A Hard Pill To Swallow

Imagine someone fires a gun into the air in a neighborhood.  Suppose that there’s only a 1% chance of it falling and hitting a person.  Should he take the shot?  No, that is reckless and we reasonably have laws against such things for that reason.  So I follow up with a second question: If hormonal birth control creates an environment with the same chance of ending a human life, should we take birth control?  That question might be a hard pill to swallow, but killing an innocent child should be a harder one.

Birth control is the taboo of taboos.  It has divided not only the Christian community but the pro-life movement as well.  Moral and theological differences, lack of knowledge, and apathy come together to create the foundation for a culture of death.  Since the legalization of hormonal birth control the growing body count of dead women is on the rise but what is often not known is that hormonal birth control is also an abortifacient.  Meaning it has the power to kill pre-born humans in their earliest stages of life.

How is this possible?

The birth control pill and similar birth control products cause pre-implantation abortions.  This happens when two out of the three mechanisms fail.  The first and second mechanisms are barriers.  This is where it prevents sperm and egg meeting.  By suppressing ovulation and thickening the cervical mucus a new human life is not created.

What happens if the first two fail?

When the barrier mechanisms fail, fertilization occurs.  So the third mechanism now affects not only the mother but a newly created human as well.  By now the artificial hormones have thinned the lining of the uterus hindering implantation.  This third mechanism will then starve the embryo and the tiny human will be flushed out during the women’s next cycle.  

I end with this question:

Should we control our family size by killing off the most vulnerable?

Now that we know, we can’t unknow.  So, what do we do?  Most importantly, we should talk to our pastors.  One out of three women will have an abortion in their lifetime and sixty percent of those women identify as Christian.  So how many more could there be that are on birth control?  

Christians, especially, should be held to a higher standard because we know we serve the Lord of Love and Life.  He desires that we respect life and not risk our children’s lives or not seek to defend other’s children when they are in danger.  We are called to love our neighbors, especially the most vulnerable.

Of course, we are already losing this battle if we are not teaching and requiring sexual purity from ourselves as Christian communities.  Sex should be reserved for marriage because sex naturally leads to children (many times even when we try to prevent conception while reaping the more immediate pleasures).  Children should only be brought into existence in the stable environment of marriage.

Second, you will most likely be met with opposition, so it is good to prepare yourself with resources like Randy Alcorn’s book Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions? and these fact sheets and talking points.  Also, here’s a good video that illustrates how the Pill works.

Lastly, you should join the discussion and bring it up when you can.  Not only that.  There should be action behind our words.  This Saturday is the National Day of Action: The Pill Kills.  People of all backgrounds are coming together to protest the lies and dangers of hormonal birth control.