July 18, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — One thing that confuses at Mass today is just what the priest is doing at the altar/table up front. Depending on the prayers he chooses, he is either offering a sacrifice to God or preparing a communal meal: Which is it? Similarly, if the priest is booming prayers into a microphone, is he speaking to God (Who has perfect hearing) or is he really addressing the congregation? Meanwhile, if the modern Mass is such an improvement over the old (as we hear so often), why have most Catholics in the West stopped attending it? Such questions troubled me until I fell in love with the work of St. Thomas Aquinas and then, a few years later, discovered the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) for myself.

Having thrown my Sunday lot in with the TLM, I began to peruse books about it. The best and most readable I have encountered is Noble Beauty, Transcendent Holiness: Why the Modern Age Needs the Mass of Ages by Peter Kwasniewski. As Kwasniewski is a traditionalist, he may feel embarrassed that I enjoyed his book more than the works of epochal Martin Mosebach (The Heresy of Formlessness), the masterful Michael Davies (Cranmer’s Godly Order, Pope Paul’s New Mass) and the excellent H.J.A. Sire (Phoenix for the Ashes). A good spiritual son to these fathers of the liturgical restoration, Kwasniewski has starred their works in his bibliography for our attention. Nevertheless, as a voice of the post-1970 generation, Kwasniewski gives old arguments new juice.

Dr. Kwasniewski (give it a shot — k’vas-n’YEF-ski is easier to pronounce than Wojtyła) is well-known in Catholic traditionalist circles for his writings on the New Liturgical Movement blog. He taught at the International Theological Institute in Gaming, Austria, and now he teaches at Wyoming Catholic College. If Kwasniewski teaches as well as he writes, his students are very lucky indeed.

Noble Beauty, Transcendent Holiness argues on several fronts that the Roman Catholic Church is in a spiritual crisis that can be resolved only by a return to the ancient, slowly and organically developed liturgy of the Latin Church. Given the “hemorrhaging” of adherents from that Church and the maelstrom of confusion among those who remain as to what the Church actually believes, Kwasniewski is on very strong ground.

One of his most convincing arguments involves the human longing for something challenging, complicated, and mysterious in the worship of God. (Note the 50-year craze in the West for East Asian meditations.) Kwasniewski considers the traditional liturgy not as much the work of human hands as one of the greatest gifts of God to humanity. He argues that the Traditional Latin Mass, alongside the Marian piety and Thomist theology inextricably linked to it, is one of the guardians of authentic Catholic faith.

Noble Beauty, Transcendent Holiness is itself a beautiful book, both in form and content. Each chapter begins with a meditative photograph, and most end with a heartfelt prayer. Like any organic development, the book grafts the new onto the old. It begins with a Forward written by Mosebach and ends with young Kwasniewski’s most personal reflections. Mosebach delves into the legacy of Pope Benedict, and Kwasniewski faces the challenges offered by Pope Francis. Meanwhile, Kwasniewski is so adept at writing simple yet gorgeous sentences that I broke my pencil several times underscoring them all.

Take, for example, Kwasniewski’s conclusion that it is better to suffer the knowledge of what the liturgy of 1970 replaced than to have remained in blissful ignorance:

My spiritual life would never have grown as it did, nor my grasp of sacred theology, had it not been for the beauty, reverence and profundity of the traditional liturgy that I discovered as a young man, fell in love with, and now long for ceaselessly. I would not today be a Benedictine oblate praying the Divine Office, which is a source of tremendous vitality, light and consolation to me. My situation is far from optimal, due to the irregular availability of the traditional liturgy in my community, but I do not regret bearing the cross of knowledge, which has opened to me a whole world of wonders to which I would otherwise be blind. It is a flowering cross, and I imagine the same is true for many who love traditional ways.

Many of Kwasniewski’s chapters were developed from essays, so he repeats himself a number of times throughout the book. This is not a weakness — repetitions enrich both the Traditional Rite and the Holy Rosary, after all — but it adds to necessity of reading the book slowly, chapter by chapter, instead of in one great 300-page gulp.

Meanwhile, although there is much meaty scholarship here, the book is accessible to the serious and curious reader — for the most part. Although I studied theology for five years, I could not remember what an “anaphora” was, and I was stumped by the phrase “hylomorphic composition” until I consulted a professor of linguistics. I conclude, therefore, that this excellent book would be even better if it included a glossary.

Noble Beauty, Transcendent Holiness: Why the Modern Age Needs the Mass of Ages
Peter Kwasniewski
Angelico Press, $19.95

Yesterday, we learned that Baby Charlie Gard is expected to die soon as his heartbroken parents have decided to remove his life support because a US doctor had told them it was now too late to give Charlie nucleoside therapy. According to a BBC article, “US neurologist Dr Michio Hirano had said he was no longer willing to offer the baby experimental therapy after he saw the results of a new MRI scan last week.” Baby Charlie’s parents are now asking the court to allow them to take Charlie home to die.

We have learned much from Baby Charlie’s tragedy, not only about the perils of government deciding who should live and who should die but also about the love and commitment of his dedicated parents and the importance of the worldwide support they received.

Now we know there is more hope for babies born with conditions like Baby Charlie’s because of the publicity and probably more parents will try to find alternatives when they are given a poor or fatal prognosis.

Here are two cases where the parents did just that and saved their children.

ABIGAIL BUETLER AND POTTER’S SYNDROME

During the fight to let Baby Charlie get experimental treatment, U.S. Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler led the effort in the US Congress to get residency for Baby Charlie. That would have expedited efforts to help Baby Charlie receive the experimental treatment in the US.

Congresswoman Beutler’s interest was also personal.

In 2013, she and her husband found out that their unborn baby Abigail had Potter’s Syndrome, a fatal condition where the kidneys are missing. She and her husband were told that no one ever survived this condition and abortion was offered more than once.

They looked for other options and found there was an experimental treatment given before birth for other conditions that might work on their Abigail. The parents contacted many different hospitals before Johns Hopkins finally agreed to try.

Today, Abigail is a healthy four year old and has a kidney donated by her father a year ago. She is the first known person to survive Potter’s Syndrome, thanks to her dedicated parents.

NOAH WALL, BORN WITH LESS THAN 2% OF HIS BRAIN

Also known as the “boy with no brain”, four year old Noah Wall was born in the UK with a rare complication of spina bifida that caused fluid to compress his brain down to an estimated less than 2% brain tissue.

The condition was discovered before birth and the parents were told that even if he survived birth, he would be severely mentally and physically disabled. Abortion was offed 5 times.

But Noah did survive birth and an immediate surgery was done for his spina bifida and a shunt was installed to drain excess fluid from his brain.

Thanks to the efforts of his devoted parents and sister to keep his brain stimulated, Noah has confounded the doctors by the regrowth of his brain. When a CT scan of his brain was done years later, doctors found that Noah now has 80% of his brain tissue. Even more amazing to the doctors, Noah has developed into a charming, expressive and empathetic little boy who now attends a local primary school, despite still having  some physical and mental impairments.

This year,  a documentary about Noah was made. I saw it myself a few weeks ago on TV and I highly recommend seeing it.

And as the UK’s Daily Mirror newspaper article wrote:

“Neurosurgeon Dr Nicholson sums up the larger importance of Noah’s incredible story:

‘He teaches the medical profession that you can’t ever know’.”

CONCLUSION

Over the years, medical progress has made great strides while medical and legal ethics have deteriorated because of a “quality of life” mentality.

This has led to medically discriminatory attitudes affecting people with disabilities as I personally found out when my daughter Karen was born with Down Syndrome and a severe heart condition.

All children with disabilities deserve both a welcome and a commitment to help them have the best life possible from not only their parents but also from the rest of us.

https://theguidingstarproject.com

The timing of your recent article, “Keeping Our Promise to 120 Million Women and Girls,” and the Global Family Planning Summit in London could not be better in light of the upcoming Natural Family Planning (NFP) Awareness Week. We are in agreement that, “the conversation around contraceptives is one of the most important conversations the world will have this year.” However we disagree on a fundamental level that the answer to a global epidemic of unplanned pregnancies is contraception.

While generally the Gates’ endeavors can be deemed admirable the tone and content of this most recent article outlining the Gates Foundation’s additional $375 million dollar contribution over the next three years to make family planning a global priority through the use of contraceptives leaves much to be desired—especially considering that $250 million or almost 70% of this money will be used to fund services for teenagers as recently noted in an article published in The Guardian.

Flippant distribution of contraceptives is a superficial Band-Aid which masks a social pandemic of responsibility free sex and poor education without curing the disease. What the teenagers of this world need is not free condoms or a pill that remove accountability—they need a society that does not commodify them. They need a world that does not tolerate sexual exploitation and violence, which does not ostracize the teen mother, and that does not paint the picture of the mother of many as the antagonist to a flourishing world.

You state in your article that, “contraceptives are an essential part of the healthier, more prosperous world we’re all working toward. When a woman has access to contraceptives, she tends to have fewer children. Families can devote more resources to each child’s nutrition, health, and education, setting them up for a better future.” How different would the conversation be if were instead concerned for the struggling mother and partnered with her to ensure her success campaigning for a social structure that empowers her to provide her children with nutrition, healthcare and equal opportunity for education? Within this article childbearing and rearing are portrayed as an inexplicable burden that limit a woman’s freedom to work, ability to earn an income, and contribute to the economy. In the United States the majority or 70% of mothers with children under the age of 18 participate in the labor force, working, and contributing to both their families and the economy according to the 2013 data published by the Department of Labor. Arguably stay at home mothers are also working and contributing to the economy as they painstakingly invest their time and energy in raising the next generation. Motherhood does not limit a woman’s capacity to contribute; it magnifies it in ways that she may never have realized.

The Center for Disease Control reported in 2013 Contraceptive Methods Women Have Ever Used: United States, 1982–2010 that, “Overall, 47% of women who have used at least one method of contraception have discontinued using a method due to dissatisfaction.” This is a sobering statistic considering the amount of money being raised in order to distribute contraceptives. Will women be able to receive follow-up care if their prescribed birth control sends them into a spiral of depression and they need to switch? It seems that distribution of contraceptives as propagated by the Global Family Planning Summit is not a wholistic approach for women. If it was wholistic the goal would extend beyond distribution, it would involve at a minimum fertility education. NFP methods allow for family planning in a way that honor the mind, body, spirit, and as an added bonus even the environment. Could we be so bold instead to consider that the answer to family planning is not in a prescription it is in education?

Fertility Awareness-Based Methods of Family Planning (FABM) are an excellent option for women in rural situations and under developed countries—it just takes a little investment of time and education. According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists FAQ 024 published in April 2015, “when used properly, fewer than 1–5 women out of 100 will become pregnant during the first year,” using FABM.

We are in agreement that the 1.2 billion adolescents in the world today, do need to be empowered with the right tools —  but it seems unlikely that passing out contraceptives like candy to teenagers to prevent pregnancy will, “unlock unprecedented growth in the world’s poorest countries.” We need to change the conversation from treating the symptoms to attacking the disease. By promoting awareness of physiology, equipping our world’s mothers, and holding each individual responsible for the consequences of their decisions perhaps we all will have a chance at a brighter future.

Leah Barkoukis   Jul 21, 2017   |   9:53AM    Washington, DC

Want to reduce climate change? You may want to think about having fewer children, a recent study out of Sweden finds.

That’s right—the biggest impact on reducing climate change is to limit the size of your family, according to the study. Other important ways to reduce one’s carbon footprint include ditching four wheels for two, not eating meat, and avoiding air travel.

We recommend four widely applicable high-impact (i.e. low emissions) actions with the potential to contribute to systemic change and substantially reduce annual personal emissions: having one fewer child (an average for developed countries of 58.6?tonnes CO₂-equivalent (tCO₂e) emission reductions per year), living car-free (2.4 tCO₂e saved per year), avoiding airplane travel (1.6 tCO₂e saved per roundtrip transatlantic flight) and eating a plant-based diet (0.8 tCO₂e saved per year).

“I knew this was a sensitive topic to bring up,” the study’s co-author Kimberly Nicholas told NPR’s Morning Edition. “Certainly it’s not my place as a scientist to dictate choices for other people. But I do think it is my place to do the analysis and report it fairly.”

The researchers found these four lifestyle changes reduce CO2 gas emissions much more than recycling, use of energy efficient light bulbs, or hang drying clothing, for example.

These actions have much greater potential to reduce emissions than commonly promoted strategies like comprehensive recycling (four times less effective than a plant-based diet) or changing household lightbulbs (eight times less).

Nicholas did note, however, that the study’s findings aren’t meant to tell people how to plan their family.

“I think the decision to become a parent is a really personal decision,” she said. “I think the way people relate to it in terms of climate change depends on their view about climate change.”

Note: Leah Barkoukis writes for TownHall, where this column originally appeared.

Gerard Migeon | Jul 20 2017 |

July 23 marks the beginning of Natural Family Planning (NFP) Awareness Week in the United States. In this article Gerard Migeon, founder and CEO of Natural Womanhood, takes a look at some recent research on fertility awareness based methods and sets out 10 ways in which fertility awareness can improve a couple’s relationship.

When I first tell young couples that Fertility Awareness Based Methods improve sex and relationships, I sense a subtle skepticism in the room: “Wait, you’re saying that we have to abstain from sex eight days a month? How is that going to make our relationship better?”

But at the end of the talk, they say the strongest argument for fertility awareness comes from hearing the testimony of couples who have been practicing a method for several years and watching them interact: they can see the peace, the complicity, the passion they display. So what’s the difference and how does it play out?

These methods teach women to recognize the signs of their natural cycle so they will know when they are fertile and not fertile, usually, a six-day window per monthly cycle. With that information, they can work their partner to avoid or to achieve pregnancy effectively.

What studies say about fertility awareness and relationships

While more research needs to be done, several studies strongly suggest that FABMs often improve couples’ relationships.

A study co-authored by the Couple to Couple League and published this year in the journal Frontiers in Public Health was conducted online with 2,560 respondents who were using the Sympto-Thermal Method, referred to as NFP (natural family planning) in the report.  These couples lived in several countries in Western Europe and in the US.  The abstract of the study reported that:

“95% of women and 55% of men said using NFP has helped them to know their body better. Large majorities of men (74%) and women (64%) felt NFP helped to improve their relationship while less than 10% felt use of NFP had harmed their relationship. Most women (53%) and men (63%) felt using NFP improved their sex life while 32% of women and 24% of men felt it was unchanged from before they used NFP. 75% of women and 73% of men said they are either ‘satisfied’ or ‘very satisfied’ with their frequency of sexual intercourse.”

In a 2004 study published by the Journal of Nursing Scholarship, designed to gauge the effect of natural family planning on marital relationships, asked married couples practicing these methods a series of open-ended questions to. “Of the 2,287 coded comments, 1,765 (74%) were positive,” indicating that the majority of those practicing natural methods of family planning believed it had had a positive influence on their marriage.

10 ways fertility awareness improves your relationship

The second study mentioned above reviewed the key reasons why people reported that FABMs improved their relationship.  It is in great part the source of the content below along with other research.

You know yourself and become a better you. Most psychologists will tell you that good relationships with others start with a good relationship with yourself. As we have written here and here, it’s more difficult to be oneself on the pill; the practice of charting allows women to know themselves better and gain self-confidence. We even found that “cycle mindfulness” helped teen girls become less influenced by peers and better able to plan their life: they became more mature and self–directed, they moved “from being victims of their hormones to being in control,” were more able to think ahead and to make decisions ahead of crisis.

Your partner knows you better. When you practice FABM, your man gets to know where you are in your cycle: post-period and not ovulating yet, getting close to ovulation, past ovulation. Each phase usually corresponds to different levels of energy for you: medium, higher energy, lower energy. A considerate man can then pay attention to these phases to adjust his expectations of how much activity the couple can tackle and the needs for rest.

You have better, deeper communication. Here is the test of your communication level right now: how often do you talk about your sex life as a couple? If you can talk about sex with one another you can talk about anything. Discussing sexual intercourse, fertility and starting or adding to a family are integral to using FABM successfully. Couples who use FABM become more open to talking about difficult topics and they are more in touch with each other’s feelings.

You show each other love in different ways. Users of FABMs are often led to understand their love relationship in a broader way: how can I love this person better rather than “what I am getting out of this?” It shows especially during the time of abstinence, as they are both challenged to go back to “dating time,” when they found creative ways to show love for each other in a non-sexual way.

You have a deeper relationship: for all the reasons above, FABMs creates a stronger bond including feeling less selfish and more sensitive to the spouse/partner’s needs, feeling greater love and more understanding of one another.

You have a better libido. The suppression of women’s libido by hormonal contraceptives is fairly common. You can have sex anytime when you’re on the pill, but many women report feeling emotionally flat and less interested in sex. Science shows that hormonal contraceptives affect the level of testosterone in women, which is the hormone responsible for sexual desire and arousal in women. While the woman’s drive to have sex is usually highest during the abstinence time (welcome to man’s world, which feels like that all or most of the time!), her enjoyment of sex can be just as high after ovulation. It all depends on your attitude.

You enjoy monthly honeymoons. The couple intending to avoid pregnancy has to wait to avoid sex during the fertile time. This is called periodic abstinence. Couples report that the time of waiting enhances their anticipation, thus increasing their enjoyment. As we mentioned above, that “dating period” also prepares them for the time they can have intercourse, which becomes the sequel of their romantic love, not simply a response to a personal physical need.

You have greater respect for one another. Because of the need for closer dialog about when sex happens, women report feeling more respected and less used by their spouse/partner. In turn, they also feel a greater respect for and pride in him for his ability to abstain and his self-control.

You experience gender equality. If a couple is avoiding pregnancy, they both have to know what days they’re taking a break from sex, and what day they can — happily — get back to it. It is no longer only the woman’s responsibility to avoid pregnancy. As a man, I think this is very important and value the idea that the choice to become pregnant or not is something that is the fruit of a partnership. It is too easy to forget about that crucial dimension of the relationship when relying on the pill. Not with FABMs.

You are better prepared for life’s unpredictable twists. Because of all the reasons listed above, couples are much better equipped to deal with serious incidents in their life. Friends of ours had the misfortune of losing a child, which very often leads to a separation or serious relationship difficulties. In their case, they reported that the relationship grew closer and they believed they were there for one another in a way they wouldn’t have been otherwise.

Fertility awareness changes your life as a couple

Practicing fertility awareness is not just using another method of birth control. It’s a shift in the way a couple thinks of their sex life. Suddenly, there is a rhythm to it, not “just whenever you want” (which is often when the man wants: the pill makes the woman always available for sex, which is unnatural for her).

It is crucial that couples who decide to use a FABM as a way to avoid pregnancy are aware of that change, and have a frank discussion about what they’re committing to. In the end, they will most often find it was worth it, but the change may take some work if they had a different approach before. Realistically, couples are already abstinent most of the time, as on average, they only have intercourse less than twice a week. However, a good understanding of expectations makes for a happy partnership.

They need to go into it with eyes wide open.

Gerard Migeon is the founder and CEO of Natural Womanhood, a MercatorNet partner site. The above article is a slightly abridged version of the original article published at Natural Womanhood.

Lauretta Brown   Jul 18, 2017   |   4:26PM    Washington, DC

Obianuju Ekeocha, a Nigerian-born biomedical scientist and the founder of Culture of Life Africa, a U.K.-based pro-life group, argued on BBC’s Sunday Morning Live that the Gates Foundation’s push for contraception in Africa might be “an insidious way of moving the agenda of population control” since in many African countries the “desired number of children is actually quite high.”

Melinda Gates announced last week that the Gates Foundation will commit an additional $375 million to family planning programs citing deep concerns “about the White House’s proposed budget cuts to global family planning efforts.” President Trump recently expanded a policy that bans taxpayer funds from going to programs that perform or promote abortion overseas.

“When a woman has access to contraceptives, she tends to have fewer children. Families can devote more resources to each child’s nutrition, health, and education, setting them up for a better future,” Gates said.

“I’m sure Melinda Gates means well,” Ekeocha began, “but you see the problem is there is an arrogance and something in what I see as questions not being asked in all the talk about contraception and helping women space their children is what exactly, speaking of Africa for example, what exactly do women want?”

“In most of the African countries you get to find and research continues to show all the time that African women you know in a lot of the countries desire or desired number of children is actually quite high when cultures where people for example value children or value big families what are you saying to the women if you continue to push their governments towards the so-called family planning projects?”

“Not that people are not spacing their children,” she added, “it’s that this might indeed be an insidious way of moving the agenda of population control.”

Ekeocha clarified that she was not saying family planning programs were “bad in and of themselves” but that “there is a real problem with a multi-billionaire from a Western country coming in to tell African governments what to do or how to control populations.”

Mairo Mandara, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Country Representative for Nigeria, said at a World Population Day (WPD) event that “Family Planning should be declared a National Emergency,” adding, “it is not about stopping people from giving birth, but seeking to control the process. The WPD is meant to draw attention to population explosion in the coming years. In Nigeria, the WPD 2017 provides opportunity to discuss ways of checking possible population explosion.”

French President Emmanuel Macron drew criticism last week for saying that Africa has a “civilizational” problem and women are having “seven or eight children.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Minister of International Development, Marie-Claude Bibeau, recently defended Canada’s increase in funds toward abortion and contraception overseas by calling abortion and contraception a “tool to end poverty.”

By Theresa Smith | July 12, 2017 | 8:38 PM EDT

Professor Charles Tyler, reproductive physiologist and environmental biologist at the University of Exeter (United Kingdom), has found that chemicals from contraceptive pills and other household cleaning products are causing fresh-water male fish to develop female parts and even to lay eggs.

Tyler’s research has shown that oestrogen and other chemicals being washed down the drain are causing male fish to reduce “sperm quality and display less aggressive and competitive behaviour, usually associated with attracting females of the species, which make them less likely to breed successfully,” reported Exeter in a press release.

Tyler presented his research on July 3 in a keynote address at 50th Anniversary Symposium of the Fisheries Society in the British Isles, held at Exeter University. His lecture was titled “The Feminisation of Nature – an Unnatural History.”

In the lecture, he laid out data on the Roach fish in particular, and how estrogens are causing some males to develop ovaries and become an “intersex.”

One of Tyler’s  research reports (which he sighted in his presentation) explained that “intersex” fish are male fish that “can have feminized reproductive ducts and/or developing oocytes within their testes (Nolan et al. 2001). They also “have abnormal concentrations of sex steroid hormones (Jobling et al. 2002a) and (often) elevated concentrations of the estrogen-dependent blood protein vitellogenin (VTG) in their blood (Jobling et al. 1998).”

This research also states that “fertility is reduced” in feminized fish.

“We are showing that some of these chemicals can have much wider health effects on fish that we expected. Using specially created transgenic fish that allow us to see responses to these chemicals in the bodies of fish in real time for example we have shown that oestrogens found in some plastics affect the valves in the heart, “ Tyler said in the Exeter press release.

He added, “Other research has shown that many other chemicals that are discharged through sewage treatment works can affect fish including antidepressant drugs that reduce the natural shyness of some fish species, including the way they react to predators.”

When CNSNews.com asked Tyler how long he has been doing research on transgender fish, Tyler responded in an email, “I have been working on sexual disruption in fish as a consequence of exposure to chemicals for  years.”

Tyler also corrected the word “transgender” with regard to the fish, saying, “I think it may be better to call them intersex fish — as some people like to use the term transgender in the human context only.”

In his presentation, Tyler also mentioned that chemicals are having this effect on fish in other continents around the world: “Feminised Fish have been reported from sites across Europe, America, Canada ( Rainbow Darter – Etheostoma caeruleum, Percidae), Africa and Asia.”

On this topic, CNSNews asked Tyler, “Slide 15 mentions that fish are being ‘feminized’ in other continents around the globe. Is this a result of contraceptive chemicals as well? Or is it something else?”

Tyler responded, “The feminising effects on fish in other countries does indeed include effects from the contraceptive pill, but also from chemicals including industrial surfactants – detergents, plasticisers  and bulk chemicals such as bisphenol A.”

Posted on July 16, 2017 by Cassie Moriarty

The sincere guide to promoting NFP

It’s almost NFP Awareness week (July 23)! It’s easy to get swept away in NFP promotion and forget that it’s not always a breezy journey for everyone. So here we have laid out the guide to promoting Natural Family Planning without the rose-colored glasses. The three most important things to keep in mind when sharing your love of Natural Family Planning are sincerity in the struggles you have encountered, joy in the wonderful parts, and flexibility in allowing others to be where they are on their journey.

Sharing Your Struggles

NFP can be hard. I don’t think I’m the only person ever to say that. In seasons of difficult charting – like postpartum, perimenopause, times of stress, or hormonal imbalance, it can be hard to find the type of support you need. Sometimes finding NFP support period can be a challenge. Instructors usually are doing it pro-bono so they are fitting it into their already busy lives. While there are chat rooms and facebook groups and great literature on learning NFP, nothing replaces that one-on-one exchange.

Abstaining can be hard. Biology has other plans. Dealing with questions of whether or not your pregnancy was planned can be awkward at best, and downright offensive at worst. As I’ve written before, the decision to grow your family is not always an on/off switch. NFP is not, by definition, a wonder drug for your relationship. It will not solve pre-existing issues, it won’t make your in-laws any easier to deal with, and it certainly won’t clear up any financial debt.

Before I crush your spirits, this is not to say that NFP is dreadful, or even unfavorable. It’s just important to be honest about the struggles that can accompany the choice to use NFP. When one person speaks out about their challenge, another person says, “Hey, me too.” And another pipes up, “Yes! Same!” These voices deserve a place in the conversation. Otherwise, they don’t get heard and it becomes too easy to outcast them.

Sharing Joy

So if it’s not a wonder drug, then what it is it? NFP can be an amazing tool for couples and women. One of the reasons we hear so often that NFP has improved relationships and health is because it can. When couples are communicative, and open, and working through their challenges, NFP can open many wonderful doors. The empowerment a woman gains by learning her cycles is alone reason enough to get excited about sharing NFP! It’s important to share your joy. I love teaching women simply because it’s a joy to watch them grow in the self-discovery that they had never realized was possible.

Along with joy, (and empowerment and sheer awesomeness of knowing your cycles), there are the undeniable health benefits to steering clear of hormonal contraceptives. Some people are desperate to find an alternative for both managing hormonal health and family planning. It’s important for the risks of hormonal contraception to be considered, but emphasizing the health benefits of NFP is key, including an improved ability to figure out what hormonal imbalances may be behind symptoms and what to do about them.

Meeting People Where They Are

Lastly, and arguably the most important thing to keep in mind when promoting NFP is flexibility. Meet people where they are. Listen to their journey and don’t try to place them on yours. Maybe they’re not ready yet, maybe they don’t want to use an app, maybe they don’t want to learn X method, or maybe they want to blend a few methods. I always tell my clients the most effective method of NFP is the method they feel is sustainable for their lifestyle and fits in line with their family planning intentions. Maybe they don’t really care if they get pregnant so they don’t need a super strict set of rules. Or maybe they want as many biomarkers as possible. Or maybe they hate paper charting or can visualize better with a different style of chart.

The reason flexibility is so important is that people will never listen to you if you’re not first listening to them. You can plant the seed by sharing your joys and yes, your struggles, but then let them make the choice for themselves. I’ve had people ponder getting off the pill for months, even years before making the switch. But when they do, they are stoked to jump in and learn about their cycles.

So now that you have a guide for promoting NFP without the syrup, we want to know: how you are planning to celebrate NFP Awareness Week? Writing a blog piece? Giving a talk at a local library? The awesome thing about the NFP community is that most of us really do love it and just want to share the love. So here is a challenge for you: if you are interested in sharing your joys and struggles about NFP (and how you overcame them), send us your story. We’ll get as many as we can on our blog during NFP week. Not sure how to start? Use this short questionnaire.

Cassondra Moriarty is a filmmaker and fertility charting instructor in training based out of Brooklyn, New York, where she lives with her husband. She is currently screening Miscontraceptions around the city and working to promote Fertility Awareness. She has trained with the Couple to Couple League and is in the process of getting her FEMM certification.

By Holly Scheer

https://thefederalist.com
For many women, the decision to go on birth control is a normal part of womanhood. At well-woman checks and appointments after a baby’s birth doctors say it’s time to talk about birth control, and the general assumption is that you’ll use birth control until it’s the perfect time to have exactly as many kids as you want.

Birth control, especially the Pill, is interwoven with women’s health care, and access and funding for contraception has featured heavily in recent years with the debates on insurance policies and coverage. A new study has introduced a troubling concern for a medication so ubiquitous in most Western women’s lives, finding that the Pill might be putting women at significantly higher risk for breast cancers.

It’s hard to find a family in America that hasn’t been affected by breast cancer. It’s the most common cancer for women in the USA, and the rates of diagnosis are staggering. This year, more than 250,000 women will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer, and tens of thousands more will be diagnosed with non-invasive breast cancer. Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths for women. This makes the information in the new study particularly concerning.

When We Treat Fertility Like a Disease

Combining data from 12 previous studies looking at the health histories of American and European women from 19 to 40 years old, researchers from the University of Michigan discovered that some types of hormonal birth control increase women’s progestin levels fourfold. In addition, ethinyl estradiol, an artificial estrogen strongly correlated to breast cancer, was increased by 40 percent in women who use some forms of the Pill.

These two hormones work together normally to control a woman’s menstrual cycle and fertility. The synthetic versions are used in hormonal birth control to alter the normal monthly changes in a woman’s body to prevent pregnancy. Advocates of hormonal birth control frequently insist the risks of birth control are less than the risks of pregnancy for women.

When medications are widely prescribed without careful and deliberate attention paid to serious and potentially fatal side-effects, it’s a disservice to women. Birth control has been widely prescribed in America since 1960 when it became legal for contraceptive use, and with Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965 Supreme Court made it unconstitutional for the government to deny birth control to married couples. Instead of the legality or morality of birth control, the focus here is on product safety.

Generally, we take medications to improve our health, or to treat a condition that’s hurting us. Is the Pill, in its current formulations, really doing either of these things? Or is the Pill instead increasing cancer risks in normal, healthy women? How does that relate to the broader societal treatment of women’s fertility as a disease to control, despite the increasing list of negative health effects for women?

Cancer isn’t the only frightening risk of the Pill. Another recent study showed that blood clots, some of them serious enough to cause permanent injuries or death, could be far more common than originally thought, and doctors often do not discuss these risks with women. Other troubling risks include weight gain and mood disorders that can become serious enough to cause suicidal thoughts and urges. Add in that the Pill can wreak havoc with a woman’s sex drive, and it’s clear that the effects of the Pill are far-reaching for women and men who love them.

Women Deserve Better Research and Care
“Not enough has changed over the generations of these drugs, and given how many people take hormonal birth control worldwide—millions—the pharmaceutical industry shouldn’t rest on its laurels,” said Beverly Strassmann, one of the study’s authors. The pharmaceutical industry is a multi-billion-dollar American institution, and there’s no good reason for a widely used medication class to not be continually striving to improve safety.

Hormone Replacement Therapy or HRT, the hormone therapy used to decrease negative symptoms of menopause, changed radically after the Women’s Health Initiative study results in 2002, when they concluded the hormones used could increase cancer risks. Strassmann rightly noted that since the correlation between synthetic hormones and breast cancer isn’t new news to clinicians, it’s important to research if that link extends to birth control pills.

It’s especially important to consider these health concerns with the newer, often lesser-researched types of Long-Acting Reversible Contraception, which some are targeting at vulnerable young and poor women. Since screenings for breast cancer are more difficult to schedule, and mammograms less effective for young women, the breast cancer risks with hormonal contraception need to be taken seriously in these populations. Outside age, poverty is its own common barrier to timely cancer screenings.

With this study, we now know that there is a relationship between birth control pills and the hormonal changes associated with breast cancer. It’s time to seriously consider the health impact of the Pill on American women and families. Birth control is part of the modern American way of life. If that way of life increases the risk of life- altering cancer, those risks need to be clearly shared with women before they ever start taking the Pill, and regularly thereafter as knowledge increases.

More women may also wish to consider whether the social script of treating their body’s natural fertility like a disease is worth the noticeable spike in lifetime health risks numerous studies have now demonstrated, especially when studies often come years after thousands of women are irreversibly harmed. We’re more than 50 years after the Pill, and only just now finding out about the dramatic increases in breast cancer and other risks. What else will we know in another 40 years?

Holly Scheer is a writer and editor. She’s fascinated by politics, culture and theology. Follow her on Twitter @HScheer1580.

OTTAWA, July 12, 2017 (LifeSiteNews)

Zoe Romanowsky | Feb 19, 2017

When Noah Wall was born, the doctors said he probably wouldn’t survive and if he did, he would be severely physically and developmentally disabled. Born with only 2 percent of his brain to a family in Cumbria, England, Noah had no hope — at least according to the doctors.

In utero, Noah had developed a rare complication of spina bifida where his skull filled with fluid, crushing his brain down into a “thin sliver of tissue,” according to the UK’s Mirror. His parents — Shelly and Rob — were advised to abort him on five occasions. They refused. After Noah’s birth, an open wound in his back was closed and a shunt was installed to drain the fluid from his brain.

Shelly and Rob picked out a baby coffin for Noah, but they also never stopped believing he was anything less than a great gift. They took him home and the entire family surrounded him constantly with love, affection, and 24-7 care. Noah’s brain began to grow. And grow. And grow some more.

When he was 3, a brain scan showed that his brain “had expanded to 80% of a normal brain.” Now a movie on Britain’s Channel 5 called The Boy Who Grew A Brain documents just how far Noah has come.

The family continues to keep Noah’s brain stimulated to aid his neurological growth. Dr. Claire Nicholson of Newcastle’s Great North Children’s Hospital in England — Noah’s neurosurgeon — calls him “a remarkable child with two remarkable parents.”

Noah, who’s always smiling and shows empathy and love in his words and deeds, is learning to read and write, can count, and attends school. His brain continues to develop beyond anyone’s wildest dreams and after some surgeries on his hips, Noah’s family believes he may actually walk one day. Given how this story has unfolded so far, you should probably bet on it

Micaiah Bilger   Jul 7, 2017   |   10:45AM    London, England

Claiming that birth control cuts abortion numbers is a favorite talking point of abortion groups like Planned Parenthood, but more and more studies are finding that this is not the case.

BPAS reports one in four of the women on birth control got pregnant while using methods considered to be the most effective, such as the birth control pill or the IUD.

Ann Furedi, CEO of BPAS and a late-term abortion advocate, claimed the data shows why women need easy access to abortions.

“Family planning is contraception and abortion. Abortion is birth control that women need when their regular method lets them down,” Furedi said. “When you encourage women to use contraception, you give them the sense that they can control their fertility – but if you do not provide safe abortion services when that contraception fails you are doing them a great disservice.”

The BPAS study involved its more than 60,000 abortion clients in 2016. In total, 51.2 percent of women said they were using at least one form of contraception when they became pregnant, according to the study. Of those women, a quarter said they were using a form of contraception considered to be at least 90-percent effective.

Previous studies have found similar results. A number of reports by the Guttmacher Institute, the former research arm of Planned Parenthood, also show that 55 percent to 60 percent of women having abortions were using contraception at the time.

And a ten-year study in Spain found that abortions increased as contraception use did:

[C]ontraception use increased by about 60%, the abortion rate doubled. In other words, even with an increase in contraception use, there weren’t fewer unwanted pregnancies, there were more.

Yet, Planned Parenthood leaders continue to claim their contraception work decreases abortions. Of course, their motivation in saying it is the hundreds of millions of tax dollars they receive each year.

Furedi at least was more honest about the data and her abortion goals. She said women deserve to know that contraception is not 100-percent effective, but she also touted abortion as the answer when contraception fails.

She wrote in the Telegraph: “The truth of the matter is that any society that values ‘planning families’ needs to value abortion services as part of the birth control package. Abortion is necessary as a supplement to contraception. If you have not been able to prevent a pregnancy, then you need to be able to end it – safely and easily.”

Killing a member of the family should never be a “value” promoted by society, though. Pro-lifers may have different opinions about the use of artificial contraception, but they all agree that family planning should never involve violence against another human being.

An abortion destroys a unique unborn baby’s life. By the time most women have abortions, their unborn baby’s hearts already are beating, and every unborn baby already has his or her unique DNA, unlike any other person’s in the world.

nancyvalko

When I started nursing school 50 years ago, medical ethics was not a course but rather common sense principles incorporated into our education. There was no controversy about not harming patients, integrity, equality of treatment regardless of status, etc.

So, of course, abortion and euthanasia were unacceptable and even thinkable in those days.

I particularly remember one teacher who told us about the hypothetical situation of a child with Down Syndrome whose parents wanted to let their baby die and how we naturally had to put the interests of the child first. This kind of protection for patients was routine both ethically and legally in those days.

In 1982, I remembered that situation when Baby Doe,  a newborn baby boy with an easily correctable hole between his esophagus (food pipe) and trachea (windpipe), was denied this lifesaving surgery by his parents and a judge because he also had Down Syndrome. Six days later, Baby Doe starved and dehydrated to death while his case was being appealed to the Supreme Court after the Indiana Supreme Court ruled 3-1 against saving him.

My husband, a doctor, and I were appalled when we first read about Baby Doe in the newspaper and my husband suggested that we adopt the baby ourselves and pay for the surgery.

I said yes but with some reluctance since I was already pregnant with our third child and our other children were just 5 and 3. But who else was better situated than us to care for a child with a disability who needed surgery?

In the end, we were too late to save Baby Doe. We found out that Baby Doe’s parents had already rejected the many other families who tried to adopt him.

Five months later, I gave birth to my daughter Karen who also happened to have Down Syndrome and a life-threatening condition that needed surgery.  Karen was born with a complete endocardial cushion defect of the heart  that the cardiologist told us was inoperable. We were told to just take her home and our baby would die within 2 weeks to 2 months.

I was heartbroken and cried for 3 days in the hospital before I finally got mad. My obstetrician never came back to check on me in the hospital even though I had a C-section and I demanded a second opinion on her heart condition in case the cardiologist was biased against children with Down Syndrome.

I insisted on leaving the hospital early with my daughter because I wanted as much time as possible with her and especially because I realized that I needed to research Karen’s heart condition to effectively advocate for her.

I joined the St. Louis Down Syndrome Association which helped me enormously, especially with my research and emotional support. Fortunately, it turned out that the initial prognosis was wrong and the cardiologist told us that Karen’s heart could be fixed with just one open-heart operation at age 6 months.

I was elated until the cardiologist told me that he would support my decision to operate “either way”, meaning I could refuse surgery just like Baby Doe’s parents.

I was furious and told him that the issue of Down Syndrome was irrelevant to Karen’s heart condition and that my daughter must be treated the same as any other child with this condition. I also added that if he were biased against people with Down Syndrome, he could not touch my daughter.

To his credit, this doctor recognized the injustice and because of Karen, he eventually became one of the strongest advocates for babies with Down Syndrome.

Unfortunately, I ran into other medical professionals caring for Karen who were not so accepting. One doctor actually told us that “people like you shouldn’t be saddled with a child like this” and another doctor secretly wrote a DNR (do not resuscitate) order against my instructions at the time. It was then that I realized that my so-called “choice” to save my daughter was really a fight.

Tragically, Karen died of complications of pneumonia when she was just 5 ½ months old and just before her scheduled open-heart surgery. I will always miss her but I am so grateful that I was her mother. Karen changed many lives for the better, especially mine.

I became active in the Down Syndrome Association, promoted President Reagan’s “Baby Doe” rules ,  provided babysitting/respite for many children with various disabilities, and even got a chance to talk to then Surgeon General C. Everett Koop about setting up a national hotline for new parents of children with disabilities to find resources.

But most importantly, I was determined to find out what had happened to medical ethics  over the years since nursing school that resulted in the Baby Doe tragedy and hopefully help reverse the mindset that people with disabilities were “better off dead”.

What I discovered was a landmark 1979 book titled “Principles of Biomedical Ethics” written by Tom Beauchamp PhD, a professor of philosophy, and James Childress PhD, a theologian and also a professor of philosophy. Neither one had a medical degree.

They devised these four principles for medical ethics:

• Autonomy – The right for an individual to make his or her own choice.
• Beneficence – The principle of acting with the best interest of the other in mind.
• Non-maleficence – The principle that “above all, do no harm,” as stated in the Hippocratic Oath.
• Justice – A concept that emphasizes fairness and equality among individuals.

Although all these principles were considered equal, it wasn’t long before autonomy became the cornerstone principle in ethics and law, ultimately leading not only to Baby Doe but also to the legalization of assisted suicide/euthanasia.

Ironically, all these principles have been used to justify cases like Baby Doe’s as well as assisted suicide/euthanasia.

Beneficence and non-maleficence have become a ways to see death as an actual blessing to real, perceived or potential suffering. Ominously, the justice principle has become the rationale for rationing under the guise of supposedly not wasting scarce healthcare resources .

CONCLUSION

35 years after Baby Doe, some things like medical technologies and education for people with disabilities are better but many things like assisted suicide/euthanasia have pushed the ethics of death even farther and are a threat to all of us and our loved ones.

The Baby Doe tragedy should have been a fire alarm for the evils we see today but it is never too late or impossible to try to promote a culture of respect for all lives.

By Michael J. New — June 29, 2017

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/449104/print

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. This case involved the constitutionality of several provisions in Pennsylvania’s Abortion Control Act and marked the only time that the Supreme Court formally reconsidered its holdings in Roe v. Wade. When the Supreme Court failed to reverse Roe in this case, it was a substantial setback for the pro-life movement. Still, the 25 years since Casey have been a story of substantial legislative, political, and legal progress for pro-lifers — progress that has occurred not only because of perseverance but also because the movement shrewdly used legal openings granted to them by the Casey decision.

The pro-life movement has devoted few resources to chronicling its own history, so not many people remember how much pro-lifers had invested in the Casey decision. During the early 1980s, pro-life political strategy shifted from enacting a constitutional amendment to changing the composition of the Supreme Court. At this time, a more conservative Supreme Court seemed almost inevitable, considering that Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush appointed a total of five new justices. As a result, a reversal of Roe v. Wade appeared not only plausible but even likely. That made the Supreme Court’s Casey decision particularly disappointing.

Following Casey, there were plenty more reasons for pessimism. The year 1992 saw the election of the first U.S. president publicly committed to keeping abortion legal. Annual abortion numbers had been gradually rising for much of the 1980s, and the number of abortions performed in 1990 surpassed 1.6 million. There was serious discussion about removing the anti-abortion plank from the Republican-party platform, and GOP governors who supported abortion rights — such as Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey, William Weld of Massachusetts, and Pete Wilson of California — were heralded by many in the media as the future of the Republican party.

Even worse, in the early 1990s, pro-lifers were losing ground in the court of public opinion. Gallup surveys found that the percentage of people who felt that abortion should be “legal under any circumstances” had steadily increased since the 1970s. A 1995 Gallup survey found that only 33 percent of Americans identified as “pro-life.” Not even demographics appeared to offer much hope. Americans were becoming wealthier and better educated, both of which tended to correlate with “pro-choice” sentiment. All in all, there were good reasons to question the long-term political viability of the pro-life movement.

But the Casey decision contained a silver lining. Even though the Supreme Court did not overturn Roe v. Wade in Casey, it abandoned the trimester framework invented in Roe and instead adopted a doctrine of “undue burden.” This allowed for state regulation of abortion, as long as the regulation did not impose an “undue burden” on women seeking abortions. Under this new standard, the Casey decision upheld most of the provisions included in Pennsylvania’s Abortion Control Act, including the parental-consent provision, the reporting requirements, the waiting period, and the informed-consent language. Only the spousal-notification requirement was struck down.

The constitutional protection that Casey granted these laws, coupled with pro-life gains in numerous state legislatures since the 1990s, has led to a substantial increase in the number of state-level pro-life laws. Since 1992, the number of states with parental-involvement laws has increased from 20 to 37. The number of states with informed-consent laws pertaining to abortion has increased from 18 to 35. In recent years, 20 states have banned abortions that take place at or after 20 weeks’ gestation, based on the unborn child’s scientifically documented ability to feel pain. Even more important, after Casey, many states strengthened existing pro-life laws. In particular, several states improved their informed-consent laws by including more information about health risks, fetal development, and sources of support for single mothers.

The incremental strategy has paid dividends. Research shows that public-funding restrictions, parental-involvement laws, and informed-consent laws all reduce abortion rates.

This incremental strategy has paid a variety of dividends. A growing body of peer-reviewed research shows that public-funding restrictions, parental-involvement laws, and properly designed informed-consent laws all reduce abortion rates. Furthermore, the ongoing debates about these incremental laws — many of which enjoy broad public support — have succeeded in reframing the abortion debate in terms more favorable for pro-lifers. Indeed, many of the most worrisome trends of the early 1990s have reversed themselves. It is now Democrats who appear more conflicted over their party’s platform on abortion. The pro-choice Republican governors who were once thought to be the future of the party have largely vanished from the political scene.

Additionally, the pro-life position has been gaining public support. Seventeen of 18 Gallup polls from 1995 to 2008 showed a pro-choice plurality. But Gallup polls from both 2009 and 2012 found that a majority of Americans described themselves as “pro-life.” And those numbers are likely to grow even more in the future. During the 1970s and 1980s, many surveys showed that young adults were likely to favor abortion; since 2000, however, the General Social Survey (GSS) found that young adults are the age demographic most likely to oppose legal abortion.

Most important, the number of abortions is steadily declining. Since 1990, the number of abortions performed in the United States annually has declined by about 42 percent. The latest reported abortion rate from 2014 is half of what it was in 1980 and is even lower than it was in 1974, the year after the Roe v. Wade decision. Interestingly, the unintended-pregnancy rate has remained fairly constant over the long term. The decline in abortions is driven by the fact that a higher percentage of women facing unintended pregnancies are carrying those pregnancies to term. Clearly, pro-life legislative and educational efforts have succeeded in changing hearts and minds.

At some point, the Supreme Court will reconsider its holdings in both Roe and Casey. Predicting judicial rulings is far from an exact science. The Supreme Court may well decide to overturn Roe v. Wade. However, even if Roe is upheld, there is a good chance the Court will continue to allow for greater state-level regulation of abortion. It will be up to the next generation of activists to effectively use future legal openings to advance the culture of life.

READ MORE:
Little-Known Facts about Roe v. Wade
Planned Parenthood’s Century of Brutality
Planned Parenthood’s Annual Report: Abortions Are Up, Prenatal Care Is Down

— Michael J. New is an Associate Professor of Economics at Ave Maria University and is an Associate Scholar at the Charlotte Lozier Institute.