Political Games - Where the fuck’s the reset button?

Wrote this in response to an op/ed in today’s Observer bashing contraception. Lemme know what you think!

Daniel Patrick Moynihan once quipped that everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts. In that vein, I respect Mrs. Kreager’s right to self-righteously believe that she is morally superior because of her decision to not use contraception. What I do not respect is the multitude of lies and misinformation she either willfully told or, more likely, unknowingly repeated.

First, the birth control pill does not have a myriad of medical problems. Like all medications, there are known potential side effects to taking the pill. The current literature on the subject is well summarized in an article from the Seminars in Reproductive Medicine’s December, 2001 issue (accessed via Medscape). The article, entitled “Risks of Oral Contraceptive Pills”, puts these risks into perspective. Many of the dangers, including breast cancer, either have negligible or small risk increases associated with the pill; around 1-2 per 100,000 women a year. In comparison, approximately 7.5 per 100,000 women die giving birth every year. The medical risks associated with the birth control pill are less than those associated with pregnancy.

The second egregious falsehood is her claim that many contraceptives are also abortifacients. Presumably, Mrs. Kreager is referring to Plan B, the brand name for the morning-after pill. It is a widespread misconception that Plan B works by preventing a fertilized embryo from implanting in the uterus. This is not true. Plan B works primarily through supplying high levels of the hormone progesterone. Progesterone occurs naturally in a woman’s body after ovulation to maintain the uterine lining in case the embryo is fertilized. It also suppresses Luteinizing Hormone (LH). This is important because a spike in LH is necessary for ovulation. Plan B works by preventing ovulation in the first place. While many have speculated that Plan B might prevent implantation of a fertilized embryo, there is zero clinical evidence that this occurs.

A third problematic assertion, this one simply misleading instead of false, is the claim that Natural Family Planning (NFP) is effective. Compared to just having unprotected sex whenever, NFP is indeed more effective. Compared to the pill and consistent condom use, its effectiveness is abysmal. The Guttmacher Institute tracks statistics about sexual and reproductive health, including annual failure rates in 2 categories: perfect use, and typical use (the failure rates assume an average amount of sexual intercourse over an entire year, and the chance of becoming pregnant at some point during the year). NFP’s perfect use failure rate is 5%, while the typical use failure rate is 25%. In comparison, the “withdrawal” method has failure rates of 4% and 18%. The pill’s failure rates are 0.3% and 8.7%, while condoms’ failure rates are 2% and 17%. Combining any of these methods together obviously dramatically decreases the failure rates. Not using a method at all has a failure rate of 85%.

On a less factual and more opinionated note, I want to very strongly disagree with Mrs. Kreager’s assertion that premarital sex is always loveless and hedonistic. I won’t defend the hedonists (as Futurama’s Hedonism Bot explains, they “apologize for nothing”), but most people engage in premarital sex with someone they care about. Maybe it’s a girlfriend/boyfriend, a fiance, or just a good friend, but they are not treated or viewed as an “object”. They’re a person you want to share love and pleasure with.

None of this should be taken to mean that I demand that people engage in premarital sex, or that I’m even encouraging it. What I am demanding is that people recognize the facts about reality. In closing, I want to share a few more numbers from Guttmacher. According to a different report of theirs from 2006, by the age of forty-four 99% of Americans will have had sex, and 95% will have had premarital sex. This number has changed little over the past few decades; 88% of Americans born between 1939 and 1948 have had premarital sex, while just 74% of “our” generation (born between 1979 and 1988, the youngest group available when this report was released) have done so. In terms of sexual practice, America hasn’t degraded morally; we’re just the same as we were 40 years ago.

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