Never mind.

He told us there was a name for women using the rhythm method:

Mothers

Like it or not, hormonal contraception isn't for every woman. I never thought about it this way, but it is rather ironic that some of the same women who insist on hormone-free meat are simultaneously ingesting hormones into their own bodies every day! As an alternative to the Big Pharma lifestlye, a number of women have discovered fertility awareness methods. These methods require women to become more aware of and monitor the hormonally-induced changes that occur across the menstrual cycle.

Unfortunately, the FDA has been slow to catch on to the "fertility awareness" concept. Persona, a fertility monitor approved as a contraception method in Europe, monitors hormone levels in urine samples to predict when women are most likely to become pregnant with unprotected intercourse. If women in the United States had access to this form of contraception, imagine how many might give up the Pill!

We thought we were very good about natural family planning. We even persuaded friends to use it.

Then we found we were infertile.

We got pregnant through fertility treatment. We let our friends know, very early, mostly because they had been at our place the day we got the call from the clinic telling us that we should turn up NOW.

Four weeks later, our friends called us, to let us know they were (ahem) unexpectedly pregnant....

While putting hormones or other meds in one's body is of concern, I doubt that is the real motive behind the "organic sex" people.

Someone needs to ask them if they intend for a total organic live. Organic sex followed by organic pregnancy and childbirth. Then raise their children organically. And all healthcare be organic.

Or is it just sex that will be organic?

As the Church Lady used to say, " Isn't that special!

The use of the word "Organic" as an entry point here is nothing especially new.

The history of Christianity's appropriating the language of its rivals in order to defeat them is long and storied. Back in the day, Christian arguers learned to use the style and formal elements of Socratic dialog.

The fact that they're denying any connection to religion would also be par for this intellectually disingenuous course. Creationists cloak their "intelligent design" Trojan horse in the language of biology, and deny being motivated by religion at all. It's the same watch-watchmaker argument made since before Darwin, wearing new clothes and disavowing its true motives to get its foot in the door.

This technique is proven and, uh, fertile. One wonders what'll be next. In the 90s we had flyers for an "extreme" church, with a cross in the place of the "x" there, in my neighborhood.

What could be more "organic" than cervical mucus?

We Catholics can always tell when the person analyzing various methods of natural family-planning is (a) not Catholic; (b) basically hostile or clueless; (c) some combination of the aforementioned. Why? Because anyone who has gone through Pre-Cana (Catholic pre-marriage counseling) over the last several decades knows that the "rhythm" (that is, calendar-based) method was abandoned in favor of other natural methods years ago! Listen to any with-it Catholic talk about NFP; words like "sympto-thermal," "mucous," or other words will be prominent, but the "R" word will not, unless perhaps ironically.

As is black and blue cohosh brewed in vodka, raspberry leaf extract, and pennyroyal, all of which conveniently usher out unwanted blastocysts. Or we could continue using the hormonal methods that are safer, more reliable, and prevent conception in the first place. Up to them, I suppose, because "organic" abortifacients will be available whether these wingnuts outlaw the "artificial" kinds or not. (And what about the logical notion that NFP results in more deadend conceptions than artificial methods? Wow, maybe this crowd really [i]isn[/i] the church in disguise! Nah.)

Come to think of it, scarring is a healthy organic response to certain stimuli, so surgical sterilization methods are quite appropriate. No icky chemicals pumped in for the long run. (Actually, I agree with this argument, I prefer sterilization to hormonal methods, but I don't want a second child.) And while it isn't "organic" in the food sense, copper [i]is[/i] quite natural, so a copper IUD is certainly allowable by these arguments.

So it [i]is[/i] a little amusing that folks disinclined to consume hormones in their food will take hormones specifically, but after the laugh it makes sense. The hormones in our food weren't exactly designed for people, and putting a whole slew of chemicals into your system without at least quantifying the amount seems cavalier. Hormones in our pills are designed for humans and tested directly on humans, not to mention we know exactly how much we're getting rather than guessing by the size of the porterhouse. At this point in time, enjoying a complicated pregnancy, I want to go live on a mountaintop far from hormones of any description.

It's pesticide-free sex between carbon-based life forms!

Seriously, this seems to be an attempt to sell Catholic Church-approved natural family planning to the crunchy granola set, capitalizing on the current craze for anything labeled "organic." Who knows, some couples may actually go for it, especially if they've had problems with hormone-based contraception.

However, I have a feeling that sustainably-produced organic latex condoms would be far more popular.

Only orgainically-raised, non-hormone-injected, grass-fed lambie-lambs will offer up their wee hides to make my condoms, you betcha!

Although hang on, isn't latex a plant product (it's tree sap, right)? Maybe Trojan and Lifestyles can start a Fair Trade or Sustainable Agriculture movement a la coffee companies, and put a little green tree on the side of their boxes. I smell profit!

They will never know the joy of choosing just one partner and saving sex for procreation.

Verily, they wear out their holes in a quest for love they never find.

Latex, me thinks, shall not save them.

without the plastic wrap.

Research published in 2003 showed women ovulate more than once a month, which explains how women were getting pregnant on "rhythm method."

Now, new research finds that the rhythm method kills more embryos than oral contraceptives or other means. Here's the report by Emma Dickinson on the study:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=44022

"'Rhythm Method' May Kill Off More Embryos Than Other Methods Of Contraception" May 25, 2006