I am sorry we haven’t been posting here in response to the chaos and insanity taking place all around us with the HHS Birth Control Mandate. It has been a month of trying to catch our breath and figure out what exactly many women’s groups are asking and demanding the American people support in the name of our health. First there was the Susan G. Koman/Planned Parenthood fiasco to dominate the women’s health headlines, and now this mandate that says all women must have access to free birth control or…..or what?……well, we’re not exactly sure.
We’ve honestly been scratching our heads and trying to figure out if they really are saying that without free birth control our society will fall apart? Well, yes. That does seem to be exactly what they are saying. And in not so public ways, they are also saying that women must in fact be pretty ignorant and undisciplined and that without certain organizations helping them, we would all end up with 17 children, barefoot and pregnant, and, gasp!, “wasting” our intellect and potential on raising the next generation.
There are so many blantantly false assumptions about women’s abilities and our strengths being thrown around in the media right now. I am actually afraid for our adolescent and teenage girls to watch anything on tv or hear anything in a health class about their supposed weakness of fertility. I just cannot accept that our daughters might be hearing this toxic nonsense about women’s abilities and coming to believe these things about themselves.
The “I have a say” campaign initiated by Planned Parenthood attempts to say that women are not being heard and that all women know and agree that “birth control is basic healthcare”. Well, I agree with Cecile Richards that not all women are being heard. But who is really not being heard in our media? Those of us who can see the negative side-effects of birth control and who refuse to accept the lie that we are incapable of understanding and managing our fertility naturally.
We are beautifully and wonderfully made. Our bodies are capable of conceiving, gestating, and nourishing other human beings. This is amazing! There is nothing wrong with us the way we naturally are! What is wrong is a society that refuses to see these parts of us as the gifts they are to humanity. It is very wrong to tell women that we are foolish to not expose ourselves to artificial hormones and suppress the abilities of our bodies. IT IS WRONG for groups like Planned Parenthood to further their own business agenda by belittling our intellect and claiming to speak on our behalf. They DO NOT speak for me.
In the coming days we want to represent the voices of women who choose knowledge of their fertility over suppression. We want to give a voice to those of you who appreciate your natural gift of fertility. We want to teach the world about New Feminists and show them that the days of conforming women to meet societal standards are over. It is time the world recognizes our abilities and honors us for our strengths.
Please feel free to comment here about the true needs of women, or send us an email at leahjacobson@theguidingstarproject.com and we’ll include your comments in an upcoming post.
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About the Author: Leah
Thank you for this post and for this site. I first went on HBC at age 16 because of chronic migraines. I did not become sexually active until I was 21 and by that point the message was pretty clear… sex was just something that you did. It was the culture of “hooking up,” and I was “empowered.” (Pfft.) I had never even HEARD of fertility awareness until my now husband and I were at our 8-hour Pre-Cana class and even then, it was presented as a 2 minute: “If you don’t LIKE birth control, then you can try this.” That was it.
I finally was introduced to the gift of FAM/NFP via the woman who would become one of my best friends. She loaned me a few books and I was blown away. I learned why the Catholic Church opposed HBC (not that you have to be Catholic!) and I learned the danger I had been putting myself into by pumping my body full of hormones. We have been using FAM/NFP for 6 years (Sympto-Thermal when not breastfeeding overnight/ Billings when postpartum and breastfeeding.) We have two daughters,4 and 2, and we are ready for another. The funny thing is this: I worked in a research lab that studied estrogen-dependant tumors. I became a high school science teacher and I was BLIND to the dangers of HBC. My maternal grandmother died of a stroke in her late 40s. My mom died of a heart attack at 59 and her sister just died from complications due to uterine cancer. I can’t help but wonder if all of those are linked to their (at least my mom and aunt’s) use of HBC/ HRT. I bought the HBC propaganda of being an enlightened, free woman hook, line and sinker until someone told me how wrong I was.
I am so grateful for this “new” feminism… a type of feminism that champions being a woman, really seeing ourselves as the beautiful persons we are and acknowledging that we really do deserve better.