Gretchen Waxes Controversial

Today's topic is rather personal, but what I've learned about it in the past year or so is just too good not to share. It's the topic of family planning.

I know that there are many varieties of views on this subject. John and I both see family planning as consistent with the stewardship which mankind has been given by God over the earth. Left to itself, a man's hair will grow very long, but hardly any Christian will say that a man shouldn't cut his hair because long hair is "natural" and God causes it to grow. That's a silly example, but illustrates our basic understanding of stewardship in family planning, as well.

John and I both love and hope to have children. We've observed families who have been surprised with multiple, unanticipated sets of twins and families who have not been able to have their own children for years, so we recognize that, ultimately, the size of one's family is in God's hands and not ours. Still, we recognize a family's responsibility to use wisdom in all matters, including family planning. When we were engaged, we agreed that it would be wise to wait a little while before trying to have children.

During my senior year of college, I had randomly gone to an info session on "Natural Family Planning." I was having an easy semester, so I had some flexibility for things like that, and it sounded interesting. The session was led by a Catholic couple, and they provided information for engaged couples about classes in Natural Family Planning (NFP). One thing that I remember hearing was that birth control pills could cause abortions. Apparently, one function of "the pill" was to thin the uterine lining to prevent a fertilized egg from implanting and developing further. That gave me some pause, but I filed away what I'd heard for some time in the future.

A few months before our wedding, I visited that dreaded lady doctor and told her I was interested in birth control. She fetched me a sample pack of pills, no questions asked. But when I asked her if these particular pills thinned the uterine lining to prevent implantation, she paused. She read the package information. She clearly knew where I was going mentally, affirmed that, unfortunately, they did, and suggested that I go home and think about it before taking them.

Now, I understand that the primary function of hormonal birth control is to prevent ovulation. If there's no egg, there can be no baby. But since hardly any drug performs perfectly every time, the manufacturers of this pill had added a drug with the secondary function I already described. Doubtless, most of the time this pill was effective in preventing ovulation, but just in case an egg did get through and got fertilized, the secondary function would ensure that it wouldn't be able to continue to develop as a baby. In other words, there was a slim chance of undetected abortion.

I found this to be incredibly frustrating. Why couldn't birth control pills simply prevent ovulation? If there were such a pill that did, I was going to find it. I began researching drug after drug online. Sometimes all I read about a drug was that it prevented ovulation, but when I dug a little further, I always found that it also thinned the uterine lining to prevent implantation. I used drugs.com a lot and at some point stumbled on http://krohse.com/index.html, which is a website from a Christian perspective. Some pill marketers claim that they do not terminate pregnancies, but what I discovered was that they often define the beginning of pregnancy as the point at which a fertilized egg implants into the uterine lining. If such pills prevent this from happening to start with, then of course it is impossible for them to harm a developing baby after that point. But I believe that life starts as soon as that little egg and little sperm meet.

To be continued . . .