Ovulatory Method of Birth Control

Abstract

Chapters 2 and 3 reviewed common biological mechanisms linking parental drug-abuse and significant increased risk of serious structural and/or functional anomalies in the offspring. It was emphasized that drug-abuse, being predominantly a consequence of poverty, social alienation and biological ignorance, is a matter of personal and collective responsibility. A counterproductive, judgmental attitude is not the most effective method of reducing preventable disability — raising standards of living and providing the empowering qualities of high caliber education is. The present chapter, as it reviews the relationship between the so-called ‘natural’ methods of contraception and increased risk of serious congenital anomalies, continues the theme of shared reflection and shared responsibility.

Procreation in our species is so haphazard that only in the last few decades people started to pay attention to the intact and potentially perfect survival of the offspring. Previously, it was considered an Act of God that carried off a large number of the infants born alive and left many of the rest permanently damaged. Only in this century have people started to question such a fatalistic approach and look to ways of reducing perinatal mortality and morbidity.

Prepregnancy Care: A Manual for Practice. Edited by G. Chamberlain & J. Lumley. John Wiley & Son, Chichester, UK; 1986; page 1.