Dear beloved sisters and brothers in Christ,

On Wednesday, May 10, a panel of advisors to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) voted unanimously to make the birth-control drug, Opill, available to consumers over-the-counter in the United States. In response to the FDA panel’s recommendation, Bishop Robert E. Barron of Winona-Rochester, and chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth, urged the government agency to reject this advice as “not good medicine” and continue their efforts to protect women’s health.

“It is concerning that the FDA has a recommendation before it to approve over-the-counter hormonal contraception when there is strong evidence of the many harmful risks to women’s health.” In May 2022, the FDA acknowledged the risks of breast cancer with hormonal contraceptive use when it quietly changed the safety protocols for prescribing, as well as information that should be in the inserts when the prescription is dispensed to patients.

Bishop Barron continued, “Fertility is a gift, not a disease. Contraceptives exist to suppress the healthy functions of human reproduction. The mounting evidence of the many harmful side effects of hormonal contraceptives demonstrates that they are not good medicine. And yet, now the FDA is faced with the decision on whether to allow access to hormonal contraception without medical supervision. Allowing this to go forward is antithetical to the Hippocratic Oath that guides physicians to first ‘do no harm,’ and I urge the FDA reject this recommendation.”

Attorney and law professor Elizabeth Kirk discussed the federal court cases dealing with the chemical abortion drug mifepristone. The podcast fascinated me with how the courts were adjudicating the regulatory process and the claims about oral contraceptives. Bioethics on Air: Episode 112: Chemical Abortion and the Courts — The National Catholic Bioethics Center (ncbcenter.org)

There is a better way than drugs harmful to women’s health. Natural Family Planning (NFP) is the general title for the scientific, natural, and moral methods of family planning that can help married couples either achieve or postpone pregnancy. NFP methods are based on the observation of the naturally occurring signs and symptoms of the fertile and infertile phases of a woman's menstrual cycle. Since the methods of NFP respect the love-giving (unitive) and life-giving (procreative) nature of the conjugal act, they support God's design for married love.

(Questions about Natural Family Planning abound. Is NFP based on guesswork? Isn’t it the same as the failed rhythm method? How effective is it? Click to find the facts What is Natural Family Planning? | USCCB)

For those wanting more than the consumer approach to sex and contraception, the church holds up a vision of married life. The 2009 Pastoral Letter, Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan, presents marriage as a natural gift, as a sacrament, and as a public commitment between a man and a woman. Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan | USCCB

Blessing a married couple is something I really enjoy. It witnesses to God’s love for us. The man and woman say together, “Blessed are you, Lord, for in the good and the bad times of our life you have stood lovingly by our side. Help us, we pray, to remain faithful in our love for one another, so that we may be true witnesses to the covenant you have made with humankind.” Let me know if you have a 25^th or 50^th anniversary that we might commemorate at Mass dscotchie@nativity.org. 

Blessed Easter,

Father David