I am sorry that our Protest the Pill Day: The Pill Kills Babies project is officially at an end. As we focused attention on the devastating Griswold v. Connecticut Supreme Court decision of June 7, 1965, we had so many wonderful opportunities to teach people how the birth control pill works. We were encouraged by the pro-life activism all across America and are confident that we made pro-life history! In case you missed it, there is an excellent video news report describing why we pursued this project, located on our home page.
On June 6, American Life League hosted a national press conference at which we presented experts from the medical and pharmaceutical professions explaining the scientific facts in great detail. The video clips of that historic event are online, in case you want to view it.
What is most interesting about the fallout from that press conference and the pro-life activism that occurred on the following day is that pro-abortion pundits were not only outraged then, but remain incensed. As a matter of fact, some people detested our effort to such a degree that the venom is literally dripping from their writings.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer editorialist D. Parvaz told her readers, after a lengthy rant about her rights and duties as a citizen who places birth control at the top of her list of personal favorites, "It's odd that we live in a culture that values planning in everything from education to retirement to weddings, yet we're expected to believe that starting a family is something that's supposed to happen, without preparation or choice. If they want to take away my unfettered access to birth control, they're going to have to pry that right from my cold, dead fingers."
Imagine the desperation of a woman who explains to the reading public her version of clinical and scientific facts in order to assuage her conscience and firmly cement herself into denial. Parvaz relies on inaccurate definitions of pregnancy and when a human being's life begins. She does this in order to chide us for setting forth the actual scientific facts. Anyone with a ninth-grade education in basic biology knows that a human being begins at the beginning and that a chemical that can make it impossible for that individual to implant in his mother's womb is clearly killing that individual. However, Parvaz begs to differ.
Parvaz is not the only one with an axe to grind; there are many others who dot the internet landscape, particularly Facebook pages. All of them appear to have one thing in common: They don't like the idea that there are pro-lifers out there who are willing to speak out against the birth control pill for all the right reasons.
When I review what American Life League was able to accomplish last week under the able leadership of the program's director, Marie Hahnenberg, it astounds me. While we were able to focus attention on how the birth control pill actually works and why it is a killer, I think the most remarkable aspect of it is that we forced the hand of those who, for over 40 years, have had the playing field all to themselves. We have literally exposed the ugly underbelly of the culture of death. We have made the architects of that mentality admit that they will not, under any circumstances, accept facts that disagree with their view of the human person as an erotically crazed creature. In their world of sexual pleasure at any cost, there is no room for self-control or self-respect. Of that you can be certain.
Perhaps that is why Parvaz cannot see that preparing for the procreation of a child is a choice that requires understanding of, and agreement with, the fact that sexual relations belong exclusively to the domain of marriage. Oh! Excuse me, I forgot that most of these people do not believe for a nanosecond that procreation is one of the purposes of such relations, nor do they believe that such relations should be reserved exclusively for marriage. This is clearly illustrated by what another of their ilk, Christina Page, wrote regarding American Life League's Protest the Pill Day '08 and her perspective on sex and life:
The right to use contraception is relatively new: the Griswold decision was rendered in 1965 and Supreme Court granted single people the right to use contraception as recent as 1972. But the changes these decisions set in motion now form a list of what Americans won't live without. Today, 95 percent of people have sex before marrying. Indeed, studies show that most Americans in a relationship are having sex, on average, once a week. The typical American female is fertile for approximately 30 years of her life. For about 23 of those years she is trying not to get pregnant. Much of our lifestyle, and the architecture of our most intimate relationships, is rooted in family planning. And we should be grateful for this.
What Page, and those who concur with her worldview, cannot see is that the "architecture of our most intimate relationships" should commence from correct beliefs and attitudes regarding the human person's total identity. Such attitudes include appreciation of the value and dignity of each person and those we love, especially when we hope to spend the rest of our lives with that special someone within the context of marriage. The one thing that the proponents of birth control have given us is not reproductive freedom, but an enslavement to sexual acts that has blurred the distinctions between that which is sordid and that which is wonderful.
Love, which is grounded in total self-giving for the good of another, has been corrupted into a self-absorbed lust, which has given our world widespread divorce, sexually transmitted disease, loneliness and sorrow. To my mind, those who foster a devotion to the sort of family planning Page and Parvaz advocate should be given a dose of reality that is not tainted by their own nauseating worldview. But until we see that happy turn of events, American Life League and those who work with us will persist in exposing the facts that can and should lead every man and woman to genuine happiness grounded in purity and genuine commitment.
Judie Brown is president of American Life League and a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life.