Ales

Scigirl, you seem to be well informed. I have read somewhere that naturally more than 70% of fertilized eggs don’t implant. Is it correct? Also I have read that the effect of oral contraceptives of preventing implantation of a fertilized egg is extremelly rare. If it is true, the implication for the believers would be that with each their child they “killed” at least two other. On the other hand someone who uses hormonal contraception and has less children that the believer, “killed” less “children” than the believer. Now it seems the same can be said about someone who used EC. Also I have read that when you stop using oral contraceptive you have an increased probability of getting pregnant. Again if it is true and if it is because of increased implantation probablity, having a child after stopping oral contraceptives is causing less “murders”. I am deliberately using the funny language of believers they stole from biologists, I don’t believe a destruction of a fertilized egg is a murder.

scigirl

Hi Ales!

It's hard to know the exact number, but in my embryology class we were taught that somewhere between 50 and 70% of pregnancies end before the woman know she is pregnant - before implantation, or very shortly after.
Yes of oral contraceptives taken regularly, since the woman never ovulates. The morning after pill is different - usually it prevents ovulation, but it can also prevent implantation. I don't think anyone really knows the exact percentages of what the morning after pill actually does - it's all theoretical based on what we know about timing of pregnancy.

No, God killed their two other children, but apparently He can do that if he wants, heh.

Very interesting way to look at the situation. Of course a lot of those women are probably engaging in evil sinful premarital sex, so they are still going to that Lake Of Fire!

No because EC can prevent implantation as well.

Not sure about the stats on that one.

Um I don't follow your line of reasoning. First of all, I'm not convinced that all women get pregnant "easier" after they stop taking the pill. Second, just because a woman gets pregnant "easier," she could still be having spontaneous abortions at the 50 to 70% rate we discussed earlier.
Neither do I.

scigirl

Ales

Scigirl, thank you for the answer. I think it was some biology expert arguing for the therapeutic cloning, who claimed more than 70% fertilized eggs don't implant. I think my question was somewhere between the Science/Skepticism and Moral Foundations. When I spoke about the parents “killing” their “children” I was using the language of believers. If they claim, that a fertilized egg is a human being with all rights, and so using oral contraceptive is a murder, since it prevents it from implanting, then I answer to them: if you have sex in your lifetime only to have 4 children, than you kill with high probability more than 8 other “children” during the proces of their production-and you decided to kill them and to give birth to a child could not be an excuse for a murder; if my sexual partner uses oral contraceptives and we decide to have 2 children, than we have “killed” almost no “child” during the use of oral contraceptives, since ovulation and fertilization without implantation is extremelly rare and than 2 times less children during the production of the children, furthermore, if the probability of implantation is higher after stopping the use of oral contraceptives-I think I have read it is used as a therapy for infertility-the number of "murders" is further decreased. If I used condom and when it fails my partner used EC, it seems that there is still less "murders" involved than in the case of believers. Suppose the condom failure occurs 10 times in the lifetime. Suppose both the mechanism of inhibition of ovulation and prevention of fertilization of EC fail. I guess there would be overall created with high probability less than 3 fertilized eggs as it is after 10 unprotected sexual courses. Suprisingly, the Christian authorities are often commanding the believers to have as many children as possible. I didn't take into account the possbility of sponaneous abortions, since their occurence isn't influenced by the use of contraceptives. Thank you for the clarification of the mechanism of EC. I think there was a similar myth about teratogenity of oral contraceptives in the case they fail. I am sorry for bad English.

Calzaer

Personal Note:

While EC is a great tool to have avaliable, and taking precautions is a great idea, you should still always be prepared for the worst.

My girlfriend and I should really be used a the poster-children for "birth control can fail spectacularly". Since she's been on the pill for as long as I've known her, I wasn't especially worried when the condom broke one night. Just to be safe, though, she went to the PP clinic for Plan B, and followed the instructions to the letter.

Nine months later, she gave birth to a baby girl.

midnight

I don't know any stats but I can tell you after I stopped using oral contraceptives my body wanted to get pregnant. I had baby-idis like I have never had before. It was crazy. . . . I was afraid some how I was pregnant (I wasn't). I'm childfree so having babies is not something on my todo ever list. It was very odd. Hormones are scary things.

Ales

Calzaer, if she was taking oral contraceptives "lege artis" I think it is really curious. I also wonder why the efficacy of condom use is so low. If I remember well the average is stated as 20% new pregnancies after 1 year of use. But the sperm cannot go through the condom, condom cannot burst if used correctly, sperms after ejaculation cannot travel around to vagina if penis is pulled out before erection ends. It seems the only sperm that can get to vagina is one that came into the world before condom was applied. I think it is possible that the participants of the studies estimating condom efficacy were not too careful. It is interesting to note that there are studies that indicate that when one partner is HIV positive and the couple is using condom the transmission rate is extremely low. But perhaps the probability of getting HIV is lower than getting pregnant. I think there should be carried out some well controlled studies to estimate the efficacy of condom use for pregnancy prevention when condom is used carefully. It would be of great value for the cases when both pregnancy and oral contraceptives are contraindicated, e.g. if the patient has epilepsy treated by highly teratogenous carbamazepine together with viral hepatitis treated at the same time by some highly teratogenous antiviral, say ribavirin in hepatitis C.

Calzaer

Well, as much as it sounds like I'm bragging when I say this, the reason the condom broke is because it was too small. I didn't realize you could get bigger ones until a bit after the incident.

RevDahlia

Reason #7,946 to boycott Helmart.

Viti

It only takes one sperm getting through at the right time to get pregnant...I think HIV needs more than that and has to get into the blood stream to really "take hold". From my understanding HIV is not that easy to contract.