The Real Truth About the Pill

The Cost of Contraception: Women's Health - Response to CNN

By Jenn Giroux
FRONT ROYAL, Virginia, June 10, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - As a Registered Nurse and mother of 9 I am stunned at the mis-information found in Adam Sonfield's CNN article entitled: "What if Contraception were always covered?"
Sonfield claims that there is overwhelming medical, social and economic benefit to contraception access. The complete opposite is true.
Undeniable medical evidence confirms that use of the pill increases a woman's risk and incident for Breast, Cervical, and Liver Cancer. Prior to the pill and the widespread use of contraception there were known to be 5 sexually transmitted diseases. Today there are more than 30. Will treatment be free for these 50+ million US men and women who are reported to have incurable genital herpes (Source - Sexual Transmitted Disease Surveillance and Statistics, The US Center for Disease Control and Prevention)? And what about the health of unsuspecting young girls who now use hormonal contraceptives for a minimum of 4 years prior to their first full term pregnancy? Is it also a "health benefit" that according to the Guttmacher Institute they will have a 52% higher risk of developing breast cancer (Mayo Clinic Proceedings)? I think not.
On the social end, it is clear from the admitted behavior of those who receive early access to contraception that they have sex sooner. Had Mr. Sonfield not cited only selected research from his employer, he would have disclosed that Guttmacher's own research confirms that 60% of women have abortions because of failed contraception. Therefore, always and without exception, increased contraception means increased abortions. Contraception is abortion's feeder system - and Gutmacher, Planned Parenthood, and Obama know that.
And how ironic is it to mention the 'Healthy People 2010' goals as a reason for pushing contraception (many methods of which are known abortifacients)? Socially, a recent report by researchers at the Wharton School of Business confirms that mothers are more unhappy today than ever before. It states: "If the pill made motherhood 'better,' then one would expect that mothers would be happier now than they were in 1972, before the birth rate fell dramatically as contraception use expanded. Instead, as, between 1972 and 2006, the happiness of U.S. mothers fell just as dramatically." This helps identify the widespread 'post contraceptive regret' that is felt in the hearts of women across America who mourn the children that God intended for them yet they knowingly prevented or aborted.
With 50+ million surgical abortions, an estimated 250 million chemical abortions from hormonal contraceptives, and nearly 20 million individual new cases of STD's reported in US every year, it is time for the advocates of Planned Parenthood's own research arm, Guttmucher Institute, to be held accountable to taxpayers for the straight facts.
Women and young girls should not be misled into a lifestyle of contraception that carries more medical costs and emotional pain than the benefits its purports to bestow. It is time that the focus once again be placed on America's greatest resource: children.
Dare Mr. Sonfield argue with that?
Jenn Giroux is a Registered Nurse and the new Executive Director of HLI America, a new program of Human Life International founded to educate on the physical, emotional, and spiritual harms of contraception and to highlight the beauty of having children. She and her husband, Dan, have nine children and live in Cincinnati. See http://www.hliamerica.org/ for more information.