Does the birth control pill cause abortions?

Eternal Perspective Ministries, 1988, 88 pages, $3.00 (US)

Fr. Leonard A. Kennedy, C.S.B.

FR. LEONARD A. KENNEDY, C.S.B.

This is a popular book, since this is the second (and revised) edition within seven months. The publishers certainly aren't making money on it, however, since they sell it at a very low price.

Alcorn is a former Protestant minister. He is not opposed to contraception unless it produces abortion, to which he is very opposed. He held out as long as he could in the belief that the contraceptive pill does not cause abortion, but the evidence shown in this book forced him to conclude that it does. He says that people who contracept do not want to hear his message, but he believes that he is bound to speak the truth. He knows also that the secular mind is not interested in the question because it is in favour of abortion. He sympathizes with the doctors and pharmacists who will be required to change their professional practice radically but asks that they not be deterred from doing so. He has found out that they, too, resist accepting the evidence.

It has long been known that contraceptives are the chief cause of abortion in an indirect way. That is, if a man and woman have intercourse in such a way as to deliberately try to prevent the woman becoming pregnant, very often she does become pregnant and then, again very often, she resorts to abortion. But what Alcorn is reporting is that contraceptive pills also cause abortion directly. If the pills were used at full strength not many ova would be released but the side effects would be intolerable; and so they are used in a highly diluted form, in which case ova are sometimes released. However, the pill not only prevents ovulation most of the time; it also frequently prevents the fertilized ovum from implanting itself in the womb. Then the child is aborted about six days after beginning its life, and the mother is nearly always unaware that she has had an abortion.

Alcorn has obtained his information from the drug companies and, indeed, from the very labeling on their products. Also from the most frequently used reference book by physicians in America, the Physician's Desk Reference, and from many highly-placed members of the medical profession. The evidence is found too in many medical journals and textbooks.

Alcorn is very careful in giving his references. He has found out that pro-abortionists have been aware of his discovery for over twenty years, and chides prolifers, including himself, for not having found out the truth long ago. He even found it in the Random House College Dictionary (1982). He realized that the many pro- abortionists had changed the definition of conception from "fertilization of the ovum by the sperm" (which it had always been understood to be) to "implantation of the ovum in the womb." Having done this they could say that the pill does not produce abortion, since a child was not conceived.

Of course the pill does not always prevent implantation, but it does sometimes. Indeed, it causes abortion in five different ways: (1) by affecting the endometrium (the lining of the womb) so as to make it inimical to implantation, (2) by speeding up the ovum's travel time to the womb so that it arrives before it can be implanted, (3) by causing tubal peristalsis, (4) by affecting the condition of an already implanted child, when women continue taking the pill before they know that they are pregnant; (5) by affecting the endometrium and the cervix after the woman has stopped taking the pill, for which reason the pill makers recommend the avoidance of pregnancy for three months after one has stopped taking the pill. Indeed, the U.S. Federal Food and Drug Administration has recommended taking high-dosage pills as a "morning-after pill" since they can prevent implantation.

Alcorn has searched high and low for evidence contrary to his thesis. He has found very little, and most of it consists of statements without factual backup. Many Christian prolifers do not want to accept his evidence because they do not want to face the challenge of getting people to stop taking birth control pills.

How often do the pills cause abortions? Alcorn honestly admits that no one knows how many. It is possible that the number is very large, perhaps six times as large as the number of known surgical abortions. Another estimate is one abortion every two years for a woman regularly on the pill. But, Alcorn says, it doesn't really matter how large the number is. What woman would deliberately place her child at this risk of being killed? Only a woman who is pro-abortion.

Alcorn presents appendices indicating what Scripture says about the time life begins, what scientists say about it, what the Early Fathers of the Church say, and what Scripture says about God's exclusive prerogatives over life and death, about the shedding of innocent blood, about how God sees children, and about defending the weak and helpless. He adds, too, a list of six other contraceptives or so-called contraceptives (they are really primarily abortifcients) that cause abortion.

Eternal Perspective Ministries is at 2229 East Burnside #23, Gresham, OR 97030, phone [phone], fax [phone] books cost $2.50 each; 10-99 cost $2.25; 100-499 cost $2.00; 500 cost $1.75. Information is available also from Pharmacists for Life Canada, Box 43508, 180 James St. S., Hamilton, ON L8P 4V8.