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.
