Expert: Brigid Kowalczyk - 1/25/2006

Question
Dear Brigid,

How the pill work? Does it destroy the sperm, or does it destroy the egg, or do the women get pregnant for a second but duiring their period they destroy the fetus, etc? You know what I mean, right?

What do you mean by "emergency contraceptive is an abortion."?

Im a dude, I don't know much about this......
Im also Pro-Life!

Thanks In Advance

Answer
The pill doesn't destroy the sperm or the egg.  It changes the hormone levels in a woman's body so that the environment is not conducive to sperm movement through the uterus and fallopian tubes.  It also prevents ovulation some times so that no egg is matured in any given month.  When it doesn't prevent ovulation and an egg is matured, it may prevent implantation of the newly concieved baby (a pregnancy has happened in this case) which is a very early abortion.  Emergency contraception is in reality a huge dose of the artificial hormones in the pill, which are intended to prevent implantation of the baby if conception took place.

Pro-life should mean that you believe life begins at conception.  For this reason, you should object to any agent that interfers with the life that has begun, whether it is the pill or the emergency contraception or an abortion in the planned parenthood clinic.  So you are right about destroying the baby with the chemicals in the pill.  This doesn't happen every month but it happens often enough that it should be a concern for every pro-life person.

Besides the ethical concerns about the pill and emergency contraception, there are very real physical effects on every woman who takes the pill or the shot or the patch or whatever new way is invented to deliver the poison:

Study Finds Adverse Sexual Side Effects of Birth Control Pills
The birth control pill can have significant adverse effects on sexuality and mood in some women, increasing the likelihood of early discontinuation, according to a study by the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University.

Of the women in the study who started on the pill, 38 percent were still taking it after one year, 47 percent had stopped, and 14 percent had switched to another pill. The women who stopped or changed to another pill were four times as likely to report adverse sexual, emotional and physical side effects as the women who continued with their oral contraceptive. Some of these effects included decrease in sexual thoughts, less frequent intercourse and negative mood changes.

There is no way of predicting which women are likely to experience adverse mood or sexuality effects from oral contraceptives, or which oral contraceptive formulations are more likely to be responsible.   Estrogen can clearly cause breast cancer. There is just no way around it. I cannot think of one clinical indication for birth control pills and believe that no one should use them.

Do birth control chemicals have unpleasant side-effects or health hazards?

Combined OCs

Side effects of birth control pills can include:

•   Increased risk of breast and cervical cancers
•   Increased risk of blood clotting, heart attack and stroke
•   Migraines and headaches
•   Gall bladder disease
•   Increased blood pressure
•   Weight gain
•   Mood changes
•   Acne and/or oily skin
•   Nausea/Vomiting (especially at the beginning)
•   Nausea
•   Irregular bleeding or spotting
•   Benign liver tumors
•   Breast tenderness
•   Yeast overgrowth and infection

Progestin-Only Methods
•   Common Side-Effects (not comprehensive)
o   Untimely bleeding or spotting between periods
o   Prolonged menstrual bleeding (8 days or more)
o   No bleeding at all (amenorrhea) for several months or over a year
o   Headache (very common)
o   Nervousness/anxiety
o   Lower abdominal pain
o   Dizziness
o   Loss of sex drive (libido)
o   Depression
o   Acne and/or oily skin
o   Change of appetite
o   Weight gain
o   Breast tenderness (mastalgia)
o   Increased facial or body hair growth (hirsutism) or hair loss
o   Whitish vaginal discharge (leukorrhea)
o   Excessive growth of body/facial hair or hair loss
o   Infection the implants site for Norplant
o   A brief period of pain or itching
o   Enlarged ovarian follicles
o   Bone density loss


•   Less Common Serious Health Hazards
o   Ectopic pregnancy
o   Cancer

The most important thing to remember about hormonal birth control methods such as the pill is that they are synthetic hormones. It isn't healthy for a woman to be exposed to them.


In fact, their long-term use will invariably increase a woman's risk of developing serious chronic illness. In addition to increasing health risks as dangerous as cancer and blood clots, birth control pills also deplete important nutrients, including vitamins B2, B6 and B12.


The use of birth control pills or synthetic hormones is actually rarely justified. If you're using birth control pills to control menstrual cycles, irregular bleeding, cysts or endometriosis, you are not treating the underlying dysfunction. Instead, you are simply increasing the risks to your health.


It is essential to balance the adrenal glands in these situations, as cortisol levels modulate and control the female hormones, especially progesterone. The pill only treats the symptoms instead of the disease, and causes its own side effects as your body continues to remain in an unhealthy state.


In addition, long term use of the pill will permanently damage your libido, your desire for sex.  Permanently.  It won't come back.

A man who truly loves his wife would never agree to allowing her to use the artificial contraceptives we are talking about.  But even barrier methods have emotional and spiritual effects that interfer with true love and marriage building communication.  It is not true that without contraception a couple will have too many children!  Most couples now want only 1 or 2 children and the  world is suffering from that selfish decision on the part of most families.  Replacement by 2 people needs at least 2 or 3 children per family and for healthy economies and governments, 4-5 would probably be better.

I imagine this is way more information than you were seeking.  But there you have it.  You are welcome!