“Rhythm Method” May Kill Off More Embryos than Other Methods of Contraception

The “rhythm method” may kill off more embryos than other contraceptive methods, such as coils, morning after pills, and oral contraceptives, suggests an article in the Journal of Medical Ethics.

The method relies on abstinence during the most fertile period of a woman’s menstrual cycle. For a woman who has regular 28 day cycles, this is around days 10 to 17 of the cycle.

It is the only method of birth control condoned by the Catholic Church, because it doesn’t interfere with conception, so allowing nature to take its course.

It is believed that the method works because it prevents conception from occurring. But says Professor Bovens, it may owe much of its success to the fact that embryos conceived on the fringes of the fertile period are less viable than those conceived towards the middle.

We don’t know how much lower embryo viability is outside this fertile period, contends Professor Bovens, but we can calculate that two to three embryos will have died every time the rhythm method results in a pregnancy.

Is it not just as callous to organise your sex life to make it harder for a fertilised egg to survive, using this method, as it is to use the coil or the morning after pill, he asks?

Professor Bovens cites Randy Alcorn, a US pro-life campaigner, who has equated global oral contraceptive use to chemical abortion that is responsible for tens of thousands of deaths of embryos, or unborn children, every year.

But says Professor Bovens: if all oral contraceptive users converted to the rhythm method, then they would be effectively causing the deaths of millions of embryos.

Similarly, regular condom users, whose choice of contraception is deemed to be 95% effective in preventing pregnancy, would “cause less embryonic deaths than the rhythm method,” he says.

“…the rhythm method may well be responsible for massive embryonic death, and the same logic that turned pro-lifers away from morning after pills, IUDs, and pill usage, should also make them nervous about the rhythm method,” he contends.

The pill works by not releasing and egg from the ovaries.

And by keeping a fertilized egg from implanting.

If a woman takes the Pill regularly, how many times will she ovulate in a five year period? My understanding is that if the Pill is taken as prescribed and scheduled, most women won't ovulate at all. Thus, if a couple has sex 2x/week while the woman is on a pill, over a five-year period there will be zero embryos fertilized that do not implant.

Suppose the couple was not using any sort of birth control and had sex 2x/week. Over a five-year period, there'd probably be some birthable babies produced, but there would also probably be some fertilized embryos that would not implant.

To be sure, the fact that the Pill makes the uterine lining less receptive to a fertilized embryo could conceal its failures to prevent ovulation. So it may be difficult to ascertain what's really happening. But if the Pill is working as designed, it should minimize the number of embryos that are fertilized but fail to implant.

God bless you. Another benefit:

1. The first determination of a low divorce rate among couples using NFP was done by Nona Aquilar. In preparation for her book, No-Pill No-Risk Birth Control (Rawson Wade, 1980), Aquilar surveyed 164 couples who were practicing NFP. At CCL we cooperated with this survey by publicizing it in our magazine, asking people to contact Aquilar if they were willing to be interviewed, noting that she was interested in talking with those who found it difficult as well as those who found it relatively easy.

Of the 164 respondents, there was only one divorce, so the divorce rate in this group was 0.6%, i.e., less than 1%. Many of the couples were not Catholic and 70% had been married for six years or longer. It can, of course, be argued that those NFP users who divorced would no longer be receiving the CCL magazine, and the sample is small. Still, it represents the first analysis of any kind of the NFP divorce rate.

2. As of December 11, 1995, the League has certified 1098 Teaching Couples since its origin in 1971. Of these, we are aware of 15 who have divorced. That yields a divorce rate of 1.4% among this select group.

You asserted, "... bear in mind that "conception" is not "fertilization"." Uh, you and GS still trying to toss out this BS? Trying to dehumanize the embryos of IVF (yes, IVF conceives embryos in a petri dish, Orrin Hatchling's absurd assertion aside) to make them fair game for exploitation?

Not at all. I think that every fertilized egg is a full-fledged human being and do not believe that the purposeful destruction of IVF embryos should be an option. I fully agree that the purposeful destruction of embryos is infanticide.

But that doesn't change the fact that fertilization is not conception (that is, the baby comes into existence before the mother "catches" it and becomes pregnant). If anything, the birth control movement has been confusing the two to promote procedures and drugs (e.g., the "morning after pill" and even the normal birth control pill) as preventing conception to hide the fact that they destroy fertilized eggs and embryos by preventing them from implanting. It's like tying a woman's hands behind her back so she can't catch a baby that's falling toward her.

It also doesn't change the fact that some percentage of fertilized eggs naturally do not implant, get absorbed by a twin, stop growing, or otherwise don't make it to birth, regardless of what a woman does. I look at the fact that the fertilized eggs that don't make it have no more impact on the humanity of a fertilized egg or embryo than the high infant mortality rate in a famine situation has an impact on the humanity of a born child.

So, please, take your assumptions about my motives elsewhere. I've marched in pro-life marches and have counter-protested pro-choice marches. I've also talked people into changing their mind about abortion and I'm refusing vaccines for my daughter that are made with fetal cell lines (in the process, making various doctors aware of this issue).

No, I'm not trying to defend the purposeful destruction of embryos or embryo experimentation, both of which I oppose. I'm trying to give people a reality check because there is a distinction between "conception" and "fertilization" (they are not the same thing) and the claims being made in this article are not entirely unreasonable, just as couples who try to have children when the woman has a Luteal Phase Defect, for example, can wind up losing a lot of children without IVF or medical intervention (that is, naturally). Lots of fertilized eggs die -- naturally -- because they are genetically defective or for a variety of other reasons. Facing that doesn't change anything about the humanity of fertilized eggs as unborn children.

I haven't found study that shows how frequently a woman on the pill will ovulate. However, this site indicates, the primary purpose of the pill is to stop ovulation. But it also makes the lining of the uterus 'inhospitable' so any fertilized eggs cannot implant.

http://www.wdxcyber.com/bcp.htm

Thus, if a couple has sex 2x/week while the woman is on a pill, over a five-year period there will be zero embryos fertilized that do not implant.

Got a link to a study that can verify that claim?

So it may be difficult to ascertain what's really happening.

So any claims that there would be 0 fertilized eggs in 5 years are just opinion.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.