Wednesday, January 29, 2014

What Women Want

While we are on the topic of abortion, let's side step to another "women's rights" issue and talk about birth control.  Most of the time you hear a dichotomy in conversations about birth control:

*Contraceptive hormones/devices vs. nothing
*Normal people vs. crazy Catholics

Every now and then there is an admission that such a things as "NFP" exists, although it is generally equated to "nothing," and every now and then there is an admission that some other crazy Christians join the Catholics.

And then I found these articles.   These two infinitely secular sources do not make an apologia for natural methods.  They simply point out that hormone-free methods of avoiding pregnancy might be something that women want.  The first article is less about what is being branded as "Fertility Awareness-Based Methods" (FABM) and more about the rejection of hormonal birth control:
[These women] buy organic kale and all-natural cleaning products, and so can’t quite get down with taking synthetic hormones every day... They’re sick of supposedly egalitarian relationships in which they bear the sole responsibility for staying baby-free.
The author's main point is actually the rise of the "pullout method," if such technique can be deemed a method of birth control, as a direct response to a rejection of the Pill.  The second article, a response to the first, is much more concerned with FAMB as a solution to this rejection:
Synthetic hormones come with side effects, condoms don’t feel great, intrauterine devices are kind of scary....surveys conducted by physicians at the University of Utah show that when natural fertility-awareness methods are described to women, 25 percent say they would strongly consider using one as their means of birth control. But thanks to its glaring image problem and a set of just-as-formidable infrastructural hindrances, ignorance of fertility awareness-based methods is widespread.
 This author goes on to explain that FABM is something that women want and do not have access to.  She blames two factors: 1) a branding image, where FABM is too closely associated with both the rhythm method (which it is not) and the Catholic Church (which has embraced a religious version); and 2) the fact that it does not bring money to the pockets of pharmaceutical companies.

I am always overjoyed to see discussions of this nature in the secular spheres.  One of the greatest harms the sexual revolution has done is kept women distanced from our bodies.  Medicine is learning so much about our bodies -- which are pretty amazing and complex -- but we are taught to reject these inner workings without even knowing what they are.

Regardless of your opinions on birth control, I think it should be fairly obvious that we have a right to know how our bodies work.  We can only make informed decisions on how to live our lives if we actually get information about ourselves.

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