Canadian Women Sue Birth Control Pill Manufacturer

TORONTO, June 8, 2010 (LifeSIteNews.com) - A group of Canadian women is suing Bayer Pharmaceutical, claiming that the contraceptive pill manufacturer does not adequately inform users of the potential serious health risks associated with the oral contraceptives Yaz and Yasmin.The legal firm of Siskinds LLP is representing the group. It will present evidence that the hormonal birth control pills cause conditions ranging from decreased bone density to strokes, gallbladder problems leading to surgery, pulmonary embolisms, and numerous other serious health issues. Matthew Baer, legal counsel at Siskinds, told the media that he has evidence about the health risks of the product, which uses drospirenone, a synthetic progestin that has been linked to over 25,000 reported cases of adverse effects and several deaths. "We're hearing about pulmonary embolisms, deep vein thrombosis, stroke and, a more unusual one, people having issues with their gallbladders," he told CTV. The lawsuit alleges that Bayer downplayed the serious side effects of the pills, failed to conduct proper research before releasing them onto the market, and failed adequately to warn patients and doctors about the increased health risk associated with use of Yasmin and Yaz. Over 100 lawsuits have been filed in the U.S. against Bayer by Yasmin and Yaz users. Several medical advisory groups have called for an outright ban on the contraceptives. The Swiss Federation of Service to Patients recently called for a ban on Yaz, Yasmin and other contraceptive pills containing drospirenone, after the drug was linked to the death of a 17-year-old German girl who died in a Swiss hospital. This was the third serious incident reported in Switzerland last year involving such contraceptives. In each case, the women suffered pulmonary embolisms. In May of 2009, a woman ended up severely disabled after a three-month coma, and in September another woman died. This past weekend a coalition of pro-life groups, led by the American Life League (ALL), sponsored "The Pill Kills" day. The annual event, which took place June 5, seeks to provide women with information on the dangers of hormonal birth control that the pill manufacturers suppress. This year's "The Pill Kills" day added an environmental note to the health concerns of contraceptive drugs. Under the title “Protest the Pill Day: The Pill Kills the Environment” organizers presented the often hidden negative effects of hormonal contraceptives on the ecosystem. Katie Walker, Communications Director for ALL, observed that, "In a world obsessed with 'going green,' we hope to use this hypocritical acceptance of birth control – which is a notorious pollutant – to open up a conversation about the pill that you won’t hear anywhere else." “Scientists are discovering ‘intersex’ fish in various areas around the world,” said Marie Hahnenberg, The Pill Kills project director. “Studies in the United States, from California to Maryland (including the Potomac River), have revealed that some male fish have been feminized by the vast quantities of synthetic estrogen in the water.” “It’s about time women were made aware that the birth control they are taking could have negative consequences on their health and on the environment,” said Judie Brown, president and cofounder of American Life League. "They deserve the truth – regardless of political pressure to conceal it."

26 Pro-Life Groups Unite in Nationwide Protest Against Birth Control Pill

The Birth Control Pill Documentary from T Herbert on Vimeo.

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WASHINGTON, D.C., June 1, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – American Life League and 26 other pro-life organizations have joined together for “Protest the Pill Day: The Pill Kills the Environment” on June 5. At the national event launch at 11 a.m. outside of Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, D.C., Dr. James Joyce, M.D., Jennifer Giroux, R.N., and pro-life activists Marie Hahnenberg, Michael Hichborn and Katie Walker will testify to the harmful effects birth control has on our environment and our health. The event will draw attention to the environmental and health hazards of the nation’s most commonly used contraceptive method – the birth control pill – which turns 50 years old this year. “Scientists are discovering ‘intersex’ fish in various areas around the world,” said Hahnenberg, The Pill Kills project director. “Studies in the United States, from California to Maryland (including the Potomac River), have revealed that some male fish have been feminized by the vast quantities of synthetic estrogen in the water.” Participating organizations say it is time to expose what the pharmaceutical industry has been hiding. “It’s about time women were made aware that the birth control they are taking could have negative consequences on their health and on the environment,” said Judie Brown, president and cofounder of American Life League.”They deserve the truth – regardless of political pressure to conceal it.”…

Hormonal Birth Control Pill Reduces Women’s Sexual Function: Study

May 7, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – At the same time as the hormonal birth control pill turns 50, researchers have found a link between it and sexual dysfunction in the women who take it. In a German study, 32 per cent of over 1000 women surveyed who took the pill, were found to have some form of sexual dysfunction. “Our data show that hormonal contraception in particular, was associated with lower desire and arousal scores when compared with other contraceptives,” the researchers, led by Lisa-Maria Wallwiener, MD, of the University of Heidelberg, wrote. The group experiencing the lowest levels of sexual dysfunction was that using non-hormonal forms of birth control. “The effect of hormones is there, we have an association. But, at this time, we cannot say if this is causality,” said co-author Dr. Alfred Mueck, professor in the Centre of Women's Health at the University of Tubingen. “We can only say there might be an effect of hormonal contraceptives (on sexual functioning). But this is only one factor beside other factors that can influence sexual function.”A study, published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, examined results from 1086 female German medical students and found that those taking birth control pills and other forms of hormonal contraception were at the highest risk for low libido and arousal problems. Lack of sexual desire is the main problem that women report, along with lack of orgasm, an inability to become aroused, and painful intercourse.The researchers believe that the pill can lower circulating levels of testosterone, the hormone needed to stimulate sexual desire and regulate blood flow to the genitals, in both sexes.The journal’s editor-in-chief, Dr. Irwin Goldstein, wrote, “When you fool around with your sex steroid hormones, you gamble with your sex life.”“The value of this paper is to remind us that 300 million users of the pill (worldwide) are putting themselves at risk (of sexual changes), with extremely limited informed consent that this is happening,” Goldstein said. The women, from six different medical schools, filled out online questionnaires designed to identify problems with sexual function within the past four weeks based on the “Female Sexual Function Index,” a validated scale consisting of 19 questions on the physical details of sexual function. Of the group, about 90 per cent used contraception, and almost all had been sexually active in the previous four weeks. Eighty per cent were in a “stable relationship,” that was defined as having had the same sex partner for at least the past six months. 70 per cent of the women surveyed used hormonal contraceptives. Since their introduction in the early 1960s, hormonal contraceptives have become one of the two most popular methods of artificial contraception, next to sterilization, with an estimated 300 million women using them worldwide. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the pill on May 9, 1960. Elaine Tyler May, 62, a University of Minnesota history professor and author of the book “America and the Pill” told Associated Press this week that the expectations held for the pill in the early 60s have failed to materialize. “Married couples could have happier sex with more freedom and less fear. The divorce rate might go down and there would be no more unwanted pregnancies,” she said. “None of those things happened, not the optimistic hopes or the pessimistic fears of sexual anarchy.” Despite May’s assurance about “sexual anarchy,” however, statistics show that while the number of people getting married continues to fall in most western countries where the use of the pill is common, those same countries have seen an explosion of sexually transmitted diseases and out-of-wedlock pregnancies. Nearly half of all pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended and nearly half of those end in abortion. Britain has been especially susceptible to the sexual anarchy that May says has not happened, with one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in the developed world. While schools have become a common source of free contraception for girls, without parent’s knowledge or consent, figures released this week by the Office of National Statistics show that about 40,000 British girls under 18 became pregnant in 2008, or 40 per 1000. A report issued by the Relationships Foundation, a British think tank, said that family breakdown is costing the British taxpayer about £41.7 billion per year. This estimate includes £12.38 billion in tax credits and benefits, £4.27 billion in housing support, and £13.68 billion in health and social care.

New PRI Video Debunks Food Supply Fears: There's Lots of It

FRONT ROYAL, Virginia, May 3, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Population Research Institute (PRI) has just released the third video in its YouTube cartoon series, designed to refute the idea of overpopulation with science — and stick figures.  Contrary to claims advanced by population control advocates, the latest video reveals data indicating that world hunger is not caused by a lack of food, but by wars, lack of transportation, and economic factors.

To date the series has garnered well over 200,000 views on YouTube, and has made PRI one of the more popular non-profit channels on the video channel. The latest video is available at PRI’s web site. At just under two minutes long, the video uses data from the UN Food and Agricultural Organization and the World Food Programme to explain world hunger and reveal how overpopulation is not causing it.  All this, while at the same time remaining simple, humorous and - most importantly - geek-friendly. “We’re excited to offer another great installment of our highly popular YouTube series,” says Steven Mosher, PRI’s president.  “We can help educate young and old alike through this online video medium in the blessings of people, and do an end run around the “lamestream” media’s fixation on the outdated theory of overpopulation.” “We also have a web site devoted solely to these videos: www.overpopulationisamyth.com,” says Colin Mason, Director of Media Production at PRI.  “The site retains the aesthetic of the videos, while getting into a little more detail of the science itself.” “We’re very excited about the site,” explains Joel Bockrath, PRI’s Vice President for Operations.  “All of our content is downloadable. We think this could be a valuable resource for students and teachers especially, who may feel alone defending a sometimes unpopular position.”

The Pill's Deadly Affair with HIV/AIDS

April 21, 2010 (pop,org) - The world's deadliest killer, HIV/AIDS, and the Birth Control Pill have been carrying on a secret and deadly "love affair" for decades.  While women swallowed their “freedom” with the morning orange juice, studies that should have made global headlines yellowed in medical journals, unknown to the general public. Only doctors learned about the pills deadly affair with HIV/AIDS, and they were too busy writing prescriptions for hormonal contraceptives to talk.More than 50 medical studies, to date, have investigated the association of hormonal contraceptive use and HIV/AIDS infection. The studies show that hormonal contraceptives—the oral pill and Depo-Provera—increase almost all known risk factors for HIV, from upping a woman's risk of infection, to increasing the replication of the HIV virus, to speeding the debilitating and deadly progression of the disease.¹  A medical trial published in the journal AIDS in 2009—monitoring HIV progression by the need for antiretroviral drugs (ART)—saw “the risk of becoming eligible for ART was almost 70% higher in women taking the pills and more than 50% higher in women using DMPA [Depo-Provera] than in women using IUDS.”² Studies aside, it is well known that HIV/AIDS strikes more women than men.  Some would argue that this is a result of the desire of men for young—and presumably uninfected, sexual partners.  Few are willing to discuss a more obvious explanation, namely, that the Pill and Injectables render women particularly vulnerable to HIV/AIDS.How serious is the problem?  Oral contraceptives and Depo-Provera are among the world's most popular and prevalent contraceptive methods. According to one study, “More than 100 million women worldwide use hormonal contraception.”³ In America, hormonal contraceptive rates are over 52% in unmarried women—those at greatest risk of HIV/AIDS.  Moreover, in the interest of lowering the birth rate, the UNFPA and USAID continue unloading boatloads of hormonal contraceptives on Africa, Haiti and other AIDS-ravaged developing nations. The best meta-analysis done to date, done by Dr. Chia Wang and her colleagues, surveyed the consensus results of the 28 best published studies since 1985.  They found that the “significant association between oral contraceptive use and HIV-1 seroprevalence or seroincidence …  increased as study quality increased.” In fact, “Of the best studies, 6 of 8 detected an increased risk of HIV infection associated with OC [oral contraceptive] use.”⁴

On the National Scale

Moreover, Wang's results showed even more of a Pill/HIV link when they limited studies to those conducted on African populations. This is significant for two reasons:  First, sub-Saharan Africa is home to the world's earliest and largest heterosexual HIV/AIDS epidemic, which to date has infected an estimated 22.4 million⁵ people.  This is two-thirds of the total number of infections worldwide.Second, sub-Saharan Africa has endured decades of contraception-focused population control programs and countless hormonal-contraceptive trials. “Among the six countries hardest hit by the HIV/AIDS epidemic … two in three users in the six countries rely on the OC (oral contraceptives) or injectables,”⁶ said Iqbal Shah of the World Health Organization.Likewise, Thailand, praised for a contraceptive prevalence of 79.2% in 2000 and upwards of 70% today, is a land where, “More than one-in-100 adults in this country of 65 million people is infected with HIV.” ⁷ Among Thai women, “Oral contraception is the most popular method.”^{8 9} On the other hand, Japan's HIV rate is, at 0.01%, one of the lowest in the world.10  In this context, it is important to note that the birth control pill was illegal in Japan until 1999, and even today only 1% of Japanese women use oral contraception.  Similarly, the predominantly Catholic Philippines, with a longstanding popular resistance to contraception, boasts an HIV “prevalence rate of only 0.02%.”¹¹

Hormonal Changes Heighten HIV Risk

The studies that demonstrate a connection between hormonal contraceptives and HIV/AIDS infection postulate a number of mechanisms at work.  First, let's review the basics.  The Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), is carried in warm blood or sexual fluids. It infects through fragile, inflamed, bleeding or needle-pricked tissue, attacks specific T-cells in the immune system, and causes the incurable, debilitating condition known as AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome). Hormonal contraceptives increase almost all known risk factors for HIV infection. Studies have found that hormonal contraceptives “alter the microenvironment of the female” ¹²  and boost the cell count of those specific cells that HIV uses to infect and proliferate (HIV co-receptor CCR5 in cervical CD4+ T lymphocytes). What is more, a progesterone side effect known to American women as “breakthrough bleeding,” is caused when hormonal contraceptives excessively thicken the uterine lining. The large, bleeding surface of the uterus creates an ideal site for HIV infection. Progesterone also has an immunosuppressant effect, which means that women using hormonal contraceptives have less in the way of natural defenses against HIV and other STDs, such as chlamydial infection or genital herpes (HSV-2).13 14 In one study, “HSV-2 infection itself more than tripled the risk of HIV infection.”¹⁵ In the vagina, increased blood and the independent hormonal effects of the Pill eliminate the natural pH acid protection against infection. What is more, a famous study of rhesus macaques found that hormonal contraceptives thin the vaginal walls and markedly increase SIV infection (the monkey equivalent of HIV).¹⁶ Vaginal dryness, another side effect of hormonal contraceptives, is not only painful but also makes one prone to tears and abrasions—fertile sites for infection.One study points out, “On a cellular level, hormonal contraceptives have been associated with cervical and vaginal inflammation.”¹⁷ Further, hormonal birth control causes the fragile cervical tissue to grow beyond its natural bounds and replace what would normally be thick, protective membrane. This “cervical ectopy” is dangerous because the cervix's thin surface is the main site of HIV infection.¹⁸ Given all these different ways that hormonal contraception promotes HIV/AIDS infection, it is not at all surprising that several studies show women on the pill, Depo-Provera, etc., are more likely to be infected with not just one, but several variants or strains of HIV.  This “in turn leads to higher levels of viral replication and more rapid HIV-1 disease progression.”^{19 20 21} Women on hormonal contraceptives are not only more likely to contract HIV/AIDS, they are also more likely to pass it along to their sexual partners.  The three studies which focused on “the impact of hormonal contraception on cervical shedding of the cell-associated virus”²² all found that HIV-positive women on hormonal contraceptives are far more likely shed HIV in their body fluids.   High-dose pill users were over 12 times more likely to shed the HIV virus than women not using contraception, low-dose users were almost 4 times more likely, and Depo-Provera users were 3 times more likely.²³

The Pill Pushers Push Back

Some dismiss out of hand the impressive body of scientific research demonstrating a  Pill/HIV link. They quote from the handful of studies and highly selective trials which claim to find “no increase in HIV risk among users of oral contraceptives and Depo-Provera.”²⁴ The problem with many of these studies, such as Mati et al. 1995, Kapiga et al. 1998, and Sinei et al. 1996 is that they were conducted with and through “family planning clinics.” Since the chief business of these clinics is the promotion, sale, and distribution of contraceptives, the possibility of bias is undeniable.  Who would trust Marlboro to monitor a study on the link between cigarettes and cancer? Moreover, the handful of studies that deny a link between hormonal contraception and increased risk of contracting HIV are dwarfed by the more than 50 studies that have not only found such a link, but convincingly explained precisely what it is about such contraception that contributes to the spread of the disease.  Yet population control groups continue to lobby for more contraception, not less.  Take Dr. Willard Cates, president of the Institute for Family Health of Family Health International (FHI), one of the major purveyors of hormonal contraception to the developing world.  Wrote Cates to the Journal of American Medical Association, “Preventing unintended pregnancies among HIV-infected women who do not currently wish to become pregnant is an important and cost effective way of preventing new HIV infections of infants. … More must be done to ensure access to safe and effective contraception for HIV-infected women.”²⁵ Obviously, FHI's concern here is less to prevent the infection of preborn infants, than to continue to contracept as many women as possible with your tax dollars and mine.  What the organization refuses to admit, however, is that by doing so it is arguably contributing to the spread of the HIV virus.  How many lives are being lost because we continue to ship boatloads of hormonal contraceptives to a continent and to countries laboring under an HIV/AIDS pandemic?   Isn't it time that we stopped?

UK Woman Dies of Blood Clots after Ten Years on the Pill

LIVERPOOL, April 9, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A 28 year-old UK woman has died of deep vein thrombosis after taking birth control pills for a decade, the Daily Mail reports. Jenna Morris, a bank worker who was planning to marry her live-in fiancé Luke Hawson, was sent home sick from work by doctors who told her she was suffering from kidney stones. She died suddenly when blood clots that formed in her legs spread to her lungs. Her sister Suzanne confirmed that doctors said the clots were “possibly caused by the contraceptive pill.” “I am still in shock,” she said. “I still cannot believe what happened. I keep thinking it is a dream. “People should be aware because it could happen to anyone. Jenna was our beautiful pink princess and a fantastic sister. I miss her so much.”Studies are increasingly showing connections between hormonal contraceptives and a range of serious health risks. In 2005, Ortho McNeil, a subsidiary of Johnson and Johnson, the manufacturer of the hormonal birth control patch Ortho Evra, admitted a link between their product and stroke and death by blood clots. In 2003, the journal Archives of Internal Medicine reported a study showing that women who use birth control pills greatly increase their risk of potentially life threatening blood clots when they travel by air. In 2007, researchers at the University of Aberdeen published a study in the British Medical Journal showing that women who took birth control pills for over 8 years increased their risk of cancer by 22 per cent. In 2008, researchers at the University of Ghent found that, based upon a study of 1,300 healthy women aged 35 to 55 living in a small town in Belgium, women who take oral contraceptives may have more plaque buildup in their arteries. In the same year, a study published in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, conducted by the Department of Biomedical Sciences and Technologies at the University of Udine, in Italy, concluded that the new, “third-generation” oral contraceptives elevate the levels of  “C-reactive protein” (CRP) in women, which in turn raises their risk of cardiovascular disease.

United Nations Report Warns of Dire Effects of Underpopulation, Fertility Decline

New York, NY (LifeNews.com/CFAM) -- A recently-released United Nations (UN) report finds that the global trend of fertility decline and population aging will have devastating economic and societal effects on the developing world, particularly on women who are now targeted by UN agencies to further reduce fertility. “World Population Ageing 2009” was published in December 2009 by the UN Population Division, a statistics research branch within the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA). Because fertility is decreasing in the developing world, there will be fewer and fewer workers to support aging citizens, the report found. The ratio of workers to older non-workers dropped from 12 to 9 between 1950 and 2009. By 2050, there will be only 4 workers supporting every retiree: “The reduction of potential support ratios has important implications for social security schemes, particularly for pay-as-you-go pension systems under which taxes on current workers pay the pensions of retirees."The effects of fertility decline and population aging will hit the developing world hardest, according to the report, because, "The pace of population ageing is faster in developing countries than in developed countries. Consequently, developing countries will have less time to adjust to the consequences of population ageing.” Furthermore, “ageing in developing countries is taking place at lower levels of socio-economic development than has been the case for developed countries.” Evidence in the report shows that UN programs aimed at reducing fertility in the developed world will do the most harm to women who will have fewer children to support them in their old age. Since women live longer than men, they make up the majority of older persons. This is compounded by the fact that “Older persons living alone are at greater risk of experiencing social isolation and economic deprivation and may therefore require special support." Social support, however, is often unavailable in the developing world where women are least likely to have social security from the state. What recourse they have to social safety nets has been diminished by the global economic downturn, which “brought about sharp reductions in the value of pension funds in many countries in the world.” Fertility reduction in the developing world is still pushed by UN agencies such as the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and the World Health Organization, as well as non-governmental organizations such as International Planned Parenthood Federation and Women Deliver, a new organization that is garnering significant funding from developed countries to promote fertility control. The report offered little evidence of a possible reversal of the global aging trend, stating that “Population ageing is unprecedented, a process without parallel in the history of humanity. Population ageing is pervasive since it is affecting nearly all the countries of the world. …and “Population ageing is enduring. ...As long as old-age mortality continues to decline and fertility remains low, the proportion of older persons will continue to increase." The UN Population Division – an entity distinct from UNFPA – has traditionally been regarded as more objective and less agenda-driven than other UN agencies. In its most recent State of the World Population Report, UNFPA called for increased efforts to reduce fertility to combat climate change.

Women Sue Birth Control Manufacturer over Serious Health Issues

Indiana, February 22, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Over 50 women in Indiana have filed lawsuits against Bayer Pharmaceuticals charging that use of the company’s Yaz and Yasmin hormonal birth control pills caused conditions ranging from gallbladder-related injuries to strokes.There are now over 25,000 similar reported cases across the United States.In December LSN reported that over 100 lawsuits have been filed in the U.S. against Bayer, alleging that the company has overstated the benefits of the drugs, downplayed the side-effects, and failed to conduct proper research before releasing them onto the market. William Riley, the lawyer who is representing many of the women, told Fox 59 that he believes the company was aware of the danger that their product presented. "They're not doing adequate clinical studies and they are aggressively marketing this to women, young women," he said. “We’re seeing an increasing awareness of the very real health risks associated with hormonal birth control,” said Marie Hahnenberg, project director of American Life League’s The Pill Kills project. “For years, criticism of birth control has been a sacrosanct topic, but the victims of hormonal birth control are too numerous to ignore any longer.” American Life League’ s annual Protest the Pill Day on June 5 seeks to educate women on the dangers of hormonal birth control – a class one carcinogen on the same level as tobacco – through protests and activism at birth control retailers nationwide.“The birth control pill, patch, IUD, and similar birth control products can cause blood clots, heart attacks and pulmonary embolisms,” Hahnenberg said. “How many lawsuits, injuries and even deaths could be prevented if only women were properly warned, or better yet, if these dangerous drugs were taken off the market?”

Parliament Report Sounds Alarm: Low Birth Rate + Aging = Financial Crisis

OTTAWA, February 18, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - One of the first official reports to indicate the disastrous consequences of Canada’s long-term below, replacement birth rate was released in Ottawa today by Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page.  While pro-life leaders have been warning of the impending disaster for years as abortion and contraception have wreaked demographic havoc, the financial fallout is beginning to strike home to governments worldwide. Taking into account Canada’s steady 1.5 birth rate, far below the 2.1 replacement rate, along with the accompanying ageing of the population, the report warns that “a major demographic transition is underway.” “During this time, the ageing of the population will move an increasing share of Canadians out of their prime working- age and into their retirement years,” says the report. “With an older population, spending pressures in areas such as health care and elderly benefits are projected to intensify. At the same time, slower labour force growth is projected to restrain growth in the economy, which will in turn slow the growth of government revenue.” The financial result is devastating, says the report.  “The Government’s current fiscal structure is not sustainable over the long term,” says the report.  In order to compensate for the low birth rate the report says there must be very substantial increases in taxation and major cuts to government services, amounting to 14 to 28 billion dollars. The parliamentary report follows about two and a half years after a Canadian Senate committee released a report on demographics, forebodingly entitled "The Demographic Time Bomb: Mitigating the Effects of Demographic Change in Canada". In that report the auditor general of Canada was reported as saying: “The demographic die is cast: there is little we can do to reverse or even slow the ag(e)ing of Canada’s population over the coming decades. But it is certainly within our power to plan better for it. And better planning begins with better information concerning the long-term fiscal implications of the coming demographic shift.” LifeSiteNews (LSN) spoke with demographer Robert Sassone, PhD, for some perspective on the findings of the report.  Sassone, author of the “Handbook on Popoulation,” explained that the situation boils down to this: “Too many needy people and too few workers means big trouble ahead for Canada.” According to the UN World Population Prospects, the 2004 Revision, Canada’s births during the 1950-1965 baby boom years averaged 436,000 per year.  “These are the people who will soon retire, leaving the workforce and joining those needing social security payments and other assistance from the government,” explained Dr. Sassone.  “In contrast, less than 400,000 were born every year since.” This much smaller number of people entering the workforce will now be faced with paying the taxes for the benefits of the much larger number of baby boomers reaching retirement age each year beginning in 2015.  The number retiring each year will be substantially greater than the number entering the work force each year, so the total number of workers will decline as the amount of money required for retirees skyrockets.” Unfortunately the scenario is a spiraling one and gets successively worse.  “Another serious problem is that as these baby boomers age, they will require far more medical care, so Canada’s medical system will have to cope with a vast increase in demand and a substantial decline in medical personnel,” says Sassone.  “But these near future problems will be tiny compared to what we face after 2030.  The increased taxes necessary due to the birth dearth and the desire for new technology such as computers, Ipods, cell phones, et al. make it harder for young families to afford new babies.” The solution to the problem says Sassone will not be found in immigration.  He explained: “In the past Canada could solve this problem of too few babies, then too few workers by encouraging massive immigration, but can no longer do so for four reasons.  1) These problems caused by past low birth rate make Canada a far less attractive country to immigrate to; 2) the number of babies born in the world has declined every year since 1985-1990 so there are fewer young workers seeking to immigrate; 3) new technology and the improving world economy have enabled most formerly poor countries to improve living conditions so that fewer want to immigrate, and 4) Europe and the US are now competing with Canada for large numbers of immigrants, making it harder for Canada to attract immigrants.”The key to solving the problem lies in increasing the fertility rate.  And beyond making abortion illegal, which will help, Dr. Sassone said, “we must change the attitudes of people towards having babies.” The mainstream media, and especially the entertainment media is key in the battle.  “The media for 40 years has been trying to diminish the fertility rate,” said Sassone.  “I have attended meetings starting in 1970 where writers and producers were invited and told they had to reduce fertility to save the world and were offered a prize for the best TV program in the next year to reduce fertility.” Such ventures may sound conspiratorial, however the evidence for them abounds.  One such group “Population Communications International” boasts of their efforts on their website: http://www.population.org/

Study: Low-Dose Birth Control Pills Decrease Bone Density in Young Women

SEATTLE, January 21, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A new study showing a link between long-term use of oral contraceptives and a decrease in bone density in women under the age of 30 has found that the modern low-dose forms of estrogen pills have the greatest risk of harming a woman's bone density. The study, published in the January issue of Contraception Journal, measured bone mineral density (BMD) of the hip, spine, and whole body to analyze how both the duration of taking the contraceptive pill and the estrogen dose affected bone density in young women. Researchers studied 606 women, aged 14 to 30, and found a 5.9 percent decrease in bone mineral density of the spine in young women taking birth control pills for longer than one year, as compared with those not taking oral contraceptives. BMD of the whole body was shown to be decreased by 2.3 percent in those taking the pill. Low-dose estrogen pills containing less than 30 micrograms ethinyl estradiol, which include such brands as the Yaz, Yasmin, Levlen, Desogen and others, were found to cause the most bone loss in the study. "I think the evidence is still emerging on this association, but our findings suggest that low-dose oral contraceptives with long-term use have some impact on bone density," said study author Delia Scholes, a senior investigator at the Group Health Research Institute of Group Health Cooperative in Seattle. Background information in the study notes that most of the estimated 12 million oral contraceptive (OC) users in the U.S. are under 30 years of age and in the critical period for bone mass accumulation. Research has shown that estrogen plays an important role in the development and maintenance of bone mass, which has caused concern since hormonal contraceptives alter the amount of estrogen a woman's body naturally produces. Though the research report states that the long-term impact of bone loss from oral contraceptives is unknown, or if stopping use of OCs could reverse the negative effects, the study suggests that use of the pill could lead to bone problems such as osteoporosis or fractures later in life. Scholes states, “If oral contraceptives are indeed causing the approximately 5 percent lower spine bone density for oral contraceptive users … and if that impact is not reversed with oral contraceptive discontinuation or with other factors that may occur across the life span, a 5 percent lower bone density after menopause is associated with approximately 50 percent more osteoporotic fractures.” This study augments earlier work showing that hormonal contraceptives negatively affect bone density. In 2004, the United States Food and Drug Administration and the United Kingdom Committee on the Safety of Medicines cited bone mineral density loss when they issued warnings on the use of the progestin-only injectable contraceptives.

Why is National Cancer Institute Covering up Link?: Abortion Breast Cancer Coalition Letter to Congress

WASHINGTON, January 21, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The US National Cancer Institute (NIC) has again denied the link between abortion and breast cancer to a Globe and Mail reporter, despite one of their leading researchers being named as co-author on a study that admitted up to a 40 per cent increased risk of breast cancer associated with induced abortion. In 2003, Louise Brinton, NCI’s chief of the Hormonal and Reproductive Epidemiology branch, was an organizer of the NCI workshop in 2003 that told women it is “well established” that “abortion is not associated with increased breast cancer risk.” Then, in 2009, Brinton was co-author of study, published in April last year by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, in which she admitted that abortion raises breast cancer risk. The study listed abortion among the “known or suspected risk factors” found to be associated with a 40 per cent increased risk of breast cancer in women under age 45 in the Seattle region. The observed risk elevation found was matter-of-factly reported to be “consistent with the effects observed in previous studies on younger women.” Despite the admission by one of their leading researchers, the NCI website continues to carry the “well established” claim that there is no connection between abortion and breast cancer. On January 8 the Globe and Mail’s Gloria Galloway wrote that she received another denial from the NCI when she attempted to receive confirmation on the study. The NCI’s Michael Miller told Galloway in an email, “NCI has no comment on this study.” Instead, Miller forwarded a link to the NCI’s official statement denying the breast cancer link that refers back to the 2003 workshop. Further requests for information, Galloway said, went unanswered. At the same time, the Washington-based Coalition for Abortion/Breast Cancer has issued a letter to Congress asking that the NCI be called to the carpet for what the coalition says is NCI’s ongoing efforts to ignore or cover up the evidence supporting the link. “We ask Congress to exercise its proper oversight authority and investigate the US National Cancer Institute’s failure to protect American women by issuing timely warnings about breast cancer risks,” the letter said. The letter is signed by Karen Malek, the group’s president, Dr. Joel Brind, a professor of endocrinology and deputy chair of Biology and Environmental Sciences at City University of New York, and Dr. Angela Lanfranchi, Clinical Assistant Professor of Surgery at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. It says that thousands of women’s lives are put at risk “in part due to confusing and conflicting messages from our own National Cancer Institute.” The letter states that researchers invited to participate in NCI’s 2003 workshop, despite the claim that it would comprise a “comprehensive review” of the existing data, were explicitly prohibited from reviewing current data demonstrating a link between abortion and breast cancer. “Women need to be aware that abortion can affect both her breast cancer risk and health of future children,” the letter said. It notes that the NCI website was updated on January 12 this year, after news about the recent study broke, and now includes the claim that “the evidence overall still does not support early termination of pregnancy as a cause of breast cancer.” “In the face of recent publication of results to the contrary ... reported by an NCI Branch Chief Dr. Brinton, this appears disingenuous,” says the coalition’s letter. “The evidence is overwhelming that the NCI is in direct conflict with its own mission. The NCI is not providing accurate information that would permit women making choices about contraception and abortion to avoid the dangers of the increased risk posed by these exposures, even though they are reported by one of NCI’s top scientists in the field.”

"Pro-Choice" but Spreading Natural Family Planning

EDMONTON, Alberta, January 14, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Contrary to the popular understanding, Catholics are not the only ones interested in or promoting natural family planning (NFP). One secular organization in Edmonton, despite being avowedly in favor of “reproductive freedom,” has responded to the increasing body of evidence highlighting the dangers of hormonal contraceptives (i.e. the pill) and is now working to convince women that NFP is a far better method of controlling fertility. Geraldine Matus, founder of Justisse Healthworks for Women (JHW) has been teaching natural family planning since 1977.  She uses the Justisse method, which tracks mucus secretions, temperature, and cervical position. While Matus’ approach to NFP deviates from the Catholic Church’s approach in crucial ways, such as her approval of the use of condoms during fertile times (the Church teaches that NFP can only be used to avoid pregnancy for truly “grave” reasons, and condemns even the whiff of a “contraceptive mentality”), Matus is part of a small but growing movement outside the Church that is rebelling against the dominance of the pill and searching for more “natural” alternatives. The scope of the trend was recently highlighted by remaks made by the director of a former Planned Parenthood clinic who bemoaned the lack of information about NFP, and criticized those who view the pill as the "be-all and end-all." Matus, who received part of her education at a Catholic institute for human reproduction (from which she was expelled due to her promotion of condoms and her practice of abortion counseling), says she believes that all women should learn NFP, both because of the pill's dangers and because it promotes self-awareness.  NFP is “really about empowering women through knowledge of their body, and giving them a safe choice,” she told LifeSiteNews (LSN). “My concerns about the pill from the get-go, so that's a long time, have been its association with clotting disorders, heart disease, bone loss, muscle loss, the disruption of the reproductive health of women in terms of disrupting how their fertility unfolds, and the recovery of fertility when they come off of the pill,” she said. About NFP she said, “I felt that every woman should have that particular knowledge about her body, that it was critical for her sense of self and well-being.” For Matus, NFP is “pro-choice.”  The pill has served for several decades as an icon of “women's liberation,” but Matus told LSN that she believes it is NFP that actually promotes women's freedom. “If I'm taking a pill that requires no knowledge of how my reproductive system works, and actually suppresses the true nature of how my reproductive system works, that takes me away from knowing my body,” she said.  “If I experience my menstrual cycle month after month after month over many years, I start to learn about myself.” “A lot of women have these experiences but don't know how to translate them, make sense of them,” she continued, “so fertility awareness and natural family planning helps women make sense of these experiences, by making sense of them they become less frightening, and then we can begin to honour and respect them.” Not only does a woman gain crucial knowledge about her own body through NFP, said Matus, but “there's usually a much more respectful attitude that's taken with respect to sexual choices. I like that. It's a very interesting thing.” JHW promotes their method as a way of both avoiding pregnancy as well as achieving pregnancy, just as other NFP methods, such as NaProTechnology, have done.  Because of the “holistic health practices” that JHW advocates, explained Matus, they have helped numerous couples conceive who had been unsuccessful with the aid of infertility treatments. Despite its documented effectiveness, both for preventing and achieving pregnancy, as well as the growing evidence documenting the health dangers of contraceptive drugs, NFP continues to be largely scorned by the medical community. Matus said that, “for the most part, [the medical community] is suspicious.”  “There's a fear that women wouldn't know how to do this, or that their partner wouldn't cooperate,” she explained, “which are very real fears. But also there's a lack of knowledge and education in the medical community about this.” While Catholics have led the field in developing and promoting natural family planning methods, recognition of their many benefits is becoming increasingly more mainstream, as Canada's major media have pointed out in recent months. “[NFP] should appeal to all women,” said Fr. Joe Hattie, O.M.I., spiritual director for WOOMB Canada, in response to questions about the movement of NFP into the mainstream, “because they all have the right to a better understanding of their own reproductive gifts, grounded in the very fact of their femininity.” “If they're going to use good stewardship of the gifts of their fertility, then they have the right to a good education and a good management of that fertility, in harmony with natural law and God's plan for them,” he said. “The Catholic Church doesn't have a monopoly, we might say, on the science,” continued Fr. Hattie, who is also the director of marriage and family for the Archdiocese of Halifax.  “With [NFP], the Church has put science at the service of women's health and marriage.  So, if others are using that to help couples, to help women better understand themselves and to take better stewardship of their fertility, in harmony with natural law, then that's good.”

2009

2009 study confirms abortion-breast cancer link

Bethesda, Md., Jan 7, 2010 / 07:40 am (CNA).- An April 2009 study co-authored by a researcher who has previously denied an abortion-breast cancer link shows a statistically significant increase in breast cancer risk among women who have had abortions or who use oral contraceptives. The study by researchers including Jessica Dolle of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research contained a table reporting a statistically significant 40 percent risk increase for women who have had abortions. According to the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer (CABC), the study listed abortion as among “known and suspected risk factors.” The CABC says that one co-author of the study, U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) researcher Dr. Louise Brinton, had organized a 2003 NCI workshop on the abortion-breast cancer link. That workshop reportedly said the non-existence of an abortion-breast cancer link was “well established.” CNA contacted Dr. Brinton for comment but did not receive a reply by publication time. Dr. Joel Brind, who is a CBCP advisor and president of the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute and a professor of endocrinology at Baruch College at City University of New York, said that the study’s findings on abortion were not new. Rather, they repeated the “modest but significant” findings of the 1990s which found a breast cancer risk factor increase of between 20 and 50 percent. However, he said Dr. Brinton’s participation in the study was significant because the NCI has “firmly maintained” a position denying an abortion-breast cancer link since 2003. The study, titled “Risk factors for triple-negative breast cancer in women under the age of 45 years,” was published in the American Association for Cancer Research’s (AACR) medical journal “Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.” Researchers also found a significant link between the use of oral contraceptives and a particularly aggressive cancer known as triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). Brind said that according to the study, women who start oral contraceptives before the age of 18 multiply their risk of TNBC by 3.7 times. Those who were users of oral contraceptives within one to five years before the study showed a risk 4.2 times the average. TNBC is associated with high mortality. Brind suggested that oral contraceptives may function not merely as a secondary carcinogen. Rather, the synthetic estrogen-progestin combination or its metabolic byproducts may be a primary cause of the cell mutations that lead to cancer formation. CBCP president Karen Malec criticized that the NCI, the American Cancer Society, Susan G. Komen for the Cure and other cancer organizations for not issuing nationwide warnings to women on the basis of the study.

Study Finds Half of Women on "Birth Control Shot" Suffer Bone Problems

GALVESTON, Texas, December 21, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Nearly half of women using depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA), commonly known as the birth control shot, will experience high bone mineral density (BMD) loss in the hip or lower spine within two years of beginning the contraceptive, according to researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. The study, reported in the January 2010 issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology, was the first to show that women on the birth control shot who smoke, have low levels of calcium intake and never gave birth are at the highest risk for BMD loss. The researchers also found that high risk women continued to experience significant losses in BMD during the third year of the use of the contraceptive injection, especially in the hip - the most common facture site in elderly women. DMPA is an injected contraceptive administered to patients every three months. According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, more than two million American women use the birth control shot, including approximately 400,000 teens. DMPA is relatively inexpensive compared with some other forms of contraception and doesn't need to be administered daily, which contributes to its popularity. The study followed 95 DMPA users for two years. In that time, 45 women had at least five percent BMD loss in the lower back or hip. A total of 50 women had less than five percent bone loss at both sites during the same period. By and large, BMD loss was higher in women who were current smokers, had never given birth and had a daily calcium intake of 600 mg or less - far below the recommended amounts. Moreover, BMD loss substantially increased among the women with all three risk factors. The researchers followed 27 of the women for an additional year and found that those who experienced significant BMD loss in the first two years continued to lose bone mass.

Efforts to Boost Birth Rate Failing in China

December 16, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The city of Shanghai's efforts to reverse more than 30 years of anti-child government propaganda, and boost the city's flagging birth rate are not being well received by the public, a report in the Washington Post says. The Chinese government is allowing couples to have second children and are considering more easing of the country's one-child policy. But the results of the new permissions, some officials say, have been disappointing. In Shanghai, posters and leaflets telling people how to apply for permits to have more children have replaced anti-child propaganda, but, officials complain, the number of births in the city in 2010 is not expected to rise significantly. Despite these efforts, in Huinan township, with a population of 115,000, officials only receive four to five applications for children a month and in Shanghai the number of births in the city in 2010 is still expected to be only about 165,000, lower than 2008. The Post quoted Shanghai residents Wang Weijia and her husband who said that they had no intention of having another child. "We have already given all our time and energy for just one child. We have none left for a second," said Wang. According to UN reports, since the implementation of the policy in 1979, the birth rate in China has plummeted from an average of six children per woman to the current rate of 1.8. The number of people over 60 is expected to grow from 16.7 per cent of the population in 2020 to 31.1 per cent by 2050. Last year, people 60 and older accounted for almost 22 per cent of Shanghai's registered residents. The Post quotes Xie Lingli, director of the Shanghai Municipal Population and Family Planning Commission, who said that fertile couples need to have babies to "help reduce the proportion of the aging population and alleviate a workforce shortage in the future." Shanghai will become "as old, though not as rich, as developed countries such as Japan and Sweden," she said. At the same time, Chinese delegates to the UN conference on climate change currently underway in Copenhagen, have defended their country's policy saying it has helped them to reduce carbon emissions. The Copenhagen conference opened at the same time as the UN Population Fund released a report calling for the reduction of the human population in the interest of the environment.

Massive Changes Needed in EU Family Policy to Avoid Demographic "Catastrophe": Report

ROME, November 16, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The news about abortion, marriage, divorce and the birth rate in Europe is bad and only getting worse, a report recently presented to the EU said. According to the report by the Institute for Family Policies abortion rates in Britain have leaped by a third among unmarried teenage girls and abortion is helping to age the population of Europe. Without a massive shift to family-friendly policies, the pattern of increased abortion and increasingly aging population will inevitably lead to the collapse of social welfare benefits, and, ultimately, to the bankruptcy of Europe's cradle-to-grave socialist welfare state. Presented to the European Parliament on Wednesday, the report said that the situation of the family in Europe is "a desolate panorama." "Europe is plunged in an unprecedented demographic winter and has become an elderly continent, with a large birth deficit, fewer marriages and more of them broken, homes emptying." "The aging population, critical birth-rate, escalating abortions, the collapse of marriage, the explosion in family breakups and the emptying of homes are the main problems of Europeans," the 2009 Report on the Evolution of the Family in Europe said. The study found that the annual number of abortions in the EU equals the entire combined population of its ten smallest member states, with the three top aborting countries being Britain, France and Romania. In Europe there is one abortion every 25 seconds, for a total of more than 1,200,000 abortions a year. 19 percent of all European pregnancies end in abortion and 28 million children have been killed by abortion since 1990, making abortion the main cause of death in Europe. The population over 65 years in all European states already exceeds the population under 14 years. The EU under 14 population has fallen from 89 million in 1993 to 78.4 million in 2008. Over-65s have risen from 68.3 million in 1993 to 84.9 million in 2008 - an increase of 16.5 million elderly people. The average age of EU citizens is 40.3 years, with Italy and Germany having the highest populations of elderly people. The dropping European birth rate, the report says, with its concomitant increasing health and pension costs, will lead to increases in public expenditure to care for the aging population and the eventual collapse of public revenues, leading finally to the bankruptcy of the welfare state. The average birth rate of EU countries is now 1.38 per woman, well below the replacement rate of 2.1 births per woman, even in relatively fertile countries like France. Without a significant shift in family policies in all EU countries, the report predicts the result will be "catastrophic." Starting in 2010, the population of Europe overall will begin to fall from 499 million to 472 million by 2050 and every third inhabitant will be over 65. According to the study, Britain is the "abortion capital of Europe" with rates that last year pulled ahead of France. Its abortion rate is fifth in the world, behind Russia, the U.S., India and Japan. Among these countries, Britain can least afford such a high rate, with a population less than half that of Russia and Japan, a fifth that of the US, and 1/19 that of India. The median age of women in Britain is also rising, at 41.3 years, making recovery even more difficult. The population of the 27 EU nations reached 500 million last year with most increases in population (78 per cent) attributable to immigration, not births. The natural increase of Europe's population is 12 times lower than the US. Spain has immigration 9 times greater than its internal birth increase and Italy's native population fell (-0.14 million) and had 23 times more immigrants than births (+3.28 million). Poland, Romania and Bulgaria are losing citizens by emigration and Lithuania, Latvia, Romania and Bulgaria have falling populations due to low immigration rates. Only France, Holland, Finland and Slovakia have internal rates of population increase higher than their immigration figures. Other indicators show the number of marriages, especially first marriages, is down and divorce rates are up. There are 1 in 4 fewer marriages than in 1980 and the marriage rate has fallen in 9 out 10 countries. One out of every 3 children (36.5 per cent) is born outside marriage. In some countries the fall in marriage rate has been around 50 per cent since 1983 and there are over one million divorces a year, the equivalent to one marital breakdown every 30 seconds. More people (55 million) are living alone than ever before. One in four households in Europe has a single dweller and two out of three households have no children. Of the households with children, 50 per cent have only one child. The report recommends the creation of a European Union ministry of the family, laws to increase flexibility of working hours to accommodate families, increases in tax benefits for families and an emphasis on family welfare programs over welfare for individuals. It calls for governments to recognize the rights of families, including the right of parents to reconcile work and family life; to have the number of children they want; to choose the type of education their children receive and the right of children to live in a stable home.

Chinese Women with Abortion Experience 17% Increased Breast Cancer Risk

SHENYANG, China, November 12, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Chinese researchers at the Department of Oncology at the First Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University who conducted a case-control study examining reproductive factors associated with breast cancer found a statistically significant 17% increased breast cancer risk among Chinese women who had induced abortions.Peng Xing and his colleagues also found that, although breastfeeding protected women from any subtype of breast cancer, an increase in risk of breast cancer was associated with having more children among women who delayed their first full term pregnancy (FFTP) until after age 25 and never breastfed. The researchers studied 1,417 women diagnosed with breast cancer between 2001 and 2009, and matched them with 1,587 controls without a prior breast cancer history. The report was e-published by the National Center for Biotechnology Information of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Dr. Joel Brind, professor of endocrinology at Baruch College, City University of New York and a director at the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, said Chinese studies on the abortion/breast cancer (ABC) link exclude the possibility of a flaw called "report bias" because abortion isn't stigmatized in China. "Communist officials forcibly abort women after first full term pregnancy (FFTP), so Chinese women are considered reliable reporters of their abortions," Dr. Brind explained. He also added that Chinese studies may underestimate the risk of abortion because of its high prevalence in China. In his review of ten prospective studies on the ABC link for the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons in December 2005, Professor Brind explained that "it's hard to do an epidemiological study accurately in communist countries where exposure to abortion affects most of the study population." "The prevalence of abortion is quite high at about 56% overall in this population," Professor Brind said. "Because abortion is so prevalent in the population, women in the small, unexposed population (the comparison group) are a minority group and do not represent a typical population. Rather, they're atypical because they represent a high-risk subgroup. Women without abortions in China are more likely to be childless or to have late FFTPs, which are accepted risk factors for breast cancer." Hence, if the control group in a study of breast cancer risk is itself a high-risk group, the heightened risk for the experimental group could actually be significantly underestimated. Earlier this year, a Turkish study reported a statistically significant 66% increased risk of breast cancer for women with abortions. Karen Malec, president of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, said, "The Chinese and the Turkish studies are relevant considering the debate over government-funded abortion through healthcare reform" in the US. "Government-funded abortion means more dead American women from breast cancer."Malec suggested that both the Turkish and the Chinese studies show that, when research is conducted outside the control of the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) and other Western governmental agencies or organizations tethered to abortion ideology and politics, the truth emerges that abortion raises risk of breast cancer. "Studies reporting no abortion-breast cancer (ABC) link were proven in medical journals to be stupendously flawed, even fraudulent," Malec said. "Although the NCI, the nation's largest funder of cancer-research, and others have worked feverishly to suppress the ABC link by publishing fraudulent research and even leaning on scientists whose studies have shown risk increases among women who have abortions, honest research occasionally escapes the NCI's purview," Malec concluded. For more information on the medical connection between abortion and breast cancer please visit the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer website here.

Loyola University Researchers: Contraceptives Nearly Double Chance of Stroke
CHICAGO, IL, October 28, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- A new study by Loyola University Health System neurologists indicates that oral contraceptives increase the risk of stroke about 1.9 times. The study involved the analysis of numerous previous studies conducted on the issue. Nevertheless, despite this finding the Loyola University's press release stated that the "benefits [of contraception] still outweigh risks for most users." The research covers ischemic strokes, which are caused by the loss of blood supply to the brain.  Overall, there are about 4.4 ischemic strokes for every 100,000 women of childbearing age. According to the study, published in MedLink Neurology, the use of birth control nearly doubles this risk, increasing it to roughly 8.5 strokes per 100,000 women. According to the Guttmacher Institute, in 2002 roughly 11 million women in the US used oral contraceptives.  Assuming that Loyola University's definition and Guttmacher's definition of contraceptive use are the same, this would mean that oral contraceptives may have contributed to over four hundred strokes in the US in 2002.  About 100 million women use such contraception worldwide, which, under similar assumptions, would mean that contraception may contribute to over three thousand strokes each year. Additionally, women who smoke, have high blood pressure, or have a history of migraine headaches increase their risk of stroke yet more significantly by taking contraceptives.  Dr. Jose Biller, one of the authors of the study, said that "if a woman has other stroke risk factors, she should be discouraged from using oral contraceptives." It is not completely understood how oral contraceptives cause strokes, but the authors of the study said that two possible mechanisms are the increased risk of blood clots and of hypertension associated with oral contraceptives. Nevertheless, Dr. Biller also said that "for a healthy young woman without any other stroke risk factors, the benefits of birth control pills probably outweigh the risks." Such a statement from a Loyola researcher, however, may come as surprising, given the university's Catholic identity. The Catholic Church has uniformly taught that the use of artificial birth control is morally inadmissible, and that, far from having any benefit, contraception contributes to familial breakdown, the objectification of women and other widespread social problems.

Guttmacher Institute Study Casts Doubt on Contraception Use Reducing Abortions
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A new study by the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute continues the claim that expanded use of contraception and birth control reduces abortions worldwide. Mainstream media outlets and writers like Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic are using the report to say pro-life advocates should push for contraception. Sullivan became the latest in a long line of commentators to criticize the pro-life movement for not being more contraceptive-friendly. But, Dr. Michael New, a University of Alabama political science professor, writes at National Review Online that Guttmacher's own study shows how contraception doesn't reduce the abortion numbers. "The link between abortion rates and access to contraception is not as clear as the Guttmacher report might indicate. Furthermore, Guttmacher’s own research suggests that there is little reason to believe that contraception subsidies would do much to affect abortion rates," he explains. New says "there exists no consensus on the correlation between the availability of contraception and the incidence of abortion." "In fact, in 2003, Guttmacher released an article in 'International Family Planning Perspectives' that showed simultaneous increases in both contraceptive use and abortion rates in the United States, Cuba, Denmark, Netherlands, Singapore, and South Korea," New points out. LifeNews.com, in its own analysis, concurs with New's conclusion and has pointed out how aggressive promotion of contraception, the morning after pill and birth control in Britain, Scotland, Sweden, and the state of Washington have all resulted in increased abortions. New agrees and says the experience of the United States is instructive. "The birth-control pill was first approved by the FDA in early 1961 and put on the market later that same year. Guttmacher’s research found that women who turned 15 between the mid-1960s and early 1970s were more likely to engage in sexual activity at a younger age than their counterparts who turned 15 before the early 1960s," he notes at National Review. "Furthermore, Guttmacher partly attributes this increased sexual activity to the availability of the birth-control pill. Overall, the birth-control pill led to more sexual activity and shifted the culture in such a way as to hasten the liberalization of America’s abortion laws. All of this led to higher abortion rates," he continues. New also says that requiring mandatory coverage of contraceptives as part of health reform is unlikely to have much effect on abortion rates. "Guttmacher’s own research indicates that few women forgo contraception because of either cost or lack of availability," he writes. "Eight years ago, Guttmacher surveyed 10,000 women who had abortions. Among those who were not using contraception at the time they conceived, 2 percent said that they did not know where to obtain a method of contraception and 8 percent said that they could not afford contraceptives," he points out. "Given all the already existing programs, it is by no means clear that there are policy instruments that could increase contraceptive use among this subset of women." New says such mandates would merely drive up the cost of health care with little benefit in terms of a reduction in abortions.

Swiss Woman's Death Linked to Hormonal Contraceptive
October 14, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Swiss government is linking a woman's death to the popular birth control product Yaz made by Bayer Pharmaceuticals. The woman died of a pulmonary embolism in June, just 10 months after starting the hormonal contraceptive. The government agency, Swissmedic has launched an investigation into the death. The agency stated on its website that "thromboembolic complications are rare but well-known complications associated" with hormonal contraceptives. Between January 1, 2005, and April 15, 2009, stated Swissmedic, there were a total of 691 reports of suspected adverse reactions linked to contraceptives in Sweden, of which 49 were venous thromboembolism. The agency also related 9 deaths from pulmonary embolism associated with the contraceptives since 1990. Last month American Life League (ALL), which has a program highlighting the risks involved in hormonal contraceptives, reported that Patti Kelly, 28, of Austin, Texas was diagnosed in August with multiple blood clots in both lungs. Her doctor told her that if she hadn't come into the emergency room when she did, she "could have died instantly." Her doctor attributed the blood clots to her use of hormonal contraceptives. "While the feminist establishment is busy playing a twisted game of 'See No Evil' for the sake of their birth control agenda, women are dying," said Marie Hahnenberg, ALL's director of The Pill Kills project. "How long are they going to hide the dangerous side effects of birth control? How many more women have to die?" Other side effects of hormonal contraceptives include increased risk of cancer, bone loss and cerebral hemorrhage. "The big pharmaceutical companies, feminists and the pro-abortion lobby are busy convincing us that birth control allows us to have perfectly planned life," Hahnenberg said. "But the truth is birth control is dangerous and sometimes deadly and women deserve the truth - now."

Guttmacher Institute Claims Contraception Lowers Abortions, Data Shows Otherwise
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The new report issued earlier this week by the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute claims promoting expanded birth control and contraception has lowered abortions worldwide. However, firm statistical evidence from various nations shows abortions increase despite contraception promotion.The report from the Guttmacher Institute, a former affiliate of the Planned Parenthood abortion business, has already been panned for relying on pro-abortion groups to draw its conclusions and promoting a dubious number of how many women have died from illegal abortions worldwide.The Guttmacher study also claims "increases in global contraceptive use have contributed to a decrease in the number of unintended pregnancies and abortions." It claims "positive global trends in increased contraceptive use" have helped "lower unintended pregnancy rates and declining abortion numbers." "The rate of abortions in a given country corresponds mostly to the rate of unintended pregnancy, which in turn corresponds closely to rates of contraceptive use," Guttmacher claims. However, recent news out of England dispels the long-held myth that promoting contraception and birth control reduces the number of abortions. According to the London Daily Mail, teen pregnancy rates in England are now higher than they were in 1995 and pregnancies among girls under 16, below the age of sexual consent, are also at the highest level since 1998. That is despite the British government spending £300 million (that's over $454 million for those of us in the United States) in an attempt to cut the number of teen pregnancies in half by promoting comprehensive sexual education. The British teen abortion rate, according to the newspaper, has also climbed steadily since 1999 when the government released its Teenage Pregnancy Strategy. That would be an aberration were it only an isolated case, but it is not. Last year, officials in Sweden reported that the number of abortions increased 17 percent in Sweden from 2000 to 2007 despite sales of the morning after pill increasing during the same time period. The morning after pill became a drug that could be sold over the counter in Sweden in 2001. In that time, sales of the drug tripled in the nation's capital and doubled nationwide. Still, new national figures show 37,205 abortions in Sweden in 2007, up approximately 17 percent from the 30,980 done in 2000. In Stockholm, 10,259 abortions were done -- a 6.9 percent increase in just one year from the 2006 figures. Meanwhile, last year the number of abortions in Scotland rose for the third straight year despite a heavy push for women to use the morning after pill. Abortions in Scotland rose four percent according to a report from the British National Health Service and now number 13,703. That increase came after NHS reported 13,081 abortions in 2006, up from 12,603 the previous year -- an increase of nearly 3.8 percent. Not only is the increased promoting of the morning after pill resulting in more abortions, not less, the number of women having repeat abortions is increasing as well. NHS reports more than a quarter of women, 26.3 percent, who had an abortion in Scotland last year had at least one prior abortion before that. That's 3,600 women who had one or more abortions prior, according to the government's statistics. Finally, a report from Planned Parenthood of Western Washington shows abortions are on the rise in Washington state even though it participated in Washington state’s Take Charge pilot program. Take Charge is a Medicaid section 1115 Waiver program initiated in 2001 to provide free contraceptives to low-income women not already covered under Medicaid. It was originally funded for five years in 2001, then extended for three more years, and comes up for renewal in 2009. Yet the PPWW annual report indicates abortions rose 16 percent from 7,790 in 2006 to 9,059 in 2007. Abortion advocates have claimed higher use of the Plan B drug through over the counter sales will result in a drop in unintended pregnancies and fewer abortions. Mary Emanuel, who runs the web site Abortion in Washington, studied the report and also found that the abortion increase occurred despite sales of over 106,000 emergency contraception kits to Planned Parenthood customers.

French Abortions Do Not Decrease Despite Increase in Contraception: Study
France, October 8, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - According to a new study by the French National Institute of Demographic Studies (INED), although the number of unplanned pregnancies in France has fallen, the number of abortions in such cases has increased, reports the Monde Actu 24h/24.  Unplanned pregnancies fell from 46% to 33% from 1975 to 2004, ostensibly due to use of contraceptives, according to the study, but the number of abortions of such pregnancies increased from 40% to 60% over the same period.  Over 40% of French women have an abortion at least once in their life.  The study says that women using contraception have a greater desire to control their fertility and thus are more likely to abort a child who is not consistent with their plans.  The study also examined other statistics regarding abortion.  From August 1973 to January 1976, during which period abortion was legalized, French fertility rates fell from 2.36 to 1.8 children per woman, a loss of 24%. France's average fertility rate is currently approximately 2.02, which many attribute to the French government's attempts to encourage childbirth through various incentives.  Unsurprisingly, the study found that the desire to have a child has also decreased. According to Chantal Blayot, a professor of demography at Montesquieu-Bordeau IV, this trend is supported by "a strong social pressure to abort." The social context is not conducive to large families said Blayot: "At first birth, we congratulate the parents; on the third, they are asked if they have considered well what they are doing."

Un-natural Selection: Birth Control Pills May Alter Choice of Partners
SHEFFIELD, UK, October 7, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Is it possible that the use of oral contraceptives is interfering with a woman's ability to choose, compete for and retain her preferred mate? A new paper published by Cell Press in the October issue of the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution reviews emerging evidence suggesting that contraceptive methods which alter a woman's natural hormonal cycles may have an underappreciated impact on choice of partners for both women and men and, possibly, reproductive success. Human females are only fertile for a brief period during their menstrual cycle, just prior to ovulation. Many scientific studies have established that partner preferences of both women and men vary significantly according to predictable hormonal fluctuations associated with the natural menstrual cycle. According to these studies ovulation is associated with a profound shift in some female physical characteristics, behaviors and perceptions related to mate attraction. Studies suggest that ovulating women exhibit a preference for more masculine male features, are particularly attracted to men showing dominance and male-male competitiveness and prefer partners that are genetically dissimilar to themselves. This is significant because there is evidence suggesting that genetic similarity between couples might be linked with infertility. Further, some studies have suggested that men detect women's fertility status, preferring ovulating women in situations where they can compare the attractiveness of different women. The oral contraceptive pill alters the hormonal fluctuations associated with the menstrual cycle and essentially mimics the more steady hormonal conditions associated with pregnancy. "Although mate choice studies in humans have routinely recorded pill use during the last decade to control for its confounding effects, little effort has been invested in understanding the consequences of such effects of the pill," says study author Dr. Alexandra Alvergne from the Department of Animal and Plant Sciences at the University of Sheffield. Dr. Alverne and colleague Dr. Virpi Lumma reviewed and discussed new research supporting the conclusion that use of the pill by women disrupted their variation in mate preferences across their menstrual cycle. The authors also speculate that the use of oral contraceptives may influence a woman's ability to attract a mate by reducing attractiveness to men, thereby disrupting her ability to compete with normally cycling women for access to mate. Of particular interest is the fact that women taking the pill do not exhibit the ovulation-specific attraction to genetically dissimilar partners. "The ultimate outstanding evolutionary question concerns whether the use of oral contraceptives when making mating decisions can have long-term consequences on the ability of couples to reproduce," suggests Dr. Lummaa. Taken together, an increasing number of studies seem to suggest that the pill is likely to have an impact on human mating decisions and subsequent reproduction. "If this is the case, pill use will have implications for both current and future generations, and we hope that our review will stimulate further research on this question," concludes Dr. Lummaa.

Breast Cancer Link with Abortion and Hormonal Contraceptives Featured in You Tube Videos
October 1, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Two videos confronting the disinformation about the link between the skyrocketing incidence of breast cancer, and abortion and hormonal contraceptive use have been posted to You Tube. The first video, produced by Ignatius Productions, features a victim of breast cancer, who states that abortion and hormonal contraceptive use at a young age destroyed her health.  She says she is fighting desperately to beat the disease so she can raise her children. (see the video here) The second video, produced by Ends of the Earth Productions, features Karly Houldsworth, who reports findings in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute showing that breast cancer rates climbed more than 40% between 1973 and 1998. The increase took place only in the youngest of three generations of women studied - the Roe v. Wade generation - which suffered a more than 40% increase in breast cancer cases since the mid-1980s. These were women young enough to have had access to legal abortions starting in 1973. The increase in breast cancer rates didn't take place among women from the two older generations that couldn't obtain legal abortions. (link to video here) Karen Malec, president of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, said in a press release that the videos expose the cover-up of two breast cancer risks - abortion and hormonal contraceptives (containing estrogen and progestin) - and reveal the cruel impact that the cover-up has had on women. "Cancer groups lied to women about the risks of using combined (estrogen + progestin) hormone replacement therapy and 'the pill' when conclusive evidence of a breast cancer risk became available in the 1980s," said Malec, "and they are still lying about abortion." "I realize that the breast cancer epidemic has been tremendously profitable for the cancer establishment," continued Malec "but those who've participated in this cover-up should be deeply ashamed of themselves for the incredible suffering they've inflicted.  These people are not pro-choice.  They are cold, calculating abortion zealots driven by greed and fear of widespread medical malpractice lawsuits." Malec explained that scientists began extensive research on the abortion-breast cancer link in 1957 and recognized two breast cancer risks associated with abortion. "All experts recognize the first risk, that abortion denies women an opportunity to reduce their risk for breast cancer through childbearing. Scientists only debate the second risk - known as the 'independent link,'" Malec said. "Eight medical organizations and a bioethics journal recognize the independent link - that abortion leaves a woman with more cancer-vulnerable cells than she had before she became pregnant. An additional medical group, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, has called for 'full disclosure' of a 'highly plausible' relationship between abortion and the disease," Malec concluded. During October, which is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer encourages women to send cancer research groups the links to the two videos. The Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer is an international women's organization founded to protect the health and save the lives of women by educating and providing information on abortion as a risk factor for breast cancer.

French Study says what pro-lifers have always known: contraception does NOT reduce abortions
According this report, the Institut national d’études démographiques recently published a study showing that more and more French women are using contraception, but that the number of abortions remain stable. The study explains this phenomenon by saying that those women who use contraception are more determined to control their fertility, so that when an unwanted pregnancy happens, they are more likely to abort. It only makes sense. As it is, about half the women who head to the abortion clinic were using contraception at the time. Their contraception did not stop the unwanted pregnancy. It deepened their belief that they cannot get pregnant-- which is an illusion. There is always a risk of getting pregnant, even with contraception. It also said that 40% of French women would have an abortion in their lifetime. I suspect that this was a statistical extrapolation. I'm a little suspicious of those. I've heard the same numbers quoted for the US and Canada. (Source)

Second Abortion Increases Risk of Premature Babies 93%: Canadian Study
September 17, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A new Canadian study has shown that abortion increases the risk of future premature pregnancies and low birth-weight babies; however, the author has refused to say that abortion should be avoided, instead calling for improved abortion techniques. Published in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, the Canadian researchers found that women who had undergone a first or second trimester of pregnancy, when most are conducted, increased the risk of low birth-weight babies and premature babies 35 and 36 per cent respectively. Those women who had undergone more than one abortion had a 72 per cent increased risk for low birth weight and 93 per cent risk of prematurity. The figures come from an analysis of 37 studies around the world, carried out between 1965 and 2001, to discover reasons why babies are born underweight and premature. Far from recommending that women not have abortions, the lead author of the study, Dr. Prakesh Shah of the department of paediatrics at Mount Sinai hospital in Toronto, said that the solution is to improve abortion techniques. However, "when a woman comes for induced termination of pregnancy, she should be counselled about that risk. At least she will be able to make an informed choice," he said. Shah told media that he was fearful that "anti-abortion groups" would seize upon the study as proof of the damage abortion does to women. "I think it should not be used as a way of saying, this is bad and we should not be doing this kind of thing. There is an association which we should be aware of, and we should let mothers be aware. I don't want unintended pregnancies to increase." The Guardian newspaper reports that the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists concurs. The RCOG spoke of the "importance of support for women's choices." "Abortion remains an essential part of women's healthcare services," they said. Professor Philip Steer, editor in chief of BJOG, was also anxious that the study not be used by the pro-life movement. "The most important message is not that this should be used in any way to prevent women having a termination of pregnancy. "The effect has to be balanced against the serious effects of forcing women to continue with unwanted pregnancies," he said. "Any medical procedure is likely to have side-effects." Anthony Ozimic of Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) commented, however, that the evidence speaks for itself. "The more evidence which emerges about the harm abortion causes, the more the supporters of abortion insist that abortion not be restricted. We will be exposing the contradictions in their responses to the study's findings."

Study: Abortion, Hormonal Contraceptives Influence Breast Cancer Risk

Sept. 8, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A paper published this week in the journal, The Linacre Quarterly, by Angela Lanfranchi, MD shows how different pregnancy outcomes influence breast cancer risk. According to Lanfranchi, 52 years of research has pointed to the fact that abortion, as well as hormonal contraceptives, can significantly increase the risk of breast cancer. Lanfranchi is the Clinical Assistant Professor of Surgery, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and the president of the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute. "In utero, (the mother's) offspring produce hormones that mature 85 percent of the mother's breast tissue into cancer-resistant breast tissue," explains Lanfranchi. This accounts for the protective effect of full term pregnancy (FTP) that experts universally recognize. Delayed first full term pregnancy (FTP) is associated with a temporary risk increase because it lengthens the period during the reproductive years when nearly all of the breast lobules are immature and cancer-susceptible and exposed to the cancer-causing effects of estrogen during menstrual cycles. However, in terms of lifetime risk, says Lanfranchi, the mother will eventually benefit from the protective effect of FTP, provided it lasted at least 32 weeks. Short pregnancies that end before 32 weeks (except for first trimester miscarriages) leave the breasts only "partially matured" and "with more places for cancers to start." "Induced abortion is a recognized cause of premature birth... and prematurity more than doubles breast cancer risk if it is before 32 weeks," she observes. Most first trimester miscarriages, however, do not raise risk according to Lanfranchi, because "inadequate levels of the pregnancy hormones" during an abnormal pregnancy do not stimulate breast growth and "leave the mother's breasts unchanged." Lanfranchi also points out that among women experiencing breast cancer during pregnancy, those who had FTPs had the longest survival rate in comparison to women who miscarried and had "slightly shorter survivals," and those who chose abortion and had the "shortest survivals." However, "There is data that suggests that a woman who has a complete pregnancy and lactates within five years of an abortion has a lower risk of breast cancer than if a woman waits more than ten years before her first child is born." In addition, hormonal contraceptives containing "estrogen- progestin combination drugs prescribed in any manner of delivery: orally, transdermally, vaginally, or intrauterine, increase risk." On the other hand, breastfeeding reduces risk "in proportion to the length of breastfeeding." Lanfranchi concludes: "There is a well-known and documented physiology supporting both induced abortion and hormonal contraceptives as risk factors for breast cancer. Yet these risks are largely unknown to women seeking family planning services. Without this knowledge, women cannot make informed choices when they are faced with the choice of an induced abortion or life for their child and the use of hormonal contraceptives.""Women suffer tremendously when 'breast cancer awareness groups' keep us in the dark about breast physiology, especially when millions unwittingly damage their health by choosing abortion and combined hormone replacement therapy," said Karen Malec, president of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, about Lanfranchi's findings. "We encourage the public to send Dr. Lanfranchi's paper to the American Cancer Society and Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Ask them if they can find any inaccuracies concerning the physiology presented in her paper. Challenge them to defend their position in the customary way - before their peers - by stating their objections in a letter to the editor of the medical journal." Lanfranchi's paper is entitled, "Normal breast physiology: The reasons hormonal contraceptives and induced abortion increase breast cancer risk," and is available here. 

"Safe Sex" with Condoms Bad for Mental Health, Psych Researcher Finds

PAISLEY, Scotland, August 4, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Research from Scotland finding that heterosexual sex without using condoms is more likely to make people happy than "safe sex" with condoms, has stirred controversy among "sexual health" campaigners. The lead researcher wrote of the survey respondents, "The more often they have sex without condoms, the better their mental health." In the study, titled, "Condom Use for Penile-Vaginal Intercourse is Associated with Immature Psychological Defense Mechanisms," Professor Stuart Brody of the University of the West of Scotland in Paisley gave questionnaires to 111 Portuguese men and 99 women asking questions about their sex lives and their state of mind over a period of one month. The findings are to be published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behaviour. The study's abstract gives the purpose as the examination of a hypothesis put forward by Sigmund Freud, "that use of immature psychological defense mechanisms correlates directly with frequency of condom use during PVI, but inversely with frequency of PVI [penile-vaginal intercourse] without condoms." The survey found that "frequency of PVI with condoms correlated directly with use of immature defenses," according to a standard test of psychological reactions. It also found that "immature defenses" were associated with masturbation in both sexes. In general, the study concluded that condom use during PVI is associated with "psychological immaturity and predisposition to poorer mental health," including depression and suicidal tendencies. Brody wrote, "The more often they have sex without condoms, the better their mental health." His findings suggest that condom use negates the mental health benefits of what he called "evolutionarily relevant sex." He theorized that there is a direct biochemical response in natural heterosexual relations that is blocked by condoms. Brody wrote in the study, "Possible explanations for the interference of condoms with the health benefits of PVI include blocking of antidepressant and immunological agents in semen and genital secretions, reduced sexual satisfaction and intimacy, and psychopathology-prone persons who are more psychologically immature and/or heterosocially anxious being more likely to use condoms for PVI." In an interview with the UK's Independent newspaper, Brody responded to criticisms from sex-campaigners at the Family Planning Association that his findings, if they were acted upon, would result in increases in sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancies. "I have an interest in the best possible science," he said. "I don't want to let anything get in the way, whether its political correctness, or religion. I have deliberately not used the term 'heterosexual sex'," he said. "Evolution is not politically correct, so of the very broad range of potential sexual behaviour, there is actually only one that is consistently associated with better physical and mental health and that is the one sexual behaviour that would be favoured by evolution. That is not accidental." In 2007, Brody angered homosexualist activists in the UK when he published research that found intercourse between men and women is the only form of sexual behaviour that improves "psychological and physiological function." He found that levels of prolactin, the hormone that provides the body with sexual gratification, were 400 percent higher among male and female couples who had heterosexual intercourse than those engaging in other forms of sex. Peter Tatchell, one of Britain's leading homosexualist spokesmen, called the research "unscientific and extreme" and said it contradicted other studies by the US sex researchers Masters and Johnson. Tatchell said, "Brody's is an extreme and disparaging stance to adopt and he seems to have an ideological agenda to promote conventional heterosexual intercourse." Brody responded at the time, "The radical left wants sex research done, but only if the results are politically acceptable to them." Brody's previous work has also criticized the disinformation commonly promulgated in the media about the transmission of AIDS among the general population and warned that political correctness has seriously muddied the issues. His 1997 book "Sex at Risk: Lifetime number of partners, frequency of intercourse and low AIDS risk of vaginal intercourse," concluded that "ideological knowledge" about AIDS, that asserts that heterosexuals are at equal risk of contracting the disease as active homosexuals, is more prevalent in society than evidence-based scientific knowledge gained from objective research. One reviewer called the book a "succinct indictment of people who have conflated politics and science in setting AIDS policy over the past 15 years."

Shanghai Starts Backpedaling One-Child Policy in Face of Demographic Implosion

SHANGHAI, July 24, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Although 2009 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the one-child policy, China's second largest city is not celebrating. Far from it. The Times Online reports that far from fearing overpopulation, the city of Shanghai has pleaded with married couples to help them stave off the looming crisis of demographic implosion by having a second child. Shanghai has announced pro-procreation policy, that contrasts sharply with the rest of the nation's strict enforcement of the "one couple, one child" policy that has inflicted forced abortions, involuntary sterilizations, and catastrophic fines inflicted on the local population to limit the growth of its 1.3 billion persons. Yet the fewer numbers are exactly what has Shanghai worried, because the city is faced with not enough young men and women to sustain its aging population. "We advocate eligible couples to have two kids, because it can help to reduce the proportion of the aging people and alleviate a workforce shortage in the future," Xie Linli, director of the Shanghai Population and Family Planning Commission, told the Times. Zhang Meixin, a spokesman for the commission, also told the Times that more than three million people over the age of 60 constitute the population of Shanghai. That makes this age cohort 21.6 percent of Shanghai's population, which as Zhang stated, "That is already near the average figure of developed countries and is still rising quickly." If the rate of demographic decline continues, they project that by 2020, the number of elderly will make up 34 percent of the city's population. The Times reports that a similar phenomenon is happening throughout all of China, and by 2015 the working-age population will begin to decline, and begin to increase the pressure on the social system to support the aging group of pensioners. According to the Times, the US-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies released statistics earlier in April that presaged the Chinese fears. The group predicted that by 2050 China will have just 1.6 working-age adults to support every person aged 60 and above, a steep decline from the 7.7 adults per pensioner back in 1975, just a few years before China instituted the one-child policy. By 2050, over 438 million Chinese will be over the age of 60. Zhang emphasized to the Times, "The current average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime is lower than one. If all couples have children according to the policy, it would definitely help relieve pressure in the long term." Yet according to the Times, more than 7300 couples from one-child households are already eligible to have two children, but many of them decide instead to have either one or none at all. The Times analysis seems to indicate that the one-child policy may have also effected a material-driven youth culture that views children as necessary to carry on the family name, but otherwise an obstacle to having a good time found in frequenting clubs, restaurants, shopping malls, and traveling. If true, the phenomenon would exhibit characteristics similar to the attitude of "youth culture" in Europe, which also faces the specter of catastrophic demographic decline. Many Europeans delay having a child well into their late-thirties or forties, fearful that the responsibilities of parenthood would put constraints on a life of leisure. In one chat-room debate observed by the Times, participants expressed fear that very soon children will no knowledge of "uncles" or "aunts," and that the cost of living and education have made having children a prohibitive cost for even couples who want children. Another online poster remarked upon the stark difference between the China of Chairman Mao, who appealed for Chinese to have large families of five or six children with China's situation today saying, "In the future we may not be willing even to have one and it will be like the West with a falling population. Terrible!" However Population Research Institute, a non-profit educational organization focused on exposing human-rights abuses committed in the name of population-control, says that while small moves toward relaxing the policy are beneficial, they fear that official action has come as too little and too late, "because their demography has been so altered by the policy." PRI Media Director Colin Mason told LifeSiteNews.com that he and PRI President Stephen Mosher - Mosher was responsible for documenting and exposing the ruthless enforcement of the one-child policy for the first time to the West - both had recently visited China and found that most of the people with whom they came into contact expressed a desire to have more children, which was stifled by the fines and punishments of the one-child policy. "There is no consensus among the Chinese people that [the one-child policy] has been good for their nation," said Mason. He also pointed out that the government also faces an enormous burden with its aging pensioners, because the one-child policy severely damaged a tradition in Chinese society where children acted as a social security net or parents in their old age. In many ways, that responsibility has shifted to the government, which now carries with it severe economic consequences. "Our message is pretty consistent: we hold that overpopulation has never been a problem and never will be," Mason told LSN. "Western nations should take the cue from China, now that even China is begrudgingly accepting the fact that it is not overpopulated. Mason cautioned, "These nations that think that they are overpopulated should look at themselves and their own policies, and make sure that they are promoting bigger families and basically greater population growth."

New Documentary Exposes Link Between Failing Global Economy and Demographic Winter

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 30, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A newly released documentary claims that the current global economic crisis is in part symptomatic of a global population crisis that the documentarians call a "demographic winter." SRB Documentaries has announced the release of "Demographic Bomb: demography is destiny," the sequel to 2008 documentary "Demographic Winter: the decline of the human family." (see coverage here) The phrase "demographic winter" refers to the contemporary phenomenon of a worldwide rapid decline in birthrates. The new documentary makes a forceful case that the loss of millions due to population control efforts has meant an irreplaceable loss of millions of producers and consumers who otherwise would be participating and supporting today's global economy. "Like 'Demographic Winter,' 'The Demographic Bomb' deals with rapidly falling birth rates and their consequences for humanity in the 21st century," said Barry McLerran, producer of both documentaries. McLerran pointed out that demographic winter in turn has economic ramifications, as fewer and fewer workers will be available to support massive populations of the elderly. "'Demographic Winter' predicted the financial crash of 2008 to within 12 months. 'Demographic Bomb' reveals how this is just the beginning," warned McLerran. "'Demographic Bomb' shows what happens when countries comprising 80 percent of the world's economy have plummeting numbers of workers, consumers and innovators - leading to falling consumer spending, and too few workers to support the elderly." The documentary interviews demographers, sociologists, economists, and historians that make clear the reasons why the demographic decline and economic decline are related. The film begins with an interview with Paul Ehrlich of Stanford University, the 1968 author of "The Population Bomb," which convinced the popular mind that overpopulation was the world's greatest threat. Ehrlich has also gone on record as saying that two billion persons is the Earth's optimal population limit. The documentary also features Mathew Connelly of Columbia University, author of "Fatal Misconception: The Struggle To Control World Population," who explains how a coalition of organizations, institutions, governments, and the United Nations have manipulated families and violated basic human rights in the process to achieve their goals of population reduction. Also featured are former Yale Professor of Economics Jennifer Roback Morse, USC Professor of Urban Planning and Demography Dowell Myers, Harvard PhD Nick Eberstadt, Harvard MBA Harry Dent, the author of "The Great Depression Ahead," and Nobel Prize winning economist Gary Becker. For more information on the documentaries "Demographic Winter" and "Demographic Bomb" click here.

Famed Fr. Corapi Calls Canadian Bishops' Dissent from Humanae Vitae "Catastrophic"

“The majority of Canadian bishops signed the infamous Winnipeg Statement that just categorically rejected Humane Vitae. That kind of rebellion is catastrophic.”

June 30, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In an interview with Legatus Magazine, to be published in the July/August issue, Fr. John Corapi criticizes the Canadian bishops for their rejection of Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae in their signing of the "infamous Winnipeg Statement." The statement, released shortly after the release of the pope's encylical, undercut Paul VI's unambiguous denunciation of all use of artificial contraception, indicating that Catholic couples might be able to use contraception in good conscience. "One can recall what happened during the tenure of Pope Paul VI," says Fr. Corapi in the interview, "when he came out with his landmark and prophetic encyclical Humanae Vitae. Significant numbers of bishops, priests, theologians and others rejected it. They absolutely rejected it. The majority of Canadian bishops signed the infamous Winnipeg Statement that just categorically rejected Humanae Vitae. That kind of rebellion is catastrophic." On September 27th, 1968, two months after Humanae Vitae was put out, the Canadian Catholic Bishops released their controversial Winnipeg Statement.  The most infamous passage, paragraph 26, opens the door for the moral use of contraception, in contradiction to the pope's encyclical, saying that if a couple has "tried sincerely but without success to pursue a line of conduct in keeping with the given directives, they may be safely assured that, whoever honestly chooses that course which seems right to him does so in good conscience." Last September, at their annual Plenary Assembly, the Canadian Bishops released a pastoral letter entitled Liberating Potential, encouraging faithfulness to Humanae Vitae. This letter appeared to reverse the former position of the bishops, as some critics of the Winnipeg Statement have said; however, it makes no mention of the statement, and the bishops have never officially retracted the document. The long-term effects of rejecting the papal encyclical are "profound," says Fr. Corapi.  "The argument can be strongly made that the proliferation of abortion can pretty much be traced to artificial contraception," he said.  "It's almost a cause-and-effect kind of thing, and Paul VI warned about that. But large numbers [of] Church leaders rejected it and were so bold as to even reject it in writing, and that's not without consequences. There were profound consequences not only in the Church but in the United States, Canada and the whole world. It's had a profound effect on de-Christianizing the culture." In the interview, Fr. Corapi says he blames the leadership of the Church, namely the bishops, priests, and theologians, for the large numbers of Catholics currently not attending Mass.  "You have to ask yourself why people have drifted away," he says.  "We have control over the reasons inside the Church. You can start with the top." He says that he traces the problem to unfaithfulness. In the Old Testament, he says, "leadership was removed from the people of God, the chosen people, because of infidelity to the covenant." 

To see the full interview click here:

For related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Canadian Bishops Issue Pastoral Letter Encouraging Faithfulness to Anti-Contraception Encyclical Humanae Vitae 

Canadian Catholics Ask Bishops to Retract Winnipeg Statement - Recommit to Humanae Vitae

Ottawa Archbishop Thanks Canadian Catholics who Promoted Humanae Vitae in the Last 40 Years

New Evangelical Documentary Exposes Abortifacient Qualities of the Birth Control Pill, Promotes NFP

May 27, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A documentary called “28 Days on the Pill” has been released that seeks expose the abortifacient properties of the birth control pill.  The documentary explains that many forms of birth control pills contain progestins, which thin the endometrium, the walls of the uterus, which in turn causes it to become inhospitable to a conceived ovum.  This inhospitality may cause a newly conceived human being not to implant in the endometrium and cause an abortion. The documentary instead promotes the use of Natural Family Planning, which is the use of natural periods of infertility to regulate the number of children a family will have.  “Modern, scientific, Natural Family Planning in every study published today is more effective than the pill, and it doesn't cause abortions,” said Dr. W. Larimore, who was interviewed in the documentary. Larimore told the interviewer that the pill has “unnatural, high doses of steroids, has potential side effects including a potential breast cancer side effect, and may cause an abortion that you won't even know about until you're in heaven.” “On the other side, is modern scientific Natural Family Planning - some call it fertility awareness - that's more effective than the pill, doesn't have the side effects of the pill,” Dr. Larimore said. NFP, he said, “it involves the man and the woman, they have to talk together, they have to pray together, they have to learn together, they have to become one together. No wonder that studies have implied that people who practice NFP have higher satisfaction with marriage, they have more frequent sex, they have more satisfying sex, they have a lower divorce rate.”  “It's because the whole issue of birth spacing becomes a couples issue.” The documentary does state that barrier methods, such as condoms, are truly contraceptive, but that there are differing opinions surrounding the morality of them. The documentary also explores the use of contraception in the Catholic Church.  “One Roman Catholic doctor we talked to said he knew of no Roman Catholic hospital in the United States that did not prescribe [the pill],” said the documentary. “Tremendous pressure can be placed on Roman Catholic doctors to conform.  So what the official teaching is and what is done in practice can be two different things.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church clearly states in paragraph 2399 that “Legitimate intentions on the part of the spouses do not justify recourse to morally unacceptable means (for example, direct sterilization or contraception).”  However, the Catholic Church does allow the use of NFP, provided that the couple is open to becoming pregnant. The Catholic Church also says that couples may only use NFP to intentionally refrain from having a child for a “grave” reason. Dr. Harnisch, another doctor interviewed in “28 Days on the Pill,” said about the pill: “I believe that any time there is a doubt with something as precious life that we should always err on the side of protecting life, rather than saying 'prove to me that that wasn't alive, so it's dead, so what?  How do you know it ever happened?' ” Dr. Larimore said that he used to think that birth control had no abortifacient properties, saying it was “a bunch of rubbish.”  Dr. J. Stanford, who first informed Dr. Larimore about this aspect of the pill, persisted, asking him to prove that the pill was not an abortifacient.  The result was a study called “Postfertilization Effects of Oral Contraceptives and Their Relationship to Informed Consent.”  This study showed how birth control pills can cause abortions. The study caused a stir among Christian medical groups, such as the Christian Medical and Dental Association, Focus on the Family's Physicians Research Group, and the Catholic Medical Association. Dr. A. Moell, who was also interviewed, said that when she was taught about contraceptives in medical school, birth control pills were “just another contraceptive, meaning that they prevented conception.”  She was not informed of any abortifacient properties the pill may have. According to “28 Days on the Pill,” the abortifacient qualities of the pill have been hushed up. The film cites the opposition to the study written by Dr Larimore and Stanford.  Dr. Stanford said that “the pro-choice physicians have no problem” with the abortifacient aspects of the pill because they are “comfortable with prescribing the pill and they don't want to reconsider that.” While the thinning of the endometrium is explained to physicians in textbooks and manuals, one of the authors of the documentary who went to a health-unit seeking information on the birth control pill received a fact sheet that neglected to mention the thinning of the endometrium of the uterus as an effect of the pill. According to the documentary, the Compendium of Pharmaceuticals and Specialties (CPS), the Canadian Pharmacists Association's drug information resource, and the Physicians Desk Reference, the American standard, mentioned the abortifacient qualities of the pill. But the majority of information given to patients fails to mention it. Dr. Albert Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said that doctors shy away from telling their patients about the abortifacient aspects of the pill because “it could lead to awkward questions and lifestyle changes, and it could also put persons in the position of very deep moral reconsideration of what they've taken for granted since the early 1960s”. However, he said that “it is ethically wrong to withhold that information.” “I am always careful to say that I'm not a medical doctor or pharmacist, I'm a theologian and a pastor, and as a pastor, I would never counsel a couple to use the pill,” Dr. Mohler continued. Furthermore, the documentary claims that “much of the medical community has changed its definition for when pregnancy begins, which means any hindering of implantation would not be considered an abortion.” According to L. Powell, a Registered Nurse from London, Ontario, the moment of conception is at implantation of the fertilized ovum in the endometrium.  “I think that is the general consensus,” she said, “It varies from person to person on what conception is.” “28 Days on the Pill” Website: http://28daysonthepill.com/

Spain's "Disastrous" Contraceptive Policies have Resulted in the Oldest European Population

May 22, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A report by Spain's Institute for Family Policy says that Spain, with one of the western world's lowest birth rates and a high average life expectancy, is now the most rapidly aging country in the European Union. The Institute's head, Eduardo Hertfelder, told media that the government's "dreadful" contraceptive policies are having a "catastrophic effect." The report says that the Spanish youth population has dropped from 10 million in 1981 to 6.6 million in 2008. The process of population aging follows Spain's precipitous drop in birth rates. In 2000, a UN report found that the Spanish birth rate was the lowest in the world with 1.07 children per woman. Hertfelder stressed that the Spanish population is being bolstered now only by increases in immigration. In Spain, the median age of women is 42.5 years; most physicians say that conception becomes increasingly less likely after age 35. While the country's fertility rate remains one of the lowest in the world at 1.31 children per woman, the socialist Spanish government announced earlier this year its plans to loosen the law to allow abortion on demand during the first twelve weeks of pregnancy. The loss of young people, aging of the population and impending impact of this demographic implosion on the economy, is not limited to Spain. A report published in April by the European Commission said that the working-age population of Europe will peak next year and begin to decline. The EC report said that by 2060 Europe will have 2 people of working age for every person aged over 65, compared to 4 people of working age currently. Europe now has some of the world's most generous government-sponsored pension and welfare plans that will be directly affected by the anticipated drop in population. Referring to it as the "inverted pyramid" effect, demographers believe that a 1.3 fertility rate is all but impossible to correct and inevitably leads to a drop in population. With below-replacement fertility - that is, with two sets of parents producing only one child each generation - the number of children born is halved in each successive generation, resulting in dramatic decreases in the working-age population in twenty five years. It has been widely noted that many of Europe's predominantly Catholic nations seem to be particularly hard-hit by the demographic plunge. According to statistics available from the CIA World Fact Book, Portugal, with a Catholic population of 84.5 percent, has a birth rate of 1.49 children born per woman and a median female age of 41.6 years. Italy's birth rate is 1.31 children per woman with a median female age of 44.8 years and the population is 90 percent Catholic. Poland's birth rate stands at 1.28 children per woman and the median female age is 39.7 years. Around the world, the industrialised nations are all conforming to this pattern to varying degrees, with only the US currently maintaining close to a replacement-level birth rate of 2.05 children born per woman. Outside Europe, at 1.8 children per woman Australia has one of the highest birth rates, with China (1.79), Canada (1.58), Japan (1.21), South Korea (1.21) lagging far behind. In many cases, the trend of falling birth rates and aging populations is not a new phenomenon. In Japan, now with one of the world's lowest birth rates, following its post-war baby boom the birth rate had fallen 50 percent by 1960. In 2008, the UN Development Programme called the continued depopulation of Russia one of the country's "most severe challenges" that had been ongoing for forty years. The report said, "Beginning from 1992, mortality in Russia has consistently exceeded fertility."With the median ages of women in these countries rising, continued promotion by many national governments of population control measures such as free abortion and contraceptives, demographers are increasingly warning that the prospect of population recovery is remote.

Study: Women Who Use Birth Control Pill 1.5 Times More Likely to Develop Bowel Disease

LONDON, UK, March 13, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A study on the role of oral contraceptives in the cause of inflammatory bowel disease, published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology, found that women who use the pill are one and a half times more likely to develop Crohn's disease (CD) or ulcerative colitis (UC) than women who have not used oral contraceptives. The research by doctors at the Gastroenterology Unit of St. Mary's Hospital, Imperial College, and the Department of Surgery of St. Mark's Hospital, London, reported that a total of 75,815 patients were involved in the study of the etiology of UC and CD between 1983 and 2007. Of these women, 36,797 used the oral contraceptive pill (OCP) and 39,018 did not. The report stated that the relative risk of developing Crohn's disease increased with a prolonged exposure to the OCP. Whereas the overall average of increased risk was 1 1/2 times, the relative risk of developing CD for a woman who has used the pill for three years increases to almost 3.5 times. This study has also shown that the risk associated with OCP exposure was reversed to that of the non-exposed population after stopping the use of the drug. The adjustment of the results for smoking was an important aspect of this analysis, since it was found that smokers are more likely to take the OCP, and oral contraceptive users have been reported as more likely to smoke. The adjustments for smoking increased the relative risk of CD and decreased the risk of UC. The study also suggested that a reduction in the estrogen and progesterone dosages in OCPs over the last two decades has not reduced the relative risk of inflammatory bowel disease in women who use the contraceptive pill.

Studies Find Contraception Makes Women Obese and Newborns Too Thin

OTTAWA, March 9, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - University of Ottawa researchers have found that women who conceive within a month of taking birth-control pills tend to have premature babies or babies with a low birth weight. At the same time, another study from the University of Texas has revealed that users of the contraceptive "shot" are significantly more likely than other women to become obese. Xi-Kuan Chen, an epidemiologist and senior analyst with the Canadian Institute for Health Information at the University of Ottawa said doctors should inform patients of the link between chemical contraceptives and low birth weight, which is a growing problem in Canada, because children born too thin are likely to suffer health problems later in life. "Doctors should be bringing this to the attention of patients," said Dr. Chen in a National Post report. "When they consult with some patients, they should suggest there might be some effect for them." The study used the singularly comprehensive database of the Saskatchewan drug and medicare plans to look at 1,500 women, divided into three groups, who had taken contraceptive drugs within 30 days, 31-60 days and 61-90 days of their last period before becoming pregnant. They then compared the birth weight of their children with 6,100 women who had not used birth-control pills for at least a year before they gave birth. Analysis of the data showed that women who had taken the pill within 30 days of getting pregnant were more than three times as likely to have a very low-weight newborn (under 3.3 lbs) and twice as likely to have a child born weighing less than 5.5 pounds or to deliver the child six weeks prematurely. The report also showed that the longer the abstention from contraceptive drugs before conceiving, the closer the newborns birth weight would be to those women who had not used birth-control pills. Dr. Chen said that although the study does not definitively prove a cause-and-effect relationship and needs to be confirmed by more research because it did not take into account factors such as smoking, which also contribute to low birth weight and prematurity, the results of the study should not be ignored. At the same time as the findings of Dr. Chen's study are being reported, Dr. Abbey Berenson at the University of Texas Medical Branch has revealed that the use of certain contraceptive drugs causes significant weight gain and an increase in body fat, according to a study published in the current issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology. Dr. Berenson and her team of researchers studied the use of the contraceptive drug depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA), commercially known as Depo-Provera, which is delivered in the form of a shot, and found that DMPA users were more than twice as likely to become obese as women who did not use that contraceptive drug. "Women and their doctors should factor in this new data when choosing the most appropriate birth control method," said Berenson. "One concern is DMPA's link to increased abdominal fat, a known component of metabolic syndrome, which increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke and diabetes."

Swiss Women Abandoning the Pill Due to Adverse Health Effects

PARIS, February 26, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The use of the contraceptive pill is plummeting among younger women, in response to growing awareness of its destructive health effects, reports a French bioethics site. According to the site "Genetique," the use of "the pill" among women aged 15 to 24 years old dropped from 43% in 2003 to 26% in 2007.   The rate of childbirth among the same group increased at the same time. "The principal reason for this decrease is the attention paid by women to their health," says Genetique. "It is now proven that the pill suppresses libido and causes weight gain.  The fear of cancer and sterility are equally responsible." According to numerous studies on the effects of the contraceptive pill, its use is also linked to increased risk of heart disease, hypertension, and stroke.

Life Issues Television Series Starts Today on LifeSiteNews.com

February 6, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Recently, Niagara Region Right to Life contracted LifeSiteNews to host a series of on line, half hour videos of a television program on life issues produced by the Life Issues Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio. The series, with host Brad Mattes, has been praised for its high quality, compelling and accurate productions on these crucial matters. Today, the series begins with "The Surprising Link", a convincing and moving investigation of the link between abortion and breast cancer. Charnette Messe, a 35-year-old mother of two, was living the American dream until she learned she had breast cancer, and then the very next day, found out she was pregnant. Fighting for her life and that of her baby, Charnette wanted answers, and, now, she wants to tell other women the truth she discovered about the abortion she kept a secret for 15 years and why it may have caused her cancer. Dr. Angela Lanfranchi, a New Jersey breast surgeon and co-founder of the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, provides a medical explanation of why abortion is the single, most avoidable risk factor for breast cancer. LifeSiteNews highly recommends this video to all its readers. We have no doubt that most viewers will be impressed and moved by the personal witness of Charnette Messe and impressed by the evidence presented by Dr. Lanfranchi and Breast Cancer Institute co-founder Dr. Joel Brind. Readers are encouraged to tell others about the "The Surprising Link". The lives of many young women are at stake. This first video is presented in three parts and in both Windows Media and Quicktime formats. Some viewers may find that one or other of the formats will function better in their particular browser. ** See "The Surprising Link" ** http://www.lifesitenews.com/video/facinglifeheadon/thesurpri...

Demographic Winter: "Schools will be turned into nursing homes. Playgrounds will become graveyards."

WASHINGTON, DC, January 26, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Celebrated columnist and pro-family leader Don Feder gave a jaw-dropping presentation on the coming 'Demographic Winter' at the Rose Dinner which closes the official March for Life festivities every year. Speaking to hundreds of attendees, Feder suggested that the demographic problem of worldwide declining birthrates "could result in the greatest crisis humanity will confront in this century" as "all over the world, children are disappearing." "In the Western world, birthrates are falling and populations are aging," said Feder. "The consequences for your children and grandchildren could well be catastrophic." Feder noted, "In 30 years, worldwide, birth rates have fallen by more than 50%. In 1979, the average woman on this planet had 6 children. Today, the average is 2.9 children, and falling." He explained the situation noting, "demographers tell us that with a birthrate of 1.3, everything else being equal, a nation will lose half of its population every 45 years." Beyond an inability to pay for pensions, it is likely that euthanasia will be one looked-to solution to the aging crisis, he said. "Demographic Winter is the terminal stage in the suicide of the West - the culmination of a century of evil ideas and poisonous policies,'" he said. Among them he listed: "Abortion - As I mentioned a moment ago, worldwide, we're killing 42 million people a year. It's as if an invading army killed every man woman and child in Italy - then repeated the process every year. "Contraception - For the first time in history, just under half the world's population of childbearing age uses some form of birth control. Some of us remember when births weren't controlled and pregnancies weren't planned. With all the wailing about man-made Global Warming, carbon footprints and the ozone layer, wouldn't it be ironic if what did us in wasn't the SUV but the IUD? "Delayed marriage. People are marrying later and later. After 35, it becomes progressively harder for a woman to have children. "The decline of marriage and the rise of cohabitation. Not surprisingly, in relationships without commitment, people have fewer children. By the way, the left's contribution to the coming population crisis is to push the one type of ‘marriage’ (and I use the term advisedly) that can't conceivably produce children. "But perhaps,” he concluded, “the most important factor is a culture (including Hollywood, the news media and academia) that tells people that children are a burden, rather than a joy; that pushes an ego-driven, live-for-the-moment ethic; a culture that tells us that contentment comes from careers, love, friendship, pets, possessions, travel, personal growth - anything and everything except family and children. It's a culture that can look at Sarah Palin and her beautiful family and ask why she had to have 5 children and why she didn't abort her child with Downs syndrome." For more see the first documentary on the plummeting birth rate: "Demographic Winter: the decline of the human family" http://www.demographicwinter.com

Study Links Water Pollution from Contraceptives, Chemicals with Declining Male Fertility

January 19, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - New research strengthens the link between water pollution and rising male fertility problems. The study, by Brunel University, the Universities of Exeter and Reading and the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, shows for the first time how a group of testosterone-blocking chemicals is finding its way into UK rivers, affecting wildlife and potentially humans. The research was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council and is now published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. The study identified a new group of chemicals that act as ‘anti-androgens.’ This means that they inhibit the function of the male hormone, testosterone, reducing male fertility. Some of these are contained in medicines, including cancer treatments, pharmaceutical treatments, and pesticides used in agriculture. The research suggests that when they get into the water system, these chemicals may play a pivotal role in causing feminising effects in male fish. Earlier research by Brunel University and the University of Exeter has shown how female sex hormones (estrogens), and chemicals that mimic estrogens, are leading to ‘feminisation’ of male fish. Found in some industrial chemicals and the contraceptive pill, they enter rivers via sewage treatment works. This causes reproductive problems by reducing fish breeding capability and in some cases can lead to male fish changing sex. Other studies have also suggested that there may be a link between this phenomenon and the increase in human male fertility problems caused by testicular dysgenesis syndrome. Until now, this link lacked credence because the list of suspects causing effects in fish was limited to estrogenic chemicals whilst testicular dysgenesis is known to be caused by exposure to a range of anti-androgens. Lead author on the research paper, Dr Susan Jobling at Brunel University’s Institute for the Environment, said of the study's findings: “We have been working intensively in this field for over ten years. The new research findings illustrate the complexities in unravelling chemical causation of adverse health effects in wildlife populations and re-open the possibility of a human–wildlife connection in which effects seen in wild fish and in humans are caused by similar combinations of chemicals. “We have identified a new group of chemicals in our study on fish, but do not know where they are coming from. A principal aim of our work is now to identify the source of these pollutants and work with regulators and relevant industry to test the effects of a mixture of these chemicals and the already known environmental estrogens and help protect environmental health.” Senior author Professor Charles Tyler of the University of Exeter said: “Our research shows that a much wider range of chemicals than we previously thought is leading to hormone disruption in fish. This means that the pollutants causing these problems are likely to be coming from a wide variety of sources. Our findings also strengthen the argument for the cocktail of chemicals in our water leading to hormone disruption in fish, and contributing to the rise in male reproductive problems. There are likely to be many reasons behind the rise in male fertility problems in humans, but these findings could reveal one, previously unknown, factor.” In making their findings the scientists studied over 1000 fish sampled from 30 rivers in various parts of England. The research took more than three years to complete and was conducted by the University of Exeter, Brunel University, University of Reading and the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. The research team is now focusing on identifying the source of anti-androgenic chemicals, as well as continuing to study their impact on reproductive health in wildlife and humans.

Co-Creator of the Pill Laments Resulting Demographic "Horror Scenario"

VIENNA, January 8, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - An Austrian chemist who helped spearhead the creation of the earliest contraceptive pill has expressed dismay at the severance of sexuality and reproduction made possible by widespread use of the pill, and has warned against the impending demographic disaster from plummeting birth rates. Carl Djerassi wrote of his concern in a commentary appearing in the December issue of Austria's Der Standard, where he described couples who regularly contracept as "wanting to enjoy their schnitzels while leaving the rest of the world to get on with it." Djerassi, who is a chemist, novelist, and playwright, is best known for helping create the synthetic hormone progestin norethindrone in 1951, together with Mexican Luis E. Miramontes and Hungarian George Rosenkranz.  The far more potent synthetic hormone was soon used for contraceptive purposes as it remains effective when taken orally, unlike natural female hormones. At the time, Djerassi had said that "not in our wildest dreams" had he expected the chemical to be used for contraception.  Now, he writes, "My contribution is to help these people wake up," referring to Austrian couples who freely contracept. Lamenting that there is now "no connection at all between sexuality and reproduction," Djerassi said, "This divide in Catholic Austria, a country which has on average 1.4 children per family, is now complete.  Most Austrians enjoy sexual intercourse without thereby wanting or begetting a child." Djerassi explained that Austria, which is now home to more seniors over 65 than children under 15, would soon enter "an impossible situation" as the lopsided population would result in a working class too small to support the needs of elderly pensioners.  Therefore, he urged, Austrians would have to quickly adopt an immigration policy designed to counteract the effects of widespread contraception lest the population commit "national suicide."

Medical Expert Says that Contraceptive Pill is Causing Global Rise in Male Infertility

VATICAN CITY, January 7, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - An eminent doctor writing for the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano has stated that hormones from the contraceptive pill are causing a significant rise in male infertility in western nations. Pedro Jose Maria Simon Castellvi, President of the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations (FIAMC), writes that "we have sufficient data to affirm that one of the reasons for the not insignificant rise in male infertility in the west (due to increasingly fewer sperm in men), is the environmental contamination caused by 'the pill'." "We are confronted with a clear anti-ecological effect that demands further explanation from the manufacturers," continued Castellvi, who also noted that the abortifacient and carcinogenic effects of the contraceptive pill are also well known (see LifeSiteNews coverage at http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jan/09010504.html). Castellvi's statements echo similar utterances made by numerous other medical and scientific experts since 2004.  Female hormones from birth control pills, which enter the water supply through urination, are being blamed for declining sperm counts in human and animal populations, the growth of female sex organs in male fish, breast growth in young men, and early onset of puberty in young girls. In September of last year, a scientist at the University of Montreal's Department of Chemistry announced the discovery that Montreal's water treatment plant was dumping estrogen products into rivers at a level 90 times the critical amount, a level far beyond the minimum for disrupting the fertility of fish. Last week, Mexico's Secretariat of Health issued a warning that use of the contraceptive pill during pregnancy could raise the risk of "genital ambiguity," also known as hermaphrodism, in newborns. "The sad thing about this is that, if we are talking about the regulation of fertility, these products are not necessary," writes Castellvi, noting that Natural Family Planning methods, which involve abstaining from sexual intercourse during the fertile period of a woman's monthly cycle, "are just as effective and furthermore they respect the nature of the person." Despite mounting evidence indicating the harmful effects of artificial hormones on the environment, the French Press Agency reported that Castellvi's statements were "promptly dismissed by several organizations," which claimed that female hormones are present "everywhere" and change once they are digested.  Castellvi's statements are supported by a report recently issued by FIAMC, which he says contains more than 300 source citations, the majority of which are from medical publications. His article appeared in the January 4th issue of L'Osservatore Romano.

Vatican Newspaper Publishes Article Detailing Birth Control Pill as Cause of Abortion and Cancer

ROME, January 5, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Vatican’s official newspaper has caused a media storm in the European press with an article asserting the abortifacient and carcinogenic effects of hormonal contraceptives. The Italian edition of L’Osservatore Romano carries an article this week on a report by the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations (FIAMC) that was created to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the encyclical Humanae Vitae, the document by Pope John Paul VI that reiterated the Catholic Church’s teaching on artificial birth control. Pedro José María Simón Castelví, the president of FIAMC, wrote that “the means of contraception violate at least five important rights: the right to life, the right to health, the right to education, all right to information (their spread is at the expense of information on natural resources) and the right to equality between the sexes (the burden of contraception falls mostly on women).” “Curiously”, Castelvi wrote, this information on the abortifacient effect of the Pill “does not reach the general public,” despite being well-known to researchers. The hundred-page report, published in German, is an analysis of scientific data on the effects of the Pill and includes three hundred bibliographic citations, mostly from specialized medical journals. The report “clearly demonstrates” that anovulant, low-dose hormonal birth control pills work not only by preventing ovulation but also by causing the death of an already existing child in the uterine wall. This embryonic person, Castellvi wrote, “even in its early days, is something other than an egg or female germ cell.” From the embryonic stage, the child grows in a  coordinated way and this development, unless prevented, “ends with its exit from the womb in nine months, ready to devour a litre of milk.”The report also notes that the International Agency for Research of Cancer, an agency of the World Health Organization, reported in July 2005 that the oral preparations of combined estrogen-progestogens common in birth control pills are classified in a group of carcinogenic agents. “The sad thing in all this,” Castelvi wrote, “is that if it is to regulate fertility, these are not the products required. The natural means of regulating fertility, ‘NFP’ or Natural Family Planning, are equally effective and also respect the person.”

2008

Even With More Women on Birth Control, Many Don’t Hear About the Variety of Side Effects

A new pilot program in London will make the birth control pill available next month, through pharmacists, without a prescription. It’s a big shift from December 1955, when scientists made the first presentation that progesterone can stop women from ovulating, and many states had laws banning the use of contraception. Despite nearly 50 years of access to the pill, some women are clueless about side effects that doctors might not bother sharing, and some that are just being discovered. “Doctors in general tend to hesitate to suggest things to the patient,” said Dr. Nanette Santoro, director of reproductive endocrinology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City and a member of The Endocrine Society. “These are things that wouldn’t have a major health impact.” Santoro said, with limited time in appointments, doctors focus on the major side effects that can pose a health risk: the risk of blood clots among smokers, high blood pressure, and stroke with some migraine headaches, for example. But Santoro knows of many less-pressing and idiosyncratic side effects from the pill that don’t always make it into the doctor’s talk. Women on the pill may suffer a lackluster sex drive, mood swings, or even extra sinus pressure, she said. “Some women may notice their sinuses are a little stuffier,” Santoro explained. “It speaks to the bigger point that pills do affect the mucus production of the body.” That means mucus, whether on the cervix or in the nose, can become thicker. This August, research began to confirm another strange connection between the birth control pill and a woman’s nose. In a study of about 100 college students in the U.K., scientists found that the pill may change how women find a man’s scent sexually attractive. The study collected body odor from volunteers and put it in jars for the ladies to smell. Among the 200-300 different chemical compounds in sweat, researchers tried to draw a connection to the woman’s reaction to the sweat and a by-product in the sweat from the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes, which contribute to the body’s immune system. Since the late 1990s, research has shown that women find the scent of a man more attractive if he has MHC genes that are different from their own, and less attractive if he has similar MHC genes. But that all may change two months after a woman goes on the pill. The Pill May Change How You Choose a Man
“In the pill-using group, there was a significant shift in their preference for men who had more similar odors,” said Craig Roberts, a co-author of the August MHC study appearing in the “Proceedings of the Royal Society B,” and a lecturer at the University of Liverpool in the U.K. Roberts said the women in the control group who didn’t take the pill only started to find men with different MHC genes more attractive in the second round of body odor sniff tests. “It’s an odd thing to do, smell odors in jars,” Roberts said. “We don’t know the effects in the real world, but it does carry implications for women who are using the pill, and you can extrapolate from this very artificial laboratory study quite a long way.” For example, “They may choose someone they may not choose otherwise,” he said. In theory, Roberts said a woman may choose a man while she’s on the pill and feel fine, but subconsciously find her mate less attractive if she goes off the pill. “There is evidence that couples that are more MCH similar to each other have more difficulty conceiving, and they have more miscarriages,” added Roberts, who has also cited research that women who marry men with similar MCH genes are more likely to have an affair. Aside from chemical conjectures, Einstein’s Santoro has heard straight from her patients that the pill can affect one’s sex life. “Clearly, pills suppress androgen production in the ovary, so, to the extent that androgen levels drive sex drive in women, it could affect them,” said Santoro, who is also a doctor with the Montefiore Medical Center in New York City. “It’s also possible for some women, especially if they’re Catholics, to have a libido problem. … Once they start on the pill, it may reduce their enjoyment in some way out of guilt,” she said. Santoro said many of her patients tend to think of the pill as an off-switch for hormones, but in truth, the pill exposes women to higher levels of hormones to overcome their own cycle. Other Strange Side Effects From the Pill “Because the pill in a lot of ways produces a pseudo-pregnant state, some of the side effects of pregnancy are noticed in the pill,” Santoro said. That means women on the pill may experience heartburn, or constipation, or sleep disturbances, either as insomnia or extra sleepiness. Santoro said doctors are also less likely to get into great detail about weight changes. “We tell our patients that weight doesn’t change if you take the pill … but among the individual women, there may be some who gain and some who lose,” said Santoro, who added that large studies on the subject might cancel out the average weight changes experienced by women on the pill. Overall, Santoro said she’d spend more time talking about the pill’s more serious health risks and side effects with a patient. “Women over 35 who smoke more than 10 cigarettes a day — they shouldn’t be taking the pill at all,” she said. For patients who have migraines with aura, which refers to feelings and symptoms noticed shortly before the headache begins, “they should not take pills without making sure everybody’s on board.” Santoro said although research hasn’t drawn any hard-and-fast conclusions about side effects from taking the pill for an extended period of time, many of her patients have decided to give the hormones a break. “It’s outdated, but some women feel better if they take a little ‘pill holiday’ now and then,” she said. (Source)

American Society of Reproductive Medicine Statement Confirms the Pill Causes Abortion
December 12, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Amidst an ongoing debate among prolife advocates about whether to classify the Pill as an abortifacient or a prophylactic, pro-abortion advocates have published an authoritative statement declaring that the Pill prevents implantation of embryos, thereby causing an abortion.  In a supplement to its November 2008 issue, top reproductive health journal Fertility and Sterility published the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) statement, “Hormonal contraception: recent advances and controversies.”  In a summary of the development of contraception in the United States the statement called oral contraceptives the “most widely used” reversible method.  In the “wide variety” of oral contraceptives that are available, the “mechanisms of action” are the same, said the statement: “inhibition of ovulation, alteration in the cervical mucus, and/or modification of the endometrium, thus preventing implantation.”   Pro-life advocates who oppose abortion, but not contraception, have long considered the Pill as an ethical contraceptive option, as opposed to the IUD, which causes abortions by preventing implantation.  However, the statement by the ASRM clearly indicates that the pill is medically classified as a drug that acts by “preventing implantation,” thereby causing the death of a fertilized embryo – a unique and living human being.    A large body of literature supports this statement, including articles from Fertility and Sterility.  The most significant of these is a 1996 study by a group of OB/GYNs from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, that concluded that “impaired uterine receptivity” is “one mechanism by which OCs exert their contraceptive actions.” 

Ottawa Archbishop Thanks Canadian Catholics who Promoted Humanae Vitae in the Last 40 Years
TORONTO, November 17, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Humanae Vitae conference which took place this Saturday at St. Michael’s College in Toronto, attracting an overflow crowd, was a great success according to organizers and participants.  The conference was organized to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae (On Human Life), which reaffirmed Church teaching against contraception in the wake of the advent of the birth control pill. At the time of its publication, Humanae Vitae was rejected by many Catholics, clergy and bishops included.  Even the Canadian bishops’ conference at the time issued what is known as The Winnipeg Statement, which was interpreted by most as absolving Catholics should they dissent from the teaching against contraception. “The time at which it appeared,” said Ottawa Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, SJ, speaking of the encyclical during this weekend’s conference, “was one of great discontinuity … not only in public life but also for the church.”  The Archbishop recalled the Winnipeg Statement and a follow-up statement that sought to clarify it.  “Many felt, and some still feel, that the bishops’ first message was confusing and ambiguous, and that the follow up statement was too weak to correct mistaken notions communicated earlier,” he said. He added, however, that now was the time for the faithful in Canada to move forward with promoting the teaching rather than looking back to the past. “At this point in the history of the Canadian Church we could look backwards and try to change the past such as the baggage that came with the so-called Winnipeg Statement,” said the Archbishop.  “We can’t really change that but we can work for a better future by putting our energy to moving ahead, and bringing our healing vision to our culture …  ”We need to go back and embrace or re-embrace the prophetic encyclical Humanae Vitae given through the Theology of the Body,” he said.  “There is no doubt that we need to do more to promote the teaching of Humanae Vitae,” he added.  “Many in our time do not understand the evil of the contraceptive act.” The Archbishop urged the faithful “to read the encyclical, to study it and embrace it.”  He noted that the “prophetic” encyclical which “time has shown … to be a gift from Christ to men and women everywhere,” is “just as important today as it was in 1968.”  Prendergast quoted Cardinal Edward Gagnon as saying that Humanae Vitae is “one of the most important documents in the history of the church.”  He also prayed “for the conversion of those who are still resisting” the teaching of the encyclical. The archbishop of Canada’s national capital stressed the importance of a new document from the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, released this year.  That document, called “Liberating Potential,” was released in September and contained nothing but praise for and faithful adherence to Humanae Vitae.  LifeSiteNews.com coverage noted that the new CCCB document contained not a mention of the Winnipeg Statement or a hint of its dissenting slant on contraception (see coverage: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/sep/08092909.html). The archbishop urged faithful Catholics to “work for a better future by moving ahead and leaving the past in the Lord’s hands.”  Concluding, he said, “I want to thank all of you who over the past 40 years have kept the truths of HV before us. I know that God will bless you for your efforts and your suffering and I ask that we all go forward now with the task of building the culture of life and love here in Canada.” The conference was sponsored by Campaign Life Coalition, Priests for Life Canada, the Natural Family Planning Association, the Catholic Doctors Guild and LifeSiteNews.com.  Jim Hughes of Campaign Life Coalition told LifeSiteNews.com that he was thrilled with the conference and that the sold-out crowd was very enthusiastic.  “To see that there are bishops willing to speak out on this prophetic document bodes well for the future,” said Hughes.  

Canada’s Health Care System heading for “Demographic Blowout” with Aging Population: Study
OTTAWA, November 14, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A new study has revealed that the Canadian government will spend $171.9-billion this year on health care, or $5,170 per person. At this rate “health care spending is expected to grow faster than Canada’s economy, outpacing inflation and population growth,” according to Glenda Yeates, President and CEO of the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), which released the study yesterday. Demographers have warned that the aging and slow growth of the Canadian population is a direct threat to the long-term prognosis of its raft of expensive, publicly funded social services, including its health care system. Brian Day, past president of the Canadian Medical Association, told the Globe and Mail that with the Baby Boom generation growing older, the system is headed for a “demographic blowout.” The CIHI study found that government expenditure on health will reach 10.7 per cent of the country's gross domestic product. Yeates said the study’s results are “going to raise questions for Canada and other countries as to how much do we really want to spend on health care.” The organization's findings may prove especially significant and timely given US president-elect Barack Obama's stated plans to move the US towards socialized healthcare. At the same time that the Canadian government is paying record sums to keep its socialized medical services afloat, which includes government-funded abortion-on-demand, the population of Canada continues to age and its birth rate remains one of the lowest in the western world. The median age for women in Canada is 41.2 years, over the age at which women easily conceive children. Recently the total fertility rate has risen only slightly to 1.57 children born per woman. To maintain a steady population, however, a country must have 2.1 children born per woman. Despite massive immigration, Canada’s population, currently 33,399,600, has grown by only 276,780 since last year. With most new residents being adults, the problem of the aging of the population is not addressed by the government’s open-door policy, aimed at bringing workers into the country. The average Canadian life expectancy is 81.16 years. Combined, these statistics paint a grim picture of the future of Canada’s health services, with fewer and fewer young people to pay for the health care of a rapidly aging population. The 2006 census showed that the country’s population is aging at an alarming rate. The report from Statistics Canada said that the number of people over age 64 has increased by 11.5 per cent in the last 5 years. Of the total 32,973,546 Canadians, "the number of people aged 55 to 64, many of whom are workers approaching retirement, has never been so high in Canada, at close to 3.7 million in 2006." Meanwhile, Canada continues to be one of the most abortion-friendly countries in the world, with a total of 96,815 abortions committed in 2005, equalling 28.3 abortions for every 100 live births.

Toronto Humanae Vitae Conference Completely Sold Out - Demand Overwhelmed Organizers
TORONTO, November 12, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A conference on the prophetic document by Pope Paul VI, regarding contraception and called Humanae Vitae, has completely sold out a week in advance. This has stunned some organizers who were initially concerned that there would not be enough interest to fill the 400-seat hall where the conference will take place this Saturday.  The conference is sponsored by Campaign Life Coalition, Priests for Life Canada, the Natural Family Planning Association, the Catholic Doctors Guild and LifeSiteNews.com.  Speakers include Ottawa Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, Musician and speaker Mark Mallet, the leader of Priests for Life Canada Fr. Tom Lynch, Dr. Maria Kraw, Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins, as well as Theology of the Body speaker Cale Clarke. "I'm thrilled at the interest in the conference," Jim Hughes of Campaign Life Coalition told LifeSiteNews.com, "it shows that there is an awakening in Canada of the importance of that 1968 document which if embraced at the time it was released would have led to a massive resurgence of respect for life." Organizers are warning that not even one more space is available and therefore anyone arriving at the door will unfortunately not be able to be admitted. However, they say, DVD's and CDs of all the talks will be made available for order through LifeSiteNews.com and other venues.

Canadian Bishops Issue Pastoral Letter Encouraging Faithfulness to Anti-Contraception Encyclical Humanae Vitae
Say sterilization and contraception are against God's plan for sexuality

OTTAWA, September 29, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - At the close of their 2008 Plenary Assembly which met in Cornwall, September 22-26, the Bishops of Canada issued a pastoral letter, titled "Liberating Potential," which invites all the faithful "to discover or rediscover," the message of the Encyclical Humanae Vitae, issued by Pope Paul VI in 1968.  Although the Bishops' statement did not address the infamous Winnipeg Statement - a document dissenting from Humanae Vitae which was issued by the Canadian bishops on September 27, 1968 and never recanted - the present document is in full conformity with Humanae Vitae. "Abortion, sterilization and contraception are in opposition to the Creator's intention at the heart of sexual intercourse, preventing, if God so desires, the creation of a unique soul for the unique body that the spouses help to form," says Liberating Potential. The Plenary Assembly described the 1968 encyclical as a "prophetic document," especially in view of "the troubling evolution of two fundamental human institutions, marriage and the family." The message of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) goes on to say that the family and marriage "continue to be affected by the contraceptive mentality feared and rejected in the encyclical of Pope Paul VI." The Bishops of Canada point out what they say is an important link between Humanae Vitae and the "theology of the body," developed by Pope John Paul II between 1979 and 1984. Their pastoral letter is in fact as much a discourse on theology of the body as on Humanae Vitae."In short," they say, "Pope Paul Vl's encyclical Humanae Vitae and the subsequent 'theology of the body' developed by Pope John Paul II issue an immense challenge to a world that is too often occupied with protecting itself against the extraordinary life potential of sexuality." In their message, the Bishops of Canada also call for a more profound reflection on married life and on the meaning of sexual intercourse. "Catholics and all men and women of good will" are encouraged to reflect on both in the light of Humanae Vitae and the "theology of the body."  "Sexuality is a friend, a gift of God," they state. "It is revealed to us by the Trinitarian God" who invites Christians and others "to reveal it in turn in all its grandeur and dignity to our contemporaries at this start of the third millennium." The Bishops concluded, "In continuity with Paul VI and John Paul II and under the teachings of Benedict XVI, we invite Catholics and all men and women of good will to promote and defend life and the family." John Pacheco, a director of The Rosarium, a Catholic group which has sought to have the Winnipeg Statement overturned, praised the new statement in an interview with LifeSiteNews.com. "It's a solid document and I think that it will go a long way to addressing a lot of concerns and fears of faithful Catholics," said Pacheco.  "It effectively supersedes the Winnipeg statement," he said.  Regarding the Winnipeg Statement Pacheco said it's "no longer the official position of the Canadian bishops."  While he maintains the Winnipeg statement should be formally retracted, Pacheco suggested that with the current document, the Winnipeg Statement is "de facto retracted."  Pacheco said, however, that the new push for faithfulness to Humanae Vitae must go beyond the paper to application. There has to be a vigorous application of what's in the document at the parish level which would impact counseling to married couples, teaching them the 'why'," he said.  Bishops have to commit themselves to teaching since there has been a vacuum in their teaching on the matter for forty years."

Canadian Bishops issue pastoral message to mark 40th anniversary of Humanae Vitae
26 September 2008 (CCCB-Ottawa)… At the close of their 2008 Plenary Assembly which met in Cornwall, 22-26 September, the Bishops of Canada issued a pastoral letter, titled “Liberating Potential”, which invites all the faithful “to discover or rediscover,” the message of the Encyclical Humanae Vitae, issued by Pope Paul VI in 1968. The Plenary Assembly described the encyclical as a “prophetic document,” especially in view of “the troubling evolution of two fundamental human institutions, marriage and the family.” The message of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) goes on to say that the family and marriage “continue to be affected by the contraceptive mentality feared and rejected in the encyclical of Pope Paul VI.” “Nevertheless, Humanae Vitae is much more than a ‘no to contraception,’” the Bishops insist. Citing the encyclical, they point out that “It proposes a vision of the whole person and the whole mission to which each person is called.” The CCCB message describes the encyclical as “an invitation to be open to the grandeur, beauty and dignity of the Creator’s call to the vocation of marriage.” The Bishops of Canada point out what they say is an important link between Humanae Vitae and the “theology of the body,” developed by Pope John Paul II between 1979 and 1984. These reflections of John Paul II are a “pedagogy” to help appreciate the theological and pastoral significance of Humanae Vitae, they say. The Bishops observe that in marriage, the “act of flesh, the gift of bodies,” expresses “the totality of the gift of the persons, the one to the other,” by which “the man and the woman are, in the flesh, the image of the divine Trinity.” The CCCB pastoral letter points out that in the words of Pope John Paul II, “by means of its visible masculinity and femininity, the body, and it alone, is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the divine.” In their message, the Bishops of Canada also call for a more profound reflection on married life and on the meaning of sexual intercourse. “Catholics and all men and women of good will” are encouraged to reflect on both in the light of Humanae Vitae and the “theology of the body.” “Sexuality is a friend, a gift of God,” they state. “It is revealed to us by the Trinitarian God” who invites Christians and others “to reveal it in turn in all its grandeur and dignity to our contemporaries at this start of the third millennium.”

Contraceptive Hormones Mutating Fish in St. Lawrence River

MONTREAL, September 18, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Estrogen from birth control pills in highly populated areas of Canada is washing into the water table and flooding the St. Lawrence River, a new study has found. University of Montreal researchers said that the St. Lawrence River near Montreal has an alarmingly high level of estrogens that are mutating male fish. Downstream from the island of Montreal, one of Canada's most densely populated urban areas, estrogen levels in the water are "about 100 times more than the level known to have significant endocrine-disrupting effects," Sebastien Sauve, a professor of environmental chemistry, told the CBC. The primary source of the estrogens is the contraceptive pill and other artificial hormones, said the researchers. "They're really pharmaceuticals, which are used either as contraceptives or in hormone replacement therapy," Sauve said. Scientists have regularly reported in recent years that the excess of artificial hormones in the water system has caused lack of sexual differentiation among fish and other wildlife and a loss of their capacity to procreate. Excess drugs that the body does not metabolise are excreted and flushed into sewage treatment plants, and then into streams and lakes, where they can be taken up by wildlife and drinking water supplies. Scientists are growing increasingly concerned about the long-term impact of estrogens, called "endocrine disruptors", and their impact on the development of fish, amphibians and reptiles. The CBC reports that other research at Quebec's National Institute for Science Research has found ovaries in the testes of one-third of the males of a species of minnow in the same part of the river that the new study examined. In 2006, the United States Geological Survey undertook the first nation-wide study of estrogens as a water pollutant and found a dramatic upsurge in the number of male fish growing female reproductive parts. A survey of bass in the Potomac River found almost 100 percent of the smallmouth bass species were feminized, or had eggs in their testes. In 2001 and 2003, a group led by University of New Brunswick ecotoxicologist Karen Kidd spiked the water of a Canadian lake with the type of estrogen found in birth control pills, to find out how the hormone might impact the aquatic animals. They added the hormone at a level of six parts per trillion, which is similar to levels that have been found in treated sewage water. The most alarming finding was that the lake's population of the common Fathead minnow plummeted from thousands to almost zero, because estrogen so thoroughly disrupted the minnow's reproductive abilities.

Michigan Pharmacy Owner Explains Refusal to Sell Birth Control, Condoms Despite Aggressive Heckling

GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN, September 18th, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Although he is the third-generation owner of his family-run pharmacy, pharmacist Mike Koelzer runs the business somewhat differently than his forefathers. In 2002, Kay Pharmacy in Grand Rapids, Michigan made a public decision to no longer sell any form of contraceptives, including birth control and condoms.Koelzer told Faithandconscience.com that his reasons for eliminating birth control can be traced directly to the literature found on the insert in most oral contraceptive boxes. "It came down to God's teaching through the Catholic Church on the sanctity of all human life and on contraception. The Church teaches that all contraception is intrinsically evil. But, there is yet a further problem with hormonal contraceptives in how they work, which is sometimes killing a newly formed life," Koelzer related. "It is the third mechanism of action (the alteration in the endometrium which reduces the likelihood of implantation), which can kill a newly formed member of the human family by not allowing the new life to attach to the mother's uterus." Upon finalizing his decision after "many months of prayer", Koelzer notified his employees and his clientele with a letter simply stating that the pharmacy would no longer be selling any form of contraceptives. "Staying close to my focus, I did not go into reasons in the letter but welcomed any questions they may have regarding the new policy," Koelzer explained. Critics have been quick to question Koelzer's decision to eliminate all forms of birth control but to continue to dispense Viagra and other prescription drugs for erectile dysfunction. To these, however, Mr. Koelzer has replied:"The answer is pretty simple in my mind. [Viagra and other such drugs] help a natural process - they increase a natural process, whereas the birth control pill and other forms of contraception stop a natural process from happening." Although in the past individual pharmacists in the US have refused to dispense birth control personally, Kay Pharmacy was among the first of privately-owned pharmacies to completely pull-out of the birth control business. While Michigan has no law barring the refusal to dispense birth control as of yet, already California, New Jersey and Illinois have developed legislation making it mandatory for all pharmacies to fill all birth control prescriptions.Mr. Koelzer stated that his decision was a long time in the making and that despite the negative reactions outweighing the positive ones, he said that God was asking Him "to take His hand and jump." "I had to get a clear picture of just what I thought God wanted me to accomplish. I had many options here. I could have chosen to convince everyone to be pro-life, I could have chosen to try to get every customer to agree with my decision, I could have chosen to teach every customer about the beauty of natural law, I could have chosen to convince everyone about the infallibility of the Catholic Church when it teaches on morality, but what I found I really needed to do was to stop selling the contraceptives."

Contraception, Abortion 'Intimate Partners' Says Filipino Archbishop

MANILA, Philippines, September 12, 2008 (LIfeSiteNews.com) - "Contraception and abortion are intimate partners to the extent of being twins at times," wrote Archbishop Oscar Cruz of the Lingayen-Dagupan diocese in a recent posting on his blog. The Archbishop, addressing the upcoming debate in Congress of the controversial Reproductive Health Bill, warned that not only will the proposed legislation ruin the health of the people but that the bill is immoral. "The bill will lead to the implementation of an immoral policy - the proposed synthetic artificial contraceptives, eventually designed to ruin health as it slants the idea of responsible parenthood to issues of depopulation, which proponents claim will result in progress among underdeveloped countries like ours," he said. The bill, entitled, "An Act Providing for a National Policy on Reproductive Health, Responsible Parenthood and Population Development, and for other Purposes," is intrinsically harmful to life, family and society, warned Archbishop Cruz. "What is the use of mandating a contraception bill when abortion is already prevalent? Can the pro-contraception bill actually eradicate abortion?" the Archbishop asked, apparently pointing to the fact that in any place where contraception has been actively promoted as an answer to high abortion rates, the abortion rates have done anything but decrease. Archbishop Cruz bemoaned the fact that, "There has been already more than enough immorality in the country such as adultery, rape, prostitution, unwanted pregnancies and forced marriages, so much so that HIV AIDS infections, together with other sexually transmitted diseases, are on the rise." And in like manner, "There has been more than enough criminality than police authority can handle - such as murders committed during daylight as well as night time, not to mention those that come in the form of hideous abortions." "This is why fetuses are disturbingly found here and there, some of them shamefully thrown at garbage dumps or simply left behind in different unlikely places." "Given the situation, some legislators, who claim to be 'concerned' about the skyrocketing immorality rates and its risks, push for a 'Contraception Bill' to address this and to help depopulate the Nation through all conceivable means and gadgets," the Archbishop said. Commenting on the lucrative profits to be made from the sale of contraceptives, Archbishop Cruz said, "As the legislature deliberates and the concerned citizens debate on the issue, the multi-national companies manufacturing contraceptive drugs and devices must be looking forward to the passage of the bill. This is apparently because such approval will see for themselves a brisk sale of their products, a joyful raking in of profits." "It is rather difficult to assume that these big corporations are moved by their concern for the poor. Neither are they really motivated by their desire to promote national development, nor are they fundamentally concerned with the health of people. Instead, it is 'business as usual.'" Catholic Church authorities across the nation are spearheading advocacy movements against the passage of the bill, including an effort to gather a million signatures opposing it.

Bishops working on marriage, family statement

TORONTO - Forty years after the release of the encyclical Humanae Vitae, Canada’s bishops are working on a new document on marriage and family that will try to bring together the Catholic Church’s teaching in this area. Winnipeg Archbishop James Weisgerber, president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, told The Catholic Register in late August that the bishops have asked the conference’s Theological Commission to draft a statement. He added that the statement is expected to be ready for review by the end of the year. “The Catholic bishops of Canada have always been faithful to the teaching of the church,” he said. “But there continue to be people who doubt that.” Besides reassuring doubting Thomases, Weisgerber pointed out that none of today’s bishops were bishops in 1968 when Pope Paul VI touched off a storm of controversy with his encyclical, which reaffirmed traditional Catholic opposition to artificial contraception. They would like to reassert Catholic teaching in a manner that would reach today’s Catholics. “People are asking us questions about this, so we’re going to look at it,” he said. Humanae Vitae was issued on July 25, 1968. Its reaffirmation of the ban on contraception was largely unexpected and the encyclical was severely criticized in some church quarters. Two months later, at their annual plenary, the Canadian bishops issued a statement of support for the encyclical. Known as the Winnipeg Statement, because the plenary was held in Winnipeg, the statement itself was criticized because of one paragraph on the primacy of conscience. Critics argued that this paragraph gave dissenters the permission they desired to ignore church teaching. Over the decades, some Catholics have continued to call upon the bishops to revoke the Winnipeg Statement. One such group, called the Rosarium, conducted a petition last spring in which it again called on the bishops to revoke their statement. It gathered about 1,750 individual signatures, according to John Pacheco, one of the two men who lead the group. Pacheco said he has sent letters to every bishop who leads a Latin rite parish in the country, informing them of his request. At their annual plenary, to be held in late September in Cornwall, Ont., the bishops will participate in a private discussion of all church teaching on the issue since the Second Vatican Council, Weisgerber said. (Source)

Contraception, Abortion and Sterilisation "Attack the Very Foundations of the Human World": Lancaster UK Bishop

LANCASTER, UK, August 19, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Bishop Patrick O’Donoghue of the northern English diocese of Lancaster, has blasted the contraceptive mentality that has resulted, he said, in the dissolution of marriage as an institution, endlessly rising abortion and divorce rates, depressed and even suicidal children, and ultimately the degradation of an entire society. "I am convinced that there must be profoundly damaging consequences for the family in a country where contraception and abortion are so wide-spread," he writes in a soon-to-be released document. Artificial contraception, abortion, in vitro fertilisation, sterilisation and sex outside marriage, are contradictions to the very core of what it means to be human, Bishop O’Donoghue argues. The attempt to demote sexuality to a mere recreation activity, removed from marriage, has degraded what he has called "the Law of Self Gift" - the "total physical self-giving which is only possible for a man and a woman who have committed themselves to one another until death, as husband and wife." This Law of Self Gift is, he writes, the "reason why the Church is so adamantly against sterilisation, contraception, abortion and sex outside marriage." "These acts, because they contradict and negate the God given meaning of the human person, attack the very foundations of the human world." In his lengthy and comprehensive document that is due for publication next week, "Fit for Mission? Church", Bishop O’Donoghue writes that sexuality is "not purely biological, but concerns the innermost being of each person." He warns that the Church needs to return to the truth of its teaching on sexuality and traces the increase in abortion and divorce, as well as depression and mental illness among young people, to the denial of the truth about contraception. "These statistics," he says, "reveal the shocking depth and extent of the suffering and impoverishment of so many families and children due to the separation of the unitive and procreative nature of sexual love, and the wide-spread practice of pre-marital sexual behaviour." Citing official 2006 statistics, Bishop O’Donoghue deplores the 193,700 unborn children killed through abortion that year, including the 2000 children killed who "may" have suffered some kind of disability and the 3,990 abortions carried out on girls under age 16 - the age of consent. Fewer marriages, fewer children, and children raised in families without the inherent stability afforded by true marriage has undermined the happiness of children and ultimately of the whole nation, the bishop says. He notes the spiritual and emotional malaise of a society without strong families. More than one quarter of all children under 16 in Britain, he writes, "regularly feel depressed" and between 2006-2007, 4,241 children under 14 attempted to commit suicide. "No wonder so many children are suffering depression and mental illness in a country that is such a hostile environment for human life. No wonder divorce is so prevalent when family life is so often characterised by a lack of generosity or self-giving love." The bishop has called on both clergy and laity, especially at the parish level, to defend and promote the Church's teaching against artificial contraception and the meaning of sexuality. "We, the Catholic Church, must be more confident and proactive in presenting our rich and fulfilling understanding of marriage, sexual love and the family." In the larger context of the 92 page document, Bishop O’Donoghue has asked Catholics for input on what they hope to see in the future of the Catholic Church in the Lancaster diocese and in England overall. Bishop O’Donoghue received widespread plaudits from parents and other Catholics concerned by the erosion of Catholic teaching on diocesan schools earlier this year when he released his previous document "Fit for Mission? Schools." In that document he called for all the schools of his diocese to re-commit themselves to the teachings of the Catholic Church, especially on marriage, family and life issues. He asked for crucifixes to be placed in every classroom, for "sex-education" to be based exclusively on the principles of chastity and the sanctity of marriage, that schools do no fundraising for anti-life groups and religious education be based firmly in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This document resulted in his being hauled before a Parliamentary committee, secularist members of which demanded to know if the Catholic Church were returning to a previous "doctrinaire" or "fundamentalist" attitude towards its education system. Bishop O’Donoghue responded that teaching Catholicism in a Catholic school, their "prime duty", constituted neither "fundamentalism" nor "proselytism."

Birth Rates Continue to Plunge: US Census Bureau

WASHINGTON, August 19, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The percentage of childless women who have reached the end of their child-bearing years in the United States has doubled from 10% to 20% in the last 30 years, reported the US Census Bureau on Monday. The survey also found that, "Women 40 to 44 years old will end their childbearing years with an average of 1.9 children each, a number below replacement-level fertility." This is markedly fewer children than in 1976, when 3.1 children was the national average. 36% of the women who gave birth in 2006 were separated, widowed, divorced or never married. Five percent were living with a partner. The survey also revealed that most women who go on to post-secondary education wait until they are between 30 and 34 to have children. 27% of those women with undergraduate degrees and upwards are childless. Only the Hispanic and Black populations in the US are replacing themselves with an average of 2.3 and 2.0 children born per woman respectively, making them the only stabilizing force in the American population. At this rate, experts say, whites will be the minority in America by 2042. Andrew Cherlin, a sociology professor at John Hopkins University whose specialties are family and public policy commented on the newly released numbers, observing that fewer children forebodes a future demographic crisis. "It means that 25 years from now, there'll be many elderly people who are childless and who may not have anybody to care for them," he said. In a 2006 message to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences Pope Benedict XVI, whose own native land of Germany has seen massive declines in birthrates, remarked that children are too often looked upon in terms of their economic cost and not as gifts from God. This mentality, he says, is not only causing a decline in birth rates, but it is also detrimental to children already born. "It is children and young people," he said, "who are often the first to experience the consequences of this eclipse of love and hope."  "Often, instead of feeling loved and cherished, they appear to be merely tolerated."  It is not only the United States that is experiencing drastic population decline. Last year, surveys revealed that the Canadian birthrates have also hit an all time low, clocking in at an average of 1.5 children per woman, while the European Union's statistics agency, Eurostat, has predicted an overall drop in Europe's population of 7 million people by 2050.

The Prophesy Unfolds

Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae shocked Catholics and non-Catholics alike with its continuation of long-standing Church opposition to artificial birth control. But on its 40th anniversary, the encyclical is widely seen as prophetic and worth a second look. "I think people are beginning to realize Paul VI was onto something," said Ottawa Archbishop Terrence Prendergast. "I think oftentimes we don't realize what happens when changes are proposed." Prendergast noted, for example, that supporters of Canada's 2005 decision to legalize same-sex marriage say the sky has not fallen. "It takes time for consequences to work their way through." In Humanae Vitae (Of Human Life), Paul VI warned artificial contraception would lead to a breakdown in moral standards and a lowering of respect for women, saying they would be reduced to instruments for satisfying men's sexual desires. Social science surveys provide ample evidence of marriage and family breakdown over the past 40 years, including rising rates of children born out of wedlock, high rates of abortion and sexually transmitted diseases. The encyclical was released July 25, 1968 and immediately was the subject of a storm of controversy. But in 1968, the West was in the throes of the sexual revolution, especially the freedom offered by the birth control pill. Ethicist Margaret Somerville recalled the shock that greeted Humanae Vitae 40 years ago. "We all thought the pill was going to be allowed," she said. The founding director of McGill University's Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law said the invention of the birth control pill 50 years ago was as significant an event in human history as the discovery of electricity. "I understand now what the Church may have intuited in terms of its profound and wide-reaching impact," she said. "The pill was a radical dividing line between the past and how society developed from then on, for good or ill." Crossing the threshold of artificial contraception opened up a line of events that fundamentally altered the concept of human sexuality and the passing on of life, and the relationship between men and women, she said. Prendergast, who was studying at the University of Ottawa in 1968, also said the encyclical surprised many because the reforms of the Second Vatican Council were in the air and many interpreted the council as a rupture from previous Church teaching. "What Paul VI did was say, 'No, this teaching is valid for all times; it's not going to be changed,'" he said. He described Paul VI as prophetic but also lonely, as someone who became deeply discouraged in his ministry after trying to do "something good for the Church." Prendergast said he has encouraged priests both in Ottawa and in Halifax to teach on Humanae Vitae and make it part of marriage preparation and family life courses. Prendergast said the encyclical is more about the "beauty of following the natural law that God has prescribed in our nature" than it is about contraception. Whatever the culture says about human sexuality, "Christ has called us to be faithful," he said. Prendergast is only one of several Canadian bishops speaking favorably of Humanae Vitae this year. Cardinal Marc Ouellet, archbishop of Quebec, told LifeSiteNews.com in June the document should be reread because it is a "beautiful" description of human love. "Openness to life is the key of the document, that the act of mutual gift of the spouses must remain open to life," he said. Bishop Ronald Fabbro of London, Ont., praised Humanae Vitae following a seminar the Catholic Organization for Life and Family (COLF) held in March. Seminar participants spoke of young people "being inundated" with a view of sexuality "that doesn't respect them as persons," Fabbro said. "Our young people are hungering for an alternative and for a vision for something they can believe in that they are not getting from the society that they live in." Somerville said the Church aspires to teach that sex is not just a recreational pursuit, or a casual event, but something that needs to be surrounded with meaning, respect and sacredness. "This still needs to be taught, even if the teachings cannot be lived up to, at least all the time." But Humanae Vitae's insistence on never separating the unitive and procreative aspects of "the marriage act" also has raised questions about the direction of reproductive technology. Somerville noted an in vitro fertilization specialist said recently that in the future people will have sex for fun, but when they want to reproduce they will use IVF to control all the variables. This has implications on whether parents will be expected to love their children unconditionally regardless of their sex, or their physical characteristics, she said. Somerville calls for a "presumption in favour of the natural." "The most fundamental human right of all is to come from natural human origins," she said. That means from "one natural ovum from an identified, living adult woman and one natural sperm from an identified living adult man." Another issue that birth-control proponents 40 years ago failed to see was the onset of demographic winter in the West. Prendergast notes that concerns 40 years ago about a population explosion have proven to be "nonsense," because aging populations in Canada and other Western countries have birth rates too low to replace them. "Many children do not know what it is like to have a brother or sister," he said. Paul VI also warned that governments could start to impose contraceptive measures on citizens, violating their personal responsibilities. While China's one-child policy is one example, McGill associate professor of Christian Thought Douglas Farrow said Canada's mandatory sex education policies are another. "The Canadian bishops never imagined mandatory programs teaching Catholic children how to experiment in all manner of 'sterile' sex, including sodomy, or how to appreciate the fact that 'families' come in all sizes and shapes," Farrow wrote for the National Post's Full Comment section July 31. (Source)

Australian Woman Dies from Taking Birth Control Pill

MELBOURNE, August 20, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A 24 year old Australian woman's death has been blamed on her use of oral contraceptive pills, which she was taking them as part of her acne treatment.Tanya Hayes died on Monday from a pulmonary embolism - a blood clot in her lungs. Having ignored symptoms, including "breathlessness" and "a nasty, hard cough" for about two weeks, she collapsed on Sunday night in a parking lot and was rushed to Angliss Hospital in Melbourne were she died five hours later. The hospital's director of emergency medicine, Associate Professor Graeme Thomson, said Tanya's death had been "caused by blood clotting caused by factors related to taking the oral contraceptive pill", according to a report by Adelaide Now. Hayes had been taking Yasmin, an oral contraceptive recommended for patients using the acne medication Roaccutane. Women using Roaccutane have an "extremely high risk of having a baby that is severely deformed" if they become pregnant said Dr. Stephen Shumack, secretary of the Australasian College of Dermatologists. The contraceptives also boost the effectiveness of the acne medication, Dr. Shumack added that deaths linked to hormonal contraception were "certainly a recognised event, but it's extraordinarily rare." According to the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), oral contraceptives have been linked to three deaths in Australia since 1973. There have been 56 TGA reports of "suspected adverse events" linked to Yasmin since 2003, but no fatalities. The package warnings of the contraceptive medication Tanya had been taking lists "breathlessness" as a "very rare...very serious side effect." Similar incidents of sudden death attributed to use of oral contraceptives have been reported by LifeSiteNews.com. In 2006, 31-year-old Julie Hennessy of Dublin was found dead on the floor of her living room. An otherwise healthy woman, she had been taking the contraceptive drug Mercilon for a number of years. This resulted in her developing deep vein thrombosis (DVT), a condition in which blood clots form in a deep vein usually in one of the appendages. In the case of Miss Hennessy, a DVT broke off and lodged in her lungs, causing death. Speaking before the Dublin County Coroner's Court, pathologist Peter Szontagh-Kishazi emphasized that the contraceptive pill had caused Julie Hennessy's DVT. "The only important factor was the oral contraceptive pill. Clotting is a well-known risk of using the contraceptive pill. There is no other medication that has such a big risk as the oral contraceptive pill," said Dr Szontagh-Kishazi. Another highly publicized case involved an 18 year old student in New York who died as a result her use of a hormonal birth-control patch. Zakiya Kennedy, an aspiring model, approached a policeman in a New York Upper West side subway station. She complained of a severe pain in her head and leg and then collapsed. She died an hour later in hospital. New York medical examiners determined that the cause was blood clots. Kennedy had switched from oral contraceptives to the patch about three weeks before her death and had not complained of any difficulties before calling on the policeman for help. The clots formed without her knowledge and she died when one entered her lungs.

New Study: Oral Contraceptives Disrupt Ability to Choose Genetically Favorable Mate

LIVERPOOL, United Kingdom, August 12, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A recent study by the University of Liverpool found that the contraceptive pill may adversely affect a woman’s natural ability to choose a genetically favorable mate.  The ability to choose a genetically favorable mate is ascribed in part to pheromones, chemicals that can cause behavioral changes in the opposite sex. These chemicals also contain the genes involved in immunity response.  When these genes interact with normal skin bacteria, they influence an individual’s particular body odor.  Research has indicated that women tend to be more attracted to the odors of men whose genes are more unlike their own; this instinctive attraction is key in helping ensure a match that is genetically advantageous to a couple’s offspring.  If a couple’s genes are too similar, they are at an increased risk of miscarriage and difficulty conceiving, and if they do conceive, the child may have a weakened immune system. Yet this natural sense may be endangered by the use of oral contraceptives.  The research team conducting the study asked women to indicate their preferences of six male body odors before and after initiating use of oral contraceptives.  According to Craig Roberts, a Lecturer in Evolutionary Psychology and one of the researchers in this study, women taking the pill began to prefer men with more genetically similar odors.  Addressing the implications of such a disruption, he states: “Not only could [gene] similarity in couples lead to fertility problems, but it could ultimately lead to the breakdown of relationships when women stop using the contraceptive pill, as odour perception plays a significant role in maintaining attraction to partners.” These claims are not the first to question the pill’s impact on hormone activity and sexuality.  Dr. David Brownstein, commenting on a study linking oral contraceptives to increased arterial plaque, emphasized the precarious balance of hormones needed for good health, a balance disrupted de facto in pill users: “Oral contraceptives totally disrupt the normal hormonal cascade. When the hormonal system is disrupted, cardiovascular disease, cancer, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome and other serious illnesses will increase.  My clinical experience has clearly shown that it is impossible to adequately treat these illnesses if there is an imbalanced hormonal system.” 

Humane Vitae: Memories of an Encyclical
By Bishop Peter J Elliott

In the wake of Humanae Vitae, aggressive dissent seemed to freeze many Catholic leaders, to an extent even the Pope himself. Acts of discipline against vocal priests, for example in Melbourne, only made media martyrs. Charles Curran cut a figure in the US, but Kung, Rahner and Haering made dissent respectable. Kung went on to attack infallibility. He understood the authority of the papal teaching. The Pope was not only attacked in the secular press. Under Paul Burns, the London Tablet dissented from Humanae Vitae. A later Tablet editor censored a letter of mine contradicting another dissenter, Dr Jack Dominian. I told readers that Mother Teresa’s sisters teach natural family planning in India. You could not even make fidelity to Humanae Vitae look good! Then came the most tragic part of the saga. Notwithstanding the compassionate pastoral tone of the encyclical, “Pastoral statements” from some Episcopal Conferences modified the Pope’s teaching in a slippery way. Canada was perhaps the worst, but in 1974 Australia finally followed. What was a young priest to think when a senior bishop apologized to him for losing the vote that let the Australian statement appear? After complaints to Rome it was later corrected, but the damage was already done. Through the media, Catholics heard “follow your conscience”, a green light for birth control and sterilization. Pope Paul, a Prophet Paul VI was described as a prophet. At the time he seemed to be a martyr His letter on the transmission of human life was his finest hour. It did have an uncanny accuracy in light of the past forty years. He said that contraception harmed women (Humanae Vitae 17). People laughed at him. Forty years down the track various feminists agree with him. He argued that artificial birth control can be used by governments to impose population control. Vatican led struggles against population control at the UN Conference in the1990’s vindicated his stand. He was criticized for linking sterilization and abortion to contraception. But recent decades have revealed these three ugly sisters of a “culture of death” are inseparable. His teaching that the love-giving and life-giving dimensions of the marriage act must never be separated has been vindicated by manipulation of human life - IVF, surrogacy, embryo experimentation, cloning, etc. Human-animal hybrids were recently approved by the “Mother of Parliaments”, which first legalized abortion in 1967. He argued that that love, not just life, is disrupted by anti-natal practices. People who actually read his encyclical find a rich doctrine of married love. But the creative development of that dimension had to wait for another Pope. …(Source)

You’ve already heard about the pregnant man. But what about the she-man fish? “Intersex” freshwater fish are all the rage. But unlike the pregnant man, these scaly androgynes didn’t ask to take on the sexual characteristics of both genders: humans are doing it to them. (Where’s the freedom to choose?!) And the reason these fish are doubling up could make hash of orthodoxies dating back to the sexual revolution....Estrogen pollution from contraceptive and abortion pills could be the culprit behind these piscine switcheroos. And thus the two holiest of holies for the left may be on a collision course. It promises to be quite the show. In his book “The Really Inconvenient Truths: Seven Environmental Catastrophes Liberals Don’t Want You to Know About — Because They Helped Cause Them” (Regnery, 2008), Iain Murray writes: “Why don’t we have more outcries about hormones, and campaigns to save the fish populations? Why aren’t environmentalists lobbying on Capitol Hill to keep these chemicals from being dumped into our rivers?” He answers his own question: “Maybe because the source of these chemicals is not some corporate polluter, but something a little more dear to the Left: human birth-control pills, morning-after pills, and abortion pills.”…The turnaround won’t come, however, without some whiplash. Ironically, the environmental groups have long been on the same page as the abortion-industry foot soldiers, embracing anything that assuages fears of overpopulation (no longer a worry, as Western countries, particularly in Europe, face plummeting birth rates). “The protection of the quality of our environment is impossible in the face of the present rate of population growth,” and therefore, “Laws, policies, and attitudes that foster population growth or big families, or that restrict abortion and contraception … should be abandoned; [and] comprehensive and realistic birth control programs should be available to every member of our society.” That’s not from Planned Parenthood; it’s a Sierra Club resolution from 1970. This is from Planned Parenthood: “Prominent women in the global environmental movement … believe there are strong links between the health of the environment, the ability of women to engage and lead their communities, and their ability to exercise their inherent reproductive rights. Women have a stake in a clean environment because they are often the main providers of food and water, and their reproductive health can be adversely affected by environmental degradation.” But, Murray writes, “By any standard typically used by environmentalists, the pill is a pollutant. It does the same thing, just worse, as other chemicals they call pollutants.” So what does that mean for us and the fish? Nothing straight away, Murray tells me. There’s more than pollution at stake here for the left, so, expect “outright denial at there being a problem, obfuscation of the science when strong arguments are presented, attempts to deflect attention onto much rarer and less harmful industrial estrogen, and ad hominem accusations, in this case an allegation of religious zealotry/being in the pay of the ‘very well-funded pro-life industry’ I imagine. The effort will be based on making it unacceptable to bring up the issue in polite conversation, such that anyone who does so will end up stigmatized (astonishing how often the left resorts to shame, rather than thinking about guilt). Some radical Greens may actually be honest enough to admit there is a problem. They will be marginalized by the environmental-industrial-entertainment complex (to paraphrase Fox Mulder).” With the science out there, Murray argues solving the problem wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility if we could all be adult about it. “The EPA and FDA (ought) to have the courage to do what their counterparts in the U.K. had the courage to do and label the pill as the pollutant it is. (Source)

Cardinal Speaks on Humanae Vitae and the "Civilization of Love"

QUEBEC CITY, August 6, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Yesterday, Quebec City Cardinal Marc Ouellet gave the opening homily for the 126th Supreme Convention of the Knights of Columbus in Quebec City, addressing the "prophetic" teachings of Humane Vitae and calling for a "civilization of love." Promulgated in 1968 by Pope Paul VI, the Papal Encyclical Humane Vitae proclaimed the paramount necessity of protecting life and family. Most famously and controversially, it condemned all forms of artificial contraception as being intrinsically evil. "At forty years of the Encyclical Humanae Vitae and despite the cultural opposition to this Church teaching, we are called to revisit this document and to realize how prophetic it was and still is. It speaks of human love and openness to life."May we continue to grow in holiness on the personal level and to be present as a social body on the public scene, particularly by promoting the values of the family," said Cardinal Ouellet, highlighting in particular "the sacredness of human life from the moment of conception to the last breath of natural death." The Encyclical also warned of the consequences society would suffer if offenses against life were permitted - a warning that has not been heeded by all. "[Humanae Vitae] discards contraception as a threat for human love and a slippery slope towards demoralization of our society," said Cardinal Ouellet.  "The message has not yet been truly received despite the confirmation that came from the evolution of the culture towards divorce, abortion, homosexuality and destruction of marriage and family. These sad consequences were foretold to some extent in the message of Humanae Vitae." The Cardinal then spoke about the difficulties Canadians face in attempting to authentically live out the message of Humane Vitae, referring to the Governor General's polarizing decision to award Dr. Henry Morgentaler with the Order of Canada: "It is not easy to embody those values in today's context, especially in Canada where the culture of death is making further steps of domination by rewarding publicly an activist of abortion." The Primate of Canada concluded by calling for a renewal of faith in the face of the culture of death and a civilization founded on love. "May our reaction to the sad events in the world not be of little faith but of a new faith commitment to hold firmly the Church's teaching on human life and love and to engage with courage the cultural challenges by promoting more strongly a culture of life and a civilization of love," said Cardinal Ouellet

Unearthed: 1968 Vatican Letter to Bishops Sent with Pre-Release Copy of Humanae Vitae called for Unity

OTTAWA, July 29, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - During the tumultuous years of the 1960's Pope Paul VI published a controversial encyclical, Humanae Vitae, which addressed the issue of birth control in light of the arrival of the birth control pill. Today LifeSiteNews.com is publishing a recently unearthed letter which was sent to Bishops with a pre-release copy of the encyclical.  The letter, dated July 19, 1968, is signed by the late Amleto Giovanni Cardinal Cicognani, who was then-Secretary of the Vatican Secretariat of State.  The outright defiance of many priests and even bishops to Pope Paul VI's encyclical - which restated and reinforced the Church's long-time opposition to artificial birth control - is even graver in light of the carefully worded letter the bishops received specifically pointing to the urgent need for unity on the matter.  The letter begins: "When directing me to transmit to Your Excellency the enclosed document, publication of which is imminent, His Holiness strongly recommended that I draw your attention to its importance, and to the necessity of a concerted effort on the part of the entire Catholic Episcopate." In the letter the Pope can be seen to plead for the world's bishops to stand with him on the matter, which is described as "one of the most delicate questions of Catholic morals."  Regarding the Pope, the letter says, "And now He turns to His Brothers, the Bishops of the Catholic world, asking them to stand beside Him more firmly than ever in this circumstance, and to help Him present this delicate point of the Church's teaching to the Christian people, to explain and justify its profound reasons."  The letter adds, "The Pope counts upon the attachment of His Brothers in the Episcopate to the Chair of Peter, upon their love for the Church, upon their concern for the true good of souls." Beyond the disunity amongst many of the hierarchy over the encyclical, the most glaring failure of the Catholic Episcopate was their unwillingness to transmit the teaching to the Catholic faithful.  Yet in the letter a specific request to do so was made of the bishops. "Finally," concluded the letter, "it is necessary that both in the confessional and in the pulpit, in the press and by other means of social communication, every necessary pastoral effort be made that no ambiguity exists among the faithful or in public opinion concerning the Church's position in this serious matter." In many cases the Catholic hierarchy has completely ignored this instruction, with the result that many, if not a large majority, of today's Catholics have not been instructed on the Church's longtime teaching on the grave immorality and practical negative consequences of the use of artificial contraception. However, with the 40th anniversary of Humanae Vitae this past Friday, has increased hopes that a renewed effort will finally begin to instruct Catholics in the true teaching and benefits of the encyclical.

15 Filipino Bishops Lead 12,000 in Prayer Rally Celebrating 40th Anniversary of Controversial Humanae Vitae Encyclical

MANILA, Philippines, July 28, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A Mass and vigil was held on Friday at the University of Santo Tomas to mark the 40th anniversary of the encyclical letter of Pope John Paul VI on human life, Humanae Vitae. One goal of the rally was to pressure lawmakers into abandoning the proposed Reproductive Health and Population Development Act, which has passed the committee level in the Philippine House of Representatives. The Act would create a new agency called the Commission on Population (POPCOM) which would "encourage" families to have only two children, and promote the use of a variety of abortifacient drugs, including the IUD and the pill. In a massive gathering of pro-life supporters, leaders from the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), members of the Christian charismatic group El Shaddai, politicians, personalities, students, professionals and laborers massed at the university parade grounds to the peel of hundreds of church bells throughout the city. "This will express the Catholics' firm belief in life and their commitment to stand up for life," Manila Auxiliary Bishop Bernardino Cortez said. The prayer rally carried the theme "Biyaya ng Buhay, Biyaya ng Pamilya (Blessing of Life, Blessing of the Family)," and was aimed at convincing lawmakers, especially those still undecided on what stance to take regarding the Reproductive Health (RH) bill, that it was unnecessary and would harm Philippine society in the long run. Archbishop Paciano Aniceto of San Fernando said, "We pray that they change their minds. They are also trying to weigh matters. The first-termers, for example, they don't have much lawmaking experience and they are not really aware of the backgrounds and certain issues in Congress, like this [RH bill]. This is destroying the family, which is the foundation of all government and civilization." Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, President of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, said there was hope that legislators would not let the bill pass the House after the prayer rally. "I hope they don't rush it. There's still a chance that they will have a change of heart," he said. In his homily, Archbishop Lagdameo called for a "change in attitude" in society and stressed the Church's stand against contraceptives. "We need a change of attitude. The attitude of 'what is mine is mine absolutely and I can do with it as I wish,' or the belief that 'my money entitles me to consume or control on my own terms as much as my money will buy' is not permissible anymore," he said. "We in the Catholic Church...advocate only natural family planning methods as the only morally acceptable way of practicing responsible parenthood." He said the Church does not forbid the advocacy of the increase or decrease of population provided that the religious beliefs of the couple on sexual and family morality are respected, and warned that the family as an institution is being threatened by the Reproductive Health bill. "The subtle attacks on family and conjugal morality through legislations that promote artificial methods of birth control are couched in attractive but deceptive terminologies like Reproductive Health Care, population management, anti-discrimination of women and children, reproductive rights and patients' rights," he said. The Archbishop said that poverty is not caused by overpopulation but by misuse of public funds. "If all the money that goes to graft and corruption of government or is used for the wrong reasons were spent for our increasingly poor population, we will have indeed both population and true progress, a population that is the resource and object of development," he said. "If only government would be really pro-poor, there would be less and less poor people," the prelate added. Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales told married couples that if they conduct themselves with discipline and self-control, they would be "in possession of true values of life." "If there is discipline in the marital bed, then there is discipline in the streets, there is discipline in schools, there is discipline in the government," Archbishop Rosales proclaimed. He then compared the act of ending the life of an unborn child to King Herod's order to slaughter the infants of Bethlehem after Christ was born. "Wherever this happens, in the clinics, health centers, or hospitals, ending the life of a child inside a mother's womb is a repeat of Herod's massacre of the innocents … and a Herod could be your neighbor," he said. Pat Buckley of the European Life Network and a pro-life lobbyist at the UN and the Human Rights Council in Geneva, said of the Philippines Reproductive Health bill: "The act not only sets the scene for the introduction of abortion, it is also aimed at substantially reducing the population by various means including abortifacient birth control and sterilisation." "While some of the language is about choice there is also coercion. Medical personnel will be forced either to comply or to refer people to someone who will. This is a direct attack on conscientious objection." "There are also a range of penalties if various people do not comply, from dismissal to fines and imprisonment. There is also a provision that says any person who maliciously engages in disinformation about the intent or provisions of this Act shall be subject to penalties. This is a grave attack on freedom of speech and is aimed at the pro-life community and the Church."

Vatican Cardinal: Damage to the Church from the Dissent on Paul VI Contraception Doc Continues Today

VATICAN, July 25, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Today, on the 40th anniversary of the signing of Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae (HV), one of the highest ranking Americans in the Vatican has written an eye-opening and deeply personal retrospective on the world-shaking events which took place in the wake of the document's publication. The deadliest thing to hit the Catholic in the last 40 years, he says, was not the encyclical which reiterated the Church's stand against contraception - but the dissent from it.  Cardinal James F. Stafford, Major Penitentiary of the Apostolic Penitentiary - the head of the Vatican arm that deals with indulgences - writes in the Vatican's official newspaper that he was a priest in the Archdiocese of Baltimore at the time HV was published.  Stafford, who hosted World Youth Day in Denver in 1993 as the then-Archbishop, recounts, "The summer of 1968 is a record of God's hottest hour."  "The memories are not forgotten; they are painful . . . They inhabit the whirlwind where God's wrath dwells. In 1968 something terrible happened in the Church. Within the ministerial priesthood ruptures developed everywhere among friends which never healed. And the wounds continue to affect the whole Church. The dissent, together with the leaders' manipulation of the anger they fomented, became a supreme test. It changed fundamental relationships within the Church." The Cardinal explains that dissident theologians, led by Charles Curran and other dissident clergy, attempted to bully their fellow priests into signing on to documents of formal dissent. He relates a length his own experiences of being bullied, on August 4, 1968, when a meeting of Baltimore priests was convened, with the intention of pressing them into signing the Washington "Statement of Dissent."  That abusive pressure on priests loyal to Rome and the fractionization of unity resulting from large numbers of openly dissenting clergy has remained problematic to this day.  "Abusive, coercive dissent has become a reality in the Church and subjects her to violent, debilitating, unproductive, chronic controversies," writes Cardinal Stafford.  "Diocesan presbyterates have not recovered from the July/August nights in 1968." One key area which Cardinal Stafford highlights as having sustained "a direct hit" was the friendship among the faithful and the clergy. "The violence of the initial disobedience was only a prelude to further and more pervasive violence," he writes. "Priests wept at meetings over the manipulation of their brothers. Contempt for the truth, whether aggressive or passive, has become common in Church life.  Dissenting priests, theologians and laypeople have continued their coercive techniques.  From the beginning the press has used them to further its own serpentine agenda."

One Last Time - Canada's Greatest Defender of Humanae Vitae Calls on Bishops to Reject Dissenting Document

TORONTO, July 25, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In the upcoming edition of Catholic Insight magazine, Canada's greatest defender of the Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae - 92-year-old Monsignor Vincent Foy - concludes his lifelong championship of the papal position on birth control.  Released today, on the 40th anniversary of the encyclical, Monsignor Foy calls on the Bishops of Canada to revoke their "Winnipeg Statement", which he says is an unacceptable document of dissent. Humanae Vitae presents the teaching against contraception as stemming from the law of God, not the Church, and thus as universally applicable not merely to Catholics.  However, Msgr. Foy points to a devastating letter sent by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops to politicians which permits even Catholic legislators to support the legalization of contraception. Msgr. Foy writes: "On Sept. 9, 1966, the CCCB addressed a document To the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health and Welfare: on Change in the Law of Contraception. The bishops said in part: 'We consider Article 150, which forbids giving information about contraception, as well as the sale or distribution of contraception an inadequate law today…A large number of our fellow citizens believe that this law violates their rights to be informed and helped towards responsible parenthood in accordance with their personal beliefs.'" The CCCB letter added: "We do not conceive it our duty to oppose appropriate changes in Article 150 of the Criminal Code. Indeed, we could easily envisage an active co-operation and even leadership on the part of lay Catholics to change a law which under present conditions they might well judge to be harmful to public order and the common good." Msgr Foy commnets: "This incredible betrayal of Catholic teaching on the intrinsic evil of contraception was a factor in the passing of a bill by the Liberal government under Pierre Trudeau, legalizing contraception (June 27, 1969)." But that was only a lead-up to what Foy calls, "the Winnipeg disaster of Friday Sept. 27th, 1968."   On that date, he recalls, "the Canadian bishops, gathered in Winnipeg for their annual meeting and published a Statement on Humanae vitae. After denying the sufficiency of grace for some (n.17) the bishops embraced the error of allowing married couples to break God's law by the subterfuge of the subjective conscience. They said there were circumstances in which the couples 'may be safely assured that whoever honestly chooses that course which seems right to him does so in good conscience' (n.26)." (see the full Winnipeg statement here: http://www.catholic-legate.com/articles/winnipeg.html ) In his article Foy names some of the most prominent players orchestrating the original dissent from Humanae Vitae in Canada, including: Cardinal Emile Leger, Cardinal Leo Suenens, Archbishop Aurèle Plourde of Ottawa, Edward Schillebeeckx, OP, Karl Rahner, SJ, Bernard Häring, CSsR, Bernard Lonergan, SJ, Enda McDonagh, Gregory Baum, OSA, Stanley Kutz, CSB, and Leslie Dewart. Neither the letter to politicians nor the Winnipeg Statement has ever been revoked by the Bishops of Canada.  "For forty years rebellion has been widespread in Canada," says Foy.  "For forty years we have experienced the deadly fruit of turning away from Christ in the most critical area of life and marital love . . . Pope John Paul II called dissent from Humanae vitae the 'Great Lie.' This lie remains in Canada like a festering, cancerous wound." Despite over 40 years of struggle against the dissent, the 92-year-old prelate still sees hope.  "Yet there is hope on this 40th Anniversary of Humanae vitae," writes Foy. "God's grace, always sufficient, will be given mercifully and generously if there are faithful bishops, priests, religious, and laity prayerful and ready to make the sacrifices required." "It is a most urgent responsibility of our Canadian bishops to seek to undo the betrayal of the Winnipeg Statement," concludes Foy. "Canadian Catholics have a right to ask their bishops for a revocation of that Statement . . . In concrete terms it is not defiance of our bishops but love of the episcopacy which leads Catholics to ask our bishops to restore orthodoxy."

"Heaps of Empirical Evidence" Vindicate Pope Paul VI's Dire Warnings 40 Years Ago About Contraceptive Culture

July 25, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A lengthy article appearing in the most recent edition of First Things, reevaluates Pope Paul VI's controversial encyclical Humanae Vitae (the 40th anniversary of the publication of which takes place today) in terms of the empirical evidence supporting the Pontiff's prophetic predictions about the consequences of the widespread acceptance of artificial contraception. "To many people," writes author Mary Eberstadt, the idea of opposing the use of contraception, "simply defies understanding. Consenting adults, told not to use birth control? Preposterous. Third World parents deprived access to contraception and abortion? Positively criminal. A ban on condoms when there's a risk of contracting AIDS? Beneath contempt." Indeed, "if there's anything on earth that unites the Church's adversaries…the teaching against contraception is probably it." And yet, writes Eberstadt, for all of the contempt that is poured upon Humanae Vitae and the Church's continued official defense of Paul VI's teaching, the 40 intervening years since its publication have done nothing if not provided heaps of empirical data validating the Pope's dire warnings about a contraceptive culture. "Four decades later, not only have the document's signature predictions been ratified in empirical force," says Eberstadt, "but they have been ratified as few predictions ever are: in ways its authors could not possibly have foreseen, including by information that did not exist when the document was written, by scholars and others with no interest whatever in its teaching, and indeed even inadvertently, and in more ways than one, by many proud public adversaries of the Church." This is the great irony, says Eberstadt - that the evidence marshaled forth in condemnation of a contraceptive culture has been provided almost entirely by secular or explicitly anti-Catholic researchers, men and women who are "honest social scientists willing to follow the data wherever it may lead." Consider, she suggests, the work of Nobel Prize-winning economist Geroge Akerlof, who, in a well-known 1996 article, "explained in the language of modern economics why the sexual revolution…had led to an increase in both illegitimacy and abortion." Then there is the work of "maverick sociobiologist" Lionel Tiger, who has in the past described religion as "a toxic issue." And yet, for all of that, Tiger has shown his ability to honestly "follow the data," linking "contraception to the breakdown of families, female impoverishment, trouble in the relationship between the sexes, and single motherhood." "Tiger has further argued - as Humanae Vitae did not explicitly, though other works of Catholic theology have - for a causal link between contraception and abortion, stating outright that 'with effective contraception controlled by women, there are still more abortions than ever....Contraception causes abortion.'" And the list goes on. Eberstadt provides numerous examples of secular researchers who have followed the data, vindicating each and every one of Paul VI's four primary predictions about the consequences of contraception: "a general lowering of moral standards throughout society; a rise in infidelity; a lessening of respect for women by men; and the coercive use of reproductive technologies by governments." The evidence proving that each of these predictions has come to pass is so obvious as to be common sense. For instance, on the question of the "coercive use of reproductive technologies by governments," one need only consider the well-known forced-abortion and forced-sterilization practices of the Chinese government. Eberstadt also points to lesser-known examples of similar coercion that have taken place in India and Indonesia. And there are many other examples besides. What about this matter of the deforming of the relations between the sexes, and the "general lowering of moral standards"? "Today," responds Eberstadt, "when advertisements for sex scream from every billboard and webpage, and every teen idol is sooner or later revealed topless or worse online, some might wonder what further proof could possibly be offered." However Eberstadt searches for and finds even further concrete proof of the devolving of male/female relations right in the heart of the feminist movement, that great champion of contraception as the great liberator. Since 1968, she observes, "feminist literature has been a remarkably consistent and uninterrupted cacophony of grievance, recrimination, and sexual discontent. In that forty-year record, we find, as nowhere else, personal testimony of what the sexual revolution has done to womankind." "The signature metaphors of feminism say everything we need to know about how happy liberation has been making these women: the suburban home as concentration camp, men as rapists, children as intolerable burdens, fetuses as parasites, and so on. These are the sounds of liberation? Even the vaunted right to abortion, both claimed and exercised at extraordinary rates, did not seem to mitigate the misery of millions of these women after the sexual revolution." The author then turns her attention to the proliferation of pornography, which one social observer wrote, "is responsible for deadening male libido in relation to real women, and leading men to see fewer and fewer women as 'porn-worthy.''' The fact is, Eberstadt writes, Archbishop Chaput of Denver was correct when he wrote that, rather than freeing women, "Contraception has released males - to a historically unprecedented degree - from responsibility for their sexual aggression." Perhaps the most damning indictment of contraception in Eberstadt's piece comes when she quotes from philosopher G.E.M. Anscombe, who wrote about the inevitable slippery slope that would follow the acceptance of contraception: "If contraceptive intercourse is permissible, then what objection could there be after all to mutual masturbation, or copulation in vase indebito, sodomy, buggery (I should perhaps remark that I am using a legal term here-not indulging in bad language), when normal copulation is impossible or inadvisable (or in any case, according to taste)?" "It can't be the mere pattern of bodily behavior in which the stimulation is procured that makes all the difference! But if such things are all right, it becomes perfectly impossible to see anything wrong with homosexual intercourse, for example. I am not saying: if you think contraception all right you will do these other things; not at all. The habit of respectability persists and old prejudices die hard. But I am saying: you will have no solid reason against these things. You will have no answer to someone who proclaims as many do that they are good too. You cannot point to the known fact that Christianity drew people out of the pagan world, always saying no to these things. Because, if you are defending contraception, you will have rejected Christian tradition." Eberstadt goes on to make several more observations about the link between contraception, adultery, and prematerital sex. She also observes that the shortage of priests in the Church, and the clergy sex-abuse scandals, are deeply related to the widespread dissent by Catholic faithful and clergy against Humanae Vitae. The author concludes by once again quoting Archbishop Chaput, who said ten years ago, "If Paul VI was right about so many of the consequences deriving from contraception, it is because he was right about contraception itself." "This," says Eberstadt, "is exactly the connection few people in 2008 want to make, because contraceptive sex…is the fundamental social fact of our time….Despite an empirical record that is unmistakably on Paul VI's side by now, there is extraordinary resistance to crediting Catholic moral teaching with having been right about anything, no matter how detailed the record." Yet, for all of that, she concludes, "instead of vindication for the Church, there is demoralization; instead of clarity, mass confusion; instead of more obedience, ever less. Really, the perversity is, well, perverse. In what other area does humanity operate at this level of extreme, daily, constant contradiction?"

Cardinal Ouellet Praises Humanae Vitae - Abortion the Consequence of the 'Culture of Contraception'
Says controversial encyclical "was not taught enough" and because "we have not followed it, we have seen the consequences."

QUEBEC CITY, June 19, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Quebec City Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the Primate of Canada, is in the midst of hosting a massive international gathering of Catholics that was five years in the making - the International Eucharistic Congress.  The Cardinal nevertheless took time to sit down with LifeSiteNews.com for an interview. In keeping with the theme of the Congress, Ouellet spoke of the link he sees between the Eucharist and respect for human life, noting the fact that the Eucharistic Congress occurs just a month before the 40th anniversary of Pope Paul VI's encyclical "Humane Vitae" ("On Human Life"). The controversial 1968 document was a restatement of the Church's official opposition to contraception, and a call for married couples to remain open to life.  The document is now regarded as prophetic, having predicted with uncanny accuracy the progress of the Culture of Death and the devaluation of women that would follow the widespread acceptance of contraception. Cardinal Ouellet said, "Humanae Vitae was a great document…People should reread it carefully and see how beautiful the description of human love is in this document." "Openness to life," he said, "is the key of the document, that the act of mutual gift of the spouses must remain open to life." The Primate of Canada told LifeSiteNews.com, "This message was not properly received by the population," adding, "it was also not taught enough."  "The consequences of the culture of contraception," he said, "are visible in the culture with abortion and with the question of marriage." "I think we have to revisit it (Humanae Vitae) and reopen our hearts to the wisdom of this document." Ouellet noted that Pope John Paul II, with the development and preaching of his theology of the body, "further developed the inner logic" of Humanae Vitae. Tying the issue back to the Eucharist, the highest ranking Canadian prelate said, "Obviously the welcoming of the Risen Lord and the Gift of His Body calls for the respect of human life, and I think it will foster in the future more commitment for the respect of human life." He concluded: "The anniversary of Humanae Vitae is an opportunity to discover that the Church was wise to reaffirm the value of human love and its openness to life. We have not followed it, we have seen the consequences, but there is still time to recapture the fruit." With this interview Cardinal Ouellet is the second major Canadian prelate to speak out forcefully in support of Humanae Vitae, on this 40th anniversary year.  The first was Ottawa Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, who said, "The encyclical (Humanae Vitae) gives the Church a deeper understanding into the beauty of married love and responsible parenthood. It offers a clearer understanding of the harm of contraception and the great value of Natural Family Planning (NFP). Further, it challenges married couples, healthcare professionals and clergy to live and teach these profound truths about human sexuality and dignity."

Archbishop: For the Clergy, Obedience to Church "Requires Preaching About the Moral Evil of Contraception"

BARRYS BAY, May 13, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Archbishop of the Canadian capital city of Ottawa addressed the convocation of Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Academy in Barrys Bay Ontario last week, leaving attendees awestruck.  The speech focused on Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae. Faithful Catholics leaving the event told LifeSiteNews.com "I've been waiting 35 years to hear that from a Canadian bishop." Archbishop Terrence Prendergast described for the graduates and their families the tumultuous times of the 60's when Humanae Vitae was published (July 25, 1968).  He recalled that many expected a "green light" on contraception from the Vatican and were "thunderstruck" when the encyclical was published. "In the midst of the chaos caused by the sexual revolution and the arrival of the birth control pill, many Catholics felt unsure of the Church's position on artificial contraception," said Archbishop Prendergast. "The Church responded to this urgent need for clear teaching and sound pastoral guidance when Pope Paul VI released his encyclical, Humanae Vitae (Of Human Life) in 1968." "We celebrate this year the 40th anniversary of that prophetic document," said Prendergast.  "Time has shown it to be a gift from Christ to men and women everywhere. The late Edouard Cardinal Gagnon, former President of the Pontifical Council for the Family and one of Canada's great churchmen, called Humanae Vitae 'one of the most important documents in the history of the Church.'" He explained: "The encyclical gives the Church a deeper understanding into the beauty of married love and responsible parenthood. It offers a clearer understanding of the harm of contraception and the great value of Natural Family Planning (NFP). Further, it challenges married couples, healthcare professionals and clergy to live and teach these profound truths about human sexuality and dignity." Archbishop Prendergast's approach to the matter was refreshing and new, while he did not shy away from the fact that Catholics must obey Christ on the matter, he pointed out that embracing the teaching had tremendous benefits.  "Should Catholics embrace this teaching just because the Church tells them they must? While obedience is a necessary virtue, the benefits of learning and living Humanae Vitae should convince couples of its wisdom," he said. One of the many blessings he listed as coming from couples embracing the teaching was, "Having happier children within stronger families." Moreover, he said that obedience to Humanae Vitae's teaching fell not only on married couples but also the clergy. "For the clergy," he said, "this same obedience and submission of will and intellect requires preaching about the moral evil of contraception and how it violates God's plan for marriage, human happiness, and the dignity each person."

Canadian Catholics Ask Bishops to Retract Winnipeg Statement - Recommit to Humanae Vitae

OTTAWA, March 18, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - As the 40th anniversary of the publication of Pope Paul VI's July 25, 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae approaches, a group of Catholics is challenging Canada's Catholic bishops to revisit their official position on the document as it pertains to contraception.   The encyclical, which wrote of the Church's prohibition on contraception, predicting accurately that it would lead to treatment of women as objects of use, was at the time rejected by many within the Catholic Church.  In 1990 the Philippine Bishops issued an apology to the nation's Catholics for having failed to encourage their flock to adhere to Humanae Vitae.  They wrote: "Afflicted with doubts about alternatives to contraceptive technology, we abandoned you to your confused and lonely consciences with a lame excuse: 'follow what your conscience tells you.' How little we realized that it was our consciences that needed to be formed first." The Rosarium of the Blessed Virgin Mary has collected approximately 1000 signatures on a petition to formally ask the Canadian Catholic Bishops to retract the pastoral document written nearly 40 years ago on September 27, 1968 - the Winnipeg Statement.  The letter accompanying the petition challenges the bishops to reflect on their own role in the complete moral and social collapse that has befallen Canada. It states in part: "Once contraceptive sex was accepted in principle, it led the way to all of the other sexual abominations our country is currently experiencing, not the least of which is same-sex 'marriage' - which, at its core, is merely contraception in its final form. Contraception blurred the distinction between men and women by robbing women of their femininity and subverting their fertility. The psychological effects of this over 40 years came to fruition with the normalization of same-sex unions. A sterilized woman is, in one fundamental respect, another man." The letter adds: "We can no longer sit idly by as a Church and pretend that our actions - or lack of them - in word or in deed have not contributed to this situation. For forty years we have walked the desert of this culture of death because for forty years, we have refused to submit to the entire truth of Humanae Vitae. As faithful Catholics, therefore, we are humbly asking the bishops of Canada to reflect on how their teaching (or lack thereof) regarding contraception these past 40 years has contributed to Canada's social and moral collapse. In particular, we are once again drawing your attention to the Winnipeg Statement, one of the most destructive documents ever to be released on the subject of contraception." The controversial document in question, commonly referred to as the Winnipeg Statement, has been long considered a dissent against Rome's absolute prohibition on contraceptive acts.  The most controversial section of the document states: "Counsellors may meet others who, accepting the teaching of the Holy Father, find that because of particular circumstances they are involved in what seems to them a clear conflict of duties, e.g., the reconciling of conjugal love and responsible parenthood with the education of children already born or with the health of the mother. In accord with the accepted principles of moral theology, if these persons have tried sincerely but without success to pursue a line of conduct in keeping with the given directives, they may be safely assured that, whoever honestly chooses that course which seems right to him does so in good conscience." John Pacheco, a director of The Rosarium and a Catholic political and social activist, remarked that the time has come for the Bishops to reconsider the Winnipeg Statement. "We are approaching the 40 year anniversary of the legalization of both contraception and abortion in Canada in 2009," Pacheco told LifeSiteNews.com.  "We can no longer fool ourselves into thinking that contraception has not played an enormous role in the break down of the family unit these past forty years.  It's not a coincidence that once contraception was legalized with abortion in May 1969, the precipitous fall of the family followed thereafter.  It's time for all Catholics to reflect on how the Church was right and the Culture was wrong.  For lay Catholics, that means tossing the condoms and the pills and for the Canadian bishops it means repenting of a treacherous document." In addition to calling for the retraction of the Winnipeg Statement, the group is asking the Bishops to strongly re-affirm Humanae Vitae, the papal encyclical prohibiting abortion and contraception, on the 40th anniversary of its publication on July 27.  It is also encouraging the bishops to become more involved in active opposition to abortion. "We will never defeat abortion in Canada until the question of contraception is addressed.  And contraception in Canada will never be addressed sufficiently until the bishops acknowledge the great harm that the Winnipeg Statement has caused. It's time for all of us to repent and move on.  Canada needs a new beginning. That starts with the retraction of the Winnipeg Statement", Pacheco said. To sign the petition, click here: http://www.gopetition.com/online/12799.html | Source

Study Confirms Estrogen in Water from the Pill Devastating to Fish Populations

ST. JOHN, New Brunswick, February 18, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A study by Dr. Karen Kidd, of the University of New Brunswick and the Canadian Rivers Institute, found that estrogen from birth control pills flooding into the water system through sewage adversely affects fish populations. The researchers added estrogen to an experimental lake at a level commonly found in the treated wastewater from cities with about 200,000 people. The researchers discovered that one consequence is that exposed male fish become feminized, producing a protein normally found in females. Chronic exposure to estrogen led to the near extinction of the lake's fathead minnow population, as well as significant declines in larger fish, such as pearl dace and lake trout. "We've known for some time that estrogen can adversely affect the reproductive health of fish, but ours was the first study to show the long-term impact on the sustainability of wild fish populations," explains Kidd. "What we demonstrated is that estrogen can wipe out entire populations of small fish - a key food source for larger fish whose survival could in turn be threatened over the longer term." Kidd also noted that once the estrogen levels in the water were lowered, fish populations rebounded after three years. "Once you take the stressor out the system, we now have ample evidence that suggests affected fish populations will recover," she said. Kidd is preparing a report for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) titled, "From Kitchen Sinks to Ocean Basins: Emerging Chemical Contaminants and Human Health". In the 1980's and 90's, municipalities in Canada and elsewhere began stencilling pictures of fish next to storm drains to remind citizens that toxic chemicals - such as paint and motor oil - poured into the sewers would harm the environment and wildlife. In 1998, a trendy industrial designer in San Francisco won an award for creating storm drain grates shaped like fish. Health authorities estimate that 100 million women worldwide take some form of hormonal contraceptives; but there is still little media attention given to the growing concerns of scientists about its environmental impact. However, studies are leaking out into the mainstream press more frequently as public interest in the environment grows. The Pill, along with numerous other commonly used chemicals, end up in the water system as estrogen. At a conference on breast cancer in Toronto in 1998, author and cancer surgeon Dr. Susan Love said, "Pollutants are metabolized in our bodies as estrogen. And it is lifetime exposure to estrogen that has increased world cancer rates by 26% since 1980....We live in a toxic soup of chemicals". Studies are also showing significant evidence for a link between environmental estrogens and estrogen-like chemical pollutants and the earlier onset of puberty in girls. The phenomenon of early-onset puberty in American girls is so pervasive, that the Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society urged changing the definition of abnormal development. Ten years ago, breast development at age 8 was considered abnormally early, but a study in 1997 said that among 17,000 girls in North Carolina, almost half of blacks and 15 percent of whites had begun breast development by age 8. Studies from the United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand have shown similar results. The new definition for abnormally early breast development ought to be, the society says, 7 for white girls and 6 for black girls. Marcia Herman-Giddens, adjunct professor at the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina, said, "My fear is that medical groups could take the data and say 'This is normal. We don't have to worry about it.' My feeling is that it is not normal. It's a response to an abnormal environment." Conclusive studies are difficult to conduct, however, because of the all-pervasive nature of the environmental contamination. With all the estrogen-like elements in the environment, Herman-Giddens said, "it's virtually impossible to study. There's no place to find an unexposed population."

Condom Debate "Hijacked" and Drifting from "Evidence Based" Science

EDMONTON, January 25, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The British Medical Journal is running a pair of articles this week offering two opposed views on the question, "Are condoms the answer to rising rates of non-HIV sexually transmitted infections?" Drs. Markus J Steiner and Willard Cates, of Family Health International, of North Carolina and Dr. Stephen Genuis, associate clinical professor at the University of Alberta, have written on either side of the issue. The former, Drs. Steiner and Cates argue that condoms "can and should play a central role in halting the rising rates of sexually transmitted infection other than HIV". Dr. Stephen Genuis, however, warns that the debate has been "highjacked" by an argument between two "mutually exclusive perspectives on sexual morality" and has moved away from "evidence based" science. On the one hand, Genuis writes, those promoting "safe sex (or safer sex) are accused of corrupting youth with amoral values", while their "opponents are perceived as zealots who disregard scientific fact in imposing their fanaticism on society". The idea that condoms are the first, last and usually only recommended protection against sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) is one of the most widely accepted in the field of public health. But the message of the life and family movement that abstinence before marriage and chaste fidelity within are the only sure means of avoiding STDs is starting to be heard. Cates and Steiner argue that "strong evidence from laboratory studies and mounting clinical studies" show that condoms reduce the risk of infections including HIV, gonorrhoea, chlamydia, trichomoniasis, and hepatitis B. Condoms also reduce the risk of infections that are transmitted primarily through skin such as genital herpes, syphilis, chancroid, and human papillomavirus infection. They admit, however, that clinical studies have shown "inconsistent protective effects for most sexually transmitted infections other than HIV." But they attribute this to "limitations in study design". They also admit that their studies did not measure "critical factors such as exposure to infected partners, consistent and correct condom use, or incident infection". They dismissed the promotion of abstinence as "difficult to achieve".  Dr. Genuis answered that it is consistent use of condoms that has proved "difficult to achieve" and calls for a more "comprehensive" approach than simply encouraging those "who choose to be sexually active" to use a condom. He says that condoms cannot be "the definitive answer" to STDs because they "provide insufficient protection" against many common diseases transmitted through "'skin to skin' and 'skin to sore'" contact. These include human papillomavirus, herpes simplex virus, and syphilis, which, he says, are often transmitted despite condom use. But the greatest problem with condoms, he writes, is that people, particularly "aroused youth," do not use them consistently, "regardless of knowledge or education". "In theory, condoms offer some protection against sexually transmitted infection; practically, however, epidemiological research repeatedly shows that condom familiarity and risk awareness do not result in sustained safer sex choices in real life." The use of condoms has been adopted as the central pillar of the fight against STDs in general, and HIV in particular, by most international health organizations. In recent years the slogan, "Abstinence, be faithful, use a condom," also known as the "ABC strategy", has been adopted as a means of appeasing "faith-based" organisations such as the UK's Catholic overseas aid agency CAFOD that has adopted condoms as a key part of its programmes. Dr. Genuis writes, "The relentless rise of sexually transmitted infection in the face of unprecedented education about and promotion of condoms is testament to the lack of success of this approach". He cites numerous large studies that have shown this failure even in countries such as Canada, Sweden and Switzerland that have "advanced sex education programmes." "The ongoing assertion that condoms are 'the' answer to this escalating pandemic reminds me of Einstein's words, 'The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results'."

Two Canadian Women Die from Use of Contraceptive Patch; Sixteen More Suffer Blood Clots

TORONTO, January 11, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Two Canadian women have died and sixteen more have reported serious blood clotting in connection with the use of Evra, a hormonal contraceptive patch that releases estrogen directly into the bloodstream through the skin. Health Canada released safety information for the drug in late 2006, but the warnings about increased possibility of blood clots in the legs and lungs have not been enough to prevent women from using the patch. Two Canadian women who used the drug died from complications induced by the patch in 2006. One of the deaths was caused by a heart attack, which the manufacturers blamed the woman's smoking habit for. Multiple other women, however, have complained of dangerous blood clotting caused by the patch, conditions that may lead to a stroke or even death. Siskinds, an Ontario-based law firm specializing in business law and class actions, has filed a class suit against Janssen-Ortho Inc., the manufacturers of the patch. A hearing has been scheduled in Toronto to determine whether the case can continue through the court system as a class action suit. The patch, controversial since its release to the market, has faced class action in the United States, where women suffered from blood clotting in their lungs after using the patch. While some of those women have asserted that the drug is not worth the risk, advocates of the patch claim that there is no problem, since women are warned of possible blood clotting on the patch's label."Everybody who you start on this product - whether it's a pill or a patch or a ring - gets the same warning," said Dr. Melissa Mirosh, former fellow of the contraception research fellowship program at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. "What I tell people is that any estrogen-containing birth control product will slightly raise your risk of having a blood clot in your leg or in your lung. But it does not raise it nearly as much as being pregnant or having a baby. And that risk is a very small increase." Some doctors refused to prescribe the patch after its bad publicity, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration required Janssen-Ortho to include the warnings about blood clots and possible stroke on the product's label.

The Homily that Caused an Outcry and the Priest to be Dismissed: Homily on NFP provokes congregation member to stand up and shout at priest "When are you going to stop?"

ROCKFORD, Illinois, January 7, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - This past December 9, at St. James' parish in Rockford Illinois, a very normal Mass suddenly became a very unusual Mass when a parishioner stood up in the middle of the homily, interrupted the priest, shouting at him "When are you going to stop?", and then left, with her homosexual partner in tow.  A few other parishioners also stood up and left the church.  A few days later, the priest was dismissed from his duties at the parish by his bishop. Catholics know that there are some things that you just don't hear preached from the pulpit any more. The most conspicuous of these unpreachables is sexual ethics, especially the idea that using contraception might be immoral, and contrary to a Culture of Life.  Most priests know that these are unpopular subjects, and emphatically avoid them. But Fr. Tom Bartolomeo, who until several weeks ago was the associate pastor at St. James parish, is not your typical priest. To begin with, Fr. Bartolomeo was ordained only just over a year ago. This, of course, is not exactly extraordinary in itself, except for the fact that he is now seventy years old. At an age when many other priests are retiring, therefore, he is only getting his feet wet. Perhaps, says the elderly priest in an interview with LifeSiteNews.com, his newness to the ministry and late vocation explains his almost youth-like zeal for his priestly duties. "I'm going to die with my boots on," he says. "Who knows how many years I have left? That kind of puts pressure on me to preach the Gospel message. My days are numbered." About a month ago, however, Fr. Bartolomeo's enthusiasm for the Gospel message brought an unexpected turn into his life, when he gave what he thought was a normal Advent homily. The homily was the second of a projected series of four homilies dealing with life and family issues, designed to coincide with the four Sundays of Advent - the season leading up to the birth of Jesus. This particular homily had to do with contraception and natural family planning. The Catholic Church teaches that the use of contraception is intrinsically and gravely immoral. Church teaching does, however, allow married couples to use the natural rhythms of the female body to knowingly space children, if there is a sufficiently grave reason to do so. These fundamental moral teachings formed the basis of Fr. Bartolomeo's homily. "New births, anniversaries and funerals, separations of any kind, a photograph from the past - give us pause and remind us whom we are bound to," he said in his homily, a copy of which he provided for LifeSiteNews. "Our human sexuality - father, mother, brother, sister - reveals our deepest relationships. We call God our father, and his Son our brother." "Contraception, contra-conception, trivializes the sacred value of human sexuality - a danger humanity did not have to face a century ago before the advent of modern chemistry and technology, the pill (before or after) and a host of plastic devices." "Contracept, take God's plan off the table, and you have mayhem," he said. "The most important thing in your lives, bearing children, is no longer discussed. It has been permanently removed from the conversation. Done deal. The pill, the IUD, the diaphragm, the sponge, the condom - who is making money here? - have shut down not only the body but the brain. And wives and husbands wonder why they grow apart? When a man and woman, a husband and wife, share daily this most wonderful mystery of their human sexuality they are bonding as nature and God intended." In the middle of this homily however, say witnesses, one congregation member stood up and began to argue with the priest, yelling "When are you going to stop?"  Gerald Weber, who has been a parishioner at St. James for 47 years, was at that Mass. "It was embarrassing, the noticeable argumentative tone with which she stopped him in his homily," he told LifeSiteNews. "Father treated her nicely for the way she was acting, but she continued yelling. She finally sat down, but then stood up again, and took her friend with her and made a show of leaving the church. With that there were some other people who objected to the subject matter."  While Weber suggests that the homily may have been somewhat "graphic" for a Sunday Mass, insofar as it touched on some of the science of NFP, he points out that nothing in the homily was contrary to Catholic teaching. The fact that Fr. Bartolomeo was dismissed from the parish Weber calls "drastic."  "I think it's rather drastic, without knowing all the facts, to come down on a man in this way."  Another parishioner, Heidi Martinez, who was also at the Mass in question, disagrees that the homily was graphic, saying that she can't even recall what might have been considered objectionable in that way. Martinez says she distinctly remembers the date and time of the homily, because she gave birth to her first-born child that same day, shortly after she left the church; she calls her new-born child her "miracle baby," since she had previously gone through three miscarriages.  She also says that she has something of a different perspective on the homily, being as she is recently married. The message that Fr. Bartolomeo preached was extremely pertinent and necessary, she says. "The Catholic Church pushes all the time--don't use contraceptives, use NFP, and all that, but a lot of people don't know why. And if you don't hear it from the Church that pushes it, where are you going to get it from?" "You're certainly not going to get it in the Catholic schools." Weber also revealed to Fr. Bartolomeo, and LifeSiteNews, that the parishioner who had created the scene was a publicly practicing lesbian. She and her partner had recently been told that they could no longer lector or distribute Communion at the parish. "They [the lesbian couple] may have had an edge," says Weber, "because they have recently been kind of, not reprimanded, but not allowed to participate like they had been participating." The priest, however, is quick to defend his bishop. "Bishop Doran's orthodox Catholic reputation is well established," he points out. "Our diocesan Respect Life Office under the leadership of Bishop Doran is continuously advancing the pro-life cause." "I'm not being punished," Fr. Bartolomeo clarifies, pointing out that Bishop Doran agreed that his homily was perfectly in keeping with Catholic teaching. "I wasn't accused of doing anything wrong. I think the implication was that I was imprudent." The Rockford Diocese's media relations official, Penny Wiegert, told LifeSiteNews that the diocese would not comment on Fr. Bartolomeo's dismissal, saying "The reasons for these moves are between the individual priest and his bishop and is considered a personnel issue that our diocese does not discuss in the press out of respect for both the individual priest and his bishop." Wiegert also defended the Rockford Diocese's pro-NFP stance, saying "The Rockford Diocese is in the forefront of supporting Natural Family Planning and educating the faithful on its physical and spiritual benefits especially in its marriage preparation programs, seminars for married couples and in informational classes....The aforementioned forums are considered to be the most appropriate for educating and promoting the benefits and details of NFP." Fr. Bartolomeo, however, clearly does not agree that he was imprudent. "The Church is really under attack, and I think we flinch at the slight objections and I don't think that's the proper way to react to our enemies," he says. "Rather than dissuading me, all of this is drawing me more and more into that truth, into the Gospel. I have no idea where this is going to take me." He says that now he is beginning to read everything he can get on the life and family issues, and is looking into the possibility of pursuing advocacy in those areas.  He also disagrees that his homily was "graphic," observing that even the youngest children routinely encounter much more explicit material in their day-to-day encounters with television, the internet, and sex-ed at school. The priest says that he was surprised at the adverse reactions to his homily, but is also learning that many of the Church's teachings on sexuality are not well-known, and are often considered optional by some Catholics. "The fact is, I suspect that most Catholics do not practice NFP," he says. "I think for many people there's a visceral reaction to that, particularly if they haven't heard it before. And tweaking of consciences can be painful." But, he adds, "There's nothing more central to the malaise and disease in the church than contracepting Catholic couples, and not realizing the wonderful strengthening of faith that can be found in NFP. All you have to do is meet a family and their children to see that they have found the proper way to relate to each other. It's so demonstrably wonderful to see this natural, loving union of children. You don't ordinarily see that in families."

2007

The Actuary: Breast Cancer Epidemic's Impact from Abortion on Insurance, Health Care Through 2029 is Serious 

MEDIA ADVISORY, Nov. 7 /Standard Newswire/ -- The Actuary, a professional magazine for actuaries in the U.K., published the article, "The Breast Cancer Epidemic," [1] discussing the impact of the epidemic in England and Wales for the life and health insurance and health care industries through 2029. The article was based on forecasts of breast cancer rates originally published last month in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. [2,3] The forecasts can be used to plan treatment facilities and calculate insurance premiums and reserves, as more insurance claims and litigation are expected. Patrick Carroll, a statistician and actuary, showed that abortion is the "best predictor" of breast cancer trends, and fertility is also a useful predictor. Carroll applied national data to a mathematical model that he has used in the past to successfully forecast breast cancer incidence. He expects an overall increase of 50.9% in the cancer rate in England and Wales by 2029.
Other highlights include:

1. The increasing rates of abortion and breast cancer run parallel and are highly correlated.

2. The impact on insurers is more serious because women in the age group 45+ are claiming more highly paid posts.

3. Abortion before first full term birth is "highly carcinogenic."

4. "Oestrogen (estrogen), progestin and other female hormones, whether naturally produced or administered medically, fuel breast cancer development," said Carroll.

5. Carroll observed a reverse gradient. Upper class women have higher mortality and morbidity rates than do lower class women because they are more likely to choose abortion before a first birth in order to pursue higher educations and careers.

"Breast cancer fundraising is likely to be very profitable for the American Cancer Society, Susan G. Komen for the Cure and others that continue to knowingly mislead women by denying the abortion-breast cancer link," declared Karen Malec, president of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer. "But, the epidemic will be costly for the insurance industry and consumers, not to mention the cancer patients who will suffer because of the cancer fundraising industry's misconduct."

The Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer is an international women's organization founded to protect the health and save the lives of women by educating and providing information on abortion as a risk factor for breast cancer. (Source)

New Study Shows Double Cervical Cancer Risk for Oral Contraceptive Users

November 14, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A new study shows a strong correlation between the use of "the pill" and an increased cervical cancer risk. The study, which was conducted by researchers at Oxford University and appears in the current edition of The Lancet, reviewed twenty-four studies examining the cases of more than 50,000 women. It concluded that women using oral contraceptives double their risk of cervical cancer, and that the increased risk lasts for ten years after cessation of use. The study also found that the longer the pill is used, the greater the risk. The results of the study match others that have found an increased risk of both cervical cancer and breast cancer in women who use oral contraceptives, including several that have appeared in The Lancet.  A European study earlier this year also found an increased risk for heart disease, even after women stop taking the medication. However, the authors of the study were quick to emphasize that the main cause of cervical cancer is the Human Papiloma Virus (HPV), a sexually-transmitted pathogen common among promiscuous people in western countries. They also claimed that the increased risk of cervical and breast cancer are more than offset by reductions in ovarian and endometrial cancers in women who use the drug.

New Study Shows Abortion is 'Best Predictor of Breast Cancer'

WASHINGTON, DC, October 3, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons published a study yesterday entitled, "The Breast Cancer Epidemic." It showed that, among seven risk factors, abortion is the "best predictor of breast cancer," and fertility is also a useful predictor.  The study by Patrick Carroll of PAPRI in London showed that countries with higher abortion rates, such as England & Wales, could expect a substantial increase in breast cancer incidence. Where abortion rates are low (i.e., Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic) a smaller increase is expected. Where a decline in abortion has taken place, (i.e., Denmark and Finland) a decline in breast cancer is anticipated. Carroll used the same mathematical model for a previous forecast of numbers of breast cancers in future years for England & Wales based on cancer data up to 1997 that has proved quite accurate for predicting cancers observed in years 1998 to 2004. In four countries - England & Wales, Scotland, Finland and Denmark - a social gradient has been discovered (unlike that for other cancers) whereby upper class and upwardly mobile women have more breast cancer than lower class women. This was studied in Finland and Denmark and the influence of known risk factors other than abortion was examined, but the gradient was not explained. Carroll suggests that the known preference for abortion in this class might explain the phenomenon. Women pursuing higher educations and professional careers often delay marriage and childbearing. Abortions before the birth of a first child are highly carcinogenic. Carroll used national data from nations believed to have "nearly complete abortion counts." Therefore, his study is not affected by recall bias. Karen Malec, president of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer commented on the latest findings stating: "It's time for scientists to admit publicly what they already acknowledge privately among themselves - that abortion raises breast cancer risk - and to stop conducting flawed research to protect the medical establishment from massive medical practice lawsuits." See report here.

Continuous-Use Contraceptives to be Introduced in Britain Within Months

LONDON, September 27, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The first contraceptive pill that provides a dose of active hormones every day that would halt menstruation, could be in use in Britain within a few months, according to the New Scientist. The drug, called Lybrel, is lauded for its ability to interrupt a woman’s normal fertility cycle and entirely stop her menstruation, potentially permanently. Its supporters say that once freed from their normal biological functions, women will be better able to compete with men in the workplace. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), approved the drug in May based on the results of two studies. It comes in a 28 day-pill pack containing 90 micrograms each of a progestin, levonorgestrel, and 20 micrograms of an estrogen, ethinyl estradiol. Traditional hormonal contraceptive drugs include placebo or pill-free intervals lasting four to seven days that stimulate a menstrual cycle. Lybrel is designed to be taken without the placebo or pill-free time interval. Women who use Lybrel would not have a scheduled menstrual period, but, the FDA notes, will most likely have unplanned, breakthrough, unscheduled bleeding or spotting. Some studies have shown side effects associated with Lybrel, as with most hormonal contraceptives, can include blood clots in the legs or lungs, gallbladder inflammation, ectopic pregnancy, stoppage or rupture of a blood vessel in the brain (stroke), heart attack, angina, liver tumours and high blood pressure. Some studies have shown association with cervical cancer. Lybrel’s supporters say the drug, because it entirely halts menstruation, will “end the misery” and inconvenience involved and reduce the symptoms of premenstrual syndrome.  In the Daily Mail’s Thursday print edition Jill Parkin, a columnist on women’s issues, decries the value system that pits women against men in the workforce at the cost of the “basic biology that makes us female”. “[I]magne filling yourself with chemicals every single day, taken orally and so exposing your entire system to their effect. Imagine pushing doubts about whether or not you’re pregnant to the back of your mind as you check your Blackberry for messages on the train every morning.” “Compromise is inevitable, but actually shoehorning women in to a man-shaped space is wrong...Scientists have pointed out that we weren’t designed to have decades of periods but to have prolonged breaks for pregnancy and lengthy breastfeeding. But certainly evolution intended that we menstruate.” The Mail also quotes Dr. Marilyn Glenville, a specialist at the Women’s Healthcare Centre, St John's Wood, London, saying that there is no way of telling what the long-term consequences will be of the new drug and worries that the effects “could be more damaging than the traditional 21-day Pill.” She cites particularly the possible connections of the pill with cervical cancer. “Countless women will jump at the chance to take Lybrel, not for its contraceptive properties but simply as a lifestyle choice...Ultimately, women will be continuously dosing their body with artificial hormones while suppressing the body's own, without so much as the seven-day break that the body gets when taking the ordinary Pill.”

China: Projected Number of Men without Wives Massively Increased By 2020, 37 million Chinese men would be unable to find wives if trends continue

BEIJING, China, August 27, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Recent demographic reports are showing that the ratio of males to females in China is spiraling out of control. If the increasing imbalance, caused primarily by sex-selected abortions and infanticide, is not remedied, it will lead to increased crimes against women and the threat of an aggressively militant state. In January Chinese media reports said that by 2020, 30 million Chinese men would be unable to find wives (See http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/jan/07011510.html). Since then, however, recent reports indicate that the numbers have dramatically risen. According to these findings, the imbalance will increase to 37 million more marriageable Chinese men than marriageable women by 2020, the Guardian Unlimited reports. Nationwide there are 119 Chinese males for every 100 females, rather than the average 105 males for every 100 females in the Western developed nations, ABC News reports. In some regions, however, there is an even greater divide with 130 males to 100 females. The city of Lianyungang in Jiangsu province has the most marked difference of 163.5 boys to 100 girls among children aged one to four. According to a recent report by the China Family Planning Association (CFPA), 99 cities in China have sex ratios above 125 boys per 100 girls. Although there are two Chinese laws preventing sex-based abortion, this is ignored in many places throughout China. In some cases, the doctor gives a thumbs up to the parents if their unborn child is a boy and a thumbs down if it is a girl. People often abort their baby girls, especially in rural areas, because they want a son to support themselves and the grandparents in their old age. Within the past few years, the Chinese government has offered various attempts to remedy the skewed male to female ratio. In 2003 a "Care for Girls" policy was introduced which gave financial benefits to parents with female children, as well as a pro-female child slogan campaign. Such efforts have not affected the situation, however, which are a direct result of the government's one-child policy and its forced methods of population control. In order to stem the problem, China is planning to crack down on medical institutions that tell parents the sex of their child. In light of the recent population reports, the government announced that it would draft new legislation to punish sex-selected abortions. If the lopsided ratio does not improve, Chinese society will suffer a rise in prostitution, wife kidnapping and other forms of sexual violence against women, abuses that have already grown within the country. Some predict that the situation will also lead to increased militancy and terrorism in China (See http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/dec/05120602.html).

China's One-Child Policy Burdens Younger Generation Within next few decades, China will be taking care of 400 million elderly people

BEIJING, August 27, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - China's one child policy, which has heavily skewed the ratio of young people to retirees, is placing an increasingly heavy burden on the next generation of workers, the BBC reports. In the State's "ideal" family, the only son will have to support six people in his adult years: his own parents, his mother's parents and his father's parents. As the traditional family structure begins to suffer, the number of people in the work force is decreasing. "It's very difficult," factory manager William Wang told the BBC, "and it's getting more and more difficult. Now there are a lot more factories and fewer workers because of the one-child policy. Costs are going up. It's not looking good." The ranks of elderly people are steadily increasing, however, and within the next few decades, China will be taking care of 400 million elderly people, the BBC reports. As a result, elderly care businesses and senior homes are having a steady influx of clients. The San He Home in Beijing, for example, used to be a primary school, but was remodeled to accommodate senior citizens. The manager of the home, Wang Shuyuan, stated, "I used to work as the head teacher of the kindergarten, and now I'm in charge of the old people's home. He said, "Because of the one-child policy there are fewer children in China. So, many schools are changing into old people's homes. It's very common now." According to the Guardian Unlimited, the State claimed that its population control policies have prevented 400 million births since the 1979 when the restrictions were first introduced into the country. The government's one-child policy, oftentimes implemented through forced sterilization and abortion, has created an unprecedented problem in the work force that is causing more and more concern in society. In 2004 Zhang Weiqing, National Population and Family Planning Commission Minister, predicted that the increasing disproportion between seniors and working people would eventually have serious effects on China's retirement system. He noted, "The aging problem is much more severe in the country's rural areas than in urban areas, which challenges the establishment of a health insurance system and social security system for the elderly." In 1999 there were 10 workers for every senior in China. The number is predicted to drop sharply to six workers per retiree by 2020 and fall again to three workers for every retired person by 2050 (See http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/may/04051107.html).

Oral Contraceptives Decrease Bone Density

NEW YORK, August 27, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A study of female military cadets has shown that the use of oral contraceptives is linked with loss of bone density in women. The study examined the effects of lifestyle, diet, and exercise on bone health of 107 white female cadets at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, and found that irregular menstruation and oral contraceptives had a negative impact on bone density. The study bolsters earlier work showing that hormonal contraceptives negatively affect bone density. Estrogen plays an important role in the development and maintenance of bone mass and hormonal contraceptives decrease the amount of estrogen a woman's body produces. In November 2004, the United States Food and Drug Administration and the United Kingdom Committee on the Safety of Medicines cited bone mineral density loss when they issued warnings on the use of the progestin-only injectable contraceptives. In 2005, a group of women launched a $700-million class-action lawsuit against the drug company Pfizer, which produces Depo-Provera, saying the hormonal abortifacient drug had caused massive bone density loss. Three lawsuits in Canada are pending against the company alleging bone density loss.

Birth Control Pill Creates Blood Clot Causing Death of Irish Woman Family warns others to beware of the health risks of the pill

DUBLIN, August 17, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - An Irish woman has died of a blood clot after taking the birth control pill for several years. Her family and an investigating doctor have publicly attributed her death to the use of the contraceptive. On March 22 of last year, 31-year-old Julie Hennessy was found dead on the floor of her living room, Ireland Independent reports. Although she was a non-smoker of healthy weight, the woman had been taking the drug Mercilon for a number of years. This resulted in her developing deep vein thrombosis (DVT), a condition in which a blood clot forms in a deep vein usually in one of the appendages. As in the case of Miss Hennessy, a DVT can break off and lodge in the lungs, causing death. After her inquest on Tuesday, Julie's father Ray, speaking on behalf of his family his wife Angela and their two daughters-drew special attention to the fact that the pill was the main factor in the death of his daughter. "The Pill was the major cause of our daughter's death and we want to put it on record that other young women should be aware of these dangers," said Mr. Hennessy. "Doctors are aware of the risks but I want to warn young women of the possible consequences of taking it. I wouldn't like this to happen to another family." Speaking before the Dublin County Coroner's Court, pathologist Peter Szontagh-Kishazi emphasized that the contraceptive pill had caused Julie Hennessy's DVT. "The only important factor was the oral contraceptive pill," he said. "Clotting is a well-known risk of using the contraceptive pill. There is no other medication that has such a big risk as the oral contraceptive pill," said Dr Szontagh-Kishazi." Some investigators attempted to blame the condition on the air travel that Julie went on for her work. Nevertheless, Szontagh-Kishazi said that although flying, especially economy class, has caused blood clots before, this was not the reason for her death because in such a case the clot would have happened in the plane. In this case, her condition was "a recent complication". Blood clotting is only one of the many medical risks of taking the contraceptive pill. According to noted endocrinologist (hormone doctor) Dr. Maria Kraw, studies have shown that taking oral contraceptives increases a woman's risk of breast cancer by 24%. Hormonal contraceptives also make the body much more susceptible to the Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) known as the Human Pampilloma Virus (HPV). Other STI's such as, Gonorrhea, Chlamydia, Chancroid and Syphilis are also more common in people who take the pill. In addition, the pill has been known to cause osteoporosis and reduce milk production in lactating mothers (Read full report on talk by Dr. Maria Kraw: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/aug/07080903.html). Studies have also shown that the pill likely causes a decreased sex-drive, and one particular report showed that the drug raises the risk of heart attack by 100% (Read http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/jul/05071207.html). In addition, the birth control pill has been proved to cause frequent medical abortions by making the wall of a woman's uterus hostile to a newly conceived person. The resulting condition in the womb can cause problems later on when the woman wants to conceive a child. In fact, women who take birth control have a 26% lower fertility rate (Read full report on talk by Dr. Maria Kraw: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/aug/07080303.html). Referring to trial runs of the pill in Latin America, Kraw stated, "They started off using ten times the amount of estrogen - 'We're really going to shut down that brain' - Well, what happened? Women died in the first phase trial of these medications, but they were in Puerto Rico so, (the attitude was) 'well…. we didn't really have medical ethics, so we'll just keep going and trying.'" These risks are present, however, even in the regular, low-dose contraceptive pill. As Kraw pointed out, "The problem is that this (death) is still occurring even as the dose of estrogen has lowered itself to only about 4 times with the low-dose pills."

Online Video: Noted Endocrinologist Explains How the Birth Control Pill Causes Abortion

OTTAWA, August 3, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - During the Humanae Vitae Conference "A New Beginning" last year, noted endocrinologist Dr. Maria Kraw explained how many so-called contraceptives actually result in fertilization and end in the abortion of a new human person during its early development. Introducing her topic, the "Medical Consequences of Contraception," Dr. Kraw began by stating that she refrains from using the word "contraception." This is because it implies solely the "prevention of conception," whereas in reality many so-called contraceptives result in a myriad of other harms, including abortion. As a practicing endocrinologist (hormone doctor) at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, Kraw focused mainly on the effects of hormonal birth control. Artificial hormonal birth control works by introducing artificial estrogen and artificial progesterone (progestins), at 4 to 10 times the dosage naturally produced by the body. These dangerously high levels trick the brain into thinking that the person may be pregnant and cause ovulation to stop. The pill also prevents conception by thickening the cervical mucous so that the sperm can't reach the egg. If this doesn't work, the pill prevents the implantation of an already fertilized egg. This occurs when a new human person has already been conceived, Kraw stated, but after the artificial hormones have thinned the uterus lining. "So rather than sort of snuggling into a nice nourishing uterus to continue development," she explained, "the uterus is hostile and the embryo is discarded." Most pills are combined hormonal pills with both artificial estrogen and artificial progesterone. The progesterone-only pills, however, don't prevent fertilization, but work primarily by thinning the uterus lining. Depo-provera, for example, is a progestin that is injected every three months and strips down the lining of the uterus. Similarly, the intra-uterine device (IUD) causes "inflammation and scarring of uterine lining," thereby preventing implantation. Barrier methods such as condoms, sterilization, diaphragm and spermicides work by aiming "to prevent a meeting of the sperm and the egg." Nevertheless, statistics published by Family Planning Perspectives note an extremely high percentage of "reproductive failures", i.e. pregnancy. The birth control pill has a 12.9% pregnancy rate; condoms have an incredibly high 23.1% pregnancy rate, diaphragm 20%, depo-provera 4.2% and spermicide 25%. "Given on average the amount of months that a woman uses artificial birth control during her reproductive years," said Kraw, "which is a majority in the reality of North America, there will be 1.8 'reproductive failures' per woman's reproductive life." According to previous studies, only about 50% of pregnancies in the US are intended, Kraw stated. "Among those that reported unintended pregnancies, 50% said they were using a form of artificial birth control properly at the time of the conception. So it's not like, 'Oh I was on the pill, but I missed it for a week' because that wouldn't be considered being on the pill." Finally, 50% of those "reproductive failures" end in abortion. If abortion is defined as "any interruption in the normal development of the embryo," methods that "prevent implantation" are abortive. Breakthrough ovulation rates (fertilization occurs, but implantation fails), for example, can happen in up to one third of cycles on the pill. In combined hormonal birth control pills, this occurs from 1.7% to 28.6% per cycle, whereas with progestin-only pills, fertilization rates are from 33% to 65% per cycle. These are relatively high rates, Kraw noted, considering that 80% of North American women have used a hormonal method for birth control by the time they finish their reproductive years. Tragically, after discontinuing birth control, women also experience high infertility rates. Fertility rates are 26% lower after using birth control, and 29% lower after using the IUD. In addition, even the so-called "low-dose" pills cause a 2 to 6 times increased risk of blood clots throughout the body. Kraw stated, "They started off using ten times the amount of estrogen-'We're really going to shut down that brain'-Well, what happened? Women died in the first phase trial of these medications, but they were in Puerto Rico so, (the attitude was) 'well…. we didn't really have medical ethics, so we'll just keep going and trying.'"She concluded, "The problem is that this is still occurring even as the dose of estrogen has lowered itself to only about 4 times with the low-dose pills."

Aging Global Population is "Profound" and "Irreversible": UN Report States that lowered fertility is the cause, but fails to mention birth control, again

NEW YORK CITY, August 16, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The United Nations recently released its global population estimates, revealing an alarming population shift that will have serious worldwide consequences within the near future. While blaming the problem on lowered fertility and increased longevity, the report fails to make the connection with contraception, abortion and sterilization. The report is a 2007 updated version of the 2002 "World Population Aging" report that was published during the Second World Assembly on Aging. Following the demographic trends from 1950 to 2005, the report notes that the population aging is "unprecedented, a process without parallel in the history of humanity." The report indicates that people above 60 years old are starting to outnumber children, those under age 15. By 2047 old people will outnumber children on a global scale, the report states, although developed countries already reached this mark in 1998. The report projects that by 2050, those aged 60 and over will comprise one third of the population in developed regions. In the developing nations, however, they will account for only one fifth of the population, a ratio at which the wealthier countries have already arrived. The population trend profoundly affects every area of human life-economic, political and social-and is "irreversible", the report claims. In addition, the issue has been intensifying for decades; older people comprised 8% of the population in 1950, and this number increased to 11% by 2007. The UN predicts that the number will rise to 22% by 2050. By the year 2000 the number of old people had tripled in the world since 1950. Only six year later, they had increased by another 100 million. The rate of their increase is 2.6% per year versus the 1.1% increase of the rest of the population. In addition, even those over 60 years are aging, and the number of people aged 80+ is most rapidly increasing. At present the median age worldwide is 28 years, a number that is expected to rise to 38 by 2050. The oldest country is Japan, with a median age of 43, while the youngest is Uganda, with a median age of 15. These numbers will have a serious effect on the working population, which will be forced to bear an increasingly heavy burden of retirees. By 2050 the ratio of workers between 15 and 64 to older persons will have decreased from 12 to 1 in 1950 to a mere 4 to 1. The report notes that the problem of population aging is a "pervasive," worldwide issue. This is due to the fact that people's fertility is reduced, as well as the fact that the aged are living longer. As the document states, "The resulting slowdown in the growth of the number of children coupled with the steady increase in the number of older persons" has deeply impacted the balance of society. This "unprecedented change, which started in the developed world in the nineteenth century and is more recent in developing countries" is right now "transforming many societies." The report blames the skewed population ratios on the rapid switch from high to low fertility levels and increased life expectancy. Nevertheless, once again a major population report fails characteristically to mention any connection between these alarming population rates and the rapid spread of abortion, contraception and sterilization in the past century.

Canada's Population is Aging at an Alarming Rate: 2006 Census Abortion a key factor in the demographic shift

OTTAWA, ON, July 26, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - According to the most recent 2006 Census, Canada's population is aging rapidly, presenting serious concerns both economically and about the sustainability of the national health system. Released on July 17 by Statistics Canada, the 2006 Census states that the number of people over age 64 has increased by 11.5% in the last 5 years. Of the total 32,973,546 Canadians, "the number of people aged 55 to 64, many of whom are workers approaching retirement, has never been so high in Canada, at close to 3.7 million in 2006." At the same time, those younger than 15 years old make up only 17.7% of the population, another record-breaking low for Canadians. By 2022 it is predicted that "seniors will outnumber children in every province", and by 2031 the median age will be 44. At present the Territories have the youngest population in Canada with one in four people being younger than 15. The report states, "The territories' relative 'youth' is attributable to the high fertility rate, particularly among the Inuit population, and lower life expectancy than in the provinces." The four Atlantic provinces, on the other hand, are the "oldest" provinces in the nation. The census calls this a "sharp contrast" from 50 years ago when Atlantic women were having more children than the rest of the country, and seniors made up only 7.8% of the population. Similarly, in Quebec the number of seniors has more than quadrupled in the past 50 years, and in the entire province, there are only 1.3 million people under the age of 15. Quebec also has one of the highest abortion and contraception rates in the Western World (see http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/oct/05102501.html). Referring to the recent "large-scale changes in the age distribution" of the population, Statistics Canada Daily notes, "The two main factors behind the population aging are the nation's low fertility rate and increasing life expectancy." At present, the average birth rate is at a low of 1.53 children per woman. Abortion figures are key to understanding this startling demographic shift. According to the most-recent statistics (2004), the number of abortions is 11.4 for every 1,000 women below the age of 20. There are also 14.6 abortions for every 1,000 women aged 15 to 44, a number which has dropped slightly from 15.1 in 2003. Nevertheless, in 2004 a total of 100,039 babies were aborted in Canada. Commenting on the number of annual abortions, a Campaign Life Coalition news article stated, "We estimate the total number of babies slaughtered in the womb since abortion on demand was permitted in 1969 to be more than 3 million. That's roughly equivalent to the population of Toronto permanently lost. That's about a million fewer university and college graduates in the workforce and more than 2 million missing elementary, high school and post-secondary students." The report continued, "The future of our country is literally being destroyed and there is no great public outcry (other than by the pro-life movement) or political will to do anything about the means being used to do so. The magnitude of this atrocity is lost on the average Canadian and I dare say even on most of our religious leaders who still don't seem to comprehend the very high priority and bold actions that should be given to the issue. As Stalin said, 'one death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.'" The historical ratios between young and old would not have been thrown into flux if it were not for abortion, birth control and a materialistic philosophy that favors small families of one or two children (with increasing numbers of couples avoiding children altogether). In fact, the policies of government and many other Canadian institutions have for decades strongly discouraged having more than one or two children." Studies predict that the rapidly changing demographics within the nation will take a large toll on the economy and burden the health care system. As a result, the situation has become a cause for major concern throughout Canada. The change will also place a heavy burden on the labor force and all taxpayers, who will be forced to support the aging generation. Nevertheless, any proposed solutions continue to avoid the key issues of contraception or abortion (see http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/jun/07061804.html).

Contracepting the Environment: Environmentalists Mum on Poisoned Streams

When EPA-funded scientists at the University of Colorado studied fish in a pristine mountain stream known as Boulder Creek two years ago, they were shocked. Randomly netting 123 trout and other fish downstream from the city’s sewer plant, they found that 101 were female, 12 were male, and 10 were strange “intersex” fish with male and female features. It’s “the first thing that I’ve seen as a scientist that really scared me,” said then 59-year-old University of Colorado biologist John Woodling, speaking to the Denver Post in 2005. They studied the fish and decided the main culprits were estrogens and other steroid hormones from birth control pills and patches, excreted in urine into the city’s sewage system and then into the creek….Since their findings, stories have been emerging everywhere. Scientists in western Washington found that synthetic estrogen — a common ingredient in oral contraceptives — drastically reduces the fertility of male rainbow trout….“It’s going to start looking funny,” Harden said. “The radical environmentalist won’t eat a corn chip if the corn contacted a pesticide. But they view it a sacred right and obligation to consume synthetic chemicals that alter a woman’s natural biological functions, even if this practice threatens innocent aquatic life downstream.” (Source)

Hormonal Contraceptives Pollute Drinking Water - Environmentalists Turn a Blind Eye

July 11, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - For some years now, reports have been growing from around the world that the massive amounts of synthetic birth control hormones being pumped into the water systems through sewage outflow is changing the sex of fish stocks. Recently, scientists have also begun to warn of the possible carcinogenic effects of the build-up of estrogenic chemicals in drinking water. As early as 2002, the UK Environment Agency warned that fish stocks in British rivers were showing signs of gender ambiguity as a result of high levels of estrogen in the water. A survey of 1,500 fish at 50 river sites found more than a third of males also displayed female characteristics. Research by Dr Jayne Brian and Professor John Sumpter at Brunel University's Institute for the Environment, showed estrogenic chemicals are affecting the reproduction and gender of aquatic life and warned of the affect on the reproductive ability of humans. The two researchers are calling for a reassessment of EU legislation regulating chemicals. "There is a cocktail of chemicals in our fresh water. We need to consider tougher safety margins to fully protect wildlife and humans." Two years ago, University of Colorado scientists, sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency, found that of 123 fish caught in Boulder Creek downstream from the Boulder sewage treatment plant, 101 were female, 12 were male, and 10 had both male and female characteristics. The strange case of the trans-gendered fish is "the first thing that I've seen as a scientist that really scared me," University of Colorado biologist John Woodling told the Denver Post at the time. More recently, in June this year, scientists from the University of Pittsburgh investigated the fish populations in the Allegheny River near storm sewer outflow pipes and discovered the same deformations. The region is dependent on the Allegheny system for drinking water. Dr. Conrad Daniel Volz from the University of Pittsburgh Center for Environmental Oncology, warned that the rise in steroid hormones in the drinking water in the Pittsburgh area is a threat to health. Numerous studies have shown a link between contraceptive estrogen and hormone problems and some cancers, including testicular cancer. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that other study results have shown ambiguous gender in 85 per cent of the catfish caught on the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio rivers. Chemicals extracted from 25 randomly sampled fish caused growth of estrogen-sensitive breast cancer cells cultured in a laboratory, eleven of which "produced very aggressive cancer growth". But scientists and environmental groups are careful to avoid recommending restrictions on artificial contraceptives. The National Catholic Register, reporting on the issue, quotes George Harden, a board member of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists, saying "If you're killing mosquitoes to save people from the West Nile virus, you can count on secular environmentalists to lay down in front of the vapour truck, claiming some potential side effect that might result from the spray," Harden said. "But if birth control deforms fish - backed by the proof of an EPA study - and threatens the drinking supply, mum will be the word." Curt Cunningham, water quality issues chairman for the Rocky Mountain Chapter of Sierra Club International, told the Register that people "would not take kindly" to the suggestion of banning or restricting hormonal contraceptives. "For many people it's an economic necessity. It's also a personal freedom issue," Cunningham said.

Men Conceived Through Fertility Treatment Have a Sperm Count Half the Normal, Danish Study Reports

COPENHAGEN, Denmark June 19, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A study conducted in Denmark found that the sperm count of men who are conceived by fertility treatments is up to 50 percent lower than normal. Published in March 1 by the American Journal of Epidemiology (AJE), the study was entitled, "The Fertility Treatment and Reproductive Health of Male Offspring: A Study of 1,925 Young Men from the General Population." The AJE explains that all 1,925 Danish participants were undergoing compulsory medical testing at the time for army fitness requirements. The volunteers were required to give both a semen sample and a blood sample and then answer a questionnaire. At the same time, their mothers were asked whether they had received fertility treatment, and 47 responded in the affirmative. The AJE reports that men whose mothers had received fertility treatments had a "46% lower sperm concentration" and a "45% lower total sperm count". They had fewer "motile sperm," and a higher level of deformed sperm. Their testis size was also smaller on average by 0.9 millimeters. The study involved many possible confounding factors, especially the possibility that these men had inherited an infertility problem. Nevertheless, the New York Times reports that the differences between men whose mothers had received fertility treatment and those who had not were significant. In fact, it was more marked that the difference between men whose parents had smoked versus those whose parents remained smoke-free. One drawback in the study was that although the mothers claimed to have received hormonal fertility treatment, the type of treatment remained uncertain. For this reason, the Times reports, Dr. Tina Kold Jensen, one of the report's lead authors and a professor at the University of Southern Denmark commented, "At this point we don't know what fertility treatment the mothers of these men received, and we are not prepared to make any recommendations."  The AJE review concludes, "These findings should be viewed in light of the increasing use of fertility treatments. Although the cause of these findings is unknown, they raise concern about possible late effects of fertility treatment." According to the World Health Organization, male sperm count should not drop beneath 20 million sperm per milliliter, reports the News.com.au. In the Danish study, the normal median sperm concentration was 48 million per millilitre whereas sons of fertility treatment mothers had only 33 million. In total, 30% of the first group was below 20 million, whereas only 20% of the second group was below this number. Overall, the sperm count of males conceived through fertility treament was 46% lower. These findings are consistent with other reports on fertility treatment. A US study, for example, revealed that storing embryos cause serious genetic defects. The largest Canadian study of its kind also discovered that fertility-treatment children have a 58% higher risk of being born with birth defects. These defects include problems in the digestive tract, bones and heart. Another study in 2005 revealed that twins who are conceived through in-vitro fertilization (IVF) are 50 percent more likely to be born prematurely than through natural conception. (see http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/jul/05072906.html). Women also frequently endure significant side effects from the hormonal infertility treatments. One 33-year-old woman, quoted in The Daily Mail, described them, saying, "the drugs give me banging headaches, hot flushes and temper tantrums," she said. "If they make me feel like this, what are they doing to my eggs?"

Aging Population, Low Birth Rate Will Place Massive Economic Burden on Younger Canadians: Report Report fails to mention demographic effects of abortion and contraception

OTTAWA, June 18, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A report released on Friday in the Canadian Economic Observer by Statistics Canada states that the increasing number of aging baby boomers will cause a major decline in overall worker participation within Canada. The recent demographic study reveals that the labor force, that is, the number of workers aged 15 and over, will continue to increase over the next few decades. The labor participation, however - that is, the proportion of labor workers to retired persons - will experience a drastic decline. The study predicts four possible future scenarios in which the labor force increases significantly over the next 24 years as the population increases. According to the most positive scenario, by 2031 the labor force will increase by 22.9% from 2005, to 21.8 million in total. Regardless of all four situations, however, a sharp decline in labor participation is inevitable after the year 2031, the report concludes. Even with increased immigration and a higher birth rate within Canada, the proportion of workers to retired persons will change dramatically. At present, there is a ratio of approximately 4 workers aged 15 and over to every retired person. By 2031, however, the ratio will have declined to approximately 2 to one. In just over two decades, the report continues, the labor force may only include 58% of the population. In Labrador and Newfoundland, it could be as low as 45%.  This is down from 67% of the total population in 2005. Laurent Martel, population analyst for Statistics Canada and co-writer of the report, told LifeSiteNews.com that the study shows a change in demographics only and makes no specific predictions about future effects on the individual or the family. As the baby boomers start hitting retirement age, logically more and more people will be relying on the Canadian Pension Plan. The ratio of workers to retired people is decreasing, and soon a relatively small number of people will be forced to carry a heavy economic burden. This will make it increasingly difficult for families to survive financially and may influence future ethical decisions regarding issues like euthanasia and suitable old age care.The report also failed to mention that abortion and contraception, and the consequent dearth of population, are the most fundamental reasons for the current economic crisis. In Quebec, for example, the province with one of the highest abortion and contraception rates, the real growth rate of the GDP will shrink to half its current level within the next ten years (see http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/oct/05102501.html). Likewise, any proposed solutions habitually fail to address the issues of abortion, contraception, and the dangerously low birthrate, and little mention is ever made about the possibility of exploring means of encouraging families to have more children. Laurent Martel proposed one possible economic solution to the current crisis, telling LifeSiteNews.com that, "In the forthcoming decades, the Canadian economy will have to rely more on productivity gains rather than employment gains. The overall participation rate will decrease in the forthcoming decades despite higher levels of immigration and despite higher participation rates among older workers." These words paralleled the comments of David Dodge, President of the Bank of Montreal, who discussed similar facts in a speech to the St. John's Board of Trade last week. He commented that the economy has grown in recent decades as the working-age population increased and more women entered the work force. Now as the trend reverses and numbers are declining, population productivity must increase. People are encouraged to work more years, rather than retiring at the mandatory age of 65. Already several provinces have discarded the retirement age regulation. Rates of decline may slow down, said Dodge, because "the nature of work is changing: it's becoming less physical and more service-oriented. And people are remaining healthier later in life." "As life expectancy increases, people may want to remain in the workforce longer. In addition, strong demand for labour in the economy might make it more attractive for older workers to remain in the labour force." Agreeing with past studies of population trends, the report clearly shows that economic growth must be based upon productivity rather than sheer numbers. Forced to work harder and longer, people will have less recompense in both time and money.

Estrogen overload: Widespread use of birth control pills harming the environment (Apr.17.07)

Millions of women in the United States ingest excess estrogen every day in the form of birth control pills. Within 24 hours, the effluent from those 12 million doses ends up in our sewage systems. And then? The April 17 Scientific American reported results of a study warning that “many streams, rivers and lakes already bear warning signs that the fish caught within them may also be carrying enough chemicals that mimic the female hormone estrogen to cause breast cancer cells to grow.” “Fish are really a sentinel, just like canaries in the coal mine 100 years ago,” says Conrad Volz, co-director of exposure assessment at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute's Center for Environmental Ecology. “We need to pay attention to chemicals that are estrogenic in nature, because they find their way back into the water we all use.” According to the Freshwater Institute’s Fisheries and Oceans section, “The potent synthetic estrogens excreted by women taking hormone replacement therapy or birth control pills are not completely broken down in the sewage treatment process and are discharged into waterways.” While cautioning that the exact process of hormonal confusion is not yet clear, the Scientific American article continued, “But the [estrogenic] effects on the fish themselves were clear: the gender of nine of the fish [tested] could not be determined.” “Increased estrogenic active substances in the water are changing males so that they are indistinguishable from females,” Volz found. “There are eggs in male gonads as well as males are secreting a yolk sac protein. Males aren't supposed to be making egg stuff.” (Source)

Museum of Abortion and Contraception Makes Debut in Austria

VIENNA, March 19, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A new museum dedicated to abortion and contraception opened this week in Vienna, cataloguing a history of human effort through the ages devoted to suppressing or destroying the next generation of human life in the womb. According to Deutsch-Welle, abortionist Dr. Christian Fiala, chairman of the International Association of Abortion and Contraception Specialists, conceived the idea of building a museum dedicated to the history of his profession in the city where he has directed an abortion/family planning clinic for the previous 10 years. Fiala’s museum is divided into two separate rooms that are linked together just like contraception and abortion. In order to get to the abortion room, visitors must first pass through the contraception room, where they can see exhibits such as the first birth control pill juxtaposed with old-fashioned condoms made of pig bladders. If the contraception exhibit fails to satisfy, visitors may choose to enter into the abortion room by passing through a doorway of hanging pregnancy test kits from the 1960s. “Until about 1900,” Deutsch-Welle reports, “abortions were so dangerous that it was safer for women to carry the child to term and then kill it after it was born.” However, visitors can listen to recordings of abortionists discussing how killing a child before birth was “still a life-threatening procedure” 30 years ago – for the mother, not just the child. "Today we believe that if we discuss abortions or the laws that govern them that it is solely about the rights of the fetus,” said Fiala. “But we forget that a fetus cannot live unless it inside a healthy woman. And that there is no one other than the woman herself of [sic] can or should make any decisions about her pregnancy." Conservatives may see the Museum of Contraception and Abortion as a memorial befitting Europe’s aging native societies, which due to their preference for a contraception/abortion mentality over families and fecundity have produced an unprecedented demographic crisis. The United Nations 2006 Revision to World Population Prospects reports that by 2050, Europe will experience a demographic meltdown with countries such as Ukraine losing 33% of its population, Russia 25%, Poland 20.5%, and Germany 10.3% by 2050. Canadian conservative columnist Mark Steyn has observed repeatedly that burgeoning immigrant Islamic populations, who in most part don’t identify themselves with the culture of their well-advanced European neighbors, are already in a position to soon take over management of a barren Europe that has contracepted itself out of the future.

Chastity and Fidelity Proving More Effective

ROME, MARCH 18, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Once more the Catholic Church is under fire for its opposition to condoms. Brazil's president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, recently accused the Church of hypocrisy on the issue of condoms at an event organized by the country's health ministry, Reuters reported March 12. The agency also reported the response of Cardinal Eugênio de Araújo Sales, retired archbishop of Rio de Janeiro, in which he criticized the government's condom program in a newspaper article. The policy of mass condom distribution, he wrote, promotes a culture of sexual promiscuity. A statement issued by Brazil's episcopal commission on family and life also rejected Silva's accusation. The commission insisted on the need to educate adolescents in good moral principles. Governments in many countries increasingly favor the wholesale distribution of condoms in an attempt to reduce teenage pregnancies and the spread of sexual diseases. Earlier this year in Scotland, condoms were being distributed to children as young as 13, Edinburgh's Evening News reported Jan. 16. The newspaper reported that data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act revealed that in 2005 a total of 53,638 free condoms were issued to children 13-15 in Edinburgh and surrounding areas. Simon Dames, a spokesman for the Catholic Church in Scotland, commented on the program, noting the inconsistency of a government policy that bans smoking for those under 18, yet promotes sexual activity by distributing condoms to those still under the legal age of consent -- 16 -- for sexual relations. In the United States, a joint statement by Cardinal Edward Egan of New York, and Bishop Nicholas Di Marzio of Brooklyn criticized the city's government for distributing free condoms on Valentine's Day, the Associated Press reported Feb. 16. The bishops' statement said that the only way to protect against sexually transmitted diseases is through abstinence before marriage and fidelity after. Health authorities in Washington, D.C., also gave away 250,000 condoms in the weeks preceding Valentine's Day, the Washington Post reported Feb. 16. Church's stance vindicated According to Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragán, president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry, premarital abstinence, as well as fidelity between spouses, are far more effective means to prevent AIDS. The cardinal made these remarks at a conference in Rome on AIDS, reported the Associated Press on Dec. 20. A growing body of evidence backs up the cardinal's statement. On March 2 the Washington Post published a lengthy article examining the experience of Botswana in dealing with AIDS. The newspaper noted that a number of studies single out the practice of having sex with multiple partners "as the most powerful force propelling a killer disease through a vulnerable continent." The Washington Post cited a July report by southern African AIDS experts and officials that put "reducing multiple and concurrent partnerships" as their first priority for preventing the spread of HIV. The region accounts for 38% of total HIV infections in the world. The article described how Botswana has followed for many years the policy recommended by international experts of promoting condoms and distributing antiretroviral drugs. All to no avail. The contagion rate for HIV in the country is the among the fastest growing in the world. Around 25% of the population is currently infected. Fidelity campaigns were never seriously promoted in Botswana, the Washington Post observed, but condoms were. A $13.5 million campaign for condom promotion was launched in the country, thanks to the financial support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Merck pharmaceutical company. The amount spent on promoting condoms was 25 times more than what was spent on abstinence programs. "Soaring rates of condom use have not brought down high HIV rates," the article concluded. "Instead, they rose together, until both were among the highest in Africa." Changing behavior The importance of modifying the way people act, instead of programs based on condom distribution, is increasingly being recognized by medical experts. On March 11, 2006, the British Medical Journal published an article entitled "Risk Compensation: The Achilles' Heel of Innovations in HIV Prevention?" Authored by a team of writers headed by Michael Cassell, the article observed that while pharmaceuticals and other measures can help reduce the spread of HIV, they may also inhibit the change to safer behaviors by diminishing people's perceptions of risks. Condom promotion campaigns, combined with a reduction in risk perception, "may have contributed to increases in inconsistent use, which has minimal protective effect, as well as to a possible neglect of the risks of having multiple sexual partners," the article commented. The authors also noted that studies in a number of Western countries show that the promise of increased access to antiretroviral treatment "has been associated with significant increases in risky behavior." Prior to this confirmation of the need to change sexual behavior, came from a study carried out in Zimbabwe's rural population between 1998 and 2003. An article entitled "Understanding HIV Epidemic Trends in Africa," published Feb. 3, 2006, in Science magazine, reported on the study's findings. Authors Richard Hayes and Helen Weiss wrote that a reduction in HIV prevalence was achieved due to changes in sexual behavior. The changes involved delaying the onset of sexual activity by adolescents and a reduction in the number of casual sexual partners. A related theme in the debate is the question of promoting abstinence. The negative consequences of initiating sexual relations at an early age was highlighted in an article published in the February issue of the Journal of Youth and Adolescence. The article, "Adolescent Sexual Debut and Later Delinquency," by Stacy Armour and Dana Haynie, observed that the question of ill effects resulting from sex outside marriage is a controversial point in the debate over whether to promote abstinence. Up until now, however, there has been little research on the topic. Armour and Haynie used data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health to examine interconnections between the age of sexual debut and subsequent delinquency problems. The study covered some 12,000 students and the findings were controlled for variables such as age, race and family structure. Among the conclusions from the study was the finding that premature initiation of sexual activity increases the risks of delinquency. Similarly, delaying sexual activity later than one's peers "offers a protective effect and reduces the risks of engaging in subsequent delinquency." The corresponding negative and positive effects go beyond adolescence and persist until early adulthood. A sustainable solution
The importance of a solution based on a complete vision of the human person was the theme of a message published by African bishops for the last World AIDS Day, observed Dec. 1. The document was published by the Catholic Information Service for Africa on Nov. 21, and signed by Archbishop John Onaiyekan of Abuja, Nigeria, president of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar. "We Catholic bishops of Africa encourage everyone to consider the deeper causes of the pandemic," it declared. The problem is not just medical or technical, but involves deeper moral issues. In addition to committing the Church in providing health care for those who are sick, the statement pointed out the need to preach the Gospel message. "As the Church's mission is to address the whole person in all dimensions of life, we feel the special responsibility to revitalize the strong moral values in our societies," the document added. "That is what will lead to a true, sustainable solution to AIDS in Africa."

On Fox News Fearless HLI Priest Takes on Sean Hannity over Contraception, Hannity ‘Loses it’

NEW YORK, March 13, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Last Friday, the President of Human Life International, Fr. Tom Euteneuer used his weekly column to point out the hypocrisy of Catholic celebrity Sean Hannity, one of the stars of Fox News' Hannity and Colmes show. Hannity had, on a show the week before, made a big deal of apologizing for having inadvertently eaten a couple of bites of a meat sandwich on a Friday during Lent.  In his column, Fr. Euteneuer pointed out that the meat incident was not sinful at all, and "If apologies are the order of the day, then the repentance I would like to hear out of Sean Hannity's mouth is for his shameless-even scandalous-promotion of birth control. Yes, I have heard him personally say, 'I have no problem with birth control. It's a good thing.'" Explaining the gravity of the situation, Fr. Euteneuer noted, "Given the size of his audience and the importance of his status in pop culture, Hannity's anti-witness to a fundamental tenet of Catholic moral doctrine is just devastating for the faith of others who may be weak or vacillating in this area."  In his concluding remarks he stated: "The moral of the story is that Catholic men and women in the media need to be truly Catholic or at least stop being hypocrites." (see the full column here: http://www.hli.org/sl_2007-03-09.html ) Hannity's dissent from Church teaching on contraception is long-standing and very public.  In fact, in 2004, his public stand in favor of contraception made it into a commentary in the oldest Catholic newspaper in the United States, the Wanderer.  On a show in 2004, Hannity was explaining his opposition to withholding Communion from Catholic politicians who support legal abortion.  At the time he pointed out that should Communion be withheld from liberals it could also be withheld from conservatives such as he since, he said, he had no problem with contraception. Hannity's press handlers called the HLI leader the day his column was published to have him address Hannity live on the program.  Fr. Euteneuer obliged and began a reasoned, calm presentation of his case. "One is simply obliged not to be a heretic in public. That's the point," said Fr. Euteneuer in response to an initial question from Colmes. "If (Hannity) doesn't agree with his Church on that matter he should not be pronouncing on the matter as if he was the authority on that matter. He's not." However rather than argue for his case on contraception or even address the points made in Fr. Euteneuer's article Hannity immediately jumped to the offensive.  "Reverend. Let me, let me just say… You call me a hypocrite. You question the depth of my faith. Do you know anything about me and my religious beliefs? And my background religion? do you know anything about me?" "I only see the evidence Sean. I see the evidence of a superficial presentation of one aspect of the faith. I see the…," replied Fr. Euteneuer just before he was cut off by Hannity's attack on the Catholic Church via the sex abuse scandals.  "Judge not lest you be judged, Reverend", interrupted Hannity.  "Maybe you ought to spend a little more time that our Church covered up one of the worst sex scandals and I wasn't involved in it. And the fact that public people after that are willing to still be Catholic is something you should be applauding. Considering the levels of corruption at the highest levels of the Church was frankly embarrassing to every person." Many commenting on Hannity, have said that he 'lost it' with the priest.  "Do you know that I went to a seminary? Do you know that I studied Latin? Do you know that I studied theology?," said Hannity at one point just before repeating charges about corruption and sex scandals in the church. The only time Hannity seemed especially affected by the priest came right at the end of the segment when Hannity demanded, "Wait, would you deny me communion?"  Fr. Euteneuer replied, "I would."  Hannity, visibly moved, replied, "Wow, wow." (See the segment on vido here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f50fD5elrcg ) Despite his courage and fidelity, Fr. Euteneuer has received criticism for his stand even from some Catholics who, despite decades of persistent, public and very damaging scandal to the faith by prominent individuals, still insist that behind-the-scenes, personal dialogue is the only acceptable response.  It has been suggested that the HLI leader should have approached Hannity privately.  However, in 2004, after Hannity 's scandalous remarks about contraception Fr. Euteneuer did attempt to personally contact Hannity with his concerns but to no avail. The broadcast is being praised for having raised publicly that contraception leads to abortion and is contrary to the Catholic faith.  It has also shown that the Catholic Church is impartial in its estimation of liberals and conservatives, and must correct equally all those who reject the Church's authoritative teachings on faith and morals. Probably the saddest chapter of the event was Fox News publishing an open letter to Sean Hannity by Father Jonathan Morris, a regular news contributor for the fox News Channel.  Fr. Morris, vice rector for the Legionnaries of Christ seminary in Rome, wrote that when he saw the program, "I hung my head in shame and sadness."   Fr. Morris continued, "My colleague in religion (whom I've never met) used the public airways and Internet to call you a heretic and hypocrite. Because he chose to do this in a public forum, I want you and your viewers to know, publicly, that as an analyst of this television network, I believe this good priest, who does great work, exercised, on this occasion, shockingly poor judgment. I consider his willingness to give his personal opinion about your status within the Church inappropriate and ill-considered, to say the least." In an open letter responding to Fr. Morris, Fr. Euteneuer wrote: "Your letter to Sean Hannity indicates that you did not know that I asked to speak to him in private about this matter in 2004 otherwise you may have tempered your remarks about my supposed lack of charity in dealing with a high profile Catholic who dissents from clearly-defined and reiterated Church teachings." "May I also point out," added Fr. Euteneuer, "that you did not employ with me the same standard of "fraternal correction" that you expected me to employ with Mr. Hannity. I at least made the attempt to speak to him about this issue in private without success; you, in contrast, went immediately to the internet to take me to task."  (See both Fr. Morris' letter and Fr. Euteneuer's response: http://www.hli.org/article_open_letter_to_fr_morris.html ) As a man who has defended the Catholic position on the right to life for the unborn, on traditional marriage, and against the euthanasia of Terri Schiavo, Sean Hannity has come to grips with many of the hard teachings of the faith.  Some observers are suggesting that his encounter with the Church's position on contraception, was an eye-opener and may in fact lead Hannity to a fuller adherence to what he professes to believe.  To this priest, who so perturbed him, Hannity may one day find himself grateful, perhaps eternally so.

Canadian National Paper Editorial Warns of “Full-Blown Fertility Crisis” Editorial says, “start making babies”

TORONTO, March 14, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Canadians are more materialistic, career-oriented and irreligious than Americans, which is why women have no more than one or two children; an article by the Canadian Press explains the reasons for the low Canadian birth rate. The 2006 census data were released Tuesday by Statistics Canada showing the Canadian birth rate at 1.5 children per woman. 2.1 is necessary to maintain a stable population with no growth. An editorial in today’s National Post proposes a solution that is getting little mention in the mainstream press: “start making babies.” The Post points to the example of France with its generous tax subsidies for couples with children that have “spurred a mini-renaissance in the country's birth rate.” Sally Ritchie, a Toronto career woman told CP reporter Sheryl Ubelacker, that though she was the youngest of a family of eight siblings, she herself only wanted one child. “Nowadays, it's very, very difficult to have more than one child and be sure that you're going to be able to put them through university and provide them with the home you want to provide them with,” Ritchie said. She adds: “And, frankly, you want to do better for your kids than was done for you . . . and I couldn't afford to do that if we continued with growing the family.” “And it's vitally important to me that I have a career.” The CP article cites “better contraception,” higher average age at the time of marriage, a 50 per cent divorce rate and “career women who delay marriage and babies as they establish themselves in the workplace.” But the real difference between the US and Canada, Ubelacker writes, is what demographers are calling “religiosity,” defined as the tendency to adhere “to a traditional family structure, with men as the breadwinning head of household and women primarily as nurturers of children.” Amelie Quesnel-Vallee, a social demographer at McGill University in Montreal, was quick to point out that just being willing to give children life is no indication of US superiority. She said, “Definitely [Americans are] having more children, but they're not necessarily giving them the same life conditions that Canadians would.” The Post points out that while Canada has one of the highest growth rates of the G8 nations, about 5.4 per cent, the increase is due exclusively to massive and unprecedented levels of immigration. Shifts in economics and demographics are creating a difficult choice for the future: “limit our intake of immigrants, or lower our immigration criteria to sustain the current high numbers.”