Contraception & Abortion
Homilies from Called to Give Life
Homilies from Called to Give Life
Here are sixteen homilies dealing with morality for married couples and with contraception in particular. They are offered here for the use of priests and others who might find them useful. The printable version of the homilies (see above) can be opened in Microsoft Word and saved or edited from there. For those who do not have Word, the html text on this page can be copied and pasted into any word processor.
Additional homilies can be found on the God’s Plan For Life website on the homily page. That site also offers other important pro-life resources.
The Catholic Hospital Chapel
Health Care for the Whole Person
Wednesday was a five hundred mile day with a brief stop in Pendleton in the middle of the drive. The trip took me to Saint Anthony Hospital for the blessing of a new addition to the hospital which includes a lovely, conveniently located prayer chapel. In reality the Chapel at Saint Anthony Hospital is more than a prayer chapel. It is a Presence Chapel, a Consolation Chapel, a Peace Chapel, a Hope Chapel, a Grief Chapel, a Healing Chapel. There a person encounters more than his or her own thoughts. There one encounters the living Presence of Christ Himself. There, in the Presence of Him who is the source of consolation, peace, hope, and proper healing, one encounters thoughts which are beyond one’s own. There one comes face to face with the Reality of all realities, the true, living and eternal God. Many hospitals have a chapel but only Catholic Hospitals have a chapel with a Presence. Catholic Hospitals are therefore different and the difference does not end at the chapel. (more…)
The Bible vs Contraception
What does the Bible say about contraception?
The Second Vatican Councils statement on Divine Revelation teaches us that interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures must devote attention to “the content and unity of the whole of scripture, taking into account the tradition of the entire Church”1 Much more than a moral manual or a doctrinal concordance, the Bible is an inspired expression of the faith and life of the Church. In contrast to the legalism of the Pharisees, the revelation of Christ was/is comprehensive, describing the positive fulfillment of the demands of love. Our application of this revelation to the specific moral questions of our age, in this case contraception, involves submitting our actions to the standard of life-giving love established by God, both in his fathering of the chosen people of old, and in his redemption of the New Israel. (more…)
Women at High Risk of Significant Bone Loss on Injectable Birth Control Identified
ScienceDaily (Dec. 22, 2009) — 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 DMPA 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 DMPA use, 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 DMPA, including approximately 400,000 teens. DMPA is relatively inexpensive compared with some other forms of birth control, has a low failure rate and doesn’t need to be administered daily, which contributes to the contraceptive’s popularity. (more…)
What a Woman Should Know about Birth Control
All methods of birth control are efforts to separate sexual intercourse from procreation. This separation supports sexual relationships that are much weaker than traditional marriage—hooking up, cohabitation, adultery, and serial monogamy. These relationships erode society by leading to divorce, unexpected pregnancy, abortion, single parent households, abuse, and poverty. The consequences of birth control clearly demonstrate an unhealthy, anti-culture and anti-life, impact that raises major ethical concerns. Use of birth control is like intentionally eating unhealthy, nutrition-less, food just for the pleasure of eating. A steady diet will kill you. In much the same way, a steady diet of birth control kills relationships. (more…)
A Woman’s Story of Her Husband’s Vasectomy & Reversal
The personal testimony of Kim, a wife and mother of five…
Ten years ago my husband had a vasectomy after the birth of our fifth child. I pleaded with him not to do it, and the kids and I went away for the weekend while his brother took him to the appointment. That day is etched in my mind forever. I relive it often and especially when the kids reach a milestone such as graduating from school or getting their drivers license, etc. The journey has taken me down many different roads as I tried to replace the loss of my fertility. I exercised incessantly to make sure that I was always attractive and in good shape, I bordered on anorexia as my vanity took over. I lost my zeal for the Church and my vocation as a mother. I lost trust in my husband’s decisions for the family, but all the while I never expressed my heartache because the vasectomy changed my husband in many ways as well. He became very focused on his work, his career advancement and the money that he could make under the guise of “providing” for the family. He continued to seek his own will and not that of God in his decisions, and I felt afraid of the control that he had over me. In hindsight, taking away someone’s fertility against their will is one of the most controlling things that anyone can do. I vacillated between hope and despair because I knew the Church’s teaching about married love and the sacrament of marriage, and I wished with my entire being that my husband could love me like “Christ loved the Church.” (more…)
The connection between contraception and abortion
Many in the pro-life movement are reluctant to make a connection between contraception and abortion. They insist that these are two very different acts–that there is all the difference in the world between contraception, which prevents a life from coming to be and abortion, which takes a life that has already begun.
With some contraceptives there is not only a link with abortion, there is an identity. Some contraceptives are abortifacients; they work by causing early term abortions. The IUD seems to prevent a fertilized egg–a new little human being- from implanting in the uterine wall. The pill does not always stop ovulation, but sometimes prevents implantation of the growing embryo. And, of course, the new RU-486 pill works altogether by aborting a new fetus, a new baby. Although some in the pro-life movement occasionally speak out against the contraceptives that are abortifacients, most generally steer clear of the issue of contraception. (more…)
Breast Cancer Risk from Abortion
How could abortion cause breast cancer?
At the beginning of pregnancy there are great increases in certain hormone levels (eg estrogen, progesterone, and hCG) that support pregnancy. In response to these changes, breast cells divide and mature into cells able to produce milk. Abortion causes an abrupt fall in hormone levels, leaving the breast cells in an immature state. These immature cells can more easily become cancer cells.
Has this been proven? (more…)
Breast Cancer, Abortion, and the Pill
For the past year, One More Soul has been privileged to work with Dr. Chris Kahlenborn in publishing his new book: Breast Cancer, Its Link to Abortion and the Birth Control Pill . This book is the culmination of seven years the author spent reviewing and analyzing more than 500 research studies and related works. It is very timely because of the breast cancer epidemic, which currently threatens every woman.
In the concluding chapter of Dr. Kahlenborn’s book, he summarizes his conclusions and provides recommendations for action. The substance of that chapter is presented here, modified slightly to improve readability as a separate article. (more…)
Study: Abortion, Contraception Raise Breast Cancer Risk
Study is 9 months old, but still no warnings from cancer establishment
Contact: Karen Malec, Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, 847-421-4000
MEDIA ADVISORY, Jan. 6 /Christian Newswire/ – Less than two months since the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force issued new guidelines recommending against routine mammograms for women in their forties, a second breast cancer scandal involving a U.S. government panel of experts has come to light which has implications for healthcare reform.
An April 2009 study by Jessica Dolle et al. of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center examining the relationship between oral contraceptives (OCs) and triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) in women under age 45 contained an admission from U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) researcher Louise Brinton and her colleagues (including Janet Daling) that abortion raises breast cancer risk by 40%. [1]
Additionally, Dolle’s team showed that women who start OCs before age 18 multiply their risk of TNBC by 3.7 times and recent users of OCs within the last one to five years multiply their risk by 4.2 times. TNBC is an aggressive form of breast cancer associated with high mortality. (more…)
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