On the heels of news that former daytime talk show host Ricki Lake is producing a forthcoming documentary on the dangers of contraception, we find a unique concern. “Lake will act as executive producer alongside director Abby Epstein in a full-length film based on Holly Grigg-Spall’s book Sweetening The Pill: Or How We Became Hooked On Hormonal Birth Control.”
A short description of the contents, designed to entice readers to order the book, states:
Millions of healthy women take a powerful medication every day from their mid-teens to menopause—the pill—but few know how this drug works or the potential side effects. Contrary to cultural myth, the birth control pill impacts on every organ and function of the body, and yet most women do not even think of it as a drug.
Depression, anxiety, paranoia, rage, panic attacks—just a few of the effects of the pill on half of the over 80 percent of women who pop these tablets during their lifetimes.
These are all facts that many of us have known for more than 40 years, but the interesting thing about this book and the coming film is that neither is coming from a pro-life perspective. While the book exposes the pill’s chemical assault on the bodies of otherwise healthy women, it does not explain the pill-generated chemical killing of the preborn.
What I found particularly interesting about the author is that Grigg-Spall, who describes herself as a feminist, has been roundly criticized by members of the feminist sisterhood, including noted investigative journalist Lindsay Beyerstein.
One has to wonder if such bad-mouthing is based on the fact that her fellow feminists understand this truth: The pill is incredibly dangerous for women. It is a medication literally ingested by healthy females simply because they do not want to have a baby. This is the sort of documented fact the abortion cartel demands not be shared in public places by its own kind.
Having said that, this latest news should challenge us to consider the fact that there could be an awakening among women who are either current or potential users of the pill. If this were to be one benefit of the Lake documentary, it would be a positive sign that perhaps the tables are turning and eventually the whole truth will unfold before the eyes of the unsuspecting female.
This development is long overdue. Consider Dr. Ligaya Acosta’s words:
Gender feminists position themselves as “pro-women” and yet promote contraceptives and abortion which kill women! They also say they want a safe and satisfying sex life, which means sex for pleasure only, free of the possibility of pregnancy and children. But research has also proven that the use of the pill results in a loss of libido and sexual pleasure, as well as mood disorder, leading to divorce and broken marriages and families. In their quest for false freedom, they become slaves of their own passions, and thus become unhappy.
It is with this background that we think about the good news that might be generated by this latest Ricki Lake announcement.
As Father Paul Marx, OSB, (1920-2010) who reflected on Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae many times, wrote just a few days before his death:
Pope Paul VI predicted that contraception would evolve from “a lifestyle choice” into a weapon of mass destruction. . . .
By breaking the natural and divinely ordained connection between sex and procreation, women and men—but especially men—would focus on the hedonistic possibilities of sex. People would cease seeing sex as something that was intrinsically linked to new life and to the sacrament of marriage.
Does anyone doubt that this is where we find ourselves today?
Those of us who have witnessed this destruction of marriage and the family do not doubt this; the fruits of the contraceptive age are everywhere.
We should, on the one hand, applaud anyone who would challenge women to stop harming their bodies by ingesting medicine that could easily be replaced by self-control. Yet we must never cease to teach the truth that contraception not only harms women, families, and society, but it can kill the future of our land as well.