effective two days ago due to lack of customer and financial support. CNA covers the story here.

This is so sad and frustrating on several levels. It takes so much courage and sacrifice to make the decision to go against the grain and do the right thing, and to not be supported on principal by two large parishes (totaling 20,000+ parishioners!) says a lot about those parishes. I mean, I’m taking a leap on my inference here, but I find it hard to believe that two parishes really living their faith could not find it in themselves to help a brutha out. But this is the DC area. I used to live in the DC area, and though the DC area is a quasi-mecca for a cluster of super faithful, rock solid Christians, the Catholic population is notably unfaithful in the area of contraception and related issues especially. Boo, those two parishes. (I could be wrong about the parishes, but it just doesn’t add up.)

Which begs the question, how can pro-fertility, pro-family communities (especially faith communities support their local pharmacies? (To find a contraception-free pharmacy, start here. There’s not that many listed, but I know there’s got to be a lot more. If you know of one, connect them with OMS so they can get listed!)

• Make sure that they have NFP information, brochures and flyers at the pharmacy. (General NFP/ Contraception Side Effects brochures available at One More Soul. Specific ones about classes in your area can be found through your Catholic Diocesan Family Life Offices, or local NFP Chapters.) If you’re an NFP Instructor/ Promoter, this is a must!
• Get bulletin announcements published in your church bulletin! We absolutely need to be supporting our brothers and sisters for making courageous decisions. Ask the Family Life/ Respect Life Office to email a bulletin announcement about your local non-contraceptive pharmacy (word the announcement as you wish for maximum effect in your area) to all local parishes. They should have a blanket email list. If they don’t, submit a hard copy for mailing/ newsletters. If this isn’t an option, consider contacting your pastor to suggest this. If he’s on board enough (he should be!), he may even go further and include it in a homily! (It can and does happen.)
• Put flyers up in your church/ supportive community: It’s psychologically shown in marketing/ communications studies that someone has to see/ hear something 5-8 times before remembering it, and having it sink in. That’s why the same commercials are shown over and over, and this is why any publicity should contain several types of media (print, verbal announcement/ radio, email/ internet, etc.) This can get expensive quick, but it also can be done on the cheap. So put up flyers for the pharmacy at your parish (make sure to ask permission–it should be fine, though). With the same redundancy reasoning, also consider:
• Putting a link for the pharmacy’s web site on your parish site/ personal site.
• Spread the word via social networking: Facebook, Twitter, Newsvine, etc.
• Invite the pharmacist to speak: The pharmacist/ pharmacy owner likely has a story on what lead them to take this leap. Their decision is a huge witness in and of itself, and they should be invited to tell their story. Places where they could speak: your local Respect Life Group, a local Catholic Medical Association (or other like-minded medical groups), a youth group, a local Medical Student Group, and others. Mike Koelzer, a pharmacist in Michigan, has got his own site for this purpose! If you’re in Michigan, give Mike a call!
• Pray for Pharmacists who still prescribe BC, and give them this pamphlet on discontinuing contraceptives if they are believers.

What are some of your ideas? Do you have a pharmacist in your area that’s not listed at OMS? Let me know!

A guest blog at Rae’s No Wealth But Life, a story of a young woman who got on the Pill to control her menstrual issues, but with grace and a preventative approach to her wellness, came out Pill-free.

Matthew Archibold at Creative Minority Report, one of my fav funny, faithy commentary blogs, discovers first-hand how ironic contracepting organic folks are.

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?

The surprising part of this article isn’t that it gets that the Pill isn’t a panacea. Nope, it’s a frank article that questions the health benefits and one size fits all approach to women’s wellness that currently passes as health care. The surprising thing is that after admitting the side effects, the possible (probable) cancer risks, and the un-natural, fertility suppressing approach to it all, the only alternative they really suggest is the non-hormonal IUD’s.

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).

…this blogger at Young Adult Catholics (little bit of a misnomer, since they reject many of the Churches teachings outright) seems to think it’s not.

I like that she puts the words “liberal Catholic” and “conservative Catholic,” thereby questioning the validity of political terms imposed on theological terms (The Church is not liberal or conservative; it’s Catholic–Universal). While she supports a person’s choice to choose natural methods of family planning (I got warm fuzzies), she remains neutral on the moral issues (namely the fact that most contraceptives are abortafacients to begin with, plus contra-love factor). I can deal with people who are against the Church’s teaching or don’t understand it, but someone who’s totally neutral? There’s nothing lamer than lukewarmness.

I appreciate that she’s trying to be loving and to extend an olive leaf, but her amicable branch is a thinly disguised vine of vitriol. There’s nothing more dangerous than indifference. A few words from wiser souls:

Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword.–Our Lord Jesus, Gospel according to St. Matthew 10:34

The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that’s the essence of inhumanity.–George Bernard Shaw, Nobel Prize Laureate

Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all — the apathy of human beings.–Hellen Keller, author, political activist, lecturer

Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference. –Edmund Burke, philosopher & statesman

At the bottom of enmity between strangers lies indifference.–Soren Kirkegaard, philosopher & theologian

The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.–Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor, Nobel Laureate & author

It’s worth checking out for a minute. Take the “What’s your method?” poll, and comment away! There’s a nice potpourri of the usual unsubstantiated overpopulation claims, bad theology of marriage & sex (the r who “have no authority on the sex issue”), but there are a few nice counter comments. My favorite is,

As a website that promotes progressive forward thinking for 20-30 year old Catholics, I invite you to think forward to Dr. Janet Smith’s take on contraception and natural family planning…

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.

I would hardly call one quote the big time, but you know, it’s a play on words. 

This 700 word piece, “Sex & the Eco-City” on Time’s online addition [spoiler alert/warning to the uber-pious and sensitive souls--reverence for sex is sparse] by Kathleen Kingsbury, 04′ graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and Catholic, is hardly a ringing endorsement for the benefits of natural methods of family planning, but at least it’s on the radar in a fairly positive way instead of the usual condescending and ignorant or halfway correct way.

I’ve read Kingsbury’s other work online at Time and elsewhere, and her work seemed fairly balanced and well written. Objectively, while I’m appreciative for the NFP mention (here’s a solo-feature spot on NFP), I’d hardly say it did NFP any justice. I know there wasn’t space for a full-on explanation, but she described NFP as the sympto-thermal method (fine, but incomplete), never mind that there are several other methods out there, and though the Church strongly endorses it under good circumstances, there are other NFP/FAM users out there. Not to mention the fact that many, many people use NFP to diagnose and treat infertility and women’s wellness issues  with a higher success rate than mainstream methods and IVF.

Honestly, when she contacted my old work for an interview after she found the Go Organic brochure online, I received the impression that the piece was on green family planning options, not environmentally friendly sex toys. I probably would have thought twice before doing the interview if the opening pitch had been, “Hey, I’m doing a piece on alternative sex toys. Can I work NFP in, and then I’ll massage the message with unsubstantiated claims endorsing zero population growth?”

My guess is that the editors saw the original piece, and thought “This is too soft–can we sex it up a little, and since I don’t agree with the Catholic Church [never mind that fertility awareness isn't just a Catholic thing] about things, we’ll stick in some stuff on ZPG.” 

Did you read the article? What did you think? I’m thinking of writing in (letters@time.com), but I’m not sure if it’ll do any good. Perhaps if they get enough emails. How would have *you* written a “Green Sex” piece?

Mr. Dal Broi, chemist with courage

If you live anywhere near East Griffith NSW (west of Syndey and north of Melbourne, I think) in Australia, bring your prescription to Trevor Dal Broi, one of many chemists (pharmacists) whose personal and moral beliefs (which happen to be religious) forbid him for prescribing contraception of any kind.

This, of course, makes him the enemy of many whose secular devotion to contraception, sprinkled with a little anti-Christian prejudice, is a kind of tyrrany over a person’s right to exercise their conscience and religion.

According to an Australian blogger from the same town of some 16,000 residents, there are about five pharamacies serving the town, which isn’t exactly depriving the fair citizenry of their compacts of carcinogens.

My favorite quote is from Miss Alison Dance, 18, who believes it’s wrong for someone to exercise their conscience. My guess is that 1) She’s never actually read the pamphlet inside her Pill packet or researched the drawbacks of condom usage; 2) She’s not thought more than 30 seconds about her attitudes and beliefs about sex and contraception, and 3) She feels inconvenienced because someone else has spent more than 30 seconds critically thinking about it, making her ride her bike six more blocks.

According to Freerebulic.com, Mr. Dal Broi will contineu to prescribe contraception that is needed for medical reasons.

The best quote comes from Bob Laird, executive director of another pharmacy, via the Catholic News Agency,

“Birth control is not good health care.  Birth control makes healthy reproductive organs sick and prevents the marital act from completion.  This is not healthcare.  Birth control is a lifestyle choice…”

Amen. Contraception is a lifestyle choice. Some feel it’s more essential than others, but I advocate the ability to make that choice or choose to advocate non-contraceptive family planning, as Mr. Dal Broi does.

Last note: The Catherine of Siena Institute has a great blog post on this story, and ends by encouraging people to support other people who make couragous decisions based on their convictions.

I support Trevor Dal Broi.

This recent article in the New York Times starts by saying that popular contraceptives Yaz and Yasmin are at the top of the sales chart for Bayer Pharmaceuticals. They’re top sellers not just for their pregnancy-defying feats, but from their hyped up marketing which got them in trouble not too long ago.

The good thing about this Times piece is that it brings attention to health concerns over Yaz and Yasmin. This was prompted by some health professionals, but particularly the 74 plaintiffs and their lawyers who currently have filed against Bayer for serious side effects that they claim have a higher percentage than other contraceptives.

Is is true that these risks are higher among Yaz and Yasmin users? Or do they merely have the same side effect risks as other contraceptives? I say merely with my tongue firmly in cheek, as the side effects of contraceptives, though debated in the last 10-15 years, are gaining wider publicity. Simply do an internet search on “birth control” and “lawsuit,” and you may be surprised on what you find.

They say the risks for something like blood clots are small–only 1%, for example. Well, if you have 10 million women (4 million under 25) on the Pill nationally, that’s 100,000 women who annually experience severe medical issues, some even leading to death. Even if the risk is as low as .1%, that’s still 10, 000 women annually who would be ill or permanently disabled due to a birth control side effect. I’m not using hyperbole or scare tactics–this is just science and accurate statistics, and I wish more people knew what they meant.

The interesting thing is that Yaz & Yasmin are getting all this negative publicity for a marketing bait-and-switch, when that’s been the de facto tactic among pharmaceutical sales (and consequently among medical professionals) for years and years. How many teens do you know who are on the Pill or the Shot or another contraceptive “for medical reasons”?  If the  ”medical reasons” aren’t a blatant cover up for sexual activity, contraception will lead youth there sooner or later (another topic in itself). What an excellent branding methodology: Find a legitimate medical condition, ranging from the very painful endometriosis or PCOS, to the perhaps less serious embarrassing case of acne, maintain that customer base, add intercourse at some time earlier or later, and you’ve got a lifetime fan of your brand!

There’s a very interesting documentary done by PBS called simply “The Pill,” though it isn’t the most objective piece of journalism, there are some interviews with historians, as well as great footage of the Health Feminists of the 70′s, the first activists to bring to attention the extreme side effects of the first types of contraception. In the first part of the documentary when they’re laying the historical groundwork of the development of the Pill, it’s revealed that when they were first looking for  a pharmaceutical company to manufacture the Pill, the first company realized what a commercially genius idea to sell a pill that you needed not just when you were sick, but that a woman would use more or less throughout her reproductive lifetime!

Ponder the immensity of that, wonder what kind of altruistic decisions are being made in a business that grosses hundreds of billions of dollars annually.

It’s no wonder Yaz and Yasmin are getting called out, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg, and according to Janet Smith (of Contraception: Why Not fame), it’s another Big Tobacco waiting to happen.

Where’s the whistleblower?

Thomas Peters over at American Papist cleverly posted his corrections on this ad:

This simple image signals a grave ignorance of recent social science showing the connection between contraception and most major social pathologies of our time. It presents an imperious worldview that treats contraception as a panacea that is universally desired and accepted. It isn’t and it’s not. Look where this leads.

Further, this ad belittles those across the political, socio-economic, and religious spectrum who, for various reasons, choose natural methods of family planning. With one photograph it presumes, offends, and betrays their own ignorance.

I can’t wait to write a book, make a movie and win a Nobel Prize about the connection between contraception and nearly every major social pathology of our time. Yeah–the last two will totally happen. Right.

What are your ideas for replacement text for this ad?

I’ll kick start it:

“What if this was your only answer to Pope Paul VI’s predictions about contraception & social ills?”

“What if this was your only option for public health policy-making?”

“Gosh, I hope this marxist feminism thing works out for me.”

“I hope this objectification of my person and rejection of my fertility works out.”