Free Republic

In July 2018, Natural Womanhood CEO Gerard Migeon published an article called “When Men Resent Natural Family Planning,” which included an anecdote from a male friend who told him “I hate NFP.” I can totally identify with that perspective. At the end of the article discussing other possible factors influencing his friend’s challenging love life outside of NFP, Gerard opened up the floor to hear other men’s experiences with NFP in an anonymous online survey. Here is my experience. I agree 100% there is a huge need for us men to have a space to talk about difficulties with Natural...

Frustrated. Immobilized. That’s how Dr. Summer Holmes Mason felt a few years into her practice. As a board-certified OBGYN, she was dedicated to helping women manage their health. And often, that involved offering her patients contraception, like the Pill. “Prescribing contraception was bread and butter gynecology for me,” she says. “It was probably one of the largest tools I had in my arsenal as an OBGYN to treat medical issues.” The medication was meant to help. But soon, Dr. Holmes Mason noticed a trend. “After a couple of years, I realized people were coming back to me with more side...

A study released last week by the British Medical Journal's subsidiary, the Journal of Medical Ethics, seemed more designed for attacking the Catholic Church than for scientific rigour.  If that was the goal of L. Bovens' "The rhythm method and embryonic death", then the mainstream media fell for the ploy head-over-heels.  "How Vatican roulette kills embryos," screamed Australia's Sydney Morning Herald; "Rhythm method linked to massive embryonic death," was the headline of India's New Kerala, and Canada's Vancouver Sun styled it "'Rhythm' method a killer of embryos."Physicians and medical ethicists, however, have responded to the journal noting that the study...

[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...

No wonder the rhythm method does not work so well for birth control -- scientists in Canada said on Tuesday they had found women sometimes ovulate several times a single month. Their finding, if verified, would overturn the traditional wisdom that women produce an egg cell once a month. It would also help explain why "natural" methods of birth control, based on the idea that ovulation can be predicted, often fail. "We are literally going to have to re-write medical textbooks," said Dr. Roger Pierson, director of the Reproductive Biology Research Unit at the University of Saskatchewan, who led the...