I ran across mention of a blog post today. The Blogger touts her experience living overseas due to her husband's career in the foreign service - as if this made her wordly wise. It didn't. In fact, it seems to have narrowed her vision. Since I've also been told that she doesn't always publish contradicting viewpoints, I'm publishing my response here.
Contraception: A Foreign Service Perspective
And my response:
The Catholic church hasn’t taught the “rhythm method” in many years. What they do teach is called Natural Family Planning or Fertility Awareness.
Mother Teresa was teaching Natural Family Planning among Hindus, Muslims and Christians in Calcutta and that BMJ study found a virtual “0″ failure rate.
The other problem with your scenario is that birth control is not the panacea you present here. Not only has the WHO-IARC listed COCs as Class I carcinogens, but hormonal contraceptives also make women more susceptible to infection with the HIV virus. It increases a woman’s susceptibility to serious and potentially fatal blood clots, a risk that is multiplied many times if she has one of a number of normally silent genetic mutations (the Factor V Leiden mutation being the most common one).
Natural Family Planning also does not require the use of a thermometer. There are other effective means for determining a woman’s fertile period that are low-tech and easily teachable. It does not poison women’s bodies or the environment. Instead it helps women own their own fertility and understand how their body functions.
Finally if you have genuinely never heard one woman of your acquaintance explain this as a religious liberty issue – well, you may have lived in several more countries than I have, but your world is much narrower.
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