In celebration of the Amoris Laetitia Family Year, Universitas republishes the texts of the “Executive Summaries,” one-page evangelization flyers initiated by Dr. Raul Nidoy, faculty member of UA&P, Director of Formation of Parents for Education Foundation (PAREF) and author of Jesus-Centered: Guide to the Happiest Life. The leaflets, which have been printed and shared thousands of times here and abroad, contain key points of Catholic doctrine on topics such as family and chastity, social responsibility, the foundations of the faith, and encountering Jesus. Schools, parishes, and organizations have used the leaflets as a tool for promoting Church teachings. The Executive Summaries can be downloaded here.
The world’s leading scientific experts and extensive research found in peer-reviewed science journals have already resolved the key questions surrounding the use of contraceptives.
- The pill and the IUD kill children.
When does human life begin? At fertilization, when the sperm penetrates the egg. This was the “overwhelming agreement in countless scientific writings”, and of top experts (including scientists from Harvard Medical School and the Mayo Clinic) at an eight day hearing of the US Senate.1 This is science’s “final answer”, as per the American College of Pediatricians.2
Do birth control pills and the IUD kill the young human being? Yes. After trying to prove that the pill is not abortifacient, Dr. Walter Larimore found 94 studies showing that the pill does kill the young human baby – after the egg has been fertilized. He published his findings in the scientific journal of the American Medical Association, and stopped prescribing the pill.3 The American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology of 2005 showed that the intrauterine device brings about the “destruction of the early embryo.”4
- The pill injures women’s health.
Is the pill safe? The International Agency for Research on Cancer in a 2007 study made by 21 scientists reported that the pill causes cancer, giving it the highest level of carcinogenicity, the same as cigarettes and asbestos.5 A 2010 study showed that it “carries an excess risk of breast cancer.”6 It also causes stroke,7 and “significantly increases the risk” of heart attacks.8 Several scientific journals have stated that the natural way of regulating births has no side-effects, and is 99 % effective.9
- Wide use of contraceptives destroys the family.
Will the greater availability of contraception improve the stability of families? Wide contraceptive use leads to more premarital sex, more fatherless children, more single mothers, more abortions, according to the studies of Nobel Prize winner, George Akerlof: “As we have documented, the norm of premarital sexual abstinence all but vanished in the wake of the technology shock.”10
- Wide contraceptive use leads to greater poverty.
Is contraceptive use correlated with poverty? Akerlof linked increased number of fatherless children and single mothers due to contraception with greater poverty. In another research study, Akerlof concluded that contraception leads to a decline of marriage, less domesticated men, more crimes and more social pathology and thus more poverty. 11
Isn’t population control connected with economic development? “No clear association” is the answer of Simon Kuznets, Nobel Prize winner in the science of economics.12 Many later studies confirmed this, including a 2003 study of the RAND Corporation, a world leader in research associated with 30 Nobel Prize winners. It also stated that population growth is beneficial if there are good institutions, education and trade.13
- Wide condom use promotes the spread of AIDS.
Will the wide use of condoms lower the rate of HIV/AIDS in a country? It will increase it, according to the “best studies”, concluded Harvard Director for AIDS Prevention, Edward Green. Availability of condoms makes people willing to take greater sexual risk, thus worsening the spread of AIDS. He showed that fidelity and abstinence are the best solutions to the epidemic.14 A 2011 research at The Lancet links hormonal contraception with double the risk of AIDS.15
What’s the difference between contraception and natural family planning (NFP) when both of them result in not having children? Unlike NFP which is non-procreative, contraception is anti-procreative. While NFP does not do anything to fight the beginning of new humans, contraception willfully counters the great, incalculable good of procreating a human being. NFP is comparable to grandma dying of old age (accepting the natural process of aging) and contraception is like deliberately doing something so she will not live.
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1 Subcommittee Report, S-158, 97th Congress, 1st Session 1981, 7.
2 American College of Pediatricians. When Human Life Begins. 2004
3 Larimore and Stanford (2000). “Postfertilization effects of oral contraceptives and their relationship to informed consent” Arch Fam Med 9 (2): 126–33.
4 Stanford and Mikolajczyk (2005). “Mechanisms of action of intrauterine devices: Update and estimation of postfertilization effects”. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology (W.B. Saunders Comp) 187: 1699–1708.
5“Combined Estrogen-Progestogen Contraceptives” IARC Monographs on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans 91. 2007.
6 D. Hunter, et.al, Oral Contraceptive Use and Breast Cancer: a prospective study of young women, Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention 2010 Oct. 19(10):2496-502.
7 Kemmeren, et al. (2002). “Risk of Arterial Thrombosis in Relation to Oral Contraceptives (RATIO) Study: Oral Contraceptives and the Risk of Ischemic Stroke”. Stroke (American Heart Association, Inc.) 33: 1202–1208.
8 Baillargeon, McClish, Essah, and Nestler (2005). “Association between the Current Use of Low-Dose Oral Contraceptives and Cardiovascular Arterial Disease: A Meta-Analysis”. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (The Endocrine Society) 90 (7): 3863–3870.
9 P. Frank-Hermann, et.al., The effectiveness of a fertility awareness based method to avoid pregnancy in relation to a couple’s sexual behaviour during the fertile time: a prospective longitudinal study, Human Reproduction 22 (5): 1310–9: “the pregnancy rate was 0.6 per 100 women and per 13 cycles when there was no unprotected intercourse in the fertile time”. British Medical Journal, American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Lancet, Contraception, Fertility and Sterility.
10 Akerlof, Yellent and Katz (1996), “An Analysis on Out-of-Wedlock Childbearing in the United States”, Quarterly Journal of Economics (The MIT Press) 111 (2): 277–317.
11 Akerlof, “Men Without Children,” The Economic Journal 108 (1998)
12 Kuznets (1974) Population Capital and Growth, Norton.
13 Bloom, Canning, Sevilla, “The Demographic Dividend: A New Perspective on the Economic Consequences of Population Change,” RAND Corporation, 2003, 17.
14 Green (2011) Broken Promises: How the AIDS Establishment Has Betrayed the Developing World, Polipoint Press.
15 Hefron, et. Al, (2011) Use of hormonal contraceptives and risk of HIV-1 transmission: a prospective cohort study, Lancet Infect Dis 2011 Oct 4.
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