Question for my Instructor

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Curious

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I had the intention of resurrecting the thread “Question for Prots about Contraception” in the Non-Catholic section but I forgot it had been closed.

I have a class in OB/GYN and one of our lectures yesterday covered contraception. I have a really good professor who speaks of God often - I’m not sure if he’s a Christian or not, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he were. Anyway, he was talking about he personally disliked IUD’s and would not insert them because they don’t prevent conception.

But then when he started talking about combination (estrogen and progestin) birth control pills, he said the progestin component made the uterus a hostile environment for implantation. And what, boys and girls, implants in the uterus? That’s right!! A baby! Be it a tiny blob of cells at first, I still think it’s a real baby. But he seemed just fine with this and confused me.

Estrogen is supposed to prevent ovulation, but if it does not, progestin is there to save the day by making sure the conceptus doesn’t implant. This thought makes me uncomfortable and therefore I don’t like to think about it, as I take the pill myself.

My question is: I’d really REALLY like to address this with my professor the next time I see him - asking him why IUD’s are no good, but the progestin component of pills is just fine. Problem is, I don’t want to be rude or insulting and dig into his personal preferences. Any ideas on how I should compose the question for him?
 
It sounds to me that he is commenting on the poor effectiviness of the IUD compared to the pill.

In either case, from a moral theology point of view, they are both immoral. I pray you re-evaluate this in your choice to take the pill. Your conscious is telling you something and you ought to listen to it. Protestant convert to Cathlicism John Henry Newman called the conscience, the “aborigianl vicar of Christ.” God is speaking to you there.
 
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Curious:
Estrogen is supposed to prevent ovulation, but if it does not, progestin is there to save the day by making sure the conceptus doesn’t implant. This thought makes me uncomfortable and therefore I don’t like to think about it, as I take the pill myself.
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Can you elaborate on this? What makes you uncomfortable?
 
It sounds to me that he is commenting on the poor effectiviness of the IUD compared to the pill.
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You’re right - he doesn’t think the IUD’s are effective, also you’re supposed to use them ONLY if you have ONE partner and lots of people will lie about that, and they increase chances for urinary tract infections. However, it sounded like his choice not to use them was more moral than medical, because he doesn’t like the idea that they prevent implantation of the conceptus, rather than preventing conception to begin with.

What confused me was that he endorses and prescribes birth control pills, in which the progestin component does something similar to an IUD - makes the uterus unfavorable for implantation if conception does occur. The estrogen component is supposed to prevent ovulation, while the progestin component makes sure implantation doesn’t occur if conception happens. I really can’t see how this is any different than an IUD and I’m dying to ask him why he’ll endorse birth control over an IUD and trying to figure out a good way to ask him (both as a physician and a regular person) without prying into his business. I wanted a little advice on how to phrase the question or how I should go about doing this.
Can you elaborate on this? What makes you uncomfortable?
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What makes me uncomfortable is the thought that I might have actually conceived in my almost-6 years of marriage and the progestin in my pills have prevented its implantation. You have to understand that I’m a Protestant who has never heard the BC pills were bad and until recently, thought not taking BC pills was strictly a Catholic thing. It was also only recently, in my medical studies, that I learned that that’s what the progestin was for.

this complicates my take on BC pills significantly. :banghead:
 
hi curious,

i think the real issue lies in the last part of your last post. instead of approaching the instructor to settle your concscience for you, you may need to work on that for yourself. you don’t really need to lay that on him.

before you ask him, consider the possible answers and what they may do to you. i see three possibilities. he may not have noticed his own inconsistancy. by questioning him, he may say that there is no reason to not endorse the IUD and deny the sanctity of every human life. he may stop endorsing the pill altogether and uphold the sanctity of each human life. the last possibility is that he has a reasoned position. with the IUD there is zero probably of preventing conception and the woman might be having a monthly abortion. and least with the pill there is a greater than zero chance that abortion isn’t always taking place, and since there is a chance, it is morally acceptable. each answer conditions how you will respond to your own conscience.

the real question is what effect will those answers have on you. you are becoming aware that these things are offensive to life. without understanding what was happening, you may have allowed terrible things to happen in your body. with your new awareness, God is calling you to your own moral formation. if that man tells you that conception is irrelevant, will you let yourself develop a greater respect for life? will you grow to respect a woman’s privileged gift to bear and protect life? or will you put the facts of your own situation in the back of your mind, buy into what he says, and go on with what you are doing? you already know what is bugging you. it is the small percentage chance that you may have allowed the loss of life. how do you imagine that any of his anwers can change you? if he realizes error and abandons endorsement of the pill, what would you do then? do you need this man’s permission to live according to your own conscience?

if you use this person to regulate your response to God’s promptings, how do you think God might feel? if you fail to participate in God’s favor with you now, why would you expect that He will try to build you up later? if you reject God now, this episode will always haunt you. there are so many gifts from God on the path to holiness. how many of them will you sacrifice in order to continue in your current lifestyle?

continued…
 
continued from previous…

one of the lies of the devil in society is that you have no other choices. one of the lies is that naturally avoiding pregnancy is unreliable and morally inconsistent. natural family is an active statement that the husband and wife are living their love for God and his will. investigate and find out about natural faimily plannig. it is accurate and life affirming. unnatural birth control says that God is unwlecome in a marriage.

your husband needs to love and appreciate you, not just for what he can see, but for all that God created you to be. as a woman, you express God’s love by the very ability to bear life. your husband needs to honor you as a woman, by respecting the natural function of your body. if you do something to damage God’s gift of your life-bearing body, you are not being allowed to be a woman. the husband’s habit of convenience concerning birth control unconsciously denies your right to be a woman. a woman doesn’t need to bear children to be a woman. she needs to live as endowed by her Creator. her natural state of fertility is testimony to everyone that she loves God as he is, because she lives by the womanhood that God gave her. even the infertile woman lives God’s love. a woman isn’t a woman because she bears children. she is a woman because she bears a woman’s body without degrading it. an infertile woman testifies to that also. would your husband deny you to live fully as a woman, whether or not you ever bear children?

another lie is that childbirth is a state of denial. if you were to become pregnant, would you be less of a person, or more? a mother who sacrifices in the world for the sake of her child, is a mother who doesn’t need to constantly say with words “i love you” to her children. the man will sacrifice too. as the mother turns to the family, the man must turn to the world. he must provide; he must protect; he must do whatever it takes to make the mother able to sustain the family. a man who entrusts the raising of his children to his wife, and brings to the family what it needs, is never distant from his children. God has ordained that acts of love are rewarded with love. God is the partner of sacrificing parents.

let go of the lies that allowed you to eat those pills in the first place. free yourself to be alive with the body that God gave you. surrender the conveniences that those pills have bought you. most of all, allow yourself to be deeply offended to offer life at the altar of worldly gain.

teach your husband that a man who does not entrust his seed to his wife and God has never freely loved his wife. freedom from the mentality that brith control sustains in a couple is freedom for both of you.

there is no need to involve a man who cannot help you. no matter what your instructor says to you, he will only impede you. if he advises you toward what is true and right, you are in danger of falling back because maybe someone else later will advise you otherwise. let this be between you and God and he will guide you toward the true and right without fear that someone else may come along later and turn you away.

i am sorry if all of this offends you. i know that by posting here, you didn’t expect this kind of thing. i hope you use your own words to see that this is your own interior issue. don’t forget your husband in this. let yourself be entirely exposed to him because of your union. expose yourself to him. let him know that you are troubled by this. he is your husband. he can’t help but love you. the ultimate lie of the devil is distrust between a husband and wife. relationship is never easy, and love is not always obvious. intimate exposure between humans is powerful. between the husband and wife, it is unitive. we are always confused and scared, but we are rarely unmoved.

i apologize for any offense,

may God have mercy,

john
 
JustSomeGuy,

That is the longest and most detailed response I’ve ever gotten on a thread. I want to thank you for the articulate and loving way you expressed yourself and I found you in no way offensive.

But I do need to correct you on one point. I’m not asking this guy’s permission to do anything, nor am I using his answer to justify anything I’m doing, nor am I asking for his help.

You can take my question at face value: I simply want to know why he believes as he does and I brought the question here for advice on how to ask him delicately and thought it might be of some help to ask advice from people who are used to talking about and thinking about birth control. That’s it.

As for me, yes the thoughts I’ve experienced are nagging and annoying. My husband, by the way, has never been thrilled with birth control and has always thought it was unnatural.

I was merely curious as to the guy’s position. I’m not using him to answer my own questions or relieve my own conscience.

Again, though, your post was very nice. Thank you.
 
Just start by asking him what percentage of the time he thinks it’s the estrogen doing the job, as opposed to the progestin. That should innocently cause the desired discussion to ensue. If he is not clear medically on why it is preferable for the estrogen to be doing the job in the majority of cases, perhaps his are moral reasons.

We pray that you continue thinking about your feelings on the entire subject.
 
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