I read a frustrated status message on Facebook today from someone who was apologizing to his Catholic family members because he thinks their religion sucks. His reasoning focused on things like their stance against homosexuals, gay marriage, birth control, insurance (birth control bad, Viagra good), etc. In my mind, he had a lot of valid points.
(Incidentally, I’ve been typing fast and my fingers keep writing “birthday” instead of “birth”… the concept of “birthday control” is one that parents might want to consider when it comes to grandiose parties for their kids, but that’s beside the point.)
Then I read one of the responses to that status: “I am glad you are sorry for losing your faith. I am so proud of the Catholic Church’s stand on health care insurance coverage. Birth control is a contraception that can cause the killing of a baby. Many protestant churches are following. Amen.”
Personally, I don’t think this person knows what he/she is talking about. … Okay, this person is a she. I don’t think her gender is as important as her stance on the issue, but I’m bringing it up just so it’ll be easier for me to use singular pronouns instead of “they” and “them” in relation to one person. So I don’t think she knows what she’s talking about.
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the definition of “contraception” is the deliberate prevention of conception or impregnation. Note that the term “baby killer” doesn’t show up once. It’s a preventative measure. It happens before, not during or after.
I know the equation I’m presenting here ignores everything but the most basic biological process, but it’s the simplest way I could come up with to explain the creation of life:
Sperm meets egg –> baby is created.
Pretty simple, right? Now put a condom or diaphragm into that equation:
Sperm gets trapped inside sheath or behind barrier –> sperm never meets egg –> baby is never created. (I’m assuming that non-existent entities can’t be killed, but maybe I haven’t played enough video games in my lifetime.)
So according to the definition of contraception, if a condom/diaphragm does its job, killing babies is impossible—you can’t kill something that never existed. However, things like oral contraceptives (i.e., birth control pills… and “birthday control pills” is another odd concept that my fingers came up with) don’t work the same way. The man’s little swimmers are allowed to flow freely into a woman’s naughty bits, which means they get to meet the egg and create a baby, just like the equation says.
After doing a little research, though, the Catholic commenter may have learned that birth control pills, which contain high doses of androgens, estrogens or progesterone, are supposed to inhibit the other half of the equation: ovulation (a.k.a., not making eggs for the sperm to meet). Pill prevents egg –> sperm never meets egg –> no baby –> nothing to kill.
So if contraception works, there’s no issue. However, there’s an alternate method of preventing pregnancy known as “contragestion”, which I had to find in an online medical dictionary because Merriam-Webster had no idea what the hell I was talking about. Contragestion, which can be caused by things like the “morning after” pill, is a birth control method that prevents gestation—it doesn’t let the fertilized egg stick to the uterine wall. The “baby” simply floats around until it’s flushed out of the woman via the menstrual process, and thus it never develops beyond the state of “fertilized egg”.
Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately, depending on which side of the argument you’re on), contragestion happens all the time. Literally. All the time. I found an abstract for a medical study where 18 women who were healthy and trying to get pregnant had a 36% rate of loss of conception. Over 1/3 of the fertilized eggs were lost through natural contragestion. A 36% rate of… well, they didn’t do it intentionally, so… a 36% rate of baby manslaughter.
Yeah, that’s right, I went there. That’s how much respect I have for this “baby killer” bullshit. Fertilized eggs aren’t babies and birth control can’t kill them. This blog entry is disregarding other benefits that birth control pills can have for women—things like limiting the worst effects of PMS, which really benefits everyone if you think about it—but suffice it to say that fewer babies (Catholic or otherwise) means fewer people who require insurance coverage and that’s something the anti-contraception lady should appreciate. Amen.
I’m impressed! Well stated Shawn.
Do you have any thoughts on birth control pills and cancer?
I have conflicted thoughts on this..again trying to weigh the benefits. Estrogen is apparently one of cancer’s favorite foods, but, without the estrogen, a woman has issues with getting enough sleep, emotional and many other physical symptoms too.
All too often, people look at a singular issue like “are we killing babies?” and forget that we have to have a holistic view on issues.
What if I were to tell someone they had to take “birthday control pills?” Would that person who took my choice away also deal with my consequences? I doubt it.
Frankly, I like and deserve to have a choice.