The Pill, pregnancy, and the DaVinci Code
In the book, The Da Vinci Code, the first clue was a “vault with 5 concentric, rotating sections labeled with letters that when lined up properly… form[ed] the correct combination word,” as explains Wikipedia.
Similarly, the birth control pill’s Big Secret can only be discovered after decoding a series of words – except they never line up properly.
I was reminded of this by abortion clinic escort Jessica’s rebuttal to my statement that “young people should be instructed that hormonal contraceptives and IUDs abort 5-9 day old developing babies.” She responded:
[T]hey do not abort 5-9 day old babies. That is of course, unless you subscribe to the un-medical and un-legal definition of pregnancy beginning at fertilization instead of pregnancy beginning at implantation in the wall of the uterus. Not all fertilized eggs implant in the uterus, so by the “pro-life” definition of pregnancy, nearly all sexually active women whose contraception fails and/or who do not use contraception, experience a miscarriage otherwise known as monthly menstruation.
She also wrote:
Since birth control prevents the lining from being implantable, it is not abortion, or flushing, or whatever. It’s just your normal period.
See what I mean?
So when an uneducated woman asks if The Pill might end a pregnancy, the cryptographers say no, because a pregnancy doesn’t officially commence until a young human embeds in the wall of the uterus.
If she asks whether The Pill can cause abortion, they again say no, for the same reason. If a mother isn’t pregnant, she can’t abort.
But because the little human wanderer can take up to 12 days, or almost 2 weeks, to nestle in, what is the exact state of the mother during that time?
She’s nothing, the cryptographers say. The [zygote, blastocyst, embryo, fertilized egg – choose one of those terms but no other] is floating during those days inside his mother’s 4th dimension of time and space.
Is the [zygote, blastocyst, embryo, fertilized egg] a new little human, she asks? This question comes too dangerously close to breaking the code. Maybe so, they say, but nevertheless, it’s not a person.
Can The Pill destroy the human nonperson? If by that you mean fertilized egg, they say, perhaps. And so the coding continues.
Reader Donald forwarded me a link to a beautiful video made by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute showing the first days of human life. Ignore the cryptographic audio. The video accurately depicts the miraculous 1st several days of human life….
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgT5rUQ9EmQ&feature=related[/youtube]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
About the pills mechanism it is a theory and not a proven fact so i would not say it is a abortifacient.
Wow. Someone took a wrong turn down the information superhighway.
When I was 9 I knew more about a woman’s menstrual cycle and the facts of life than this sad, sad girl.
Chris, it is known that the pill changes the uterine lining, and it is known that the pill does not prevent ovulation 100% of the time. Thus, it is known that the changes in the uterine lining act as a “back up” to the prevention of ovulation. The only question is how often this occurs.
And whenever there is a personhood debate, the abortion advocate is the first to say, “This will ban some forms of contraception.”
Lauren, I have heard (from a banished poster named Lauara who later became Asitis) that this occurs as often as a couple times a year. That would make sense since 1% get pegnant on the pill. And you figure that most break away ovualtion don’t end up in pregnancy. I would say once every six months would be a conservative estimate. But don’t expect the drug companies to do a study on this. They like to keep break away ovulation hush hush. Nothing at all even about it in the pamphlet that comes with drug.
Not all fertilized eggs implant in the uterus, so by the “pro-life” definition of pregnancy, nearly all sexually active women whose contraception fails and/or who do not use contraception, experience a miscarriage otherwise known as monthly menstruation.
Exactly why is it that more and more pro-aborts are adopting this ludricous falsehood as an argument? There is a HUGE difference between a miscarriage and your normal monthly period. I’ve known that since I was fourteen!
unfertilized ovum = your monthly period.
fertilized ovum = pregnancy – either spontaneously aborted before implantation or implanted.
Is it deliberate obfuscation or mere ignorance? Someone needs to educate Jessica – stat!
And tons of young women will remain just as ignorant as she is as long as the pro-aborts rule the media.
Chris C. – so, the FDA allows unproven theories to be printed on packing inserts?
Lori Pieper re your post from June 1, 2011 at 9:16 pm
Lori,
I enjoyed your post, specified here in my comment.
You made some cogent points.
Thank you for taking the time to post your comment.
It’s curious that you’re so pedantic about when human life officially begins, but less so about when pregnancy officially begins. If the embryo has not implanted in the uterus, pregnancy has not begun, and if pregnancy has not begun, an abortion, which is by definition the termination of pregnancy by removal of the embryo from the uterine wall, cannot happen. Therefore, it is impossible for the birth control pill to cause an abortion. Since this site regularly lectures about the importance of medical and scientific accuracy, I expect future criticisms of the pill here to omit factually incorrect statements that it causes abortion.
Joan – wha? You make no sense. Pregnancy begins at conception. Human life begins at conception. Therefore, given that BOTH pregnancy AND human life begin AT THE EXACT SAME TIME (conception) the birth control pill does indeed cause abortions if the primary mechanism (inhibiting ovulation) fails and the secondary mechanism (thinning the endometrial lining) succeeds (e.g., the newly-conceived child is unable to successfully implant).
Whether or not the birth control pill ends an innocent life, I am always amazed that seemingly intelligent women, neglect to research the effects of the birth control pill. On every commercial that one hears on t.v. regarding the “pill”, there is always a disclaimer which says in part “may cause blood clots, heart attack, and in some cases death.” In the small print of the package, the risks are labeled, too.
What intelligent woman would risk blood clots, heart attacks and death by ingesting hormones which down the line, of course, are going to cause further health problems. Just boggles the mind, especially when one the “risks” of the pill is also pregnancy. There is less risk using NFP and a lower pregnancy rate (compared to the hormones in the pill) when practiced correctly.
I am grateful that there is a failure rate with the pill -one of those “failures” is one of my four beautiful granddaughters.
Thank you William.
I should mention that a woman most likely will experience bleeding if a fertilized egg fails to implant (not entirely sure about this part). Outwardly it may not be different from the usual montly bleeding. But the reality of what happens is different. A human being has been lost, even if it is invisible to the naked eye.
Where do you get your definition of pregnancy, joan? Is it an official definition, or one you just made up?
an abortion, which is by definition the termination of pregnancy by removal of the embryo from the uterine wall, cannot happen.
And what about your definition of an abortion? Is it an official one? Where from?
I’ve never taken the pill but based on what I’ve read and the dynamics of it I have a question…. do women even have a true period where the lining is lost in the flow or is it merely a ‘scheduled bleed’ with no lining to look like a period?
“Where do you get your definition of pregnancy, joan? Is it an official definition, or one you just made up?”
Both the American and British Medical Associations and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have defined pregnancy as beginning at implantation of the fertilized embryo in the uterus.
Joan,
Liberal mind-bending can be used to change definitions of terms but they can’t change the facts of what actually occurs when a woman conceives offspring. There is a new life growing inside her and if a woman takes a pill that causes said life to terminate, she has in fact aborted said life. The birth control hormones causes the new life to be avorted. Playing semantics with definitions of words used to describe pregnancy and abortion does not change the reality of what occurs. The birth control ends the life conceived when the birth control “fails” to stop conception. The ending of said life is the abortion of said life process. The drug manufacturers admit it.
Question Joan, if I start a fire in a builing and it kills everybody in the building, did I burn those people or did I merely strike the match and let nature took its own course in ending their lives?
Except she hasn’t aborted anything, because abortion is the intentional removal of the embryo from the uterus, not the prevention of its implantation.
Actually, both the AMA and the BMA refer to the time after implantation as an “established” pregnancy. They don’t deny that the period from conception to implantation is also a pregnancy; they just don’t call it an “established” pregnancy to allow themselves moral wiggle-room to kill unborn children with over-the-counter abortion drugs.
Awww Lee! Congrats on your granddaughter. I also am glad there is a failure rate with the pill… that failure allowed a precious little boy to come into my life, my son.
After I was done nursing and went back on the pill (only briefly) I asked the doctor about the pill killing a newly conceived baby. He was a pro-abort doc (which I hadn’t known when I first went to him) and got irritated and said he didn’t know why pro-lifers were saying the pill causes an abortion. It doesn’t destroy an “already implanted pregnancy!” he sputtered. I felt so uncomfortable about the pill I went back (for another issue) a month later and asked him point blank if the pill could prevent a baby from implanting. He finally admitted that yes it could but the odds were extremely small and “he was comfortable with those odds.” What a misogynist! Its MY BODY right? He knew I was pro-life. I am not comfortable with “those odds” when we’re talking about the lives of my precious children!
I went off the pill and flat out told my husband I would not take it. It still bothers me to this day that I may have aborted some of my precious children. It GRIEVES me. I look at my son’s precious face and see other children that may or may not have existed. Its horrifying to me to think I might have killed them. Women deserve to be told the truth and not lied to regarding the pill. How many pro-life women like me unknowingly ingest this poison every month killing their little boys and girls? And the don’t know because sexist doctors like my ob/gyn play word games and are “comfortable with those odds”
In an abortion, an embryo is removed from the uterus whether it has implanted or not, Joan.
And the opposite of an “established” pregnancy is, what? An “unestablished” one? I think there is obviously some definitional gray area about what the state of the embryo is before implantation, which is what the “established” qualifier is intended to get at. But it’s basically universally accepted in medicine that pregnancy begins when the embryo has attached to the uterus.
And your definition of abortion is also unknown to the modern medical community. An abortion is a termination of pregnancy. If pregnancy has not begun yet, an abortion cannot happen. If you want to bizarrely assign some kind of significant moral status to a microscopic, freshly-fertilized embryo that hasn’t even made it to the uterus yet, knock yourself out, but don’t twist well-established medical definitions around to make them into something that they are not.
Joan, you are correct. Pregnancy begins when the baby implants. However, we pro-lifers are not bothered by ending pregnancies (birth ends pregnancy). Its not pregnancy that is important. Its the new human life that is important. That is what we don’t want to see ended (killed). So we can play at semantics all day long but I don’t care about “pregnancy” i care about that newly conceived human being.
I absolutely agree, Joan. It’s ridiculous hair-splitting. A pregnancy begins at the moment of conception, period. You could argue that in the case of those undergoing IVF, pregnancy doesn’t begin until implantation, given that conception occurs outside the womb, but I don’t think the parents of those embryos would say that their children were not alive until they implanted, would you?
The theory that life begins at implantation and not conception is NOT “basically universally accepted in medicine.” Most biology and embryology textbooks, written before the AMA and BMA tried to justify the morning-after pill, say otherwise.
The truth is not determined by majority vote. Back when it was “basically established in medicine” that depression was caused by your humours being out of whack, that didn’t make it true, either.
You’re going to need something stronger than a list of cherry-picked quotes that go against definitions that have been almost universally agreed upon by medical authorities in order to support your position, JoAnna.
And you’re going to need something stronger than a few medical groups with an obvious and biased political agenda that overturned decades of already established medical belief to support your position, Joan.
Joan,
Do you think Jill summed up the non-existense of the embryo prior to implantation well here:
“The [zygote, blastocyst, embryo, fertilized egg – choose one of those terms but no other] is floating during those days inside his mother’s 4th dimension of time and space.”
The AMA (and its British counterpart) and the ACOG are not just “medical groups”, they represent the collective professional judgment and opinion of hundreds of thousands of practicing doctors. And you’re trying to supplant this collective wisdom from the most prominent bodies of medical experts in the world with a handful of quotes from old textbooks? I could probably find some degreed quacks who still believe in phrenology and are willing to say so in a book, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a debunked pseudo-science or something that is up for debate.
The real question is, regardless of their opinion of the blastocyst, why are those who call themselves “pro-choice” trying to suppress this information and prevent women from making an informed choice?
Going strictly by what they claim is their worldview, it doesn’t matter whether the blastocyst is a human being or not, or whether I am pregant if a blastocyst is not able to implant in the uterine lining. That blastocyst is a “part of my body,” so I should have access to information that he or she could exist, and I have a right to keep that “body part” if he or she is important to me. If I don’t want a blastocyst to be flushed out of my system, I should be able to make sure that doesn’t happen (isn’t that what they always tell us about abortion?). But Jessica wishes to deny me my right to know how this drug works, and exactly what it might do to my “body parts.”
If they want birth control, they have the legal right to use it right now. So why not support informed consent for those who may not want to use it? I don’t care how they want to word it, so long as they tell the truth. I don’t want to hear about “zygotes” or “fertilized eggs” trying to implant (there’s no such thing as a fertilized egg, and the baby is a zygote for a very short time; when he or she implants, he or she is an embryo or blastocyst).
#”prochoice” #fail
Not everyone who is part of those groups, Joan, agree with the majority opinion, especially given that the opinion was issued due to a clear political and biased agenda.
Once again, truth is not determined by majority vote.
So what was the medical advancement that was discovered, Joan, to show that the quotes from those old textbooks are wrong? What is the scientific discovery concerning the zygote/blastocyst/about-to-be-pregnant woman or whatever that we now know about that we didn’t know before that makes those old quotes obsolete?
How about these definitions Joan from my Taber’s medical dictionary, it contains “well -established medical definitions”:
conception: the union of the male sperm and the ovum of the female; fertilization.
pregnancy: the condition of carrying a developing embryo in the uterus.
life: begins at the moment of conception and ends at death
I don’t see anywhere a mention of implantation being necessary to being considered pregnant, just carrying an embryo. I don’t even see any gray areas. Life and pregnancy begin at the moment of conception.
“The real question is, regardless of their opinion of the blastocyst, why are those who call themselves “pro-choice” trying to suppress this information and prevent women from making an informed choice?”
“Contraceptives abort 5-9 day old ‘babies'” is not information, it’s propaganda designed to promote a worldview that has no medical relevance whatsoever to a woman who simply wishes to prevent pregnancy.
“Not everyone who is part of those groups, Joan, agree with the majority opinion, especially given that the opinion was issued due to a clear political and biased agenda.”
Not every member has to personally agree with the group’s collective professional opinion. A professional body with hundreds of thousands of members that needed unanimous consent from every member in order to say something wouldn’t have much to say in the first place, would it?
“So what was the medical advancement that was discovered, Joan, to show that the quotes from those old textbooks are wrong?”
Those quotes are only dubiously related to the question of when pregnancy even begins in the first place. They seem to be promoting the idea that life begins at conception, not pregnancy, which is the issue at hand.
Okay, so LIFE begins at conception, but PREGNANCY doesn’t being until implantation.
Mmmhmm.
What about women who choose not to take the chance of killing innocent human life prior to implantation? Why don’t you think they should be informed of the possibility of the Pill doing just that?
joan said: The AMA (and its British counterpart) and the ACOG are not just “medical groups”, they represent the collective professional judgment and opinion of hundreds of thousands of practicing doctors.
Precisely the basis for a severe conflict of interest in their definitions. They profit from defining when and how. Their problem is, in practical terms, they can’t get around the fact that when a cortical reaction has occurred, there is an undeniable new life. Any embryonic stem cell researcher looks for those telltale traits to know when to being playing God with the results.
Just because someone hasn’t unpacked their boxes doesn’t mean the Purchase and Sale agreement hasn’t been completed. oocyte + sperm = boom! (life)
BTW – there’s a good number of very low level biochemistry reactions that are going on that medical research hasn’t really explored yet. It’s sort of like the light spectrum – just because you can’t see certain wavelengths of light, it doesn’t mean they’re not there.
“What about women who choose not to take the chance of killing innocent human life prior to implantation?”
I think it’s a moot point. A woman who is that concerned about not “killing” a freshly-fertilized-but-not-implanted embryo would already know that the practical effect of the pill is to prevent implantation of a fertilized embryo in the first place, and all that that implies morally for her.
No Joan, it is NOT a moot point. Hello! Earth to Joan! I just told my story in this thread. I AM concerned about not killing a freshly fertilized but not implanted embryo and I was NOT given the facts about the pill and that it can prevent implantation. I was in fact told by my doctor at first that it was NOT true but upon reading the super tiny fine print of the pill insert and really questioning my doctor was finally told the truth. After I had been taking it for YEARS. Didn’t I deserve to know that information? Where was MY CHOICE, huh? Where was the disclosure? Doctors tell me about every side effect of other medication but somehow the pill fell into a special category where they didn’t have to disclose any such information or I should have settled down next to a roaring fire on my couch and spent time reading the insert myself to gain such knowledge? It is misogyny. It is unethical. They should have told me! I deserved to know.
A lot of women don’t know Joan. If they did you would see pill sales slump and the pill manufacturers know this.
Actually, no, Joan, they don’t. That’s the entire point of this thread. Most women either don’t know how the Pill works, or believe it works by inhibiting ovulation only. Many aren’t aware that a secondary mechanism is to thin the uterine lining in case ovulation does occur. I certainly didn’t know when I was on the Pill, and my doctor never informed me otherwise.
“Didn’t I deserve to know that information? Where was MY CHOICE, huh? Where was the disclosure? Doctors tell me about every side effect of other medication but somehow the pill fell into a special category where they didn’t have to disclose any such information or I should have settled down next to a roaring fire on my couch and spent time reading the insert myself to gain such knowledge? It is misogyny. It is unethical. They should have told me! I deserved to know.”
They absolutely should tell you, upfront, any medically relevant information. I don’t think doctors or pharmaceutical companies are compelled to shout from the rooftops literally any information that might conceivably have some kind of moral or philosophical importance (but no effect on health) to a small fraction of patients. Especially considering that this would be an almost impossible task because lots of different things have moral importance to different adherents of various faiths, ideologies, creeds, or philosophies.
joan, if at conception (fertilization) by the medical definition, life has begun, what would you call it when it’s life is ended? Death? And if someone knowingly caused that death? What would you call that? If someone knowingly causes the death of any life, what do you call it?
What a hoot! Normally the pro aborts don’t want to call abortion killing so instead they use the phrase “choosing to end a pregnancy”. But this little hormonal birth control nugget has them saying it ends a human life but squirming to admit it ends a pregnancy. I’m lovin it :<{} t
What abortion fans know about biology would fit in a thimble… a miniature thimble fit for a Barbie doll.
New life begins at conception.
And you wanna see the abortion fans go even more nuts? Remind them that MEN carry the torch of life. That’s right, MEN! The egg is not capable of forward motion; in order to move along the fallopian tube, the cilia of the cells lining the tube wave and send it on its way. It is the sperm that is moving and swimming by itself. It is the sperm that carries that torch, like an Olympic runner! Oh noes! Not men, no!
Like Sydney, I was not told the truth about the pill, but I didn’t think to ask. My doctor was, however, too lazy to get me any information on NFP despite saying she would and pushing the pill on me when it was not really what I wanted.
So interesting that these medical associations decided to change the definition of when pregnancy begins to implantation–at least, for the purposes of handing out abortifacients–and yet refuse to let new, better science alter their way of determining gestational age. It doesn’t matter how much I know about my body and my fertility–week 1, day 1 of pregnancy for dating purposes is the first day of the last period, long before fertilization and implantation, even if I knew I ovulated late and knew the probable date of conception. My dates didn’t match up with what they insisted had to be right, so I had to get a dating ultrasound and pay for it to prove what I already knew. So much for scientific accuracy and advances in knowledge. Doesn’t seem like they’re very consistent on that, does it? Or like they “trust women”….
That was my point joan . . . that the AMA changed the definition of pregnancy to suit the views of abortion proponents. (Sorry I’ve been napping all morning and afternoon because of a headache, so missed following up earlier).
I simply don’t get your definition of abortion. Removing an “embryo”? What, fetuses can’t be aborted too? And isn’t every fetus “removed” from the walls of the uterus during live birth? Yours is the falsest and most euphemistic definition I’ve ever heard.
Now techniclly, medicine has long used the term “abortion” to mean the premature ending of a pregnancy, deliberate or not. So technically the pregnancy is what is aborted. In medical terms, a miscarriage is a “spontaneous abortion.”
But this normal medical definition got started in the days before deliberate abortion becme widespread. It ignores the reality of what deliberate abortion does: it killsa living fetus or embryo.
It sounds like your new and improved definition is another one that was rewritten to obfuscate this matter and to make it seem that only an implanted embryo can be aborted.
And ninek, we are willing to work as tirelessly as an Olympic runner to send those little torch carriers on there way. And we are very dedicated to training for start of the race :<{}t
YCW, I’ve had similar experiences with all of my pregnancies, as I tend to ovulate between day 20-25 in my cycle.
When I went in for my first prenatal appointment with this pregnancy, the medical assistant asked me when my last menstrual period (LMP) was. I ovulated on day 25 of my cycle so I did not want to tell her what my actual LMP was because it would throw off the due date by nearly two weeks. I said, “I chart my cycles so I know my exact date of ovulation. I conceived on March 25.”
She looked really confused and said, “I know, but my pregnancy wheel only has LMP, not ovulation.”
I suppressed a sigh and said, “According to my calculations, my due date is December 16, so put that in your wheel and put down my LMP according to that due date.”
She did, and then when we had the ultrasound, the estimated due date matched my calculations exactly. The nurse practitioner was impressed.
JoAnna, I don’t think they were ill-trained (sounds like your doctor was), just rulebound. They completely refused to listen to me, it felt like. This despite the fact that I had very early blood draws that could not have been accurate for a viable pregnancy a week or two further along than mine.
My OB is fantastic (when I told him we used NFP, he said, “It’s great you know your body so well”). It’s the medical assistant who was clueless.
Yeah, that was probably more of it. But I hate being treated like I’m stupid, especially by people who are clearly the stupid ones. Unless it’s really funny (like when weighing my son, after birth, the nurse put a diaper on the scale, tared it, then left the diaper there and added my diapered son. I tried to tell her I thought that was wrong, but she didn’t listen… but it was so funny I let her get away with it, didn’t think it’d really matter).
Sydney M.– I, too, believe that life begins at conception and am so saddened that I did not know that the pill could cause abortion (or dispelling my newly formed unattached child). I took the pill for about 7 years before I found this informaiton out. This troubles me and I have asked for forgiveness from God because of it. I even asked several doctors about this and they all said they don’t believe that it how it works (or some other excuse). Stupidly, I even continued taking it after my Christian doctor told me it was okay. I believe he was actually just misinformed and not trying to lie about it. It’s sad how even Pro-Lifers are still mixed about this. I quit the pill and am now having “female issues” becuase of it, but I am going to try not to take these horrible pills, even when me and my husband are permenantly done having children. ANyways…. yes the pill packages DO say this is the way they work (so it is true). NO, they don’t advertise it at all and should.
Becky,
Does the insert say anything at all about break-away ovulation or how often it occurs?
Sydney – congratulations on your son!
So – when a woman has a gut feeling that she is pregnant, does she worry about the semantics of “cytoblast, implanted, not implanted, fetus” or does she know in her heart of hearts that she is with child?
Does a woman say to the pharmacist, “I need the morning after pill because I believe I have a sperm that invaded my egg and is going to implant into my uterus and become a person?”
I don’t think so, and yet, people who are pro-abortion minded want us all to think upon these lines …
When is it okay to kill a human being? Before implantation, after, during? WHEN?
Joan, I admire your tenacity in trying to make your point. What a difference a day makes when a baby is traveling from the fallopian tubes to the uterus. You, too, started in this way, Joan. I am glad your mother did not disrupt your life by termination of her pregnancy with you.
All the information I could find, (not much is included on the insert at all), says that there is no way of telling how often that occurs. The insert says nothing, it just tells the different ways the pill works (No mention of losing pregnancy or loss of fertilized child. I have found many sites over the years (one was really good, but I seem to have lost it after getting a new compujter). This site pfli.org states this:
Q. So how do you prove that the pill acts as an abortifacient?
A.
The answer to this question can be found by comparing the rate of break-through ovulation and the detected pregnancy rate. The ovulation rate has been reported to be about 27 ovulations in 100 women using the pill for one year. But the detected pregnancy rate is much lower at around 4 pregnancies per 100 women using the pill for one year.
As you can see, there is a big difference between the number of women who ovulation (27) and the number of detected pregnancies (4). What has happened within the woman’s body to reduce the high ovulation rate to such a low number of detected pregnancies? I suggest that one answer to this important question is that pregnancies have begun, because ovulation and fertilization have occurred, but some of these pregnancies are terminated because implantation cannot take place. The pill has damaged the lining of the
Okay, I believe this is the same guy who I was reading about awhile backa nd lost his info. He is really good and gives medical evidence as a Pro-Lifer who was researching this and had bested interest in it b/c he was a paster telling people it wasw okay to use the pill and him and his wife used the pill. http://www.emmerich1.com/Does%20the%20Birth%20Control%20Pill%20Cause%20Abortions
Hope this helps.
It is criminal the way they keep this information from women in order to sell their drugs to them.
I think Becky is referring to Randy Alcorn–I have his little booklets and I put them out at my church.
The biggest actual proof that hormonal contraceptives can cause the embryo to not implant is the ratio of normal to ectopic pregnancies in pill-users and non-users.
The question is whether the thinning of the lining can lead to an embryo that otherwise would implant failing to implant. Because ectopic pregnancy occurs when an embryo implants outside the uerus, any thinning of the lining should have no effect on ectopic pregnancies. The total amount of conceptions while a woman is on hormonal birth control will be reduced by stopping ovulation most of the time and impeding sperm movement. If the thinning of the uterine lining did not stop any embryos which were conceived from implantin, then one would expect the ratio of normal to ectopic pregnancies to be the same regardless of whether the woman was on the pill. In fact, though, ectopic pregnancies are so much more likely among pill users that being on birth control at conception is considered a risk factor for ectopic pregnancy, and if a person becomes pregnant while taking hormonal birth control an early ultrasound to ensure the pregnancy is in the uterus is standard. The only other explanation for the fact that a much greater percentage of detected pregnancies in hormonal birth control users is that the pill somehow causes ectopic pregnancies. I know of no mechanism for this and as ectopic pregnancies are fatal for the embryo and lifethreatening for the mother, it’s a problem either way.
Whether you push someone off a bridge (direct abortion) or cut their bungie cord as they are falling (secondary effect of birth control pill) – you have still murdered the person and are equally culpable in either act.
Sydney
They just don’t put as much value on women as they do men. If they did a safer birth control pill would have been on the market a long time ago. The first time I actually read information that was provided with the pill I knew it wasn’t safe. I realize most medications have risks but those pharmaceutical companies that have years of experience I believe they are able to gauge quickly risks that are acceptable and risks that aren’t.
macboy
I think when you compare birth control to abortion you lessen the vileness of the actual abortion act. And when someone makes that argument I feel like it’s almost an excuse to take the stigma out of abortion. Abortion is very, very wrong. So although your conclusion is correct, I still feel direct abortion is worse because of the degree of danger it presents.
myrtle,
I don’t diminish what an abortion is, I elevate the secondary outcome of the pill to it’s proper understanding. One is “worse” in that it is like being hacked up by an axe murderer vs. being poisoned. In the end you’re dead either way.
macboy
Maybe you don’t intentionally attempt to diminish abortion but in my opinion it still does and because most people see nothing wrong with the pill I find your argument does the opposite of your intended purpose. I think when you elevate the seondary outcome of the pill and focus on the outcome and not the intent you trivilize abortion. When women take the people it is not their intent to kill when they have an abortion there is clear intent. That’s the difference for me.
myrtle,
From a moral standpoint inetent is very important. But if we do certain actions and we come to realize our actions do harm then it becomes our responsibility to change our behaviour. Reminds me of the old proverb “ignorance is bliss”. Or in scripture when Adam and Eve gained the knowledge of good and evil; that is when sin came into the lives.
Myrtle, what is the difference then between someone who aborts an early pregnancy after being told it’s not a baby yet who does it just to not be pregnant anymore, and someone who kills a child with the pill not knowing that child exists, just because she does not want to be pregnant?
typo: secondary not seondary and pill not people
truthseeker
I agree.
young christian woman
I don’t think theres any difference when someone doesn’t know. Thank you.