Another example of our culture's devaluation of women

Please read the following:

http://www.babycenter.com/204_fda-panel-supports-new-sterilization-method-for-women_5226215.bc

FDA panel supports new sterilization method for womenFri, Dec 14, 2007 (HealthDay) —

A new method for sterilizing women — which would provide an alternative to tubal ligation — should be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, an advisory panel to the agency recommended Thursday.This new approach, which takes about 15 minutes to accomplish, involves the use of radio signals to create a lesion inside the fallopian tube, the Associated Press reported.

Doctors use a catheter to place a soft material — smaller than a grain of rice — into the fallopian tube. Healthy tissue grows on and around the material and blocks the tube.The product, called Adiana, is made by Hologic Inc. of Bedford, Mass, which promotes it as a low-risk procedure that can be performed in a doctor's office. According to study data in FDA documents, the efficacy rate for Adiana is 98.9 percent, the AP reported.

By a 10-3 vote, the FDA's Obstetrics and Gynecology Devices Panel recommended that Adiana be approved for use in the United States. But the panel attached certain conditions, including follow-up of patients treated with Adiana. The FDA isn't required to follow the advice of its advisory panels, but usually does.
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This article was posted on a popular mother/baby/pregnancy site that I have subscribed to, http://www.babycenter.com/. When I read this article, I couldn't help but be disgusted. To me, nothing screams anti-family or anti-women more loudly than sterilization. Although many women do this, it just doesn't make sense to me why any woman would want to take her healthy, functioning body and destroy an essential part of it. I realize society places a high value on infertility (as long as it is intended infertility) and many women buy into this ideology - but it just doesn't make sense to me.

It is the easy out - instead of having self-control of our bodies and desires, women (often times influenced by men) many times rush off to have our bodies mutated and purposely cause them to malfunction. Society has devalued children and the family so much, that introducing foreign and unnatural objects and chemicals into the female body is considered a better alternative than either having children or having self control.

Did you know that a woman is only fertile for 12 hours per monthly cycle? There are completely natural and scientific ways to track this fertility to a point where a woman can know with 99.9% certainty when she has ovulated, and when she is fertile (one example - completely scientific and medically developed, is here if you're interested http://www.creightonmodel.com/). If a woman is wanting to avoid pregnancy, her (and her partner) simply have to demonstrate self-control for a few short days out of the month and this method is effective. No foreign chemicals, surgical proceedures or unnatural practices have to be used. There is no risk to a woman's health, no side effects, and no potential harm to a woman's future fertility in this method. Additionally, there is no cost involved, compared to the thousands a woman spends a year purchasing birth control pills, patches, etc. In a society that is so readily absorbed with what is "organic" and "natural" - one would think many more women would embrace this type of birth control method. Then again, I guess abstaining from sexual intercourse a few days out of the month is just too much for our generally self-absorbed society (men included!).

I wonder how long so many women will buy into the cliche that they need to stop their bodies from functioning properly and that they need to keep popping pills and devices that make a healthy female body malfunction in order to please the men in their lives or the norms of society. A woman doesn't have to have 50 kids. She doesn't have to have any if she doesn't want to. She also doesn't have to pump her body full of medications or undergo medical procedures that will "treat" a healthy body in order to stop it from functioning in normal, healty patterns. There are natural and healthy ways to guard against pregnancy if so desired, and I often wonder how many damaging side-effects of unnatural birth control methods have to harm women before the natural methods are embraced.

Your fertility is not a disease. You are a woman, and you are made with the wonderful ability to form and help create new life inside you if you so desire. Don't let society tell you that your unique femininity is a malady or disorder.

Infanticide and abortion responsible for 60 million girls missing in Asia

"This is a form of abortion that, from our point of view is especially egregious. Abortion is claimed to help women; obviously in these cases, females are the direct victims, because women in these cultures are not valued."

-Wanda Franz, president of the National Right to Life Committee

Read this article on Fox News: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,281722,00.html

The above article is shocking. It's horrific. It's infuriating. And it's happening all over the world. How can this happen in civilized society? Simple - we live in a culturally selfish and life-devouring world. Human life is no longer valued, and our humanity is no longer an esteemed common bond we share from person to person. How tragic is this for the human race?

Money rules out life. Material objects hold more value and importance than families. Children and even grandchildren are viewed as burdensome, and the honor and joy that new life brings is no longer apparent in the family.

It used to be that children were a blessing. For women, bearing children was a great honor, and families who had children were considered wealthy. The family WAS the wealth of the "family" - the material items were secondary. What happened to the values, and destroyed the family? Just look at Luke 23:27-31 (as Christ was being lead to his crucifixion):

27 A large crowd of people followed Jesus, including many women who mourned and lamented him.
28 Jesus turned to them and said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep instead for yourselves and for your children,
29 for indeed, the days are coming when people will say, 'Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed.'
30 At that time people will say to the mountains, 'Fall upon us!' and to the hills, 'Cover us!'
31 for if these things are done when the wood is green what will happen when it is dry?"

(see entire passage here, New American Bible: http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/luke/luke23.htm)

How scary and truly sad is it that this day is here, 2000 years after Christ's death? This is not just a third-world phenomenon, nor an issue that exists only in the Asian countries that were specifically noted in the article on Fox News. This is an every day event here in the United States, where abortion abounds and according to the Centers for Disease Control, there were 854,122 legal induced abortions in the US in 2003 alone. Abortion is not birth control. Abortion is not population control. Abortion is the killing of another human life. All people know that life begins at conception - it's a biological fact (regardless of many people choosing self-imposed ignornace - the denial of conception as the beginning of life despite scientific fact - in deciding their beliefs on this matter).

There is no set "age" that life becomes "more alive." There is no set time when a female life should mean less than a male life. To live life, humans must give life. We must give love. We must love each other, more than we love wealth and material goods. If you don't believe me, why don't you wait a few years and ask her:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,288168,00.html
(Baby Girl Buried Alive in India Survives After Farmer Sees Hand Sticking Out of Ground)

Father God, please protect the innocent, and forgive our nations for injuring and killing those who are the most vulnerable - they know not what they do. Open our eyes and hearts to love, and grant us peace. Amen.

"How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these."

- George Washington Carver