With May—a month known primarily for Mother’s Day—approaching, we cannot help but think of our relationships with our mothers. And, likewise, mothers cannot help but think of their own kids. Yet, in this age of “It is what it is,” not all women are equally enamored by the idea of bearing and raising children, and some are downright disgusted with the idea.
Take the case of the writer Amanda Marcotte, who has been known to rail against pro-lifers at the drop of a hat and who feels equally as strongly about mothers having the right to abort. Marcotte writes, “What she [the woman] wants trumps the non-existent desires of a mindless pre-person that is so small it can be removed in about two minutes during an outpatient procedure. Your cavities fight harder to stay in place.”
Yes, Marcotte did just compare a living baby to a hole in a tooth. And, for the record, Marcotte has no children.
But there is another aspect to her philosophy that brings us to the subject of this commentary—the birth control pill. Marcotte wants all birth control pills sold over the counter. Her skewed reasoning is this: “As pro-choicers, we need to adhere closely to the principle of supporting a woman’s right to the ultimate authority over her own health care. If birth control pills are safe enough to be sold OTC, then it’s up to a woman to decide if she wants a doctor’s supervision to take them, just as we allow individuals to make that determination with other drugs, like allergy medications or pain killers.”
She makes no mention about the fact that the birth control pill carries with it numerous dangers and can even cause death. Nor does she mention the responsibility she has as a “feminist” to inform women about the potentially deadly threat of breast cancer if she is using the pill for an extended period of time.
Maybe Marcotte missed the report from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center which stated that “a year or more of oral contraceptive use was associated with a 4.2-fold increased risk of triple-negative breast cancer for women 40 and under. Longer duration of use and early age of first use further increased risk. Researchers did not find increased risk from pill use among women 41 to 45 years of age.”
Further, Angela Lanfranchi, MD, explained that “Swedish oncologist Hakan Olsson concluded that pill use before the age of 20 increases a young woman’s breast cancer risk by more than 1000 percent.” Dr. Lanfranchi went on to say, “It’s like you took this molotov cocktail of a group one carcinogen and threw it into that young girl’s breast. . . . Is this child abuse?”
Clearly there is a case to be made for the legitimacy of Lanfranchi’s challenge, for indeed tossing birth control pills at women of any age is quite comparable to abuse. The facts in the matter speak for themselves.
This is why I find feminists so disingenuous. Folks like Marcotte refuse to acknowledge clinical facts. They refuse to examine for themselves the documentation, but prefer to brush the evidence aside as simply pro-life propaganda.
And God forbid that a single one of them would explain the tragic, deadly effect that the birth control pill—including the morning-after mega-dose birth control pill—has on a baby not yet implanted in her mother’s womb.
As Mother’s Day draws near, our challenge is to make sure that all women—including mothers—understand that pregnancy is a beautiful thing, not a tragedy.
The birth control pill wreaks havoc in any female’s life, be it emotionally, spiritually, or physically. It is the first step toward early abortion and the gateway for later medical or surgical abortion.
The birth control pill is no panacea, but rather it is a curse. That’s no little thing!
Whom have you educated about the pill today?