Help Christine Taylor

Christine Taylor is a Iowa woman with two already-born children and one still unborn. Although the charges were dropped, she was accused of attempting feticide after she fell down the stairs. An example of how laws supposedly intended for fetal protection can backfire and criminalize women in difficult situations.

Taylor and her children are under a great deal of stress and have very limited support resources. She was recently a robbery victim. A local childbirth advocate and midwifery advocate is gathering donations to help the family.

Please help if you can!

What Prolife Means

Pro Life Means Guaranteed Maternity Care for All

RHRealityCheck.org: My Posts in the Common Ground Section

How to Stop the Abortion War Killings

Pro-Life, Pro-Contraception, & Pro-Tim Ryan

What the First Wave of Feminism Can Teach the First Wave of Commmon Ground

Progressive Prolife Thinking?

This article talks about how some Catholic & Evangelical abortion opponents want to keep legislation to help already pregnant women utterly separate from bills to promote contraceptive access...and then, it is not stated outright, they fail to support the latter:

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/god-and-country/2009/06/29/as-white-house-readies-abortion-plan-packaging-emerges-as-major-issue.html

Oh, I get it. They're separating out the Madonnas from the Whores!

The very same dividing up of womanhood that has caused many an abortion throughout history, on the part of women who have feared being hounded & ostracized & even outright lynched as Whores.

Foster Human-Friendly Prenatal & Childbirth Care Options

The Big Push for Midwives seeks to increase mother- and baby-friendly prenatal care and childbirth choices in the United States, where these choices remain scarce, especially for poor people & people of color.

The Big Push encourages good citizens to:
--Ask your Congresspeople to co-sponsor H.R. 2358/S. 1423, the Medicaid Birth Center Reimbursement Act.
--Ask then to include Certified Professional Midwives in Medicaid and any health care reform proposals.

You can contact your US Representatives and senators here.

Early Feminists & Reducing Abortion Today

A contribution to the new On Common Ground section of RHRealityCheck:


What the First Wave of Feminism Can Teach the First Wave of Common Ground

How to Afford Family Planning Despite the Economic Hard Times (US-Oriented)

A report by Kathy Lohr of National Public Radio discusses the problems that the economic downturn poses for access to family planning--and suggests that many people are considering abortion who might not have before.

So Nonviolent Choice would like to highlight some resources that can help people suffering from these hard times to still access good birth control and prevent undesired pregnancies and abortions. (This is limited to people in the US, unfortunately.)

--Educate yourself fully for free online about the different methods and the pros and cons (including the financial pros and cons) of each one with the resources in the Pregnancy Prevention section of our Directory.

--Might you be eligible for the Medicaid health insurance program for low-income people? In many states, family planning is a free benefit under Medicaid. Start by visiting the website of your state's Medicaid office.

--Title X is a national family planning program that serves mostly low-income and many uninsured Americans with affordable services. Find the Title X clinic nearest you.

--See if your state health department has any free or low-cost family planning services of its own.

--Whether or not you personally have trouble affording your birth control, take action to ensure that everyone in the US who wants it can get it. Please regularly visit the 2-Minute Activist at Cristina Page's Birth Control Watch to see all that you can do.

Contraceptive Funding & the Stimulus Package (US)

US anti-contraception forces decried the inclusion of expanded Medicaid funding for family planning in President Barack Obama's stimulus package. Many references were made to the "culture of death" and throwing out money to encourage feckless, trashy, welfare-scamming fornicators.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi did not help when she pointed out the costs savings in births of poor children from the contraceptive proposal. Low-income Americans do not care to hear what expensive and unnecessary burdens we and our kids are on the public purse, thank you very much.

But the dropping of the proposal from the stimulus package is something that merited opposition. Because low-income Americans deserve the same access to family planning services and abortion-reducing measures as everyone else--*not* because the country should be targeting poor people to limit our unseemly breeding.

The stimulus package has been finalized, so too late to call for action upon it. Damn.

Update later in the day: No, it isn't too late. There's still hope to expand Medicaid family planning funding through other means. Please send out this action alert letter from the National (US) Council of Jewish Women's Plan A for Contraceptive Access initiative. Thank you!

Our Current Action Alerts: Do Something Life-Affirming--Today!

Just to tell you about or remind you of our current action alerts. There's something here for just about everyone...

Help Reduce Abortion by Volunteering for Nonviolent Choice!

10 Ways To Make a Real Difference for USD$10 or Less

Abolish Violence Against Women and the Reproductive Wrongs It Causes

Amnesty International: Return to Abortion Neutrality

Baby Bottle Makers: Stop Poisoning Unborn & Already-Born Kids!

Become a Blood, Other Tissue, or Organ Donor (includes info on umbilical cord blood donation, and a plea to people from all communities of color in the US)

Boost Your Odds of Contraceptive Success

Call for Good Maternity Care in the Czech Republic

Child Abuse: You Can Do Something

Choose Alternatives to the Military

College Campuses: Make Them Welcome Places for Pregnant & Parenting Students and Their Kids!

Congo Rape Situation: Donate to A Hospital & Day Care for Survivors & Their Children (thanks, Turn the Clock Forward).

Defend College Students' and Low-Income Women's Right to Nonviolent Choice!

Demand Diaper Benefits for the Poor (US) and/or Organize a Diaper Drive

Educate Others-or Maybe Yourself?- About LGBT Justice

End "This Shameful Neglect" With the White Ribbon Alliance

Endorse UNIFEM's "Say NO to Violence Against Women" Petition

Ensure Access to Voluntary Sterilization (US)

Establish an Endowed Scholarship for Pregnant & Parenting Students

Female Feticide in India: Take A Stand

Get Up, Stand Up, for All Our Rights: Endorse Pro Every Life, Pro Woman, Pro Reproductive Justice for All: A Manifesto" (coponsored with Turn the Clock Forward)

Health Care Hell USA: Demand Universal Health Care With "Sicko" Director Michael Moore and Cover Poor Pregnant Women & Children With the Children's Defense Fund

Help Distribute A Global Family Planning Handbook (USD $10 per copy!)

Help Save the Lives of the 25,000 Already-Born Kids Who Die from Preventable Causes Every Day

Join the National (US) Council of Jewish Women's Plan A for Contraceptive Access & Defend Poor Americans' Family Planning Funding

Paid Sick Days, Anyone? (US)

Petition From Parents of People With Down Syndrome

Practice Eco Friendly Living

Protest Harassment of LGBT Youth

Reduce Mercury Exposure Before & After Birth

Save Title IX, the US Law Safeguarding Women's Equality in Education, Including the Rights of Pregnant & Parenting Students

Save Unborn & Already-Born Lives Through UNFPA

Stand in Solidarity With the Tibetan People

Stand Up For HIV/AIDS-Affected Women & Children

Stop PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride) Poisoning

Tokophobia: Dreadful, But Treatable

Violence Against Native American Women Is "Not Traditional"

New Scholarship for Pregnant & Parenting Students

The prolife student group at St. Louis University in Missouri is doing something truly deserving of the name prolife. It is establishing an endowed scholarship for pregnant and parenting students.

Now here is a fundraising goal that our readers are no doubt interested in helping the SLU students to achieve. So, why not contribute what you can?

And if your own current school or alma mater does not have help in abundance for its pregnant and parenting students, then it needs to. Right now. Why not raise the issue? Sadly enough, it could be that no one has. Yet.

Whatever its shortcomings in my personal opinion, Feminists for Life does offer an Evaluate Your Campus tool to find out just how friendly or unfriendly your school is to the pregnant and the parenting--and to identify the changes that need to be made.

Are Jennifer Baumgardner's Discoveries About Abortion and Prolife Feminism New?

Jennifer Baumgardner is a well-known US feminist who has published books on feminist organizing, "third wave" feminism, and bisexuality. She coproduced a documentary on prochoice women's abortion experiences and invented the "I Had an Abortion" T-shirt. She has just published Abortion and Life, a collection of women's narratives about their own abortions.

Although I have yet to read the book, I have read Mindy Van Deven's interview with her about it. The interview is entitled Can You Be A Feminist and Anti-Abortion?. The question is posed seriously, not rhetorically, and the answer, fortunately, is "a resounding yes" rather than the accustomed big fat NO.

Baumgardner shares some discoveries she has recently made about abortion from listening to women's experiences. She remains an abortion rights supporter, but some of her discoveries sound...well, rather familiar to my ears and the ears of a buncha people I know. And to our hearts.

• Considering such stories "rightwing propaganda," she previously was "resistant to hearing that a woman had a bad experience with her doctor or that she was extremely sad or had regrets about her abortion." Now she feels that such stories are real, if (to her view) in the minority, and "to suppress them or not want to hear them is a position of weakness."

• She now believes that the use of the term "fetus" as opposed to "child" is for many women who have had abortions "limiting and even alienating...I have met women who think of the child -- their word -- every year on the day it was due to be born...[W]omen write prayers to their unborn babies, asking them to be guardian angels."

• While she formerly thought abortion was "removing inanimate tissue," after witnessing abortion procedures, she now considers fetuses to be "human life." And she is "not cold" to the taking of their lives through abortion. She calls upon "pro-abortion people" to assume the "moral responsibility" of not shiedling themsleves from the "thornier or grislier aspects of abortion."

• She seriously acknowledges the existence of women who do recognizably feminist things like directing the "Vagina Monologues" or helping with Afghan girls' education, who have in some numbers asked her directly if they can identify as prolife on abortion and still be feminist. She has learned that they are not inquiring "whether bombing an abortion clinic can fall within the realm of feminism," but expressing and defending their serious concerns for the value of fetal life.

• Although she includes some points such as supporting early and medical abortions (?), she identifies the components of activism she would name as truly prolife feminist. These includes creating social supports for women who wish to raise their children; supporting contraception and comprehensive sex education; "actively condemn[ing] violence" against abortion providers; and "truly[ing] understand adoption, and work[ing] to make sure the birth mother has a voice." She concludes that "finding more and better ways" to be a prolife feminist "would be, in a word, revolutionary."

Although these insights may be new to Baumgardner, and perhaps others in her prochoice feminist circles, prolife feminists have been thinking, expressing, and taking action on these very realizations for centuries, very often in response to women's own stories of abortion and other difficult reproductive problems.

The Nonviolent Choice Directory, including this blog, is all about such "revolutionary" activism. The book it grew out of, ProLife Feminism Yesterday and Today, Second Expanded Edition, documents the long, rich, culturally, religiously and otherwise diverse herstory of prolife feminists.

But I don't think "who got here first?" is the most important question, even if it needs to be pointed out and backed up with extensive documentation.

The most important question is this: "Now that we're on the same page about so many vital points, how can we cooperate together to reduce abortion and otherwise promote reproductive justice?"

That's the one that ultimately will make the most difference to real-life, flesh-and-blood women and children, the already born and the unborn.

Towards Zero Preventable Child Deaths

A report from the United States Fund for UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, presents some very welcome news about already-born children's mortality. Since 1960, the global death rate of children under five has decreased by 60 percent.

In an email announcing the report, US Fund for UNICEF head Caryl Stern says this is reason to redouble systematic lifesaving efforts for the 25,000 children who are still lost worldwide every day. "These children are dying for reasons we can prevent. They do not have to die, but they do. I believe that number should be zero."

To support UNICEF's efforts "towards zero," please visit the US Fund's Donate by Program page.

In a post from January 23, 2008, this blog noted that both global child mortality and abortion rates were declining.

Could it be that measures which benefit already-born kids simultaneously benefit unborn children, and vice versa--contrary to the either/or, zero sum thinking of the US abortion debate and its exports?

And what if the approach of striving for zero preventable child deaths were applied more systematically to abortion and its root causes?

Incidentally, such an approach already meshes quite well with with global efforts to reduce maternal mortality.

The Prolife & Pro LGBT Group PLAGAL Joins the Blogosphere

While some antiabortionists are virulently LGBT-phobic, still others believe that prolife means the lives and wellbeing of LGBT persons as much as unborn children and pregnant women. A number of such prolifers are LGBT themselves.

Luckily there are friendly places online for LGBT and LGBT-allied prolifers. Nonviolent Choice is one of them. For example, we believe that choice in pregnancy prevention includes the right to choose same-sex relationships. (If you want to recommend any more LGBT-friendly topics or websites to us, please recommend them.)

But the hands down best prolife advocate by and/or for by LGBT persons is PLAGAL, the Prolife Alliance of Gays and Lesbians, a US based nonprofit that has been around since 1990, making bridges between communities that are too often miscast as diametrical opponents.

PLAGAL has long maintained a website at www.plagal.org And now PLAGAL has joined the blogosphere at prolifegays.blogspot.com/

Welcome, PLAGAL, from a longtime fan.

Stepping Up for Pregnant Women & Unborn Children In Her Own Home: Reflections from Linda Naranjo-Huebl

Linda Naranjo-Huebl is a professor of women's and American ethnic literature at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She lives parttime in her hometown of Denver, Colorado, where she and her family personally took into their own home dozens of pregnant women in need of emergency shelter. The women came to them through Alternatives Pregnancy Center, an agency founded and staffed by prolife women, many of whom identify proudly as feminists.

Naranjo-Huebl has borne considerable witness to the ongoing and harsh realities of gender discrimination and their role in abortion. She wrote about her years of service to beleaguered women in unplanned/crisis pregnancies for
ProLife Feminism Yesterday and Today, Second Expanded Edition, the book behind the Nonviolent Choice Directory. The following is an excerpt from her story, reprinted here with her permission.

The crisis, or crises, leading to the need for emergency housing during pregnancy became our [family's] own upon each woman's arrival, and I found myself increasingly angry and frustrated at those social forces that make pregnancy so difficult in the first place. Many people believe that as a society we have progressed from those days when a single woman's pregnancy was cause for ostracism or even punishment...

[But] women facing unplanned or inopportune pregnancies are subjected to all kinds of insults, censure, discrimination, and abandonment. They are aware of a continual undercurrent of judgment against them, including negative assumptions about their morals, their intelligence, their judgment, their self-discipline and sense of responsibility.

They also face more overt discrimination. We have witnessed, and vigorously protested, substandard treatment...by medical establishments, schools, and various social service agencies, not to mention their personal friends, family, and even their church communities. They are also routinely discriminated against in the workplace, if they can even get a job...

Our years of experience also taught us that reactions to unplanned pregnancy are frequently influenced by class and ethnicity. Middle- and upper-class Anglos tend to react more negatively to an unplanned pregnancy...[S]ome panicky middle- and upper-class white parents..would almost prefer their teenage daughter die than have a baby. Contrastingly, while aware that unplanned pregnancies come with a financial burden, the Latino, African American, and working class communities less often regard the situation as a major crisis. In my own extended Latino family, those most likely to consider an unplanned pregnancy as serious problem are those who are rising on the economic ladder.

We can see how these different cultural and economic perspectives extend beyond our borders. Women in the Two Thirds World frequently criticize American feminists for their emphasis on abortion rights instead of equal educational and economic opportunities for women. They tell us that children are not the problem; it's the systems into which they are born...

...When a controlling man (or parents) orders his girlfriend to get an abortion and she chooses otherwise, she is frequently motivated by a growing unconditional attachment and loyalty to her child and also to herself. Psychologists tell us that the "good enough" mother has a healthy sense of self and that her love for her child is an extension of her love for herself.

Abortion, then, can be interpreted, at one level, as an act against onself, against one's own identity. By contrast, the young women who defies boyfriend, husband, parents. friends, or authorities in carrying her child to term performs a heroic act that affirms and builds up her own sense of self while at the same time [she acknowledges the equally valuable life of her child.

And it is appropriate that we too affirm these equally valuable lives...and step up to help her overcome the obstacles she faces...

Both Sides of The Question, "What If Your Mother Had Aborted You?"

Frances Kissling, longtime leader of Catholics for a Free Choice, flips around the question that "antichoicers" have asked her for years: What If Your Mother Had Aborted You?"

What if your mother's life would have been significantly happier and healthier if she had not had you? If you as a fetus had the capacity to make decisions, would you have given your life for your mother's life, health and happiness?

Kissling speaks of the miserable conditions under which her own mother conceived, bore, and raised her, and concludes:

As a fetus I would have gladly given up my chance to enter the world and become Frances Kissling to have given my mother a better chance at happiness. Far too much is made of a mother's obligations to her children and far too little of what a child's love for her mother means. If fetuses could love, I think they would be as passionate in defense of their mothers as born children become.

If we are going to imagine, as some do, fetuses as part of the human community, we are going to have to accept that if they could make decisions, they might be as willing to sacrifice for others as we demand that women and only women be.

Kissling is right to challenge the demand for women-only sacrifice. But is it children per se that demand total, all-out, lifetime, self-annihilating sacrifices of women? Is it the fault of the children? Or is the doing of a culture that has too long forced a "choice" between women and their own children, born and already born, and then washed its hands completely of its obligation to fully, actively care for all human beings?

It wassn't right, the male irresponsibility, poverty, stunted life chances, and (no doubt ethnic prejudice) that were forced on Kissling's mother, the daughter herself of a Polish immigrant family. She did not deserve those things. No human does. But would the answer have been for Frances Kissling's life to be taken away even as Frances was beginning?

Why does it have to come down to this, always, always, it seems, when abortion is under discussion--either the sacrificing of the woman, or the sacrificing of the child? How devaluing this setup is to both.

I once heard someone define abortion as the cutting off of human potential, whether before or after birth. By that understanding, our culture aborted Frances Kissling's mother. But why must the solution have been the abortion of Frances Kissling?

If fetuses and women alike were fully embraced as part of the human community--wouldn't they both get sprung from this trap of either-or lethal sacrifice? Wuldn't the community pitch in to first reduce sacrifice on anyone's part to an absolute minimum and then distrubute whatever part it could of whatever is left around as many shoulders as possible?

Tips for Contraceptive Success: A Reprise

To reprise our reprints of About.com Contraception Guide Dawn Stacey's advice on preventing contraceptive failure:

• Tips for Contraceptive Success (introduction to the series)
• What Leads to Contraceptive Failure?
• How To Prevent Condom Failure
• How To Respond to Men's Excuses for Not Wanting to Wear a Condom
• How To Prevent Diaphragm Failure
• How To Decrease Failure with the Fertility Awareness Method
• How To Prevent Oral Contraceptive Failure
• Medications and Inhibitors that Lower Hormonal Contraception Effectiveness
• How to Prevent IUD Failure
  

To learn more about contraception, please visit Dawn's work on About.com.

Or you can consult the Nonviolent Choice Directory's extensive Pregnancy Prevention resources. The Nonviolent Choice Directory also sells nonprescription family planning and safer sex items through our website.

Tips for Contraceptive Success: How to Prevent IUD Failure

By Dawn Stacey, M.Ed., LMHC, About.com Contraception Guide
(Reprinted with her permission)

Birth control must be used consistently and according to instructions in order to attain maximum effectiveness. In order to lower the chances of birth control failure, follow these suggestions if you curretnly use a Mirena IUD or a ParaGard IUD.

If you have any questions about your birth control method, please contact your healthcare provider. You will lower your chances for birth control failure if you have a proper and thorough understanding of how to use your contraceptive.

Difficulty: Easy

Time Required: N/A

Tips:
1. It is especially important to check every few days for the first few weeks after an IUD insertion to make sure that it is still properly in place. You should also feel for the strings after your first period since the insertion. Additionally, you should schedule an appointment with your doctor after your first period (and no longer than 3 months after the insertion) to make sure that the IUD is still in place.

2. Make sure to check the strings each month to ensure that the IUD is still in place (your doctor can provide instructions on how to do this).

3. An IUD must be removed if it becomes partially expelled. It is a wise idea to check your pads and tampons during your period to make sure that the IUD has not fallen out.

Most pregnancies happen to Mirena or ParaGard IUD users when their IUDs slide out without them realizing it. Even though the chance of pregnancy while an IUD is in place is extremely low, if it does happen, you should have the IUD removed as soon as you are aware that you're pregnant.

4. If you cannot feel the strings, make sure to use an alternative, back-up contraceptive method, and call your healthcare provider to make sure that the IUD has not been displaced.

5. Some woman may have the IUD strings cut shorter if they are felt by the woman’s sexual partner. When this is the case, sometimes the strings are cut so short that the woman cannot actually check for the strings. Regular IUD checkups can be done at the same time as your periodic gynecological exam.


For the rest of Dawn's reprints:

• Tips for Contraceptive Success (introduction to the series)
• What Leads to Contraceptive Failure?
• How To Prevent Condom Failure
• How To Respond to Men's Excuses for Not Wanting to Wear a Condom
• How To Prevent Diaphragm Failure
• How To Decrease Failure with the Fertility Awareness Method
• How To Prevent Oral Contraceptive Failure
• Medications and Inhibitors that Lower Hormonal Contraception Effectiveness
• How to Prevent IUD Failure
  

To learn more about contraception, please visit Dawn's work on About.com.

Or you can consult the Nonviolent Choice Directory's extensive Pregnancy Prevention resources. The Nonviolent Choice Directory also sells nonprescription family planning and safer sex items through our website.

Tips for Contraceptive Success: Medications and Inhibitors that Lower Hormonal Contraception Effectiveness

By Dawn Stacey, M. Ed., LMHC, About.com Contraception Guide
(Reprinted with her permission)

Certain medications, antibiotics, and supplements can increase the chances of oral contraceptive (birth control pill), NuvaRing and Ortho Evra patch failure. These drugs and medications can cause interactions when used with some hormonal contraceptives.

If you have any questions about birth control methods, please contact your healthcare provider. You will lower your chances for birth control failure if you have a proper and thorough understanding of how to use your contraceptive.

1. Antibiotics

Some antibiotics used to treat infections may cause the Pill to be less effective.

The following antibiotics/antibacterial agents may interfere with pill use:

•Rifampin: used to treat tuberculosis or meningitis
•Rifabutin: used to treat mycobacterium avium complex
•Tetracycline
•Rifapentine: used to treat TB
•Some penicillin derivatives or cephalosporin (Keflin) may also decrease pill efficiency.

It is impossible to determine if taking an antibiotic will interfere with pill use (since each person's body responds differently), so it is wise to use a back-up method while on antibiotic medication as a precaution and ask your doctor.


2. Anti-HIV Protease Inhibitors

Ritonavir is an antiviral drug that is used to treat human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. If you are using this or another medication for the treatment of the HIV virus or AIDS, ask your healthcare provider if your specific medication will decrease the effectiveness of the pill.


3. Anti-Seizure Medications

Barbiturate medicines for producing sleep or treating seizures (convulsions) could interfere with the effectiveness of the Pill. Examples of these types of medications would be:

•Phenobarbital
•Primidone

The following medications can also help with seizure (convulsion) control in certain types of epilepsy and also treat nerve-related pain. Additionally, Topiramate may also be prescribed to help prevent migraine headaches. These mediactions, as well, may lower pill, nuvaring, or the patch's effectiveness:

•Oxcarbazepine
•Carbamazepine
•Phenytoin
•Topiramate

Please inquire with your healthcare provider if you are taking any of these medications.


4. Antidepressants

Certain medicines prescribed for mental depression, such as Nefazodone, can alter hormone levels. Inquire about these types of medications with your healthcare provider if you are currently being treated with a specific antidepressant.


5. Anti-Fungal Medication

Anti-Fungal Medications, especilally the ones that are typically taken orally for yeast infections can lower the effectivenes of the pill. Additionally, Griseofulvin, an anti-fungal used to treat fungus infections of the skin, hair, and nails may interfere with oral contraceptives or other hormonal birth control.

If you are using one of these types of medications, ask your healthcare provider if your specific medication will decrease the effectiveness of the pill, ring, or patch.


6. Diabetes Medication

Some of the medications for diabetes, including Troglitazone and Pioglitazone can interact with birth control pills. Make sure to discuss these types of medications with your healthcare provider to see if they will affect the use of your oral contraceptives.


7. Anxiety Treatments

Ask your healthcare provider if your specific anti-anxiety medication will decrease the effectiveness of the Pill as certain medicines used to treat anxiety or sleeping problems, such as Diazepam or Temazepam, may interfere with successful combination contraceptive use.


8. Natural Supplements

In addition to prescription medications, certain supplements have been shown to lower the effectiveness of hormonal contraception. These include:

•Soy Isoflavones - natural substances obtained from the soybean plant which claim to reduce the intensity of menopause-related hot flashes and to help maintain strong bones
•St. John's Wort - an herb or dietary supplement that is being promoted for its ability to improve mildly depressed moods


9. Vomiting and Diarrhea

Although not a medication, vomiting and diarrhea may also lower the effectiveness of the pill.

Additionally, the medication, Aprepitant, which is used to prevent or treat nausea and vomiting vcan also interfer with the oral contraceptive effectiveness. If you are experiencing these symptoms or taking this medication, use an additional method of birth control and contact your healthcare provider for advice.


For the rest of Dawn's reprints:

• Tips for Contraceptive Success (introduction to the series)
• What Leads to Contraceptive Failure?
• How To Prevent Condom Failure
• How To Respond to Men's Excuses for Not Wanting to Wear a Condom
• How To Prevent Diaphragm Failure
• How To Decrease Failure with the Fertility Awareness Method
• How To Prevent Oral Contraceptive Failure
• Medications and Inhibitors that Lower Hormonal Contraception Effectiveness
• How to Prevent IUD Failure
  

To learn more about contraception, please visit Dawn's work on About.com.

Or you can consult the Nonviolent Choice Directory's extensive Pregnancy Prevention resources. The Nonviolent Choice Directory also sells nonprescription family planning and safer sex items through our website.

Tips for Contraceptive Success: How to Prevent Oral Contraceptive Failure

By Dawn Stacey, M.Ed., LMHC, About.com Contraception Guide

If you use the Pill, it has to be taken at the same time every day; in fact, if you forget to take just 1 birth control pill, you increase your chances of becoming pregnant. During a cycle, if 2 or more pills are missed, the chance of this method failing increases dramatically, especially if an alternative method of birth control (like a condom) is not used. Having a routine is a good way to reduce the likelihood of this happening. It has been show that having a set daily routine can affect birth control consistency. Women without a customary routine are more than 3 times as likely to miss 2 or more pills per cycle.

Difficulty: Easy

Time Required: N/A

Tips:

• A woman should make sure to use the Pill consistently and continually. She should take it at the same time, every day.
• An individual who uses the pill should understand how to take the pill properly and what to do if she accidently misses a pill.
• If a woman misses 2 or more pills during any cycle, she should use an alternate method of birth control as a back-up.
• It is helpful to associate pill use with some other regular daily activity (such as taking it before a person brushes her teeth). This way, taking the pill becomes part of a routine.
• A female should remember to bring an extra pack of pills when traveling if she will finish the old pack while away.
• It is important to consult with a medical doctor about using a back-up contraceptive method if a woman is prescribed antibiotics or is taking certain herbal supplements or other medications.
• If you have any questions about your birth control method, please contact your healthcare provider. You will lower your chances for birth control failure if you have a proper and thorough understanding of how to use your contraceptive.

(Note: See our next reprint from Dawn, Medications and Inhibitors That Lower Hormonal Contraceptive Effectiveness.)


For the rest of Dawn's reprints:

• Tips for Contraceptive Success (introduction to the series)
• What Leads to Contraceptive Failure?
• How To Prevent Condom Failure
• How To Respond to Men's Excuses for Not Wanting to Wear a Condom
• How To Prevent Diaphragm Failure
• How To Decrease Failure with the Fertility Awareness Method
• How To Prevent Oral Contraceptive Failure
• Medications and Inhibitors that Lower Hormonal Contraception Effectiveness
• How to Prevent IUD Failure
  

To learn more about contraception, please visit Dawn's work on About.com.

Or you can consult the Nonviolent Choice Directory's extensive Pregnancy Prevention resources. The Nonviolent Choice Directory also sells nonprescription family planning and safer sex items through our website.

Tips for Contraceptive Success: How To Decrease Failure with the Fertility Awareness Method

By Dawn Stacey, M.Ed., LMHC, About.com Contraception Guide
(Reprinted with her permission)

Natural Family Planning methods must be used consistently and according to instructions in order to attain maximum effectiveness. In order to lower the chances of birth control failure, follow these suggestions if you use fertility awareness as your contraceptive method.

If you have any questions about your birth control method, please contact your healthcare provider. You will lower your chances for birth control failure if you have a proper and thorough understanding of how to use your contraceptive.

Difficulty: Easy

Time Required: N/A

Tips:

• It is essential that you understand how fertility awareness methods work.
• It is helpful to have knowledge about the female body and how ovulation and fertilization take place.
• Try to make sure that you are using this method precisely and consistently. If not, failure could occur.
• It is critical, with natural family planning, that you accurately predict when your fertile period is.
• Make certain that you have correctly figured out your ovulation pattern; then, abstain before and after your fertile time..
• Remember, it only takes one unprotected act of sexual intercourse to become pregnant.

What You Need:

• Calendar
• Fertility Charts
• Cycle Beads (optional)
• Basal Thermometer

For the rest of Dawn's reprints:

• Tips for Contraceptive Success (introduction to the series)
• What Leads to Contraceptive Failure?
• How To Prevent Condom Failure
• How To Respond to Men's Excuses for Not Wanting to Wear a Condom
• How To Prevent Diaphragm Failure
• How To Decrease Failure with the Fertility Awareness Method
• How To Prevent Oral Contraceptive Failure
• Medications and Inhibitors that Lower Hormonal Contraception Effectiveness
• How to Prevent IUD Failure
  

To learn more about contraception, please visit Dawn's work on About.com.

Or you can consult the Nonviolent Choice Directory's extensive Pregnancy Prevention resources. The Nonviolent Choice Directory also sells nonprescription family planning and safer sex items through our website.