[Pflienews] PharmFacts E-News Update: WI wants to force Catholic institutions to fund abortifacient 'contraceptives'; more...

Tue Aug 25 16:13:08 MDT 2009

*PharmFacts E-News Update -- 25 Aug 2009 AD
News Seldom Seen Elsewhere ...
**This daily e-newsletter is only possible through the generous gifts of 
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*/_WI WANTS TO FORCE CATHOLIC INSTITUTIONS TO FUND ABORTIFACIENT 
'CONTRACEPTIVES'..._/* <http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=97183>
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*COLORADO PERSONHOOD PETITION DRIVE LAUNCHED IN DENVER*

*Washington, DC (25 August 2009)* -- The state that pushed the human 
personhood movement into the national spotlight with last year's 
Amendment 48 campaign is gearing up for its largest petition drive to date. 

The 2010 Personhood Amendment campaign launched its drive at a press 
conference Aug. 25 in Denver. The drive will now begin gathering the 
76,047 signatures required to place the amendment on the November 2010 
ballot.

"As Colorado personhood activists blaze a trail for true equality under 
the law for all human beings, we stand alongside them in their efforts 
to gain legal recognition of the inalienable rights of every single 
American -- born and preborn," said Judie Brown, president of American 
Life League. 

American Life League is working to have a Federal Human Personhood 
Amendment introduced in the United States Congress. 

In 2008, Colorado paved the way for over a dozen other states to pursue 
personhood initiatives. Colorado's proposed 2010 Personhood Amendment 
reads as follows: 

"An amendment to the Colorado Constitution applying the term 'person' as 
used in those provisions of the Colorado Constitution relating to 
inalienable rights, equality of justice, and due process of law, to 
every human being from the beginning of the biological development of 
that human being."

*FOR MORE INFORMATION:
American Life League:* Federal Human Personhood Amendment
http://www.all.org/personhood/FHPA.pdf
<http://ss.all.org/link.php?M=84895&N=338&L=2062&F=H>

*Christian Newswire:* Press Conference: Personhood Amendment Launches 
State's First All-Volunteer Initiative (24 August 2009)
http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/157111326.html
<http://ss.all.org/link.php?M=84895&N=338&L=2400&F=H>
*Colorado Right to Life:* Colorado Title Board Approves Personhood 
Amendment Text
http://www.coloradorighttolife.org/node/211
<http://ss.all.org/link.php?M=84895&N=338&L=2401&F=H>

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1208519/Is-time-stop-taking-Pill-A-new-book-asks-tide-risks-gone-far.html

  Is it time to stop taking the Pill? A new book asks whether the tide
  of risks has gone too far

By Sophie Morris 
<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?s=y&authornamef=Sophie+Morris>
Last updated at 8:46 AM on 24th August 2009

I was born in 1980, a couple of decades after the contraceptive pill 
gave women a longed-for control over their own sex lives and fertility.

By the mid-Nineties, however, fears about HIV and other sexually 
transmitted infections were in full flow.

At school we were advised to use condoms in all circumstances. I don't 
remember a single discussion about the contraceptive pill. I suppose it 
was assumed that, as teenagers, we were too young to consider using it.

So why is it that around 3.7 million women in the UK are currently 
taking 'the Pill', and around 100 million worldwide? The keenest uptake 
is among the young. An incredible 64 per cent of women aged between 20 
and 24 are on the Pill, more than in any other age group.

The reason is the readiness with which it is prescribed by GPs, who 
often fail to offer alternatives. The Pill is widely accepted as the 
most effective form of contraceptive but it is also prescribed for a 
number of other complaints such as acne, irregular or heavy periods, 
period pain and polycystic ovarian syndrome.

In short the benefit of having sex without the fear of pregnancy (or the 
hassle of romance-killing condoms) is sold as a fair trade off to any of 
the many side-effects shared by various brands of Pill - weight gain, 
irritability-depression, anxiety, anger, loss of sex drive, migraines 
not to mention rumoured links to breast cancer and fatal blood clots.

But is it a fair trade off? The Pill: Are You Sure It's For You?, a new 
book out next month, queries why the Pill is so readily prescribed 
across the developed world when its negative side- effects are so 
frequent and sometimes fatal, and its effectiveness in preventing 
pregnancy less than perfect.

The authors, Jane Bennett and Alexandra Pope, interviewed thousands of 
women to illustrate the Pill's many downsides, showing that most women 
take the Pill unquestioningly because we believe that suppressing our 
bodies' natural hormones - our fertility - with synthetic hormones, is 
actually the natural thing to do.

'For young women exploring their contraceptive choices today, the Pill 
is often presented as the only responsible way to manage their 
fertility,' they write. 'The Pill, by its hormonal action, impacts 
profoundly on all our organs and bodily systems in order to have its 
effect on our fertility.'

Certainly had I known that taking the Pill for four to five years would 
result in a five-year wait to get my menstrual cycle back to normal, I 
never would have taken it in the first place.

At 17 my skin broke out in some very ugly acne. Having been spared this 
curse during puberty, I optimistically expected a future of unblemished 
skin. Instead, I suddenly found myself with sore, inflamed patches 
across my cheeks, chin and jawline.

I was embarrassed and it felt uncomfortable. Make-up clogged around the 
spots. Even the Max Factor Pan Sticks we were so fond of back then 
didn't provide enough coverage. Topical creams simply dried out the skin 
around the blemishes, surrounding the red bumps with flaky, scaly skin.

I went to ask the advice of my GP, probably my first visit since 
childhood inoculations. He was in his mid-30s, and I couldn't help 
noticing he had a few pimples straining through his ginger beard himself.

Would I be cursed with acne all my adult life? Thankfully not: in a few 
minutes he had written out a prescription for a contraceptive pill 
called Dianette.

Dianette appeared on the UK market in 1987. By 1990 its acne-clearing 
qualities had received the thumbs up from the medical profession and the 
media.

By February 1997, around the same time it was first prescribed for me, a 
17-year-old girl from Great Yarmouth died of a blood clot on the lung 
six weeks into a course of Dianette.

Christina Robinson's death was the fifth case in ten years in which 
Dianette had been linked to a blood clot. Like me, Robinson was 
prescribed Dianette to treat her acne. 

Last week, a study in the British Medical Journal of 26 different oral 
contraceptives linked the Pill with an increased risk of developing deep 
vein thrombosis (DVT), supporting a number of previous studies.

With Dianette, the risk increases by a staggering seven times.

My mother had heard about the dangers of Dianette early on and began to 
complain about my using it. 

I smoked and was to take several long distance flights during my gap 
year, both of which contribute to the risk of a DVT, and she was worried.

Who was she to brief against my body when a GP had prescribed this 
medication? That's my mother the paediatrician, by the way, who ran 
family planning clinics for many years while I was growing up.

I certainly got my comeuppance for rebelling against her wisdom and 
experience in this instance. But at the time, as far as I was concerned, 
taking the Pill had nothing but up sides - an additional benefit for me 
was that it suppressed my unruly cycle.

My periods had always been long, heavy and unspeakably painful. I would 
wake up at around 4am on the first morning with an ache in my lower back 
that felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to it while I was 
sleeping. I would double up, hugging my swollen tummy, for a few hours.

As soon as daylight came I would go in search of some Ibuprofen and take 
far more than the recommended dosage for the next eight or ten days.

The Pill regulated the length and flow of my periods to manageable 
levels, though it never helped much with the pain. I could also take it 
back to back to avoid periods altogether, which I did for eight months 
during my gap year.

I spent the next three years with clear skin and practically period free.

What wasn't to like? The weight-gain, for starters. I wasn't skinny in 
the first place, so the additional half stone was not welcome. On the 
upside, my boobs were bigger and if I ever needed to drop some weight 
quickly to squeeze into a certain outfit, I could just come off the Pill 
for a week or two.

Nearly all of my friends spent some time in their late teens and early 
20s on the Pill. Ten years on, every one of us has a story to tell about 
our experience with the most popular contraception in the world.

Some hated it immediately, when they realised their sudden weeps and 
rages were Pill-induced. Others had difficulty conceiving when they came 
off it.

Of those who realised the Pill had wiped out their sex drive, one friend 
moved from Microgynon to Dianette to Ovranette in search of her lost 
libido, only finally recovering it when she stopped taking the Pill 
altogether.

Another tried various brands including Ovranette and Triordinal, both of 
which, she remembers, 'killed' her sexual desire.

Several raced through three or four different brands of Pill, certain 
they would eventually find one which didn't wipe out their sex drive.

A friend who took Microgynon for three years from the age of 18 
remembers that it sent her 'mental' each month. At the time she blamed 
it on the unsettled nature of university life.

Another started on Ovranette while at sixth-form college and noticed her 
usual pre-menstrual low-level moodswings escalate into angry, tearful 
tantrums.

Looking back, my first two years at university were far from calm. I 
attributed-this to the combined stresses of study, late nights out and 
far too many takeaways and alcopops. Bennett and Pope might well suggest 
that my irritable and dramatic behaviour at university was down to the 
Dianette.

Ultimately, I decided to come off it simply because I reasoned that it 
couldn't be good for you to pump fake hormones into your body every 
single day for the foreseeable future. I tried to stop twice. The first 
time was when I was 21 and moving to Spain, but my skin flared up almost 
immediately and I returned to the Dianette.

At 23 I managed a year off it, but then I moved to London and, once 
again, my skin became spotty, and vanity overruled my good intentions.

In the end I stopped taking Dianette for good in the summer of 2004. 
Five whole years later, I have just had three manageable, regular 
periods in a row for the first time since starting the Pill.

The first couple of years of infrequent periods passed without my 
noticing. I then started to wonder if I had Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, 
which affects one in ten women and can, but doesn't necessarily, impact 
upon fertility.

A blood test ruled this out. It was then suggested to me I might suffer 
from hypothyroidism, a symptom of which is irregular periods. It turned 
out that this was the case, but whether the sluggish thyroid or the lack 
of periods came first, no one has been able to confirm.  

Missing periods seemed like a small sacrifice for those years of smooth, 
clear skin. But now when I read about women being advised to take 
fertility 'MoTs' at 30, an age I am fast approaching, I worry that maybe 
I made the wrong choice after all. What if taking the Pill does affect 
your ability to conceive?

Bennett and Pope's analysis of the fallout of our addiction to the Pill 
is bleak. Probably most worrying are the various ways it can impact upon 
fertility. According to the book: ' Contraception methods based on the 
idea that your cycles and fertility are a problem, except when you want 
to conceive, are by definition not going to be fertility friendly.'

They also link the contraceptive to thrombosis, depression, liver 
function, weight gain, a loss of libido, migraines, DVT, brittle bones, 
pulmonary embolism and even compromising the health of your unborn baby, 
should you conceive shortly after stopping.

At present, the British Government is exploring alternatives to the 
Pill, including the jab and the implant, both of which use synthetic 
hormones to suppress fertility, just as the Pill does.

However, as they are introduced into your system semi-permanently, they 
are a more effective contraceptive than the Pill.

The jab is usually injected into a muscle in the bottom and lasts for 12 
weeks. The implant is a small tube which is implanted into the upper arm 
and lasts for up to three years. The Pill is described as being 99 per 
cent effective, but only if taken correctly - missed Pills or illness 
can mean you aren't protected.

More than six women in 100 conceive in this way each year.

Although the jab and implant undoubtedly offer effective contraception, 
is there still a high price to pay for the women who take it?

One of the methods being trialled, which may be available on the NHS by 
next summer, is a self-injection called Depo-Provera, even though a 
significant risk of irreversible loss of bone density comes with its use.

So what are the alternatives? There are condoms and diaphragms, and a 
lower dose hormone treatment called the Nuva Ring, which many women 
prefer to the Pill.

Bennett and Pope encourage a return to natural methods - monitoring our 
cycles to find out when we're at our most fertile. That remains a risky 
business, though, if you can't deal with an unplanned pregnancy.

There is no perfect solution. But the Pill has been around for half a 
century: it's time we stopped thinking of it as the default contraceptive.

. The Pill: Are You Sure It's For You? by Jane Bennett & Alexandra Pope, 
is out on September 3 (Orion Books, £7.99).

See the blog at: http://dispel-the-illusion.blogspot.com/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Pro-life Groups Organize in Response to 'Abortion Mandate'
*http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=97186 
<http://ss.all.org/link.php?M=18096&N=336&L=2391&F=H>
EWTN
Responding to President Barack Obama's efforts to rally sympathetic 
religious groups to back his proposed health care legislation, pro-life 
groups have organized prayer campaigns and issued protests of the 
proposal's "abortion mandate."

*Amnesty International Supporter Leaves over Abortion
*http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=97185 
<http://ss.all.org/link.php?M=18096&N=336&L=2392&F=H>
EWTN
The British woman Fiorella Nash owes the release of her father from 
prison in Malta in the 1970s to Amnesty International. For Nash, 
supporting the organization over the years was a given, but recently she 
decided to suspend her support because of group's pro-abortion agenda.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
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