People usually ignore the warnings printed on the sides of medicine. After all, if the FDA has approved this medication, the chances that it’ll happen to me are so slight that it’s worth the risk in order to treat this disease. However, tons of women experience side effects from contraception.
The health risks associated with the pill: “The birth control pill increases the risk of breast cancer by over 40% if it is taken before a woman delivers her first baby. This risk increases by 70% if the Pill is used for four or more years before the woman’s first child is born. Other side effects that women have experienced include high blood pressure, blood clots, stroke, heart attack, depression, weight gain, and migraines.”1 (See also 2 and definitely 3.)
The health risks associated with NFP: None.
I won’t even begin to get into the pill causing abortions 4. Suffice it to say, it wasn’t until the pill came onto the market that the definition of when life begins changed from the moment of conception (and now medical professionals use the term “established pregnancy” to dance around it). (Also check out some Wikipedia explanations 5.)
More important than the possible side effects, I think, is the way we are viewing fertility. As a disease to be treated. I hate to be the one to break it, but fertility is a gift! It is certainly not an illness! Just ask any couple who is having a hard time trying to conceive – they’re willing to pay big bucks and do almost anything to obtain something that healthy women are trying to get rid of!
When we use contraception, we’re treating our healthy fertility like a disease. Every day we’re putting unnecessary drugs into our body to fight it. We’re willing to risk all the side effects listed above. There’s really no need for this. Using NFP, we don’t have to interfere with our bodies. We can go au naturel. As my husband succinctly put it, NFP is “like going green for your body!”
Other people have made this green connection even more and talked about how NFP is even good for the environment: 6 Apparently contraception is bad for fish 7 :-P
I liked the idea of treating my body naturally, and was disturbed by the thought that I really was treating my fertility like a disease. But I’m no tree-hugger! It took one more reason to convince me that we should practice NFP instead of contraception… stay tuned!
1 http://www.omsoul.com/contraception-side-effects.php
2 http://www.ditchthepill.org/
3 http://ccli.org/nfp/contraception/pill.php
4 http://ccli.org/contraception/mdexplains.php
5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beginning_of_human_life , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beginning_of_pregnancy_controversy
6 http://losalamosfertilitycare.blogspot.com/2009/03/green-guide-to-family-planning.html
7 http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=56623
This is part II in a series of five posts. (Yes, I might've gotten a bit carried away.) Here are the others in this series:
Introduction: "NFP - Not just because I want babies!"
Part I: "Reason #1 - Social Health"
Part III: "Reason #3 - Spiritual Health (History and Scripture)"
Part IV: "Reason #3 - Spiritual Health (Theology and Christian Marriage)"