On January 29, the San Antonio Express News published an opinion piece entitled “Contraception Basic to Health Care.” Froma Harrop, the author of the editorial, stated she was looking forward to 2040, as “we won’t be debating anymore whether birth control belongs in a basic health plan.” Even if the HHS Mandate is overturned by the Supreme Court, Harrop argues that because times change it will “only be delaying the inevitable.” For Harrop, contraception is as essential as toothpaste or toilet paper in the modern world.
Similar to Melinda Gates who believes contraception is a basic human right, or Sandra Fluke who equates tax-payer provided contraception with leukemia coverage, Harrop never provides an appropriate definition of healthcare. In order to properly discuss this matter, we need to define our terms, so we can all be on the same page. From Dictionary.com:
Health –“soundness of body or mind; freedom from disease or ailment.”
Care –“protection; charge.” (e.g. She is under the care of a doctor.)
Genuine healthcare brings about or restores health, and those responsible for securing healthcare needs must be focused on that goal. Identifying something as healthcare that does not restore health is counterfeit and will neither provide health nor care. From this perspective, contraception fails on both accounts.
Oral contraceptives neither bring about the health of women, nor does it protect their dignity. Contraception has been classified as a Class 1 carcinogen by the World Health Organization. The use of contraceptives has been linked in the meta analysis from the Mayo Clinic in 2006 to an increase in a woman’s risk of contracting breast cancer.
There is a 44% increased risk of contracting breast cancer for any amount of use and there is a 52% increased risk for women who use the contraceptive pill for four years or more. This is very significant because one in eight women are at risk of contracting cancer.
The use of contraceptives has also been linked to uterine, liver, and cervical cancers, and has been identified as causing the death of women who developed blood clots (an increasing occurrence). Furthermore, many contraceptive pills cause abortions by thinning out the uterine lining so that a newly-conceived human being cannot implant, thus causing the child to die.
The idea that in 40 years this will be a “settled” issue is a pipe dream, because as the deleterious side-effects of oral contraception become know, even the most secular of women who monitor their health are sure to recognize that taking a pill that causes more problems than it solves is no solution.
And every man who has a sister, wife, daughter, or any love for womanhood should be speaking out against this so-called “healthcare.” The fact so many people view fertility as a disease to be eliminated and children as a hindrance to our happiness shows just how deeply confused we’ve become about these God-given gifts.
Harrop is also mistaken when she writes that a “vast majority of Catholic women have used birth control without apology.” This is most likely a reference to the poorly-researched Guttmacher Institute study that stated “98 percent of sexually active Catholic women have used contraceptive methods banned by the Church.”
Coverage of the study failed to inform readers that while claiming to speak for “all Catholic women,” they only included women between the ages of 15 and 44, women who had sex within 3 months of the survey, and women who did not want to get pregnant. The study did not include women who were abstaining from sex until they were married, women who were married and wanted children, women who were pregnant or post-partum, and women who were open to the possibility of getting pregnant. Exclusion of these women left the study bereft of 72% of Catholic women; the study was far from representative.
Consequently, it is a mistake to assume this is a “settled” issue, especially in the Catholic Church. Many Catholic women, once informed by clergy or the lay faithful about the issue of contraception, and when they are taught about contraception within the context of the truth of love, sex, marriage, and family life, willingly embrace the Church’s teaching on this issue. They are able to see how natural family planning (NFP), while never acting as a contraceptive, really does work to help plan one’s family. It also builds up their dignity as women.
Studies make clear that married women who do not use contraception report greater satisfaction with their sex lives than women who use contraception. They also indicate a greater sense of intimacy in their marital relationship. The rate of divorce for couples who use NFP is less than a 2% divorce rate, whereas the divorce rate is about 50% in the general population.
Catholics and non-Catholics alike can agree that all women deserve real healthcare, not something that will multiply their problems and cause them regret years from now. Hopefully, 40 years from now, we will “settle” on the reality that contraceptives were never health care in the first place, but instead a bill of goods so many women have been misled to swallow.
Steve Pokorny is the Associate Director in the Office of Marriage, Family Life & NFP in the Archdiocese of San Antonio. Steve is also the founder of Freedom-coaching.net, a one-on-one mentoring program designed to break the power of attraction to pornography. Steve lives with his wife and children in San Antonio. He can be reached at steve@freedom-coaching.net.
