I hope people who walk by and see those protesters just laugh in their faces. Maybe this will allow some who don't normally pay attention to the typical "pro-life" type to see them for what they are really trying to do (controlling female sexuality).

Seems the author only has poor wit and bad humor to address this important issue. Now if only the facts and science backed up his religion of contraception, maybe he'd be on to something. Figures, just like a man!

Ideology over evidence? What's the evidence, Cristina? You're talking about a lack of proof from those claiming the birth control pill destroys an embryo. Heck. Where's the proof that it DOESN'T prevent implantation? Heck. Even the packaging says it can work that way. And whoever died NOT taking the pill? It makes more sense to say, "I don't know if it destroys an embryo so I'm not taking it" than to say, "I don't know if it destroys an embryo so I'll take it anyway." At least there's consistency on the pro-life side.

The talking points are pretty shocking. I mean, really - their claims that the birth control is dangerous to your health and the claims they list! I've never seen just outright ignorance in my life. The vast majority of the ills they say are caused by the pill are actually helped by the pill.

Considering how many American women are on the pill, the anti-reproductive rights crowd has got an uphill battle on their hands.

Cristina,

Thanks so much for informing us about this event. I can't wait to participate! Finally- a group who is not afraid to stand up for truth. Praise God for American Life League!

Seriously, anti-choicers, keep it up.  Show up at the protests, run around calling condoms murder.  We're sick to death of having to convince people that you really, truly don't care about babies so much as getting women under the boot.  So please, do our work for us. 

In "Denial is indeed a powerful thing" above, Amanda Marcotte makes a point that I think is not stressed nearly enough. When the anti-choice people, most of whom call themselves Christians, tell their favorite lies, they violate the Ninth Commandment, in which god disapproves of bearing false witness against one's neighbor. If calling your neighbor a murderer, when she is not, is not bearing false witness, I don't know what is. We should be asking the anti-choicers loudly and repeatedly why this doesn't bother them.

Would you care to respond to this, Cranky Catholic?

The American Life League, Pro-Life Wisconsin, and Pharmacists For Life International,et al have lost their minds. This stunt won't accomplish much, except lose them a few more friends.

LOL they are SO nuts.

We pro-lifers do not say that barrier methods (e.g., male and female condoms) cause abortions; we say that abortifacient contraceptives have a method to destroy embryos, often by preventing implantation. We don't care if implantation prevention is "a tertiary function" of the pill; it is a deliberate way to stop the development of a baby.


Life begins at fertilization, science knows this; we never stop developing from that point onward until our death. Embryos simply need nourishment and a fitting environment to develop (just like you and I). To argue that someone becomes a human at some point after fertilization is arbitrary and against science.


Any arguments concerning religion, a purported desire to control women, miscarriages, et cetera do not change science.

This is from the talking points (emphasis added):

The birth control pill and similar birth control products work in a woman’s body in one of three ways: It can prevent ovulation and it can obstruct sperm from reaching the egg (prevent fertilization) by thickening the cervical mucus. However, if both of these methods fail and a new human person is created, the pill and other contraceptives can stop a tiny child’s implantation in his/her mother’s womb . . .

I understand the stance that if there's any chance at all that an egg can get through and get fertilized and then get flushed out, then one must oppose the pill (I disagree, but I understand it). However, I'm curious, given that my understanding has always been that the basic function of the pill is to prevent ovulation: how large a possibility is it that a sperm and an egg may meet when a woman is on a standard (e.g. not progesterone only) birth control pill? Again, I appreciate that the moral stance is black and white on that fact, but I'm curious about the science behind it, particularly given that pro-life folks are trying to argue that they have science on their side.

Also, doesn't the body not begin to think it's pregnant until after the fertilized egg has implanted? So, wouldn't that mean that even if an egg gets fertilized and then flushed out, actual pregnancy is still being prevented?

Even if it's true that a tertiary function of the pill may keep an egg from implanting, the very low odds of such an event pale in comparison to the vast number of pregnancies that are naturally aborted. So using the pill undenably makes natural abortion far, far less likely, as 15-20% fertilized eggs never implant--so not fertilizing an egg avoids the approximately one in five "abortions" that anti-pill advocates claim to wish to prevent.

I see Amanda beat me to the same basic argument. What she said!

that some national anti-contraceptive groups have repackaged Natural Family Planning (NFP) as "organic sex". *chuckle*

I would like to see an intelligent response from the "life begins at conception" crowd to the issue of ectopic pregnancies. Isn't your position that the woman must die
when she finds herself subject to an ectopic pregnancy?
Isn't true that some hospitals are refusing to treat women, even though they will die and there is no competing life interest? And don't tell me that it doesn't happen very often. It happened to my sister in law, and she had three small children under the age of 5 at the time. Would you have her die to satisfy your political agenda?

I'm still waiting for the national day for pro-lifers adopting children who need loving homes... why aren't you people caring for the children who are already here and don't have families? Maybe if there were less children being abused by their families and/or in foster care, I would be more open to your message.

Well, finally they're coming out and showing their true colors. It's not about saving fetuses, it's about controlling female reproduction and, by extension, women's lives.

As disgusted and saddened as I am that there are people out there who care more about an ovum than a woman--and this post has literally made my stomach and heart ache and my eyes tear up--I'm glad that they're showing themselves for the radical misogynist control-freaks they are. Maybe now more people will understand what's really going on.

The basis of their argument is religious. Never mind the actual science of how various methods of contraception work. Never mind all that. These skirmishes over women's bodies have religion at their core and I, for one - and as a Christian - am tired of it.

I say, and am comfortable asserting that my *faith* agrees with me, that 'life' happens after implantation when my body can recognize that it is, indeed, pregnant. My faith supports the use of contraception.

These anti-sex fundamentalists' religious beliefs say otherwise.

So. Who's to say which religious belief is better? Who's to say which religious belief should be legislated and applied to everyone, regardless of (or absent of) their own religious belief? They claim the Supreme Court 'made up' privacy. Well, the Constitution also 'made up' the separation of church and state and that's pretty important, because that's how we do things around here. You know. In America.

I have no issues with people being privately ignorant. You want to think that zygotes are baby homunculi? Fine. Fill *your* quiver, baby.

But when folks start preaching to me and saying *my* religious beliefs should conform to theirs, have mercy, then it makes this Church Gal just plain pissed off.

My recommendation to all those bible-thumping, sex-hating misogynists out there: Read the Constitution and keep your hands off my ovaries AND my bible.

I wrote ALL a letter, a copy of which you can read at my website.

Here's what I wrote:
I am astonished and educated by what I see on this website. I had never considered the pill this way before.

My whole marriage I had believed that the pill was creating unity, bringing my husband and I closer together, freeing us from fear of another child we cannot afford. You have shown me a new way of thinking, about how the pill is destrying our sexual relationship.

Thank you, ALL. You have showed me that true unity can only be experienced outside the realm of contraception. From this day forward, I commit myself to sex the way you say it should be or no sex at all. My husband is going to miss having intercourse, but that's the way it should be.

To which they replied:
Thanks for your feedback regarding our educational efforts to expose the facts about the pill.

I might point out to you that the most telling statement in your email is this one:

My whole marriage I had believed that the pill was creating unity, bringing my husband and I closer together, freeing us from fear of another child we cannot afford.

First and foremost, while you may have thought that your fears were being allayed by using the pill, chances are a child or perhaps many children died because of the actions of the pill. This is a very hard truth to have to live with, I know and I speak from personal experience as I once was ignorant about these matters as well and now mourn the fact that my husband and I could have had many more children, each of whom we will not now know because of what we did, even though we never knew how these things worked. The sadness is still there.

At any rate, you might try bring unity and joy to your marriage by learning natural methods for spacing children. After all, children are gifts from God, and we have learned, as have many others, that the more we trust God and welcome His gift of a child, the happier a marriage will be. Try it.

Thanks again for your email.

Judie Brown

I tell you, I can't make this stuff up.

As I stated in another e-mail....get your own life, you have 10 children and worry about supporting them without help.

Look around, see the homeless, the abused the unwanted children that have been born. Why don't you worry about taking care of them and let people make there own decisions about their own life and what would be best for them.

I'm glad I live in Quebec. None of that BS here. Every woman here has the right to choose what's right for her. No one has the right to invade our private lives and discuss our choices. A sane province!