Modern
Society,
the Media and Imposed Ideologies
Throughout human history the
traditional culture and political stability of nations
have been disturbed by ideologies imposed by a despotic
Government, or by fashions of thought and behaviour or
which have attracted enthusiastic support from an ovine
group of individuals whose opinions are essentially
determined by the media. One such phenomenon evident in
modern society is the idea that objective morality does
not exist, that moral judgements are all to be promoted
and defended as matters of personal opinion and that laws
can be justified only when based on a community
consensus. This would mean that inalienable human rights
could no longer have any permanent existence since it is
those who have no firm moral principles who can be so
easily manipulated by the media or even by deceptive
propaganda vigorously promoted by small but
well-organised social groups. All of this should remind
us that if individuals are to assume full responsibility
for their existence they must first learn the difficult
art of thinking in the right way and with their own mind.
In this way superstition, immorality and fanaticism can
be reduced or eliminated from society and be replaced by
good order, justice and true freedom.
This contemporary
philosophy which can be simply expressed as "I will
do as I like" has inevitably led to widespread
immorality manifested in different ways, such as
dishonesty in business affairs, resistance to an
equitable sharing of the goods of the earth, cruel
dictatorships and sexual promiscuity. All of these
influences lead to the corruption of society. One
manifest evil is the demand for the abolition of all
censorship, even that designed to protect children and
adolescents, so that blasphemous and grossly indecent
art, films, magazines and books are displayed everywhere
and spread by radio and television, accompanied by the
absurd defence that "if you don't like it you don't
have to look or listen". Even the fundamental right
to life is denied especially to the unborn child, but
also by terrorism and other violence, including the
execution of political opponents. Perhaps the saddest of
all is the attack made on what Pope John Paul has called
"the genius of women", meaning all of those
admirable qualities that are particularly evident as
characteristic of the human female, by the aggressive
agenda of radical feminism which would have women deny
those talents and virtues which play such a part in
establishing a caring society, a society that is truly
human.
Promote
the Dignity and the Rights of Women
Men and women must unite to
promote the dignity and the rights of women, including
the provision of proper health care, meaning all that is
necessary to protect her physical, psychological,
emotional, spiritual social well-being.
The health care must
include reference to Female Reproductive Health, which
means preservation or restitution of her ability to
conceive and bear a child, what is called in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights the obligation to
give "special care and assistance to
motherhood". This means that all women should have
access to competent obstetrical and gynaecological
services, which include appropriate care of the child in
the uterus and assistance to establish breast-feeding of
the child after birth. A repulsive element of the
ideology of radical feminism is the demand to accept
induced abortion as a universal human right, often
euphemistically described as "access to safe
abortion", which does not exist. Abortion is
obviously not safe for the child but it is also
physically and psychologically damaging to the woman,
producing immediately a radical disturbance of the
hormonal levels existing during pregnancy, a disturbance
which does not occur in such a violent, abrupt way in the
case of spontaneous miscarriage of a pregnancy.
Furthermore, as is being more and more realised all over
the world, women who submit or are forced to endure
induced abortion always know that they have become the
mother of a dead child, to whose death they may have
unfortunately acceded. There is also the serious risk of
remorse and sorrow of the post-abortion syndrome which
may endure for the rest of the woman's life, in many
cases being so severe as to lead to suicide. Her
frustration and anger are even greater when the induced
abortion has resulted in permanent sterility. Respect for
women's dignity demands that the health of the whole
woman be addressed and that all women should be helped to
fulfil the vocation they desire and their mission in the
world to make human relations more honest and authentic.
Pope John Paul wrote in his "Letter to Women"
on the eve of the Fourth World Conference on Women held
in Beijing in September 1995, "Women's dignity has
often been unacknowledged and their prerogatives
misrepresented; they have often been relegated to the
margins of society and even reduced to servitude. This
has prevented women from truly being themselves and it
has resulted in a spiritual impoverishment of
humanity".
Modern Natural Family
Planning Benefits Female Reproductive Health
There are many reasons why
modern scientific natural family planning, such as the Billings Ovulation Method (BOM), is of benefit to Female
Reproductive Health, when a woman and her husband have
the need to regulate their fertility. Contraceptive
medication administered as pills, implants or injections is
intended to castrate the woman by preventing ovulation
and to achieve this the medication must produce a serious
disturbance of the normal reproductive physiology. The
normal menstrual cycle is suppressed but this effect is
concealed by the manipulated uterine bleeding produced by
the medication. Conception may also be prevented by
damage to the cervix of the uterus so that the
normal, healthy secretions essential for sperm survival
and sperm transport are blocked, and there is also damage
to the endometrium so that if the sterilising or
contraceptive effects mentioned do not operate there is a
disturbance of implantation of the embryo in the uterus
so that it may be destroyed following conception. It is
not surprising that such medication produces a great
variety of complications, many of a serious nature and
these are well known. The efficacy of the BOM in its
application for the avoidance of pregnancy is greater
than most modern birth-control techniques, such as the
condom, the diaphragm, the intra-uterine device and
withdrawal, and is not exceeded by any method of
contraceptive medication or surgical sterilisation. This
success means that the woman is protected from persuasion
to submit to induced abortion following the pregnancies
which occur with these other methods. The BOM has also
proved superior to the modern reproductive technologies
in assisting the apparently infertile couple to achieve a pregnancy, and this will protect the
woman from the harmful effects of super-ovulation, which
is so often used in association with these other methods.
Diagnosis
of Developing Disorders
- Understanding the Menstrual Cycle
The woman also benefits from the
deeper understanding of her menstrual cycle which results
from instruction in the natural method and this means
that she now has a diagnostic reference of normality when
such disorders develop as certain ovarian cysts, vaginal
infections and so on. The woman will always know the day
in the cycle when she conceives a child and this will
provide for an accurate calculation of the expected date
of delivery 266, plus or minus 6 days, from the day
of conception, a much more accurate indicator of the
expected date of delivery than reference to the
commencement of menstruation in the cycle in which she
conceived. The day of maximum fertility is precisely
indicated by observation of the cervical mucus pattern, particularly a slippery,
lubricative mucus over a few days close to ovulation, associated with an observable
soft swelling of the vulva for one or two days at that
time. Even in the presence of a vaginal infection,
perhaps associated with a chronic discharge, the woman
can still learn to identify the days of possible
fertility and the day of maximum fertility in the cycle,
with the help of a competent teacher. The accurate
determination of the expected date of delivery of a child
is protective both of mother and child, helping to
prevent misguided interference with the pregnancy
following the diagnosis of prematurity or post-maturity
arising from unreliable calculations.
Dignity and Marriage
Teachers of the BOM are ready to
teach anyone who asks for the information. Every woman
has a right to this knowledge because it helps her to
develop deeper insights to what it means to be a woman.
As the young girl is maturing she is usually informed by
her mother or some other person caring for her that she
will soon begin to menstruate. She should also be
informed that she may notice some days on which this
mucus substance is leaving the body, often before she has
observed any bleeding at all, and therefore become
alarmed about the possibility of infection or some other
abnormality. The information should be combined with an
explanation of her fertility, especially that sexual
maturity will mean that she will then be able to become a
mother. This helps her to negotiate the sometimes stormy
years of adolescence and achieve psychological maturity
with a clear understanding of the fact that a woman is
truly a wonderful creature. She will then be able to take
this knowledge into marriage, instructing her husband
that she is able to recognise days on which she cannot
become pregnant, those on which she may become pregnant,
and the day on which pregnancy is most likely to follow
and act of sexual intercourse. The young couple is then
able to respond to this communication by sharing the
responsibility of deciding the family size they are
anxious to achieve, without any drugs, appliances or
surgical procedures. There is an ecology of the body as
well as an ecology of the environment and women have
become very aware of the considerable discomfort and even
grievous harm that may be caused by modern drugs.
It is unfortunate that
many young people as the present time become involved in
genital relationships before marriage, which often lead
to great emotional distress, particularly for the young
woman, when she discovers that the young man for whom she
may have felt considerable affection has really thought
of her mainly as a sexual object and is now seeking new
liaisons. Many of the young people are already afraid to
commit themselves to marriage because of the immorality
and family disintegration they have observed in the older
generations. They are now even more afraid, as a result
of their own experience. When they develop an attachment
that makes them think again about marriage they are
greatly encouraged by the reaction of the young male to
whom she explains the story of her fertility and
discovers that he is quite ready to accept the gently
discipline of the BOM, of waiting without intercourse for
some days whenever they have decided that it is a time
for pregnancy to be postponed.
The woman's cycle is
manifesting those days on which nature is telling her
about each day in the cycle, those days of infertility
before the beginning of the fertile phase, the fertile
phase itself including the peak of fertility and the time of ovulation, and
therefore the further time of infertility between the
fertile phase and the subsequent menstruation. She soon
learns that this sequence recurs in every fertile cycle,
whether the cycles are regular or not, and thus gains
complete confidence in this simple way of regulating
fertility. Those who have reached the conclusion that
this wonderful world in which we live and the many
wonderful human beings who inhabit it would not be here
at all were it not for the existence of an intelligent
Creator will turn their minds quickly from Nature to the
Author of Nature and be thankful for the messages that
were implanted in her body at the time when the first
woman was made.
Now the woman has
attained a deep perception of her dignity as a woman and
when the man learns the extraordinary information about
her fertility and its recognisable bodily signs he
develops a new appreciation of the respect to which she
is entitled and thinks more of the loving care he wished
to give to her and to the children which they see in
their minds as they look into the future, knowing that
they will be the product of their love for each other.
The security and the
freedom that nature has provided occupies their minds
more than ever as their friendship and love matures and
expands into that special exclusive love that we call
conjugal love, such that they want to give themselves to
each other in marriage and remain faithful to each other
until death, because as the young often say they realise
that this love is "the real thing".
Equal
But Different
For the man the wonder continues as he thinks
more than ever before about the extraordinary role of the
woman that she will nourish within her own body the child
that she conceives, and even after birth will continue to
nourish the child who is the product of their love, with
milk from her breasts. It is perhaps now that the husband
comes to understand more the dignity and the role of the
man, particularly as the guardian of his wife and their
children, his responsibility to protect them, to provide
somewhere for them to live, to make sure that they are
properly nourished and that the children receive an good
education, to the extent that he sees in a new way that
it is also wonderful to be a man. He thinks how often the
woman's gift of motherhood is often penalised rather than
rewarded, even though humanity owes its very survival to
this gift. He recognises now how he must contribute, as a
matter of justice, to making sure that real equality
between men and women exists in every area of society.
All types of sexual violence must be vigorously condemned
just as the widespread hedonistic culture which
encourages the exploitation and is particularly directed
against women must be vigorously exposed wherever it
exists. Recognised within the Judaeo-Christian tradition
as "made in the image and likeness of God"
women and men both help us to understand the beauty of
every human person, but do so in a different and
complementary way.
Even those women who do
not bear children still retain what is truly to be
described, as a maternal instinct so that in whatever
work they undertake they will still exercise a kind of
psychological and spiritual motherhood, and bring to all
the enterprises in which they may become engaged, even
far removed from family life, a point of view and an
influence which is truly feminine. As a consequence they
make a contribution which would otherwise be lacking . It
is especially the woman who teaches us all to be
compassionate, to exercise care for the disadvantaged
people of the world, especially the children, reminding
us that we should all make an effort to undertake some
activities which can only be described as a service of
love. If this fact can be learned it will grow immensely
in stature and reveal the truth of the words of the
Second Vatican Council that human beings cannot fully
find themselves "except through a sincere gift of
self" (Gaudium et Spes, 24).
It is true that
feminine behaviour and temperament are sex-linked but
this does not preclude an intellectual contribution which
is not sex-linked. The women themselves must remember
that child-bearing is an attractive and indispensable
sex-linked role and that the status of women will be
improved by the women themselves fostering this role, not
by denying its existence. The woman should also recognise
that she is likely to have many productive years after
she has become unable to bear children any longer; she
can be sure that after the experience she has had of
training her children to be honest, compassionate,
unselfish and loving, she will find that she has acquired
talents which will stand to her advantage in whatever
occupation she may turn to later in life. If she and her
husband have determined the family size they deserve by
the use of natural family planning, she will recognise
that a natural method such as the BOM is a message of
love which has helped the husband and wife to be truly
healthy, recognising the respect and love they have for
each other, the generous efforts they have made for the
welfare of the whole family and that they are at ease
with their conscience because their good works have been
inspired by love of God and love for all mankind. They
know that any future pregnancy will be the result of
actions designed to give effect to decisions that they
have made together. In this way they will advance towards
old-age in robust health, physically, psychologically,
emotionally and spiritually, knowing that in their own
way they have contributed to the health and happiness of
the society in which they have lived.
How can you learn about the BOM?
Accredited Billings teachers
help individual couples manage their fertility naturally.
Contact a teaching Centre in your area, or direct your
inquiry to our online address (see Teaching Centres Around
the World for other addresses).
