Friday, January 27. 2012
The Obama Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have told Catholic institutions all across the country they must violate their conscience and provide coverage for hormonal contraceptives.The response by Catholic bishops and Catholics everywhere has been loud and proud. We know that this mandate violates our religious rights guaranteed by the Constitution. Despite our cries, it seems clear that Obama and HHS really do not care about our free exercise of religion. But I wonder if Obama and HHS care about the environment. Yes. That's right the environment. Obama is always talking about green energy and has branded himself a champion of the environment. And yet all this newly covered hormonal contraception will cause even more damage to lakes, rivers and streams and the wildlife in them. The fact is, hormonal birth control has wreaked havoc on the environment for decades.In 2003, a Seattle Post Intelligencer headline warned that birth control may be harming the state salmon population. They reported that synthetic estrogen, an ingredient in hormonal contraception, is "showing up in waterways around the nation" being dumped there from sewage treatment plants. And the levels found are high enough to harm wildlife. The Intelligencer reported:Birth-control pills can curb the reproduction of more than just the women taking them. Western Washington scientists have found that synthetic estrogen -- a common ingredient in oral contraceptives -- can drastically reduce the fertility of male rainbow trout.
The findings are likely to fuel concerns about the environmental effects of chemicals that aren't being filtered out by sewage plants, including pharmaceuticals and pesticides that can mimic hormones.
In frogs, river otters and fish, scientists are "finding the presence of female hormones making the male species less male," said Doug Myers, wetlands and habitat specialist for the Puget Sound Action Team, the government agency coordinating restoration of the Sound.
Hormonal contraceptives are harming wildlife in Colorado too. In 2007, the National Catholic Register reported that EPA-funded scientists at the University of Colorado found a high level of female and strange "inter-sex" fish in Boulder Creek. The culprit? Estrogens and other hormones from birth-control pills. From the Register article:It’s “the first thing that I’ve seen as a scientist that really scared me,” said then 59-year-old University of Colorado biologist John Woodling, speaking to the Denver Post in 2005.
They studied the fish and decided the main culprits were estrogens and other steroid hormones from birth-control pills and patches, excreted in urine into the city’s sewage system and then into the creek.
Woodling, University of Colorado physiology professor David Norris, and their EPA-study team were among the first scientists in the country to learn that a slurry of hormones, antibiotics, caffeine and steroids is coursing down the nation’s waterways, threatening fish and contaminating drinking water.
Contaminating drinking water. Jillian Michaels, of Biggest Loser fame, tells the obese in her book Master Your Metabolism to forgo hormonal contraceptives and opt for condoms because hormonal contraceptives disrupt natural hormone balances making it hard to maintain a healthy weight. Is it even remotely possible that our nation's problem with obesity may be more than just a calorie consumption issue?And with these reports of hormones in waterways around the country, one would think that environmentalists and the health conscious everywhere would be taking up the charge to clean up and prevent the contamination. But no one seems to care. This lack of concern puzzles some including George Harden, a board member of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists. Harden told the Register: “It’s going to start looking funny. The radical environmentalist won’t eat a corn chip if the corn contacted a pesticide. But they view it a sacred right and obligation to consume synthetic chemicals that alter a woman’s natural biological functions, even if this practice threatens innocent aquatic life downstream.”
With Obama such a champion of the environment and Michele so obsessed with the obesity epidemic, I wonder if HHS would be more likely to grant exceptions to the mandate to cover hormonal contraceptives on environmental grounds than on religious grounds? They probably would. Which is sad because the religious objection is the one actually protected by the Constitution. Maybe Catholic institutions should re-brand themselves as environmental organizations. Maybe then our objections to being forced to cover damaging hormonal contraception wouldn't be so carelessly cast aside.
|
