But My Doctor
Said...
Why Good Doctors Might
Disagree
You heard that birth control pills might cause abortions, so you went to the most obvious source of good medical information, your doctor, and asked him or her to set the record straight.
Your doctor assured you that your method keeps the sperm and egg from ever meeting up, so it can't possibly cause abortions.
But you've looked up your method on this site or elsewhere, and what you find seems to contradict what your doctor told you? Is someone lying to you? If so, who? Why would your doctor disagree with the prescribing information sheet the drug manufacturers provide with the birth control method?
- Your doctor might not know all the facts.
Doctors get much of their information about the medicines they prescribe from drug company representatives. These drug company representatives are trained to describe the drug in such a way that the doctor will be likely to prescribe it to his or her patients.
A drug company representative is very much like a salesman. He is trained to present the drug as positively as possible. With hormonal birth control methods, this means focusing on the fact that generally these drugs keep the sperm and egg apart. It also means not mentioning the fact that these drugs make the womb inhospitable to babies. The condition of the uterus (womb) wouldn't matter if the sperm and egg never connected, but sometimes these drugs fail to stop ovulation and to keep especially persistent sperm from making it past the thickened cervical mucus.
When a sperm and egg join, most people would say that a new human life has been created. If the new human cannot attach to the uterus due to the effects of the hormonal birth control method, that little human dies. In many people's eyes, that is an abortion.
- Your doctor might not define abortion as the ending of a human life.
More than twenty years ago, the medical community chose to redefine the word abortion. Most pro-life people and many others define abortion as "the ending of an unborn human being's life." The medical community chose to define abortion as "the termination of pregnancy." They then define pregnancy not as "having a baby inside" but as "having a baby attached to the uterine wall."
By taking these two definitions together, they can say that hormonal birth control pills do not cause abortions, because: the baby is unable to implant on the uterus, therefore the woman is never pregnant, therefore no pregnancy is terminated when the baby dies, therefore there wasn't an abortion.
- Your doctor might believe that "Innocent until proven guilty" applies to drugs as well as American citizens.
By this I am referring to the argument that it has not been conclusively proven that hormonal birth control pills cause abortions so we should feel free to use them until such proof is presented. This is a very common rationalization, and a very flawed one.
When dealing with human life, we have a responsibility to make absolutely sure something does not kill or injure people (including babies) before we prescribe it. This is what clinical testing is all about. The people who studied birth control pills and other hormonal contraceptives have determined that they probably do kill little babies some of the time (take a look at the Want Specifics box to learn about a particular method).
To the general pro-choice (pro-abortion) community, the possible death of a tiny child, the probable deaths of many tiny children worldwide, is a fine and acceptable risk. Is it a fine and acceptable risk to you?
- Your doctor may believe that the drug companies are lying.
Some people suspect the drug companies of claiming that hormonal contraceptives prevent implantation of a "fertilized ovum" in order to make their products look more effective and therefore better. They say that drug companies are lying or making statements based on inconclusive evidence in order to sell their products.
The ironic thing is, drug companies are not trying to publicize the effect of the thinning of the endometrium. In all their non-technical literature and websites, they leave this information out, even making misleading statements like "This method works in two ways", which is technically correct, since anything that works in three ways also works in two.
If drug manufacturers thought that the abortion-causing
effect of hormonal contraceptives was a selling point, wouldn't
they announce it in their advertising and patient
literature? Instead, they avoid mentioning it.
An interesting note: only pro-life people hold this
view. Pro-choice (pro-abortion) people take the drug companies at
their word, since it doesn't matter to them whether or not the pill
causes abortions.
- Your doctor may not want to lose business.
Prescribing birthcontrol is a profitable activity. There is no risk of misdiagnosis, and people just come in, pay for the visit, and ask for birth control. Many women will switch doctors if their doctor refuses to prescribe birth control, since this is considered a basic service.
Some doctors make a significant percentage of their income prescribing birth control.