This Sunday marks the 44th anniversary of Griswold v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court decision that granted married couples the right to use contraception. It has also become an occasion anti-contraceptive operatives have seized in an effort to scare women from using birth control. This weekend marks the second year of The Pill Kills campaign which has grown to become, the organizers boast, an "International Demonstration Against Birth Control."

The campaign materials explain that,

"Pro-lifers in 21 states and four countries will participate in Protest the Pill Day ‘09: The Pill Kills Women. They will gather at Planned Parenthood, one of the nation’s largest abortion and birth control providers, at pharmacies and at birth control sellers the nation over. They will expose the tragic effects these chemicals have on women including blood clots, heart attacks and strokes."

In its second year, there are notable changes with the campaign. For example, last year's "The Pill Kills" mission was to convince Americans that the most commonly used forms of birth control, like the standard birth control pill, were really abortion methods. This year the campaign is trying to scare women from using birth control by claiming it will kill them. The campaign targets the regular birth control pill in particular.

So, let's, as an exercise, accept their arguments. Hormonal contraception causes abortions and kills women, gotcha. So, then, we're okay using non-hormonal forms of birth control like the diaphragm, condom, cervical cap, and spermicides? Actually, the organizers aren’t on record anywhere in favor of methods that keep sperm and egg apart. In fact, it appears impossible to find a single instance in which any pro-life group has anything good to say about any birth control method except natural family planning—a technique most notable for its high failure rate. Even the lowly condom disturbs them.

So, when they aren’t reorienting the science to claim that birth control is abortion, they're second favorite technique is to promote--with great hysteria--that birth control is unsafe. As Dr. David Grimes, one of the world’s leading experts on contraception, puts it “Some anti-abortion groups describe a subtle blend of fake claims and real, but exaggerated, risks to frighten women. Only those very knowledgeable can tease out which are which. Ironically, the net effect of this campaign to discredit contraception is more unplanned pregnancies and, of course, more abortions.”

A classic example is the website for Physicians for Life which lists not one positive item about birth control in its numerous sections devoted to the subject. Instead, its headlines read: “The Pill Puts Women at Much Higher Risk of HIV and Other STDs”, “Gel to Stop STDs Holds Empty Promise”, “Negative Effects of Vasectomy”, “New Research Shows Dangers of Condoms in HIV Prevention”, “Oral Contraceptives May Reduce Sense of Smell”. The homepage for Pro-Life America.com proclaims: “Condom Warnings—They Don’t Work!”

The American Life League, the lead organizer of "The Pill Kills" day, distributes scare pamphlets on every form of birth control. They are designed to look and read just like the ones you’d find in your doctor’s office. Each explains why you shouldn’t use a birth control method. One entitled “Answers to your Questions about Condoms and Spermicides” only lists the potential and rare negative side effects of both methods and offers no description of the benefits of either. The pamphlet ends with this message “Condoms and spermicides fail to prevent the conception of babies, and they are potentially harmful! Be good to yourself. Don’t use condoms and spermicides.” The only three sources they cite in the endnotes section of the pamphlet are 1.) A pro-life book opposing every birth control method 2.) An outspoken pro-life physician 3.) A condom fact sheet produced by themselves.

ALL is unapologetically against every single form of birth control, claims the most commonly used forms cause abortions, and defines its legislative goal to include “a legal ban on abortifacient birth control.” They led a campaign which defeated federal contraceptive coverage legislation. In their efforts to prevent federal employees from receiving contraceptive coverage, Judie Brown, A.L.L. President, explained “we have been working for over a year to prove that prescription contraceptives have nothing to do with a woman’s health and well-being but are recreational drugs that prevent fertilization and abort children”. She elaborates, “Depo-provera, Norplant, the IUD and the pill can kill tiny boys and girls and it is imperative that the government get out of the deadly birth control business and take action to protect all innocent human beings equally—without discrimination.” In 1996, A.L.L. picketed Searle Pharmaceutical Company just because it manufactures the standard birth control pill. One can safely say the American Life League’s desire to ban birth control is equally intense as its campaign against legal abortion. Not only does ALL promote, along with most other right wing pro-life groups, that birth control is abortion, they also put forth that any attempt to prevent pregnancy during sex is tantamount to having an abortion. They explain in Chapter 97,

“The connection between artificial contraception and abortion is crystal clear. Once we break the connection between sex and procreation, we have denied God's will. Once we have denied His will once, it becomes easier and easier to ignore His plan for our lives. When we use artificial contraception, any pregnancy that results will be viewed as a "contraceptive failure," a stigma that is passed on to the child. He or she is no longer a precious gift from God, but a failure, and, in our society, failure cannot be tolerated…Contraception cannot be separated from abortion. In fact, anyone who debates on the topic of abortion will inevitably be drawn to the topic of artificial contraception over and over again, especially in the post-Roe era of pro-life activism. Therefore, every pro-life activist should understand the many relationships between abortion and artificial contraception. How does contraception lead to abortion? Quite simply, they are virtually indistinguishable in a psychological, physical, and legal sense…Those individuals who use artificial contraception take the critical step of separating sex from procreation. Contraception not abortion was the first step down the slippery slope.”

According to ALL, trying to prevent a pregnancy is indistinguishable from trying to end one. They believe that avoiding an abortion is somehow the first step in having an abortion.

Each of these sermons and all of their national campaigns serve an objective which is, at its heart what the right wing pro-life movement believes sex should be all about. And the never shy Mrs. Brown, is eager to lay that out by explaining,

"Healthy women do not need to be immunized from their own children. Rather, men and women who participate in sexual intercourse need to know that children are an intended purpose of intercourse, and parents should therefore act to responsibly care for and protect their pre-born children."

This is the ideological prism through which to best understand the anti-contraception campaigns. In actuality, these efforts punish people for having the type of sex they define as contrary to God's wishes. Pregnancy is, according to them, what sex is for.