HHS versus First Do No Harm

February 5th, 2012

Below is a letter my husband wrote our pastor who is very concerned about the new HHS regulation.   Sheila

Father Mark,

Much attention is being given to the fact that the HHS mandate seeks to force Catholics and some other Christians to violate their consciences by acting contrary to the teaching of their Church.

Not enough is being said about the effort to make some violate their consciences by prescribing drugs or doing procedures that they know to be harmful.

To wit: the WHO has labeled the chemicals of the BC Pill a Class 1 (worst kind) of carcinogen. A number of studies show that on the average a woman who takes the Pill for four years or more before her first full term pregnancy increases her risk of breast cancer by 40% compared to those who never take the Pill.  So girls who start taking the pill in high school and continue through college or trade school are really putting themselves at risk.  All too many doctors ignore this, but this is a huge class-action suit just waiting to happen.  The Obama administration would like the Catholic Church to be a defendant in this almost inevitable lawsuit because of its pre-eminence in the delivery of health care and the number of women covered by its insurance policies.  The expense of defense can only be imagined; also the expense of a judgment.  The Church has to oppose this at every level just for this reason alone, to say nothing of the more important moral reasons.  This is just one of the reasons why the Church’s teaching is true.

In 1993 two articles appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that reported a causal association between vasectomy and subsequent prostate cancer. One number that sticks in my head is that 20 years after a vasectomy, such men had an 89% increased risk of prostate cancer compared to non-sterilized men.  When I was treated for prostate cancer at Loma Linda CA, I was surprised at the number of younger men in our group.  In my mid 70′s at the time, I was definitely in the upper age quartile of our group.  And this has typically been an older man’s disease.

Of course, just as behavior and cancer associations were denied in the Fifties through probably into the Nineties regarding smoking and lung cancer, so these associations are denied today.  But I think that will change.  On this past Jan 18-20 I had an email conversation with a 23 year-old woman who had sent me a routine request to include a link to her company’s website where it listed all sorts of health problems and how the company could offer legal help in getting malpractice damages.  I first replied sarcastically that I would consider that link after I saw that they were also helping women with malpractice suits for Pill-induced breast cancer.  The saleswoman had never heard about this, and I soon had her in touch with some experts on this subject.  She was personally shocked because docs had put her on the Pill when she was 16 to remedy some menstrual irregularities, and she was still on it.  I will have to follow up with her.  Dr. Chris Kahlenborn thinks that the Pill and breast cancer link will be purposefully ignored by the medical establishment until there are a sufficient number of malpractice suits.

I hope you can share all of this with your fellow priests.  One of the things we do in our course is to let the engaged couples know about these things.  We also promote and teach ecological breastfeeding, and one of its effects is to reduce the risk of breast cancer along with a good handful of other healthy benefits for the moms as well as 21 listed benefits for the babies.  I think that parish priests should use our manual to reinforce these facts.  Many of us need to hear the same thing from two or three different sources in order for it to sink in.

Our course should be seen not as a burden but as a blessing.

John K.

Posted in Abortion-Contraception, Morality, Sterilization | Comment »

A Jesuit Speaks Out Against Birth Control, 1925!

January 29th, 2012

My father was a good student.  He received two scholarships: 4 years to a Jesuit high school and 4 years to the University of Detroit.  As a result I have the Varsity News published by UD (December 1925).  This magazine has an article on my dad titled “He’s the Best Student in the University.”  In looking through the magazine I noticed an article titled “This Pig-Philosophy” written by Rev. John A McClorey, S.J., a professor of metaphysics, in which he speaks out against birth control.  Following are some quotes from the Introduction and the article.

(Introduction to the article: “Aroused by the notoriety recently given the tenets of the ‘pig philosophy’—Fr. McClorey attacked these subversive teachings in an address which he delivered before his classes in the Arts and Science College just before Thanksgiving.  He treated the subject with the frankness, sincerity, force and logic which have made his Lenten and other addresses famous throughout the West.”)

The article begins: “I apologize to you for speaking of birth control.  For though of late it has become quite the ‘respectable’ thing, it is nothing more than what Carlyle would call  ‘Pig Philosophy,’  which emphasizes with the insistence of pornographic degeneracy the unveiled passionateness of Sex.  Why should I speak equably, with chill and measured detachment, in the presence of an evil that is striking at children, the home, the nation and the race?”

Other quotes in the article:
“Birth control is an unnatural vice because by physical or chemical means it directly and intentionally frustrates the primary end of marriage.  If an exception could be made to the natural law against it, it could not be made by men and women under the law, but by God, the Author of the law.  We may control nature, not frustrate it.  But birth control is birth frustration.”

“The program of birth controllers is a direct and powerful appeal to sexual indulgence.”

“Birth control destroys mutual marital affection and respect…Birth control destroys mutual respect.  For it is what Bernard Shaw calls ‘Reciprocal Masturbation.’  Birth controllers who surfeit themselves with sexual delight, then defeat the reproductive purpose and consequence of that delight, are more unnatural and disgusting than the ancient aristocracy of Rome who used to feast to repletion, then take an emetic (pardon the reference), vomit and return to another feast.”

Fr. McClorey ends his article:
“Birth control is in contradiction to Christ charity. ‘The survival of the fittest’ is plausable. But Christ did not act on that principle.  On the contrary, He was the Friend of the down-and-out—the poor, the lame, the sick, the deaf and dumb, the lepers, the weakminded, the vicious, the possessed.  He took care of them, saw that they survived, and bettered them.  He did not wish to extinguish them by birth control or any other means.

“But birth controllers flatter the rich, assuring them that the uncontrolled fecundity of the poor, and their own cupidity, is responsible for misery and poverty.  Indeed, they go further into the vice of positive cruelty.  For since they do not want an unfit future race; since the unfortunate can procreate only an unfit future race; since the unfortunate will do so if they are sheltered and made comfortable by the charity of the rich, therefore the rich ought to withhold their charity and let the flotsam and jetsam of humanity perish out of hand.  This diabolical doctrine can be found in Mrs. Sanger’s latest book.

“Christ brought into the world a thing which had not been here before, the sweetest thing on earth: Mercy and compassion in the hearts of the well-to-do towards the victims of fate, and peace, self-respect and humility in the hearts of the unfortunate.  This may be called the beautiful soul of Christianity.  And its body has been an improved and ever improving condition among the masses of Christianity.  If we practice the charity of Christ, we shall not enjoy, it is true, the perfect prosperity of a bourgouis heaven on earth proposed by birth controllers, but we shall have a condition of decent sufficiency.”

Sheila Kippley

Posted in Abortion-Contraception | 2 Comments »

Not Amorous During the Infertile Time

January 22nd, 2012

My wonderful wife and I have three incredible children and we have been using the NFP method for about 7 or 8 years. Because of our age and our finances, we would prefer to be responsible, be thankful and are blessed to have the children God has given to us.

On a ‘personal’ note, because we want to be intimate during the non-fertile phase, we (well, I) find that my wife has far less interest in activity during that time, especially when her menstrual cycle is close. She becomes far more amorous during the times when she is  ovulating and we need to abstain.  We hold out on intercourse during the month and by the time we can share ourselves, the interest has waned because of natural causes.

Is this something you’ve discovered, heard about or experienced personally, and if so, what thoughts can you share. I’ve done a google search to no avail.

John:
Yes.  We have certainly heard of this, and it’s very understandable. The Lord made us this way.  In previous ages people had to work hard physically, and I imagine they got just as smelly as we do when we have a lot of physical exercise without any deodorants.  But the Lord wanted them to get together at the fertile time.  So he made woman in such a way that she feels more amorous at the fertile time, and some researchers think that her cervical mucus (or some other source) emits pheromes that are picked up by her husband’s olfactory senses that go beyond the simple sense of smelling something very obvious.  These pheromes make her more “attractive.”

I try to keep emphasizing that the marriage act is not just “having sex.” Animals “have sex.”  But only humans can come together to consciously celebrate their marriage in the marriage act.  The marriage act ought to be a renewal of the marriage covenant — the gift of self, the caring love, and the commitment of the marriage itself.

My suggested “remedy” for the situation you have discovered is for the spouses to try to recognize more deeply that the marriage act, like marriage itself, is not primarily for the self but for the other. Husbands with their typically much stronger drives toward sexual union can overlook this very easily because they can be satisfied at almost any time.  However, if a wife forgets this, she may have difficulty putting herself into it, so to speak.  On the other hand, if she can internalize that engaging in the marriage act during the infertile times when she feels less “sexy” is a great marriage act because it is a great gift of self, she may find great satisfaction, even if not exactly the same kind as she might have during the most fertile time, and sometimes even more satisfying as a renewal of their marriage covenant.  All one has to do is to reflect on some couple you know who have divorced, and that thought should make your own marriage act even more of an act of loving gratitude.

So, let an attitude of gratitude permeate your marital embraces.  Let me suggest that it may be helpful if each spouse, during those moments of silence is praying, “Thank you, Jesus, for my spouse.”

Another suggestion is to not watch any TV “shows” because it seems that they are so oriented toward stimulating lust within us.  I don’t say that on the basis of watching them but from the ads I see when I watch a sports event or from reviews I read.

I hope this hasn’t been too preachy but at least a little bit helpful.

In his service,
John F Kippley
NFP International
www.NFPandmore.org
Sex and the Marriage Covenant: A Basis for Morality (Ignatius)

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