Posted on 05/25/2006 9:24:35 AM PDT by gcruse
[The rhythm method and embryonic death J Med Ethics 2006; 32: 355-6]
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.
Click here to view the paper in full: http://press.psprings.co.uk/jme/june/355_me13920.pdf
He admits they have no actual knowledge if there is a lower embryonic viability or not. But then he calculates (based on what?) that "two to three embryos will have died". That would only take place if 3 or 4 eggs had been impregnated. What an idiot. So obviously biased that only a liberal wouldn't question it.
Let's see:
Knowingly killing off healthy embryos with artificial birth control is BETTER than using NFP and taking the chance that already unviable embryos might die?
These people wrote a paper with this premise? Are they complete idiots or completely insane????
These people really and truly love death.
Ping!
What it seems like is that we just don't know what causes pregnancy. There's so much that has to happen in order for the eggs to be fertilized and implanted and then grow. It sounds like a long chain reaction has to happen to result in the birth of a baby.
BTW, I'm not Catholic, so I can't weigh in on the whole birth control issue, but it is obvious this researcher has an agenda. If you can't advance your own arguments based on logic, attempt to weaken the other side by manipulation of fact.
The only other comment I have is that I believe human life begins at fertilization when the egg and sperm cease to exist as seperate entities and chemically unite to become something uniquethat is neither- the human zygote. God & nature takes it from there, unless of course we intervene and terminate the human life.
It's one thing when nature makes a mistake; it's quite another when you take a morning after pill, intentionally destroying an embryo.
/marital indulgence is better than premarital abstinence
//get with it folks
///eagerly waiting for the birth of #8
DUMBEST thing ever said!
Embryo is a product of conception. No conception=no embryo. Or are they actually saying an "embryo" is lost every time a woman has a period?
I don't use it.
"Couples" are either married or they aren't. If they're married, then they ought to be parents if they're physically able to have kids. And if they aren't married, they should keep it zipped and they don't have to worry about birth control or parenthood.
How do you think they got to be DUmmies in the first place? ;-)
Sophistry Alert! More flatulence from the mouths of "clever" leftists!
There, fixed it.
The short answer is "no".
This genius consciously dismisses the important difference between "natural" and artificial. That is the essence of the difference; there is no active, conscious abortificent employed by the mother.
This is an extremely lame attempt at justification for late term abortion...
BS
Oh puhleeze. If you abstain from sex, there is no embryo created. If you take the pill, you can prevent an embryo from implanting. There's a huge difference there, but maybe you are as moronic as Bovens and can't figure it out.
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