Feminists Hate Women and "Susan G Komen" is a Feminist

Well, this is surprising! Planned Parenthood and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation are in ca-hoots:

October has been designated Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and greater awareness is certainly needed... Unfortunately, for some groups, when it comes to breast cancer, it is “Selective Awareness” month.

The National Cancer Institute (part of the National Institutes of Health) and some groups with an interest in “reproductive rights” or breast cancer research are keeping women in the dark about two risk factors for breast cancer: induced abortion and hormonal contraception.

The American Cancer Society, the National Cancer Institute and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation continue to deny the link between induced abortion and an increased risk of breast cancer. They make no effort to publicize (or they wholly ignore) the increased risk of breast cancer associated with oral contraceptive use.

The Komen Foundation affiliates (organizers of the “Race for the Cure” cash cow) go the extra 5K: It brings in about $200 million a year, expending three-quarters of that on breast cancer research grants, education, screening and treatment.

Yet, while ostensibly striving to eradicate breast cancer, Komen affiliates give about a half million dollars each year to Planned Parenthood.

Komen’s president and board members, many of whom have extensive links to Planned Parenthood, seem oblivious to this manifest cooperation with evil and to the quintessential irony of giving generously to the nation’s leading abortion chain and cut-rate contraception source. How exactly will that reduce breast cancer rates?

Even medical textbooks are not immune to this truth.

In The Breast, Drs. Kirby Bland and Edward Copeland explain why having a full-term pregnancy early in one’s reproductive years — universally recognized as a factor decreasing breast cancer risk — is not listed in their table of preventive factors: “Unplanned early pregnancy and an average of more than two completed pregnancies per woman have undesirable social and ecological consequences.”

Here, questionable sociology and a zero population-growth agenda have replaced medical decision making and the need for informed consent.

It’s also curious that groups like the National Cancer Institute readily draw attention to inconvenient facts, but then stop short of pointing out the inescapable conclusions to be drawn from those facts.

Premature delivery before 32 weeks more than doubles breast cancer risk, as does induced abortion before 32 weeks — and abortion’s effect increases in proportion to the length of pregnancy before that abortion.

In the Handbook of Diseases of the Breast (2nd ed., 1998), J.M. Dixon et al calculate that oral contraceptives increase the risk of breast cancer by 30%. They then conclude that “considering the benefits of the pill,” this “slight” increase is not significant.

But women who develop breast cancer from this cause would probably consider it highly, even mortally, significant. The authors’ table of factors with “no effect” on breast cancer risk even includes oral contraceptives and induced abortion, contradicting their own estimate of a 30% higher risk.

[Emphasis mine]

When I was in college, studying to be a full-time feminist, it was jammed down my throat how the medical community (run by evil white men) was afraid of and therefore hated the female body. Statistics on the number of routine hysterectomies; the number of deaths reportedly linked to back-alley abortions (in the days before Roe v. Wade); and the disastrous effects of women having little to no access to birth control were waved angrily in my face -- as well as the faces of the other unsuspecting students. Like sheep, we blindly accepted the ideals and "data" from the Radical Feminist agenda. So I spent most of my college years pursuing that agenda, simply because I had been indoctrinated early and often and because no competing views were allowed on my campus.

But even before I became a committed Christian, I started to notice the effects of letting nature do her thing. As a pagan New-Ager, I was close friends with more than one couple who considered birth control an invasion of the natural rhythms of their bodies. Common wisdom spoke loudly to refute the idea that a foreign chemical taken in inappropriate doses was bound to backfire -- however similar to something naturally produced in the body.

Women were made (or evolved, depending on your point of view) to menstruate and give birth. The only reasons nature allows for the interruption of menses are pregnancy and menopause. And the only interruption of pregnancy it allows is spontaneous abortion -- an occurrence that almost always happens through the body's need to preserve the life of the mother or because the forming baby is profoundly flawed.

Really and truly, it doesn't take a spiritual person to understand this. Even if you are an atheist and big supporter of Darwinism, you can see how leaving nature alone to do what nature does perfectly makes all the sense in the world. Being a serious Catholic only helps one to see this in an even clearer light.

So as a sort of "new radical feminist" who believes in the sanctity of and right to life, I can only draw an inevitable conclusion. All the Women's Rights activists (of the stripe I was in my college days) who cart the "right to control their bodies" around like it's some inalienable gift from Darwin -- THEY are the ones who fear and hate the female body. THEY are the ones who despise the pregnant shape; the sanctity of motherhood; the fears and trials of menses, miscarriage and menopause; and the growth of the female body into something decidedly UN-manlike.

Why else would their feminine ideal be a non-menstruating, non-pregnant, promiscuous, workaholic she-male whose morphology is that of an adolescent boy? They don't want women to be women -- they want women to be little men. With all the earmarks. Anything that stands in the way of that goal (like carrying a child to term) must be eliminated. And this agenda must not be stopped. Even if it kills them.

The Number 23

A fertility update from my Little Garden.

Welcome, Love!

This is the best news ever!

Bronwyn Therese was born at 7:32 this morning!
9 pounds, 2 ounces and 21.5 inches long.

I speechless with joy for Jennifer and Jim. After six miscarriages, they have the baby they've longed for. CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

Squishy Sacraments

We've been trying to have a baby for over a year; since January 2006. The medication (C*lomid) that my doctor put me on to "help things along" has not raised my levels significantly (from a 0.08 to a 0.15 -- with the goal being 15.00) so he raised the dosage and we're gonna' give it another go.

In the meantime, I'm getting all the things I can accomplished around the house; renovating, planting, cleaning, organizing. We still had a load of work left to do after we got married (like arranging picture albums, sorting through all sorts of brick-a-brack and hodge-podge) that I really have my hands full at the moment. Which is indeed good, I don't like sitting still. I like to get things DONE (which is probably why there are three stacks of books to be read beside my bed). But at the same time, I cannot help my longing for a child to care for and educate and watch grow... who has my husband's green eyes, I hope.

It occurred to me to ask our Deacon yesterday after 8:00 AM Mass about receiving the anointing of the sick. I told him our situation and he said I certainly "qualified". I asked when I might be able to receive it and he said to ask both our priests, but explained that our rector, the guy in charge, would probably not be able to do it because he's usually so busy. He instead suggested we ask the "junior" priest (who is in his 50's, ironically). I wouldn't mind asking either of them, they're both incredible.

So Tef and I scooted out the side of the cathedral and made way for the next wave of parishioners who were easing in early for the 9:30 Mass. Who should be coming out the door but our sweet, smiling rector? He thanked us for a gift we'd given the church a couple weeks earlier and we made small talk. I knew this would be a good opportunity to inquire about the anointing but didn't want to impose, especially with 9:30 Mass getting ready to start. But my husband's Yankee ingenuity stood up and asked for me.

"Well, when would you like to be anointed?" our father asked.

I shrugged cheerfully, "Whenever... I'm open."

"Why don't we do it now then?"

So we did. He went to get the necessaries and then he, Deacon, Tef and I stood in a little huddle on the sidewalk on that glorious spring morning and I was anointed in Christ's name for healing. It was quiet and peaceful and... perfect.

I've been anointed before -- Pentecostals will use any excuse to anoint anyone for anything. But I'd always been anointed under the impromptu declaration of a man's prayer who was himself willing a thing to happen. The force of his prayer was presumably what would do the healing, not the anointing itself. Or so it seemed.

This was not like that. This was a well-mapped prayer whose effectiveness rode on the shoulders of the Anointing and the name of Him in Whom it was offered. Our father was just there to carry it out through the benefits of his office.

The Mass is the same way. It doesn't rely on the priest so much as it does the actual service. I might go so far as to say that it doesn't matter who is officiating... but I won't. Different priests can do well or poorly. But the words themselves cannot be changed or rearranged to mean or impart anything else than Christ. Maybe that's why I've been so surprised by the number of joyful, surprised tears I've shed since we started attending Mass over a year ago. The quiet joy and holiness sneaks up on you. It doesn't announce itself and declare that you acknowledge it, it steals into your heart like a lover.

Here's praying with hope that the Lover's anointing has healed its beloved.

Girl Talk: Fertility Update

*NOTE TO STINKY BOYS: This is the girls' treehouse. No boys allowed. Unless you want to be dressed up like a pretty, pretty princess and have your hair styled with glitter hairspray.*

Allllrighty!

So we've been trying for a bebe for over a year. And my body is non-compliant. So we've had to have all sorts of tests run... Which is a grrrreat hobby to pass the time. (Knitting? Why no, I think I'll take blood-letting and exhibitionism, thanks!)

So yesterday was the followup after all the inn-spectin', inn-jectin', ne-glectin' and seee-lectin'. My doc, Dr. F, put me on a five-day (non-contraceptive) progesterone pill to start my period. Since today is day 53 without one. On day five of my impending period I start taking Clomid for five more days.

Days 10-16 should be a riot... Or a parched and weary death march with obligatory I.V. drip.

On day 21 of my cycle, I go in for more bloodwork to see where my progesterone levels are. "15" is the optimum. My past bloodwork revealed mine to be at 0.08 (which, incidentally, is the same level Dr. F.'s wife's was before she got pregnant with their second son). If it's "15" or higher, then Dr. F. will keep me on the same Clomid strength I'm on and we'll just see what pans out. If it's not, he'll start raising the strength of the Clomid to get me there. There are three strengths of Clomid, but most people usually see results without having to go all the way up to the maximum. But should we max out, there is also another medication that works like Clomid, but is stronger and uses a different "stimulator" to achieve ovulation.

The progesterone pills and the Clomid have been known to make women woozy and light-headed. All the side effects on the bottle are similar to what you'd have if you came down with a case of RAGING PMS. Fun, right? So I'm going to try to take it easy this week. (And, um, say a prayer for Tef.)

One of my friends had to do this exact same thing. And it worked. She has a beautiful one-and-a-half year old daughter to show for it. And she has had two surprise pregnancies since then without the use of Clomid (the latter of which is a boy, due in July). Her story, along with several others, leads me to think that Clomid might just be the little kick in the pants some women's bodies need to get them on track and that it picks up the slack after the birth of the first child. At least that's what I hope.


Last Friday I was shopping with my BFF and her Mom, Miz L., for a mother-of-the-bride outfit. We were in a large department store's dress section. While we were mocking all the prom dresses which had been herded together in a cornucopia of technicolor nausea, I almost stepped on something.

"Aw... somebody lost their binky!" I shuffled a blue pacifier lying on the floor with the toe of my shoe. Miz L. and my BFF and both cooed an "awww" in unison. I reached down and picked it up. It had little bears on it.

Suddenly Miz L. burst out, "It's a good omen! It's the gypsy in me... Sorry." I raised a sarcastic eyebrow. She insisted "It is!" She's a straight-laced fundamentalist with a crazy old alcoholic mother who insists somewhere in her family line there was a speck of a drop of gypsy blood. Nanna Ginblossom capitalizes on that fantasy as much as she can, to the chagrin of the rest of the family. We all started laughing hysterically. And wondered aloud where the crying baby was who'd lost his blue bear binky.

But I took it home anyway. I washed it and put it in the bud vase on my kitchen windowsill. It reminds me of my hope.

And it reprimands me when I think I might not be ready for children. That we might be too busy or too important to another ministry or cause. That I'm just fooling myself when I say I want a child. That my body might be right. It might be the manifestation of the spiritual reality that I'm unfit to carry a child. So I shouldn't want it. I don't really. I'm fine. I'll just get a dog. Or volunteer at a charity. That will fix the longing in my soul for something to love and nurture and cuddle. That will make the smell of baby powder and the sound of lullabyes an impotent threat.

Little blue bears and baby powder. The tears they bring are worth the reminder.