HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL ATTITUDES TO FERTILITY – CONTRACEPTIVE AND ABORT
Religious views can also be used by a patient to explain to herself deep, unexpressed fears of the reliable contraceptive methods, as well us her ambivalent feelings about another baby that she may not fully recognize.
Mrs B. was 23 years old, a strict Jehovah’s Witness with three children under the age of three years. After a discussion about methods, she was adamant that she wanted no foreign chemicals in her body, and that she wished to rely on natural family planning, even although she insisted that she did not want another child for five years. She seemed unable to hear what the doctor said about the benefits and effectiveness of the oral contraceptive pill. The doctor, though tempted, felt that discretion was the better part of valour and did not persist in advocating a more reliable method. Instead she taught the woman how to predict ovulation using both the thermosymptal and mucus method. A year passed then Mrs B. became unintentionally pregnant. She could not contemplate an abortion. She had the child, a boy, which was what she wanted. After this pregnancy she decided to take no more chances. She opted for the contraceptive pill, which she has taken for six years without problems.
The occurrence of an unplanned pregnancy and the birth of another baby had produced a change in the way she perceived the various factors in her life. Her need for reliable contraception, and perhaps also the resolution of her ambivalence about wanting a boy, was strong enough to override her fear of chemicals and her religious influences.
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