Page 35 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 20

Health & Healing

• deep embedding of the IUD (a
serious problem in developing
countries, where women may
have had the devices in their
uteri for a decade or more)
• fragmentation of the IUD
• development of hydatidiform
moles
• salpingitis (inflammation of the
uterine tubes)
• pelvic inflammatory disease
(PID, which often leads to infer- 1970s. 1995, but this number had risen to
tility or sterility) A.H. Robin Pharmaceuticals made about 9% by 2017.
the Dalkon Shield IUD from 1971 Why Is This Abortifacient
This is nothing new. Until about to 1974. Documented reports of Called a Contraceptive?
1960, the medical community severe injuries began to surface When discussing abortifacient
generally condemned IUDs because almost immediately after initial means of birth control, the “family
of their severe side effects. Alan distribution, and on 29 June 1975, planners” call us pro-lifers “anti-sci-
Guttmacher, former President of the FDA announced it intended to ence” when we claim that the IUD
the Planned Parenthood Federation “require special warning notices for causes early abortions. They say that
of America, said in 1959, “Intrauter- users of the intrauterine devices, the human life begins at implantation,
ine devices are mentioned only to be contraceptives that were linked to 43 not fertilization.
thoroughly condemned because of deaths in recent years.” But there is no logical reason to
their ineffectiveness, their potential make this claim. What is the dif-
source for infection and irritation, as A.H. Robin pulled the Dalkon ference between the early human
well as their carcinogenic potential.” Shield from the market in 1975. being (blastocyst) the hour before it
By 1985, 13,000 women had sued implants and the hour after?
Although IUD technology had not the company for damages relating
advanced in the slightest, the entire to sterility, miscarriages and pelvic an implanted blastocyst in the uterus
medical community performed an infections. Incredibly, some popula- Whenever there is such confusion,
abrupt about-face in the mid-1960s tion controllers, including Stephen we may find the answer in the dis-
and began to accept the device. But Mumford and Elton Kessel ― who honest manipulation of terminology
serious complications were docu- peddle the dangerous sterilizing by the “family planners.”
mented almost immediately. In 1974, chemical quinacrine in developing
the FDA summarized complaints countries ― have tried to sanitize In 1963, the United States Depart-
received about the various IUDs on the image of the Dalkon Shield so ment of Health, Education and Wel-
the market at that time. that it can make a comeback. fare (HEW) defined “abortion” as
“all the measures which impair the
The FDA had received reports of Ortho Pharmaceuticals withdrew viability of the zygote at any time
238 cases of spontaneous septic its Lippes Loop from the American between the instant of fertilization
abortion from women who had market in 1985, and G.D. Searle and the completion of labor.”
become pregnant with IUDs in withdrew its Copper-7 and Tatum-T
place. Of these women, 21 died. IUDs in 1986 when its liability in- Until the mid-1960s, scientists
The Dalkon Shield was involved in surance lapsed. Searle also faced 775 universally acknowledged that
14 of these deaths and 209 cases lawsuits from women who suffered conception happened at the mo-
of septic abortion, and the Lippes injuries from their IUDs or who ment of fertilization of the ovum
Loop caused 5 deaths and 21 septic conceived babies with birth defects by the spermatozoa somewhere in
abortions. when the devices did not work the Fallopian tube. But pro-abor-
properly. tionists and population controllers
Overall, there were about Because of widespread negative already had their sights set on a shift
15,000 IUD‑related hospital‑ publicity, only 1% of women using from contraceptive to abortifacient
izations annually in the early birth control were on the IUD by methods of birth prevention, and
abortifacient research was already

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