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                  THE PILL AND EARLY ABORTION

                       by John F. Kippley

IT IS A FACT THAT EVEN SOME PRO-LIFERS FIND DIFFICULT TO FACE:
THE PILL CAUSES ALMOST AS MANY ABORTIONS AS ARE DONE SURGICALLY
EACH YEAR IN THIS COUNTRY!

     In the last several months a new early-abortion drug called
RU-486 has been making the headlines.  Its development has been
followed for years, and just two and a half years ago (December
1986) the news wires reported that researchers had found it to be
85 percent effective in causing abortions in the first six weeks
of pregnancy.  More recently it has been found to be as much as
95 percent effective in causing abortions when used in
conjunction with prostaglandins (labor inducing agents).

     RU-486 acts both to prevent implantation of a newly
conceived baby and to dislodge the baby who has already implanted
in the mother's uterus.  It does this by interfering with the
normal action of progesterone, a hormone secreted after ovulation
to maintain the lining of the uterus and to maintain pregnancy if
it has occurred.  There is no ambiguity about its action:  RU-486
is intended to cause abortion.

     Whether and when RU-486 will be marketed in the United
States is not known.  The risk of boycott, the cost of liability
insurance, and unknown market factors may keep it off the
American market for some years.  However, the ordinary birth
control pill already causes as many early abortions each year as
RU-486 would cause if allowed in the country!  That is, the
abortionists say that RU-486 could be used for about half the 1.6
million abortions currenty done yearly in the United States--
about 800,000.  The current birth control pills already cause
between 600,000 and 1,500,000 early abortions each year!

HOW THE PILL KILLS--AND HOW OFTEN

     How can I say that?  What factors yield that sort of result?
You start with the reality that the typical "combined therapy"
Pill works in three ways:  1) It generally suppresses ovulation,
and that makes it a sterilizing agent, but sometimes
"breakthrough ovulation" occurs; 2) it tends to thicken cervical
mucus to make sperm migration more difficult, and that makes it a
contraceptive; and 3) it affects the inner lining of the
uterus--the--endometrium--to make it hostile to implantation, and
that makes it an abortifacient--an early abortion agent.

     The question is:  how often does the Pill achieve it birth
control effectiveness by action as an abortifacient?  (Here
we're talking about the combination estrogen-progesterone Pill;
the so-called mini-Pill which is progesterone-only acts primarily
as an abortifacient because it does little or nothing to prevent
ovulation.)  The answer depends upon how often "breakthrough"
ovulation occurs with the common combination Pill and then how
often conception occurs.

     Estimates of breakthrough ovulation have ranged from 2
percent to 10 percent of cycles<1>, and that accounts for the
wide range of estimated abortions given above.  However, in 1984
a researcher reported that she had proof of ovulation occurring
in 4.7 percent of cycles using a low dosage Pill<2>, so let's use
that number in our calculations.  The next factor is the
conception rate:  women don't get pregnant every cycle they have
relations at the fertile time; pregnancy rates vary from 25 to
68 percent<3>, and to be conservative we will use the 25 percent
figure.  I am ignoring the possibility that the mucus may be
thicker and impede sperm migration, because research has shown
that this is a very small or non-existent factor among
non-Pill-users; proximity to ovulation is much more important
that the quality of the mucus.  The last factor is the number of
women on the Pill--generally estimated at 10 million in the
United States.

     With 10 million women on the Pill, a 4.7 percent
breakthrough ovulation rate would yield 470,000 fertile
ovulations per month; a pregnancy rate of 25% yields 117,500
pregnancies and early abortions per month; if you mulitply by 12,
that's 1,410,000 per year.  Actually, it would be more accurate
to multiply by 13 because the Pill schedule is set up to cause 13
"cycles" per a year, so that would yield, 1,527,500 early
abortions per year.  Either way, it appears that the Pill
causes almost as many abortions as are done surgically each year
in this country!

     The arithmetic can be worked out for the individual woman on
the Pill, too.  Using the 4.7 percent breakthrough ovulation
rate, there would be a statistical certainty that she would
experience a breakthrough ovulation every 22 cycles; a 25%
pregnancy rate would yield another statistical certainty that she
would have a Pill-induced early abortion every 88 cycles or every
6.8 years.  Now that may not sound very often, but look at it
this way:  how many women would use the Pill if there was a 99%
statistical certainty it would kill them in less than seven
years?  On an individual basis, the main point is this: the Pill
might be acting as an early-abortion agent in any given cycle.

DENIAL

     Abortionists have no trouble admitting the abortifacient
nature of the Pill as well as the IUD (intrauterine device).  In
fact, for years pro-abortion organizations have been saying that
a Human Life Amendment to stop abortion will outlaw both the IUD
and the Pill.  However, denial is a common reaction to these
realities by Christians and others who say they are against
abortion.  Unless a woman sees a way out of her birth control
dilemma she is likely to resort to rationalizations such as, "My
doctor says that's not so and my minister (or priest) never said
anything about it."  The anti-abortion Christian physician who
has lots of women on the Pill may be sickened by the realization
that it's a matter of statistical certainty that for every seven
women he has on the Pill, one of them will have a Pill-induced
early abortion each year.  For every 100 women he (or she) has on
the Pill, that's more than one abortion each month, and that's
very hard to take for someone who calls himself or herself
"pro-life."

THE WAY OUT OF THE DILEMMA

     Ever since late 1971 the Couple to Couple League has been
helping couples of good will get out of this dilemma by teaching
them natural family planning (NFP).  It is simply amazing that so
much ignorance about NFP still exists, but few couples know about
NFP in any realistic way unless that have attended NFP classes or
read good NFP materials.  This is not the place to describe NFP,
but one thing needs to be said:  my experience indicates that
former users of the Pill are among the most enthusiastic users of
NFP and that they tend to praise the marriage-building aspects of
NFP even more than couples who have never used unnatural methods
of birth control.

     In the last year, we have been hearing from doctors who are
abandoning their former practice of prescribing the Pill for
birth control.  One West Coast physician ordered 100 of the
recently published CCL Home Study Course for Natural Family
Planning since he didn't have a CCL teacher in the area to whom
he could make referrals.  I think that one reason we are hearing
more from doctors is the teaching of a Protestant evangelical
layman who gives many conferences in which he reaffirms authentic
Christian teaching on love, marriage and sexuality.

HEALING AND RECONCILIATION

     In addition to turning to the chaste practice of NFP after
getting off the Pill, the couple who have been on the Pill need
to admit their sinfulness and be reconciled with God.  They need
to admit to themselves and to God the possibility that their use
of the Pill has caused an early abortion.  Like every person who
has caused an abortion, they need to apologize to that tiny, tiny
baby, and they certainly need to ask God's forgiveness and
healing.  This is not something to be morbid about.  That's one
of the many beauties of our Christian faith.  Jesus has taken our
sins upon himself and died to save us.  On the other hand, if we
do not come to grips with our sins and admit our sinfulness,
then  in the words of St. John, "we are liars."

     They also need to do penance.  One way to do this is to go
out of their way to tell others about ;the abortifacient nature
of the Pill and about the Christian alternative--Natural Family
Planning.

     Practical help with NFP is available for anyone in the
English speaking world by writing the Couple to Couple League,
Box 111184, Cincinnati, OH  45211, or calling [phone].

REFERENCES

<1>  John Peel and Malcolm Potts, TEXTBOOK OF CONTRACEPTIVE
PRACTICE (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1969), p. 99.

<2>  "We are close to lowest steriod dosage in the Pill," a
report on the work of Dr. Nine van der Vange, NEWS AND VIEWS,
excerpts of the Second Annual Meeting of the Society for the
Advancement of Contraception in Jakarta, Indonesia, November
26-30, 1984.

<3>  J.C. Barrett and J. Marshall, "The risk of conception on
different days of the menstrual cycle,"  Population Studies 23
(1959), pp. 455-461.

__________________________________________________________________


John F. Kippley is President of the Couple to Couple League.

Reprinted with permission from American Life League's "About Issues"
P.O. Box 1350, Stafford, VA 22554