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'Protest the Pill Day': Hurting women by spreading lies
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Birth control pills
Anti-birth control protesters will be meeting at Planned Parenthood locations across the country on Saturday, June 6. The timing for "Protest the Pill Day" this year is a bit shocking, coming just days after the murder of a pro-choice doctor in Kansas. But the protest continues, with the theme "The Pill Kills Women."
This is the second annual "Protest the Pill Day" (last year the goal was to equate the birth control pill with abortion). The website for the event says they will "expose the sordid details surrounding the tragic effects these chemicals have on women. We will emphasize the truth about how the pill kills women." The website goes on to list women who have died from complications associated with using hormonal birth control.
Unfortunately, the truth is not as simple as these protesters would make it. It is true that women die from complications related to using hormonal birth control (in fact, women die from complications related to EVERY drug). One of the risks associated with taking the birth control pill is the formation of blood clots that can lead to death if untreated. Most of the examples cited on the Protest the Pill Day website are of women who died as the result of a blood clot.
Risk of blood clots due to oral contraception (OC) as compared to pregnancy
Source: Understanding Risk: Hormonal Contraceptives and Cardiovascular
Adverse Events page 6
But there is something that the protesters conveniently neglect to share: women are far more likely to develop blood clots due to pregnancy than from birth control. In a 2006 study by the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals, they found that the risk of venous thromboembolism (blood clots) in pregnant women was more than double that of women using hormonal birth control (citation: see page 6). In fact, the risk of a blood clot at all is very low, but getting pregnant puts you at greater risk. Plus, the risk of death associated with pregnancy in general is exponentially higher than the risk of death from using the birth control pill (citation: see page 14). On top of that, the risk of death from a blood clot is higher for women who smoke (whether or not they use the pill), yet these protesters are not waving signs about cigarettes (citation: see page 12).
The truth is, these protestors have an ulterior motive: removing access to effective birth control for women and enforcing a religious form of sex only within marriage. From their website, they state, "If you are married and for some serious reason you need to hold off on having a child, there are safe, natural ways to doing this. Couples who learn Natural Family Planning as it is taught by the Couple to Couple League and/or the Pope Paul VI Institute, which
Risk of death from oral contraception (OC) as compared to pregnancy
Source: Understanding Risk: Hormonal Contraceptives and Cardiovascular
Adverse Events page 14
teaches the Creighton Model, have a much higher success rate in spacing their children."
They claim they do this because they care about women, but the truth is they want to control what you do with your personal life. They should be ashamed of themselves.
Sources: ThePillKills.com
Understanding Risk: Hormonal Contraceptives and Cardiovascular Adverse Events
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