Q: What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit?
A: You’d have to justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology.
Remember, the purpose of going over this FAQ sheet point by point is that this is not fringe opinion, this is mainstream Catholic teaching. When we left off, the sheet was going over some tedious and ill-argued theological arguments against birth control. Now we’re at the part that really upset my friend—the part where the actual lies and misdirection come out.
5. Are there any scientific reasons for not using birth control?
Yes, and the commercials for contraceptive name many of them—blood clots, strokes, cancers, and lower chances of getting pregnant when you want to are all scientifically documented risks of using artificial contraception.
Setting aside the alarmist language and misinformation about “cancers” (it actually prevents ovarian cancer) and the erroneous implication that it causes infertility, the thing that really struck me about this passage was how they basically imply that there’s only one kind of birth control, the birth control pill. It’s impossible that condoms could cause any of those side effects. Throughout the rest of this FAQ sheet, they make the same assumption that the only contraception really at stake here is the birth control pill. The church technically opposes condoms and yet they can’t muster the energy in this course to come out strongly against them. Apparently, “giving everything except your fertility” is only a real cause for concern if the woman is withholding. You poke it, it gives its entire being to you and has no right to hold back a single thing in self-preservation. Anyway, they continue to imply that the only contraceptive method aside for the rhythm method is the pill.
An additional reason is important to most Catholics. Artificial contraceptives work in two ways. They primarily attempt to prevent ovulation by altering the hormone levels in the body—tricking the body so ovulation doesn’t occur. However the second way the pill works if ovulation occurs is to prevent implantation of the fertilized egg, expelling the fertilized egg before it can develop any further…..(rest cut because you’ve seen this argument a million times.)
I’ve always assumed that the commandment against bearing false witness would apply to lying to people on behalf of the Church. After all, speaking about your faith is called witnessing, so lying would be false witnessing, I’d assume. I guess the reason that Catholics who promote the notion that the pill causes embryo death are mostly bearing false witness by omission. It’s technically possible that the pill might cause embryo death, but it’s highly unlikely. The pill works by sloughing off fertilized eggs in the same way it works by causing you to rethink your sexuality and turn into a lesbian, which is to say that you can’t say absolutely that it doesn’t do this so you might as well say that it does for sure. The Pill: Making women leave their husbands to join Amazon orgy cults for 40 years and running.
6. Wait, why haven’t I heard this before?
Check the medical information provided with packaging of contraceptives.
I scurried off and did this and after discovering that a box of Trojans had no “kills babies” warning label on it, I ran off and checked my pills. It doesn’t say a damn thing about sloughing off embryos. The reason it doesn’t say that is because that’s not how it works.
Incidentally, there has been a great deal of debate in the medical community about whether doctors should inform women about this possibility when they prescribe contraceptives. This was discussed in an article in the Archives of Family Medicine, published by the American Medical Association in February, 2000.
I think I’ll have to do a third post on this enclosed article in the future. Needless to say, this is a dreadfully irresponsible bit of hinting around going on here, since the intent is to make women suspect their gynocologists are out to get them and possibly kill some babies for fun.
7. Are there others, besides Catholics, who are against birth control?
As reported in a recent article in the Austin American Statesman, some people who are not religious at all prefer Natural Family Planning due to possible side effects of artificial contraceptives. In addition, some Protestants are returning to the original Christian teaching on the issue. (see the website www.sweeterthanhoney.org)
Rest assured, we will when they finish rebuilding it. In the meantime, it’s important and cannot be hammered home enough—NFP is birth control. Birth control are those things you do to control when you give birth. NFP might be a fairly elaborate way to do it, but it’s still birth control. And because there’s some confusion, I would add that abortion is a method of birth control, though it is not a contraceptive.
8. What about overpopulation?
It’s no surprise you might ask this question, given the portrayal of “overpopulation” by our media and society. In reality, underpopulation in countries with widespread birth control rates is posting more of a danger to these societies, due to a lack of workforce and aging population with no one to care for them. This was recently discussed in the U.N. as a major problem in parts of Europe. In addition, population is not directly related to environmental problems. The most populous countries in the world (e.g. India, China, Brazil) are not the ones causing the most pollution or using up the most resources. Northern Europe, and especially the United States, are the biggest producers of waste and the biggest consumers of resources. As Catholics, we believe in being good stewards of our earth, but we believe we can do this and be open to human life at the same time. For the real facts about population, see the Population Research Institute’s website at www.pop.org.
Rest assured, we will get around to it. In the meantime, I like the way they dodge the question—overpopulation isn’t a problem so long as everyone agrees to live like this is an overcrowded, impoverished country. Who says that just because you have kids you have to feed, house, clothe, or otherwise make their stay on earth pleasant? Keep them in the backyard and make them live off the land, and you can be both a good Catholic and avoid polluting.
But I really love the underpopulation arguments. The solution to the problem is not to keep making babies until we all die from competing for limited resources. The solution is to find an economic system that is not an Amway-like pyramid scheme where we just keep generating our new members biologically instead of recruiting them through devious sales pitches.
9. What if children are a financial burden?
Well, after we resort to living like this is a starving nation and you just let them starve to death, that won’t be such a problem now.
The church does not teach that couples must have as many children as they are physically capable of bearing. In fact, the Church teaches that we should be responsible in family planning and make sure we can provide for the children we have. Natural Family Planning provides a natural way to space births or avoid pregnancy. It uses the cycles of fertility that God gave us.
In other words, Catholics aren’t supposed to use birth control except that they are, because not using birth control is fucking stupid. This contradiction is resolved by using a form of birth control that has a high failure rate and is a source of unnecessary tension in relationships.
10. Does Natural Family Planning really work?
Many people have heard that it doesn’t, but research studies, including a study by the World Health Organization, tell us when used correctly, Natural Family Planning is 93-99% effective in postponing or avoiding pregnancy.
It’s just way harder to use correctly than swallowing a pill or unwrapping a condom. (Actually, condoms are part of proper NFP usage. The best way to do it is to use “safe” days to have sex without condoms and use condoms to cover you on the other days. Helps avoid scary “maybe” windows and temptation. But they’re proposing a modified, non-condom version.) Actually, the failure rate of actual use of NFP is 25%. That means 1 in 4 women using it will become pregnant in a year.
11. What are the benefits of Natural Family Planning?
Research, such as a study done at Michigan State University, shows increased communication and greater marital satisfaction among couples who use NFP. In fact, according to a study by Aquilar, the divorce rate for couples who use NFP might be as low as 0.6%
And while we’re pulling numbers directly out of our ass, I’ll say that the divorce rate for couples who use NFP might be as high as 94.7%. Why not? Just remember, false witnessing is okay if done in the service of knocking women up against their will. Like it’s perfectly okay to say, “I had a vasectomy years ago, baby,” if you didn’t. God loves that sort of thing, since he’s a sadistic bastard.
12. But doesn’t NFP involve abstaining from sex every month? Yikes!
Yes, if the couple is trying to avoid pregnancy, they have to abstain for a few days (e.g. 5 to 6) each month. But guess what? Most married couples do this anyway, just not at the right time!
So you can add the avoiding sex on your period to the avoiding sex during ovulation and round it out to a mere 50% of your time being spent trying to avoid having sex.
This time each month provides an opportunity for couples to focus on spending other kinds of quality time together and many couples say it brings them closer together. It’s like beginning the dating relationship all over again each month!
Remember when you fucked like bunnies? It’s like that except it’s not.
Also, the married life takes self-discipline in many areas. We can no longer have whatever we want when we want it.
So life gets markedly less satisfying after marriage. Good sales point, that.
We have another person to consider. If you can’t be disciplined enough to abstain from sex for even a couple of days, are you really disciplined enough to get married?
Guess not. Have to stay unmarried and reap the joys of blissful fornication. I’d feel bad, except for the part where I don’t.
There’s oh so much more material to go over after this, but this is the basics. And don’t worry. Protestant anti-choice assholes are on the horizon.
66 Responses to “Pandagon goes undercover the lazy way on a Catholic anti-contraception seminar, Pt. II”
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A long time ago a friend of a friend let me stay in her apartment while we were traveling in London. They were devout Catholics, which didn’t bother me, until I saw the separate beds in their bedrooms. Two twins, Lucy and Ricky style. Did they push them together to procreate? It made me very sad. They didn’t have any kids until a few years later, and I still wonder if they really had to have just a tiny amount of sex to keep from having umpteen kids.
This is going to be SUCH a waste of time. . .but because I’m channelling Don Quixote today, I’ll have a tilt anyway.
I ran off and checked my pills. It doesn’t say a damn thing about sloughing off embryos. The reason it doesn’t say that is because that’s not how it works. (the last sentence links to PZ Myers claiming that Plan B does not cause abortions.)
You are either misguided or lying. Plan B and the Pill are not the same thing, and anyway BOTH of them will terminate a fertilized egg.
In the meantime, it’s important and cannot be hammered home enough—NFP is birth control. Duh. The Church is not opposed to birth control, only artificial birth control. But don’t let that get in the way of your rant.
Actually, the failure rate of actual use of NFP is 25%. Fine. you use your politically motivated stats, I’ll use mine. (failure rates as high as 36% [http://www.prolife.com/CONDOMS.html])
This contradiction is resolved by using a form of birth control that has a high failure rate and is a source of unnecessary tension in relationships. Not in the marriages I know that use it. Including mine.
“Research, such as a study done at Michigan State University, shows increased communication and greater marital satisfaction among couples who use NFP. In fact, according to a study by Aquilar, the divorce rate for couples who use NFP might be as low as 0.6%”
And while we’re pulling numbers directly out of our ass, I’ll say that the divorce rate for couples who use NFP might be as high as 94.7%. Prove your numbers.
Not that any of this matters. Since I am barking against the party line here, I actually expect my comments to go either unmoderated/unaccepted, or outright deleted.
You are either misguided or lying. Plan B and the Pill are not the same thing, and anyway BOTH of them will terminate a fertilized egg.
Plan B is nothing more than a higher dose of the hormones available via the combination pill. Another way of achieving exactly the same outcome as Plan B is to take a higher dose of the combination pill–for the one I was on, I was told that it would be the same dose of hormones if I took 2 pills, followed by a second dose of 2 pills either 12 or 24 hours later.
And for terminating fertilized eggs: not according to the most recent scientific studies of the hormone doses in question. It was theorized for many years that the hormone doses in either could prevent implantation, but given that there is now evidence that Plan B doesn’t work after ovulation (if fertilization takes place), that theory has not been proven out.
(I’m sure someone else here has links to the studies.)
hoody - Plan B and BCP are the exact same medication. Plan B is simply a more concentrated dose taken all at once.
Nursing will terminate fertilized eggs. Hormonal BCPs most likely do not. Given that over 50% of fertilized eggs never implant in the first place, it is quite literally impossible to tell if the occassional fertilized egg that doesn’t implant when on BCP does so because of the BCP or not. Given that progesterone is actually used in some applications to help retain pregnancies, I’m banking on not.
My objection to NFP has nothing to do with its claimed effectiveness or lack thereof. My objection is that it makes (by church caveat, no less) the wife’s ability to not get pregnant dependant upon her husband’s active cooperation. In a good marriage, all well and good, but the Catholic Church doesn’t say “only do this if your marriage is solid”. If your husband wants a dozen kids and you don’t, you’re in all probability screwed - like it or not. Contrariwise the husband is dependant upon the wife for accurate information. Being of the opinion that a couple shouldn’t have children unless both parties are agreed, making it possible for either partner to essentially cause a pregnancy by fiat strikes me as a Bad Idea.
Those who desire to use NFP, find it conducive to their relationship, and don’t mind the work it entails - more power to you, but I think it makes lousy church policy.
Not in the marriages I know that use it. Including mine.
I’ll counter your anecdote with a few of my own. My mom was raised Catholic. Her mother was told after her third child not to get pregnant again; she had kidney problems which were in those days untreatable. She managed to go 3 years without accidental pregnancy: and then she got pregnant. The doctors told her to abort: her priest told her she couldn’t: she died of her condition. More tragic - two years after her death her kidney disease was made curable.
One of my mom’s best friends from school used NFP, including temperature and cervical mucus. She had just had her fourth baby when we went to visit: sitting in the kitchen, with the baby on her lap, she started crying. She prayed every day that she wouldn’t get pregnant again - she had 9 months of extreme nausea, headaches, and fatigue in each pregnancy, and she was starting to have pretty serious depression. Last my mom talked to her, she was up to 6 kids. (( When mom mentioned this to another Catholic friend who’d only had two kids, the woman’s response was: “Man! She needs to get herself a different priest!” ))
In one study, 10% of women ovulated more than once in a month. ( http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3927 )
Plan B and BCP are the exact same medication.
Well, really, we need to clarify what version of the BCP we’re talking about to make this statement.
Plan B has the same hormones as any pill containing both synthetic estrogen and progestogen, taken in monophasic form (the same dose 21 days a month). To see how many of any particular monophasic pill would duplicate the hormone levels in Plan B, you’d have to take a look at the hormone levels per pill against the hormone levels in Plan B. I know that for Levora/Nordette, I was told at one point BY AN OB/GYN that 2 by 2 (taking four pills in a 24 hour period) would make that version of the Pill function as EC (never tried it). A google search reveals that a 4 by 4 usage (4 followed by 4, so eight pills in 24 hours) seems to be the current recommendation.
It is not the same as the mini-pill, which is progestogen-only. Triphasic and biphasic pills have varying hormone levels through the month, and so would be harder to use “as” EC.
hp and Tapetum, I take what I said from PZ Myers’ original post. I will assume you are then correct. Not being an MD, I will for the present assume you are correct. But this does not address the fact that both medications will terminate a fertilized egg.
If your husband wants a dozen kids and you don’t, you’re in all probability screwed - like it or not. Contrariwise the husband is dependant upon the wife for accurate information. These are grounds for annullment, as the marriage wasn’t valid ab initio.
Arwen, I am very, very sorry for your loss, and what your mother had to go through. I know that is empty solace. . .and in her unusual circumstance, if abstinence is not possible (though called for) then some form of alternative birth control would be.
Interesting how the wingnuts have shifted the definition of conception from the biologically correct time of implantation to fertilized egg.
Sorry hoody, but until you can get you terminology correct, you are going to get whacked around here. Preventing implantation is not the same as an abortion!
And, in any case, you are not allowed to tell me or anyone else what decisions to make about our bodies or our families, you got? Nor are you allowed to legislate same based on religion or misinformation. First amendment protects you as well as us.
If you pull the “well, Amanda is criticizing my church” hogwash, consider that she is criticizing the misinformation and the legal advocacy based on misinformation which affects everybody’s access to contraception - even if we don’t believe in your God or your misinformation. Churches should just stick to telling their own that birth control is unholy and leave it at that if that is what they believe and stay the hell away from the secular institutions defined by original intent.
Excellent work, Hoody.
I checked out the article at your blog about the inestimable Marcotte; your claim she must be terribly bitter to post an exact transcription of what a certain Catholic pre-marital course teachers about contraceptives.
I think you deconstructed her claims admirably – what with your attacking the argument rather than the character of the one who made it. And those stats and links to unbiased scientific studies? Pure gold!
If I weren’t already on the anti-contraceptive bandwagon, I’d have hopped aboard after seeing your astute and classy answer to this angry lady’s tirade.
I think I’m going to add you to my blogroll.
It is possible to get a failure rate as high as 36% on condoms, but only if you’re using them with a lot less care than would be required for NFP.
A person well educated in how to apply, lubricate, use and remove a condom will get a breakage rate of about 3%. I know I was, and having used at least a couple of hundred of the things since being a teen, I’ve never even had one break. All the more argument for better sex education.
hoody, your hero Ann Coulter loves Rudy Giuliani. And yet, Giuliani is pro-choice. What’s up with that?
Also, do you think Ann Coulter is celibate? She’s not married, so she must be, right? You wouldn’t hero-worship a slut who engages in extra-marital sex, would you?
If you can’t be disciplined enough to abstain from sex for even a couple of days, are you really disciplined enough to have a baby?
PWN!!!
And, wait, don’t these people also teach that you’re supposed to stay abstinent before marriage? So how are people to find out whether they’re disciplined enough to abstain after they’ve discovered what it’s like, before they get married? What should they do if they get married and then discover that they’re not disciplined enough to be married? Divorce? Oh, wait . . .
(Also, how did “e.g. 5 to 6″ days a month morph into “a couple of days” a month?)
No longer? When, precisely, can we have whatever we want when we want it?
Come to think of it, if they literally want you to give everything to your partner, shoudn’t they be pushing Liber III vel Jugorum?
When you start your argument off like that, everyone is going to assume that you’re yet another worthless ideological bigot swinging by to spew yet more blissful ignorance and baseless arrogance indiscriminately over the landscape. Or, in light of recent posts here, that you’re a paid shill. So you didn’t really start off on the right foot.
Plan B and “the Pill” (there are actually dozens of different kinds of oral contraceptives) differ only by degree, not by kind. In short, yes, they pretty much are the same thing.
Altering your behaviour for arbitrary dogmatic reasons is artificial. But that’s quite beside the point. In truth, the natural/artifical “distinction” is a red herring consciously designed to distract people who can’t think properly.
All the Catholic church really wants is more babies, so they can get a higher score than anyone else when the Great Cosmic Video Game is finally over and done with. It’s that they’re willing to cheat in order to get them that is so troubling.
Well, we all know that anything coming from “prolife.com” is 100% politically motivated by definition, but you haven’t established that Amanda’s stats are anything less than verifiable experimental results. I gather that you assume that because your “stats” are doubtless conjured out of thin air, then everyone else’s must be, too. And given your rhetoric, I can only imagine that even on the off-chance that you knew how to do that, your actual interest in doing so is exactly nil.
Anectodal evidence. Completely irrelevant.
Which part of “and while we’re pulling numbers directly out of our ass” did you not understand? The whole fucking point of Amanda’s comment is that the Catholic church is, quite literally, inventing its “statistics” out of whole cloth. The fact that you’ve bought into them hook, line and sinker in no way implies that they weren’t shamelessly fabricated.
When even you expect your comments to be ignored, that’s usually your first clue that your comments are actually worth ignoring. QED.
I thought the accusation was that they prevented implantation, rather than actively terminating the egg itself.
Not, of course, that there’s anything wrong with either.
But this does not address the fact that both medications will terminate a fertilized egg.
Except they DON’T. That’s not how they work.
As has been said above, recent studies have shown that they don’t prevent implantation. They work by preventing ovulation. No ovum, no fertilized ovum, no termination.
I have a good friend, who has 3 kids. Three “Pill” babies. She had her tubes tied after #3. How could she possibly get pregnant on the pill if the medication terminates fertilized eggs?
Same with my SIL. She took antibiotics, which lower the effectiveness. Somehow my niece’s fertilized egg implanted without being terminated.
So, Hoody, a couple is supposed to be open to God’s plan and love for children and must accept babies. BUT they are allowed to abstain in order to try to prevent pregnancy.
What you’re really pointing to is that Church’s focus is on the act of sex and not on the pregancy … you can enjoy sex for sex’s sake if there’s no (or a low) “natural” chance for conception and pregnancy, but if it’s that “special time of the month!” you have to abstain. In other words, as Amanda put it, practice birth control. So, “natural” birth control good, but putting on a condom, “bad.” The Pill? “Bad.”
Fertilized eggs that naturally don’t implant? God’s will. Fertilized eggs that don’t implant because a woman took a pill? Mortal sin. You’re exercising that free will God gave you! You’re sinning! SINNING!
It’s all about sex and how much the Church wants to control it. There’s endless rationalization about it and arguments about God’s love and his plan and blah blah, but it’s about controlling sex.
Orwell knew this too. We talk about the double-speak and Big Brother more, but 1984 also talked about how the Authority/State wanted to control people’s sex lives. The protagonists manage to temporarily escape the State through sex and love.
So go ahead, keep spouting the Church line developed and propagated by men who are not supposed to have sex. Ever.
Hoody, I think it’s great that NFP works for you. However, that does not mean that NFP would necessarily work for other couples. So please for the love of Mike stop trying to force square pegs into round holes and make everybody use the method *you* like best. Look, Caren already covered the fact that both the Pill and Plan B are very unlikely to stop a fertilized egg from implanting. And even if it did, guess what else stops fertilized eggs from implanting: breastfeeding. If the Pill is an abortificient, then breastfeeding is a hell of a lot more likely to be an abortificient. Do you want to stop women from breastfeeding?
Also, okay, let’s say for the sake of argument that your interpretation of the data is correct. So you inform somebody else of your interpretation of the data, and of your belief that it is ungodly to use artificial birth control. Sure, go ahead, that’s free speech. But once you’ve let somebody know your position, how is what they subsequently decide to do with the information any of your business?
Okay, so think they’ll burn in hell. Well, God’s not going to blame you for that, because you let them know that they were sinning. God doesn’t expect you to force other people to act the way you believe He would want *you* to act. How is it meaningful for somebody to avoid sin not because they’ve made a conscious decision to do so, but because they’ve been lied to? Like, say, somebody who doesn’t believe birth control is a sin, but reads a church pamphlet saying oral contraceptives cause cancer, and stops taking them because they figure the church wouldn’t lie to them.
It’s of no value to God if somebody has to be coerced or lied to in order to follow His will, because they didn’t freely choose that course of action. The course of action was thrust upon them because the pharmacist wouldn’t fill their prescription or they believed misleading health statistics in a church pamphlet. You already did your bit by explaining to people that you think they’ll go to hell if they don’t quit what they’re doing and do what you’re doing. Terrific. Now allow those other people to decide for themselves if they subscribe to the same value system that you do (i.e. if they believe that they will go to hell if they use the Pill), and then let them decide for themselves if they’re willing to risk that outcome. They’re grown-ups. They can decide for themselves, and God doesn’t need you trying to force them to follow His will (or what you perceive as His will). Because a coerced rather than voluntary conversion is meaningless.
And while you’re at itl, feel free to explain to the class how it is that it’s okay to use breastfeeding as a method of birth control but not okay to use the Pill, even though breastfeeding is MORE likely to cause a fertilized egg to be unable to implant. And then feel free to explain to the class how it is that *your* interpretation of God’s will is the only possible interpretation. Because oddly enough, my entire parish would likely take issue with your claims. Are we all going to hell?
Indeed, high doses of progesterone are used as a fertility treatment, to promote implantation. They’d be kind of silly to do that if Plan B prevented implantation, now wouldn’t they?
The things I’ve learned about Christianity over the past year.
1. Hating gays is more important to being a Christian than helping children.
2. Telling systematic and dangerous lies is less of a sin than using birth control.
A long time ago a friend of a friend let me stay in her apartment while we were traveling in London. They were devout Catholics, which didn’t bother me, until I saw the separate beds in their bedrooms. Two twins, Lucy and Ricky style. Did they push them together to procreate? It made me very sad. They didn’t have any kids until a few years later, and I still wonder if they really had to have just a tiny amount of sex to keep from having umpteen kids.
I had a similar experience when visiting my husband’s grandparents. I literally did a huge comedic double take when walking past their bedroom and seeing the two prim beds. Its was almost childlike, like they were infantilized somehow. It made me sad, too. How depressing to never be able to snuggle up next to your partner.
Although, my husband is a total blanket hog, so I guess I could see the appeal there.
But what a weird thing, to permanently be suspended in some sort of pre-sexual state and yet be married. They might as well have had bunkbeds or something.
and they say this like it’s a good thing?altho a week of feeling horny, cranky and bitching at each other sounds more like beginning the divorce-tango, every month
As Tapetum said, birth control should be as much man’s prob, as women’s. The catholic church seem to see women as nothing more than a machine for poping out babies. If church is so worried about fertilized eggs, maybe the church should recommend, that all husbands should have a vasectomy after his second child. No sperm, no fertilization, no dead “babies” This way the women is not witholding anything, and the men is not “spilling any seeds”. Nowhere does these church pamphlets say vasectomy is a sin.
Course the other solution is the Lorena bobbit solution.
The church technically opposes condoms and yet they can’t muster the energy in this course to come out strongly against them.
Well duh, “every sperm is sacred” would have totally ruined the mood, what with the tap dancing nuns and all.
There’s oh so much more material to go over after this, but this is the basics. And don’t worry. Protestant anti-choice assholes are on the horizon.
You already did didn’t you? I mean, by the sound of this thing the catholic church is nothing less than a giant international crisis pregnancy center with peadophilic and mass murder in africa sprinkles.
The two different organisations have almost identical FAQs after all, except the catholic church doesn’t offer a sonogram to everyone women who enters a church.
Yet.
Hoody, you’re making the incorrect assumption that because you oppose the right of women to use the pill, a pro-choice organization opposes your right to pull and pray. They are pro-choice and service-oriented. Their agenda is making sure women have all choices and accurate information available to them. They do not favor one kind of birth control over another, rest assured. I’ve used their services and they’re actually excrutiatingly careful to make sure that they don’t leave off NFP when they discuss options with a patient, even though it has a remarkably high failure rate.
And hoody, I don’t doubt one bit that a lot of married women are happier being relieved of their conjugal duties for a week or two a month. If those duties suck, that is. But it wouldn’t be so fun for those of us who like that sexual intimacy and like it frequently. But hey, don’t be jealous or nothing. God likes you better.
Oh and I really did check the pill package because I’m curious to see if they gave into to anti-choice pressure to print misinformation on the package because it might be true in someone’s imagination. They did not. Their information on failure rates had “what to do if you’re pregnant anyway” and “don’t take this pill if you get pregnant” stuff on it, but nothing about forcing fertilized eggs to slough off.
As hoody demonstrates so well, Catholic teaching on sexuality would be little more than silly if it weren’t so dangerous.
hp and Tapetum, I take what I said from PZ Myers’ original post. I will assume you are then correct. Not being an MD, I will for the present assume you are correct. But this does not address the fact that both medications will terminate a fertilized egg.
Actually, it does address that fact. The hormone that prevents ovulation—progesterone—is also the one that causes implantation to work better. So barring any evidence that the pill “causes” an egg not to implant, which can’t be proven one way or another, odds are it actually would make the chance of a fertilized egg implanting higher, not lower.
But that doesn’t happen because the pill works by preventing ovulation. It does this remarkably well, with a 1% failure rate if used correctly, 5% if used incorrectly.
But hoody, if you’re using NFP, you’re killing embryos at a much higher rate than this baby killer could hope to achieve. Since you conceive more, and since a good 50% of fertilized eggs die before you get your next period, you’re a murdering machine. The pill is a more moral way to use contraception if your concern is fertilized eggs. However, if your concern is making women miserable for no good reason, keep promoting NFP as the only way.
1. Why is it “bitter” when Amanda quotes, verbatim, what the Catholic Church teaches on birth control? I guess it’s only holy and true if a conservative right-winger is quoting Catholic teachings.
2. For many women, myself included, sex is hottest, most enjoyable, and ultimately most mind-blowingly orgasmic during ovulation (that would be nature encouraging the species to procreate). The fact that this is the ONE TIME the church says it’s okay to not have sex and avoid pregnancy is no accident, in my mind. Just more misogyny.
3. Assholes. (just had to throw that one in)
— former Catholic –
3% failure rate for condoms seems rather high to me. I’ve used condoms as primary BC for several years without a failure. It’s not that hard to put on a condom, though making the package easier to open would be nice.
Also, do you think Ann Coulter is celibate? She’s not married, so she must be, right? You wouldn’t hero-worship a slut who engages in extra-marital sex, would you?
You think there are actually guys who would go anywhere near her pussy? Of course, the wingnuts are, for the most part, desperate. But seriously, mine would go in a meat grinder and be better off.
You think there are actually guys who would go anywhere near her pussy?
If it’s possible, you just made me gayer.
Anyway, from a former Catholic guy’s perspective, I’ve always thought that the Catholic Church was batshit insane about girls anyway. First off, they give them this Virgin Mother ideal that the normal, non-Mother-of-God type girls can never hope to aspire to. They make chastity a virtue and then don’t explain to the little kiddies that in order for us to survive, we have to have sex, so it can’t possibly be virtuous to never have sex. They tell the girls they are naturally unclean and have dirty thoughts they should suppress for Jesus. Then, and here’s the kicker, they treat any woman (and really, does this ever affect men?) who doesn’t want either to go without sex or to pop out babies like popcorn as touched by the hand of the devil. I could never understand why my mother bought into this shit, but then again, she had a hysterectomy after I was born.
So you can add the avoiding sex on your period to the avoiding sex during ovulation and round it out to a mere 50% of your time being spent trying to avoid having sex.
Where did the avoiding sex on your period come from?
If it’s possible, you just made me gayer.
As long as it keeps you away from the wingnuts, man. My dad (the definition of uptight conservative) thinks both she and Michelle Malkin are, and I quote, “So hot!” He’s wrong about other things too.
Flipper, there are a number of women who prefer to generally avoid sexual intercourse during menstruation.
Some levels of Judaism ascribe to avoiding menstrual intercourse. When such women were studied as a group, they were found to have lower rates of cervical cancer (in fact, this was a confounder in studies of cervical cancer in the partners of circumcised males - another Judaic practice).
I don’t care for it personally as my physiology changes during heavy flow and I’m much less interested in sex in general at that time, but that isn’t all there is for sexuality and partner intimacy in my book so it isn’t a big deal.
Flipper–avoiding sex during your period is de riguer for many of us women. I find it rather embarrassing and I don’t like the clean up afterwards. Although, when I was dating a Catholic boy, he was surprisingly calm about the “surprise” in bed when I started my period unknowingly and then noticed the mess, the smell, etc. He seemed almost—happy. Maybe that’s his Catholic upbrining? Sex during period=good (no babies)? I don’t know. I was brought up Lutheran.
Hoody, I used to use NFP and NFP is birth control. All the euphemisms in the world don’t make the intent of the couple using NFP different from the intent of a couple using any other form of birth control. It’s obnoxious in the extreme for NFP users to assert this as if it were a fact instead of self-delusion.
The Catholic Church is schizophrenic. I spend a fair amount of time doing things like helping to coordinate a parish project of sponsoring 500 Haitian children for primary school education and school lunches on behalf of my parish. And then I tune out Sexual Gospel. But it infuriates me when the Church pushes inaccurate and biased medical information down the throats of the believers. Telling lies about contraception is not only potentially dangerous, it undermines all other assertions that the Church makes about anything else: It makes it abundantly clear that the Church will say anything, make anything up, just to get you to do what it wants. It’s stupid and counterproductive and takes away any moral authority that the Church claims for itself. Most forms of birth control are far less dangerous than pregnancy, which can be debilitating and fatal, even for those with no underlying health problems.
I get blindly livid when I read that the Pill causes infertility. I had serious endometriosis as a teenager and the best and easiest treatment is the Pill. Endometriosis is probably the most common cause of infertility. Thanks to the fact that I finally got the things at 21, as a law student, because it was glaringly obvious that law school was not compatible with incapacitating cramps every month, I was able to conceive in the ordinary, non-medical manner in my 30’s. Thus, my two sons are the direct consequence of me having taken the Pill.
To the extent that taking the Pill might be related to infertility, it’s because the medicine doesn’t prevent STD’s, like the HPV thing prevented by the vaccine that the same people who don’t like the Pill don’t want to give to girls. The most logical course would be to permit both the Pill and the vaccine.
My dad (the definition of uptight conservative) thinks both she and Michelle Malkin are, and I quote, “So hot!� He’s wrong about other things too.
If he’s an uptight conservative, he shouldn’t be finding ANY man hot, much less Malkin and Coulter.
“If he’s an uptight conservative, he shouldn’t be finding ANY man hot.”
Sorry, unrelated, but I don’t follow you. I was not saying my dad was gay. In fact, if there is a force in the universe that could be called Teh Anti-Gay, it’s my dad.
or Fred Phelps, but I was going for a forceful image.
It’s widely theorized that Ann Coulter has some gender issues based on her Adam’s apple.
I hadn’t heard about Malkin though.
I would say Ann Coulter and Malkin are both more sub-human than anything else. I don’t think gender matters where they are concerned.
The wingnuts don’t have a monopoly on hateful rumor-mongering, you know. . .¬_¬
Not that we dont already have 2000 years of evidence for this, thoMy mom’s a lapsed Catholic from a family of “Christmas & Easter” Catholics. As in, I think they were in it for the schools. (Actually I have a theory that my entire maternal-grandfather line are converted Jews a few generations back - have my reasons for this, but I digress). She says she recalls buying it all, hook line and sinker, as a little girl. Like most little girls at first Communion, she wanted to be a nun.
She then had a series of sobering experiences - in childhood, she listened to the nun who taught one of her classes describe how the little Jewish girl from down the street was going to hell, yet everyone knew the parish Priest was sleeping with a local widow, and they weren’t even very discreet about it. She then got married at 18 to a Protestant, whose family hated her because she was from a “lower class” and on top of that she had intended to be a professional dancer, which as you can guess, promptly went out the window so she could be a good little wife. She wore flats because her first husband was short, she abstained from dancing at social gatherings (one of her great joys in life) because he was a poor dancer but also very jealous so she couldn’t dance with anyone else. He told her to dye her hair blonde and she did. On top of all this she was dealing with the notion in her heart that she was committing the sin of fornication because she didn’t have a Catholic wedding.
Then he shoved her in an argument and she packed up her things and moved back home to my totally relieved and welcoming grandparents.
Tangential, I know, but the Catholic Church (definitely pre-Vatican II) screwed up my mom pretty bad.
As far as the twin Lucy/Desi beds - my grandparents had those, but more often than not they were pushed together. They only moved them apart for huge family reunions. Don’t know why it was important to demonstrate to your extended family that you don’t, in fact, like sex, yet totally fine to hang your lust out to your kids and immediates.
DAMN, R.Mildred beat me to the “Every Sperm is Sacred” reference….
At least when my wife and I got married (in the Presbyterian Church) all we got for birth control advice was “come to a mutually agreeable decision before you get married” and the rest was between my wife, myself, and my wife’s OBGYN….
Oh, how convenient. Cause you’re not supposed to have packages of birth control pills lying around and you shouldn’t be having sex yet anyway, since this is all about pre-marital counseling. Makes perfect sense. Just trust what the kindly priest is telling you.
Claims made in a blog thread should never go unchallenged, so:
Am I the only person to have experienced the joy of stretching out in my own space, taking up all the blankets, avoiding the battle over which sheets to use (”Flannel!” “No, cotton!”), not getting pushed or kicked or otherwise accosted while I’m asleep? Twin beds are ridiculous — too small — but separate beds are not. And it’s not like you have to sleep together in order to, you know, sleep together.
I can only dream of the day when I have a whole bed all to myself…
I know quite a few couples who have differing preferences in terms of what type of mattress they like, and their solution is to put two twin mattresses on a king-sized bedframe, and each person sleep on the side which has their mattress. I’ve always thought that was an extremely sensible idea. Of course, having one king-sized quilt doesn’t solve the blanket-hog problem….
I don’t want to even think about it, but I’m pretty sure my parents do IT, even though they have what I refer to as “the distal bed” in another room that my Dad can retreat to when my Mom’s snoring is totally out of control. It has nothing to do with appearances, and everything to do with comfort.
Raincity Girl–that’s what they do in Germany. I always thought that was a great idea for double beds. Leave it to the Germans to come up with a sensible, usable solution.
Ms. Kate and speedbudget, thanks for the explanations.
As a woman who’s always enjoyed sex during my period and really never thought much about it, I was just a bit perplexed over Amanda’s off-hand reference to avoiding sex during that time.
I’m obviously not one to just anyone else’s preferences, but, while I can totally see the reasons for not having sex if you’re in pain (although orgasms are great for cramps.) or the chemistry’s just not making you interested then, I don’t get the “messiness” issue at all. If you don’t want to make a mess, just use softcup (www.softcup.com) or have sex in the shower….
I see that Karen above noted that oral contraceptives can have other uses besides contraception.
My significant other had severely debilitating mental health issues from her PMS that responded to birth control pills. (This was after trying a raft of psychiatric medications, which didn’t really help, and came with their own bunch of side effects.)
She was unable to hold a job, she was subject to bouts of anger and depression that came from nowhere, wrecking her self-esteem and alienating everyone around her every few weeks.
But, hey, I bet hoody would say it’s what Jesus wants. It is, after all, “natural”.
flipper: I agree. That’s why they make red towels, after all…
anyone want nightmares?
Ann Coulter was last known to be doing… a Liberal Guy! (wooOOOooo)
My religion teacher in Catholic school told us condoms were okay (I don’t think the administration knew she was telling us that) because “unlike other forms of birth control, they don’t kill fertilized eggs.” Well, neither do diaphragms/cervical caps with spermicide, and there’s almost no evidence to suggest hormones do either. But I think a lot of Catholics do consider condoms to be okay; they just don’t like to talk about it.
I’m kind of bothered that they assume couples who use HBC just fuck like bunnies all the time and don’t spend nonsexual time together ever. Dude, if you never spend nonsexual time together in a marriage, you’ve got bigger issues than birth control.
Ann Coulter was last known to be doing… a Liberal Guy!
I’ll believe that shit when I see it. And then I’ll put my eyes out with my thumbs.
Ann Coulter was last known to be doing… a Liberal Guy! (wooOOOooo)
That any man has fallen so far into shadow makes me lose hope for the race, since, very likely, she will breed and spread her hellspawn to other generations.
I was sixteen when I discovered that the secret to sleeping soundly with someone was separate covers. I turn around very much in my sleep, so it’s been a relief for my partners since.
Our double bed is two single beds, joined in the middle, with a double mattress pad.
Maybe so, but she’d probably eat her children before they were old enough to continue the line.
And knowing her, she probably wouldn’t even bother killing them, first.
she will breed and spread her hellspawn to other generations.
Anorexics can’t get pregnant, our bodies auto-abort.
Anorexia is the only 100% effective form of contraceptive.
That just adds another layer of satirical charm to coulter’s persona, she’s a pro-life, crazy conservative who’s body is the biggest abortifacient known to man and who fucks liberal guys because they’re cooler.
Anorexics can’t get pregnant, our bodies auto-abort.
Anorexia is the only 100% effective form of contraceptive.
I’ve known a few pregnant anorexics, which was just incredibly sad. But, the biggest contraceptive feature of anorexia is that it kills your sex drive completely. I’ve known several women and at least one gay man who developed eating disorders as a way to control/limit sexual drives that they were told were sinful.
Mel, I have it on good authority from two Catholic education consultants that condoms are currently a very hot issue in the Church, and that educators should not be advocating their use. The Catholic line is that sex is only permissible in the context of a marriage (and remember they define marriage as “between a man and a woman”), for either procreative or unitive purposes (i.e. to make babies or to strengthen the bond between husband and wife. I think Catholics are allowed to shoot for two birds with one stone, but they’re not allowed to simply seek orgasms for the sake of orgasm. Which means that solo masturbation is a sin.) We were strongly advised not to make it sound as though we were advocating the use of condoms to either prevent conception or limit the spread of infection even in a feature on HIV/AIDS in Africa and other developing countries.
We were not to give students the impression that condoms were at all advisable for sex, ever. Because making sex about fun and not about marriage or babies is somehow thwarting God’s purpose for humanity.
It’s in the teaching guidelines. In creating our textbook we were strongly advised to describe Fertility Awareness as a means of family planning for married couples, to “stick to the facts” about other methods of birth control (and some of the “facts” they asked us to included have been disproven.), and not to encourage students to any course of action that might contravene the teachings of some nominally celibate man.
So I think your religion teacher might have been committing a bit of a risky, if reality-based act. Good on her.
So I think your religion teacher might have been committing a bit of a risky, if reality-based act.
I’m pretty sure she was. She was loony and overshared about her blessed married sex life, but she did have a mostly reality-based view of life.
Because making sex about fun and not about marriage or babies is somehow thwarting God’s purpose for humanity.
Marital sex for the purposes of unity isn’t supposed to be fun? What is it supposed to be, a difficult task that provides a sense of companionship and having done good work, like Habitat for Humanity?