Psalm 139:13-14a
For You formed my inward parts;
You knitted me together in my mother's womb.
I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
This one's gonna be tough. I've been waiting a long time to write this. Just never knew how.
In 2008, Garrett and I got married. I went on The Pill in January, we got married in April, and in October, while walking around campus I saw a book that caught my attention. "
Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions?" (by Randy Alcorn)
"Ha! That's crazy," I thought. I've never heard that and I'm on the pill. Of COURSE they don't.
*picked it up* *guy told me to take it with me* *took it home and read the first couple of pages*
Birth control pills work in three ways.
1. Prevent Ovulation (right, knew that)
2. Thicken Cervical Mucous to prevent sperm from getting to the eggs. (Gross)
3. Thin the lining of the Uterine wall to prevent a
fertilized egg from attaching
Wait. Fertilized egg? That's weird.
I believe in life at conception. A fertilized egg is AFTER conception. This can't be right.
*put down book* *go to bathroom and get my BC Pill pack* *read fine print*
Birth control pills work in three ways...
(See above. It was the same)
*sit down*
This can't be true. If this was true wouldn't someone have told me?
My response was quick. To me it was simple. I believed in life at conception. Conception happens when an egg gets fertilized. I believe in the value of human life and that every person, even a four week old baby, is precious. For me to take a pill that works to prevent a fertilized egg from implanting
is to take a pill that goes against what I believe.
I flushed them.
(If you're curious, most birth control works this way. IUD, patch, etc.)
When you start looking for other options of birth control that don't do the above things, the options slim WAY down. Yes, it was a bit of an inconvenience. Not big enough for me to even consider using something that went again what I believe in, though. A minor sacrifice.
I wasn't informed. Maybe you weren't either. Now you are. Do some research. Pray about it.
A couple of other things I want to mention:
- Since 2008, when I first came across this information, I looked up every site I could think of, even ones that had differing viewpoints than my own, to make sure that this was true. Since then, some websites have changed the wording on their pages to sound less...harsh? Ortho-Tricyclen (my BC brand) removed the word "fertilized" from in front of egg. Planned Parenthood has taken the third function of BC off of its site altogether.
When asked how BC Pills work:
Medicine Net
medicinenet.com actually seems to say that preventing ovulation isn't the primary function of
birth control pills. That the other two, a thinned uterine wall and increased mucous is first and
that the prevention of ovulation occurs in SOME women.
Planned Parenthood
2. How often does this happen? It's almost impossible to tell. It would be a very early miscarriage
basically, happening at 4 weeks, and would result in what most women would think was their
period. However, I tried to work up some numbers just to wrap my head around it. This is basic
math, and could be off a little. But even if it's off a little, the numbers seem staggering. Here's what I
figured:
- Planned Parenthood says there are 62 Million women are in their childbearing years, and of those women, 28% are on the pill. That's 17,360,000 Women.
- Planned Parenthood says that a pregnancy occurs 2-9 women out of 100. We'll give them the benefit of the doubt and use the lowest number, 2, as these are probably the people that used the pill PERFECTLY. So 2 out of 100 is 2% of women who use the pill perfectly end with a pregnancy.
- 2% of the 17+ million that are on the pill is...347,200 pregnancies with PERFECT pill usage. That means the Pill typically FAILS that many times in one year. Out of the 3 methods it uses, (1. preventing Ovulation 2. Increasing Cervical Mucous 3. Preventing Implantation of a Fertilized Egg by Thinning the Uterine Wall) all three fail an average of 347 THOUSAND times.
- There's no way of knowing how many times the job of preventing pregnancy is left up to a third and final method, the thinned uterine lining. But to know that all three methods fail at the staggering rate of almost 350,000 times per year makes me think it must be a large enough number to be considered. (Though, isn't 1 a large enough number to be considered?)
3. Another thing to consider is the effect of BC on our bodies. When I went off The Pill my moods
leveled immediately. It was totally effecting my quality of life. I know this is subjective. What I'm
not sure is subjective is the increasing number of miscarriages that women go through on their
first pregnancy. Could a large number of these be a result of our uterine wall still not being
hospitable enough to be able to host a baby? I think this is something important to consider.
4. What about women with a medical condition that use The Pill to maintain bearable levels of
cramps as well as help increase chances of fertility?
This isn't my situation, but obviously effects a number of women. Randy Alcorn's daughter, the guy
who wrote the book I mentioned above, is on The Pill for a medical condition and he addressed that
in a radio interview he did. She uses other forms of birth control at the same time (condoms, etc.) to
override how The Pill works, basically making condoms her main form of birth control to prevent
sperm from even entering the equation (haha...wow). You could also avoid having sex on days that
you are the most fertile to reduce the likelihood of this happening. Obviously, condoms don't always
work, so there would be the occasional time that The Pill would then be on backup, and that's a
tough thing to consider. He said this was a tough choice she had to make and does everything she
can to reduce this chance.
Some Links for further reading:
- "The mommypotamus"writes a much clearer blog about this with definitions on contraception and some quotes, etc. from sources. Very easy reading and insightful.
- Facts and quotes from doctors and medical personnel can be found at www.abort73.com and www.prolife.com
- I also highly recommend the book by Randy Alcorn, "Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions?" It's written in FAQ format and based on years of research.
Thanks for reading. I know it's a lot.
Please consider doing some research and making informed and prayerful decisions.
