The Article of Faith that Keeps Believers Uncomfortably Agnostic
Apostate: a person who renounces a religious or political belief or principle.
Protestants, we still have a problem.
Young people looking more closely than ever at abortion and birth control, and Protestants are once again asking their leaders questions about hormonal contraception (HC).
The acceptability of using hormonal contraception is one of the most unsettled matters in Protestant ethics with its ties to abortion. Therefore, research on the topic must be urgent and ongoing, right?
Wrong.
It’s been 64 years since the first birth control pill was approved by the FDA, and despite honest efforts at achieving moral clarity on its use, Protestants have failed.
This is important because a poor understanding of how hormonal contraception works weakens an otherwise strong pro-life position.
Catholics have it easy. They have theological and philosophical reasons for rejecting contraception outright.
At least on paper.No need to struggle with the hormonal effects of endocrine disruptors. No need to wonder about the implications of evidence that we can’t or won’t get. No need to worry about repenting for possible sins committed in ignorance.
Catholics say the pill is wrong. Abortionists say the pill is fine. Protestants say we don’t know or can’t know; therefore, freedom in Christ and charity for all.
But will we ever know? Can we ever know? Have Protestants ceded the issue and accepted HC with all its ambiguity forever?
The Protestant contraception agnostics maintain a unique article of faith that allows them to accept HC and reject abortion at the same time.
It’s a concept I call hedged contraception.
Hedged Contraception
For Protestant HC users, hedged contraception goes like this: at first, their position is that they do not wish to become pregnant. However, if conception occurs while on the pill, they must immediately switch their position and now desire for the pregnancy to continue. In order to hold this position, the Protestant must have faith that a normal pregnancy and birth is likely in the event of conception while on the pill.
But is it?
This is obviously possible. Some people do have babies while “on the pill.” But statistics for the efficacy of the pill can be misleading. “Perfect-use failure rates of both POPs [progestin-only pill] and COCs [combined oral contraception] are estimated at 0.3%, and typical use failure rates at 7%.”1 (Han et al., 2022)
Perfect use is when the product is used exactly as prescribed with no mistakes. That means no missed pills. Normal use represents how the pill is actually used, which means sometimes pills are missed. In other words, “normal use” means used incorrectly.
Contraceptionists use both statistics to suit their purposes. On one hand, they must make the case that the pill is very effective, otherwise people would not trust using it. In this case they will cite perfect use statistics. On the other hand, they must also hold that the pill is not very effective, otherwise abortifacient processes must be acknowledged in the event of ovulation and fertilization. In this case, the normal use statistic is more convenient.
What about that woman you heard had a baby while on the pill? Statistics say those 7 women who got pregnant (out of 100 women on the pill) used it incorrectly.
But what about the 99.7% of women who used the product perfectly and never had a baby? How often did they ovulate while on the pill? How often was an egg fertilized while on the pill? And when that happened, why didn’t they have a baby? What kind of hormone profile is created by the pill and what is the impact on the pregnancy process?
The Ambiguity Ally
It’s difficult to answer some of these questions. Moral, ethical, technological, and political constraints have prevented the research required to answer them. It’s hard to conduct a study when a potential outcome of participants is pregnancy loss. And for some communities, ambiguity in this realm is a feature, not a bug. This is described in a journal by the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology:
“Studies in women are inevitably limited by ethical constraints and the results are often inconclusive. Moreover, if it was conclusively shown that the sole or principal mode of action was to prevent the embryo from implanting, then this method, as in the case with emergency contraception, would be considered by the Roman Catholic church as causing an early abortion. As a result many agencies involved in the research, development or delivery of contraception prefer to leave the mechanism of action issue unresolved, which may explain why research into the contraceptive mechanisms of IUDs has been sparse in the last 20 years [emphasis mine].”2 (ESHRE Capri Workshop Group, 2008)
But what if those moral and ethical constraints were waived? What if we did have research that might help answer old questions about what contraceptive hormones are actually doing to the body during the menstrual cycle and pregnancy?
What if this research has been ongoing for decades?
I’m referring to research in the field of Artificial Reproductive Technology (ART).
Three Communities
At least three communities share an interest in gaining a better understanding of the reproductive process, but for different reasons:
- The infertility community wants to fix the system.
- The contraception community want to break the system
- And the ART community wants to hack the system
Since the thalidomide debacle in the ‘50s and ‘60s, little research has been conducted that would involve women who are or who could become pregnant.
But by circumventing natural pregnancy processes, somehow the ART community has been given a pass to conduct hormone experiments on women. And while ART research may be fruit of a poisonous tree, the continued research with improving technologies may at least help other communities answer the questions they’ve been asking.
Doctors and pastors have done their best to give good counsel to their patients and congregants. But doctors don’t always have the answers, and the Protestant response has come up short.
“Health-care professionals play an important role in women’s decision-making processes, as they are one of the most preferred sources of information about FP. However, sometimes, health-care professionals have inaccurate knowledge about contraception, including knowledge gaps about mechanisms of action.”3 (Burgo et al., 2012)
That’s why I’m diving into the research. We’ll cover relevant research papers and journals published on topics related to hormonal contraception, natural pregnancy processes and the ART community.
The goal is to provide men and women with a more informed consent regarding the effects of hormonal contraception and the wider implications of its use. If using hormonal contraception (solely for preventing birth) is wrong, I believe it will only be rejected by changing hearts and minds.
I’ve already changed mine. At one point I had no problem with hormonal contraception because I had no idea how it actually worked. Hundreds of research articles later, I’m renouncing Hormonal Contraceptionism.
I’ll be posting on topics such as:
- War of the Words
- The Christian Gauntlet
- Natural Loss Arguments
- The Primary Fallacy
- The Fine-Tuning Argument for Embryo-Endometrial Synchrony
- Tridecahedrons and the Probability of Abortion While Using Hormonal Contraception
- The CRIPLE-ing Effects of Hormonal Contraception
- How to Read Teen Vogue Like an Adult
- Are You Ready for Dean Withers’ Murder Argument?
- What the EPF? We’ve Known How to Detect Fertilization Within 48 Hours Using Early Pregnancy Factor Since 1974. We Just Don’t.
- Thinking About Plan-B? Flip a Coin Instead
What This is Not
This is not an attempt to ban birth control. I’m not interested in universal background checks for pill owners or a national registry that leads to pill packet confiscation.
I just want us all to know the truth so we can make truly informed decisions. And I’m tired of hearing, “We don’t know. We can’t know. We’ll never know if we’re making a mistake.”
No Christian wants to be a Doubting Thomas. But Protestants are still saying, “Unless I can put my fingers into the products of conception lost to the pill, I won’t believe (that it might be abortifacient).”
Protestant pill proponents know that no hormonal contraception method is 100% effective, and they must have faith that a normal pregnancy and birth will occur in the event of pregnancy while on the pill.
But is that belief justified? Is it true? Is their faith in the pill still reasonable?
Subscribe to follow my journey to answer these questions and more.
- Han, L., Creinin, M. D., Hemon, A., Glasier, A., Chen, M. J., & Edelman, A. (2022). Mechanism of action of a 0.075 mg norgestrel progestogen-only pill 2. Effect on cervical mucus and theoretical risk of conception. Contraception, 112, 43–47. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.contraception.2022.03.016 ↩︎
- The ESHRE Capri Workshop Group. Intrauterine devices and intrauterine systems. Human Reproduction Update, Volume 14, Issue 3, May/June 2008, Pages 197–208. https://doi.org/10.1093/humupd/dmn003 ↩︎
- Lopez-del Burgo, C., Mikolajczyk, R. T., Osorio, A., Carlos, S., Errasti, T., & de Irala, J. (2012). Knowledge and beliefs about mechanism of action of birth control methods among European women. Contraception, 85(1), 69–77. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.contraception.2011.04.007 ↩︎