Prologue: I’ve updated the Think Again Thursdays Update with my comments on Rachel Bereit’s letter to NFPers.

The organization that got its name from family planning has at least one franchise exec who’s actually aware of planning *and* families.  Laura Wershler is evidently progressive and gutsy enough not only to promote NFP as a real family planning option, but to lament its constant sidelining by prejudicial, unprogressive and unscientific foes,

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.”

Alison Cross, of Canwest, a sort of Canadian Associated Press, wrote this fantastic article, “Women Look Behind the Pill,” which told the wider world what NFPers have known all along: the Pill, the Patch & Shot are not panaceas, and even can do a lot of harm. Women and families want something else, something better.

I was excited to see a FAM advocate I’d previously featured in a post, but couldn’t believe it when Wershler, whom I later found out is the Exec Director of what is apparently a Planned Parenthood franchise, said so many sane, sensible, scientific and frankly pro-woman things about NFP/FAM She wasn’t exactly signing off on Humanae Vitae, but that fact that she was so intelligent, well spoken and that she frankly advocated NFP/ FAM and chastised medical professionals, rocked one big Boo-ya for NFP/ FAM advocates.

I wonder if Rachel Bereit would be interested in applying to Wershler’s clinic? Better yet, what would Weshler’s response be?