Free Republic

Pretend it’s 1960, and the Food and Drug Administration has just done something startling. It has taken a drug it had previously approved for infertility — brand name Enovid — and approved it for the opposite use: birth control. That pill — soon simply the Pill — triggered the sexual revolution. But not overnight. Doctors at first resisted giving it to unmarried women. Women were shy about carrying evidence that they actually planned to have sex. Feminists like Margaret Sanger and Katharine D. McCormick braved vilification to champion it. Madison Avenue chimed in: Ads featured Andromeda, the princess of Greek...

The City Pages hit, and Planned Parenthood not liking the billboards, is not just about a disagreement over a controversial issue. It’s about money. Two pro-life billboards were taken down in St. Paul, after the billboard stand owner—who remains unknown—threatened the billboard company, Clear Channel, that the stand owner would not renew the lease with Clear Channel unless the billboards were taken down.One billboard gave the website and number for abortion pill reversal (877-558-0333), and another the phone number and website for women facing an unplanned pregnancy, OptionLine.org (800-712-4357). Both advertisements were taken out by Pro-Life Action Ministries (PLAM).PLAM strategically...

Today, the RealCare Baby 3 infant simulator is a fantastically sophisticated, computer-programmed doll that costs up to $1,000 to replace if you lose it. (I know because I had to sign a waiver; Anna’s school has six of them, provided through a grant from a local education foundation.) The student wears a corresponding wristband that logs his or her responses to the baby through a radio frequency identification tag. Then she — and most of the caregivers are female — has to determine what the baby needs, based on distinctly different cries. “Just like a real baby, you eventually kind of can tell — that’s a...

1. A long time ago, before I was sexually active, I was put on the pill to control symptoms of extreme PMS. Not only did I see no relief from symptoms, truthfully, everything stayed the exact same, including my cycles being irregular and unpredictable. After more than a year on the pill, I decided to stop taking it and my cycle became regular, my extreme symptoms of moodiness and irritability literally stopped and the severe cramping was reduced – none of which had happened on the pill like it was supposed to. 2. At the same time I stopped taking...

POPE BUSTED: Bishops Denounce Vatican's U.N. Allies From the Editor’s Desk, Michael Matt takes a hard look at the big event nobody in the Vatican seems to want to talk about—the Nairobi Summit on the 25th anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development (Cairo). This Bill and Melinda Gates/UN Population Fund affair was all about contraception, family planning, reproductive rights and…. the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Yes, that’s right—the very same goals Pope Francis and Jeff Sachs have been promoting inside the Vatican for years. So, why did the Vatican have to back away from their friends...

Clearly, the mentality that drives abortion, drives contraception. And when evangelicals embraced contraception they began thinking like pragmatists. Children became liabilities, not blessings. Marriage became a means to personal fulfillment, not family and sacrifice. And birth control became essential to personal health, as though our natural design was somehow defective. Posted to the website of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) is a shocking quote by Pastor Joel Hunter. “Unmarried sex with contraception is not God’s plan,” he says. “(B)ut unmarried sex without contraception is not a plan at all. If holy living is not the choice of some in...

In my work as a psychotherapist, one of the first things I try to address with my clients is identifying any areas of their life that might be exacerbating whatever mental health issue they are experiencing. I ask them about their sleep habits, their eating habits, the health of their significant relationships, their exercise habits, significant stressors, and any medication they are prescribed. All of these facets of their life might be worsening their symptoms. For example, not getting enough quality sleep is linked to an increased risk of developing depression. One study found that individuals who struggle with insomnia...

This is Your Brain on Birth Control, a new book by Dr. Sara E. Hill takes a remarkably deep dive into the myriad ways that hormonal contraception alters women’s bodies, demonstrating that our sex hormones have an enormous impact on how our brains and bodies function. As we learn more about the consequences of altering women’s hormonal balance with contraception, we’ve come to find that those consequences can be very serious, indeed—in some cases, even fatal. Although the book is about the consequences of meddling with the hormones of women of reproductive age, it should also serve as a cautionary...

I used to think like most evangelicals when it came to family planning. I strongly opposed abortion, but embraced contraception and thought Catholic objections to birth control were on par with praying to Mary. Abortion, I reasoned, takes an innocent life and is clearly wrong. But contraception merely prevents conception. What could be wrong with that? Sadly, I had never considered arguments on the other side. When I did, I found they aren’t flimsy or far-fetched. They’re solid and Scriptural. And they aren’t just Catholic either. Every Protestant Reformer opposed contraception. In fact, before 1930, every church — Protestant and...

Vatican hosts youth conference with pro-abortion UN activists ROME, November 8, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — With so much attention focused in recent weeks on the violation of the first commandment, further attacks on the fifth and sixth commandments have gone unnoticed in Vatican City.  In the middle of the Amazon Synod, a smaller but not insignificant gathering was also organized by the Holy See and the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), directed by pro-abortion globalist and sustainable development guru, Jeffrey Sachs.  Jeffrey Sachs attends climate change meeting at Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Vatican City, Nov. 2017. Founded by former United...

A recent study published in scientific journal BioScience says the planet needs fewer people to effectively combat climate change; arguing “population control” is necessary to limit the amount of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere. “A larger group of scientists is sounding another, much more urgent alarm. More than 11,000 experts from around the world are calling for a critical addition to the main strategy of dumping fossil fuels for renewable energy: there needs to be far fewer humans on the planet,” reports Bloomberg. “We declare, with more than 11,000 scientist signatories from around the world, clearly and unequivocally that planet...

I was doing what thousands of women do daily—perhaps even what you’re doing right now: late at night, Googling another symptom that I was sure was tied to the new form of birth control I was on. I was looking for answers. Medical sites led me down one path and chat forums down another, until I finally found my answer I didn’t know I was looking for. I came across Natural Family Planning (NFP) and realized that the only true side-effect-free birth control is the one where you start listening and learning from your body. And I was so ready...

A federal court on Tuesday blocked new rules established by the Trump administration that would have allowed employers with religious or moral objections to opt out of an Obamacare requirement that includes birth control coverage in employee health insurance plans. Two out of the three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit concluded that a birth control exemption violated the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate, which requires all employers to provide birth control coverage with no co-payment. The Health and Human Services Department, Labor Department, and Treasury Department in 2017, started adopting new rules that allowed...

Ever since I began my research on birth control side effects and health consequences for my book In the Name of the Pill, I have been shocked to learn how many women have not been properly warned about the real risks involved with taking factory-made steroids. A colleague of mine who I discuss these issues with said he often gets into discussions with women about these health risks, and I noticed that many of the conversations he was telling me about had happened online. So I couldn’t help but ask him, “How are you meeting so many women online?” He...

She had it removed after experiencing side effects BALTIMORE — A mother learned her 16-year-old daughter received a birth control implant at school after the teen started complaining about headaches and a pain in her arm. Nicole Lambert sent her daughter to get checked out by a pediatrician. The doctor notified her that the three-year contraceptive, Nexplanon, had been improperly implanted in her daughter's arm and it needed to be removed. According to paperwork on Merck's website, the maker of Nexplanon, the implant should go on the inside of the upper arm. Photos show Lambert's daughter had the implant near...

BALTIMORE, Maryland, October 3, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — A mother is furious after discovering that her 16-year-old daughter’s headaches and soreness were caused by a birth control implant inserted by a school nurse without her consent. Nicole Lambert was shocked to learn from her daughter’s pediatrician that the pain her daughter was experiencing had been caused by a tiny tube containing the contraceptive  “Nexplanon,” which had been improperly inserted in her daughter’s upper arm.Not only did the doctor recommend that the tube be removed to alleviate the child’s discomfort, but he further warned that the contraceptive could cause far worse side-effects, such...

In the 1920s, a legal victory against the rising eugenic tide was won by a Catholic doctor over prominent birth control advocate Marie Stopes. While Stopes is lauded today as a feminist hero, the story of the eugenics libel trial has been largely overlooked. Marie Stopes in her laboratory in 1904. (Image via Wikipedia) Editor’s note: This is the first of two articles on the Stopes v. Sutherland libel trial. In 1923 in Britain, a Catholic doctor won an important victory in the battle against one of the most harmful ideologies of the 20th century: eugenics. The battle was fought...

Earlier this summer, a Citizen’s Petition was filed to the FDA requesting greater transparency concerning the many evidence-based health risks and side effects of different forms of hormonal contraceptives. We at Natural Womanhood published a breakdown of the FDA petition into a more digestible format in order to explain the forms of contraception discussed in the petition, the research behind it, and the overall goals and potential changes if this petition is successfully received. Ultimately, the goal of the Citizen’s Petition is to compel the Food and Drug Administration to better inform all prescribers and consumers of hormonal birth control...

The unintended consequence of widespread birth control — on individuals, families and society — cannot be denied. Loneliness has become an “epidemic” in the world today, says scholar Mary Eberstadt, author of the 2013 book “Adam and Eve After the Pill." “Fifty years after the embrace of the pill — undeniably, because of the embrace of the pill — loneliness is spreading across the materially better-off countries of the planet." She expands on the themes of her new article, describing the “prophetic power” of “Humanae Vitae” (“On Human Life”), Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical letter on birth control and married...

There is one teaching that most Protestants readily recognize as Catholic, and it is usually received with derision: the prohibition of artificial means of birth control. The Protestants in my circles often disparage this teaching with little knowledge of Humanae Vitae, perhaps the most significant document to address birth control over the last one hundred years. Our distaste for things Roman Catholic, dating back to the sixteenth century, has deprived us of a wealth of theological wisdom...Our acceptance of most forms of birth control is not helping us teach the next generation about sex and sexuality. It is time for...