Unholy Urine?

Having downloaded a great app on my iPhone - ukPolitics - I have gained access to as handy set of political news items by party and blogs on the bologsphere.

One such blog, from Liberal Conspiracy attacks the Vatican statement that women's urine is unholy and contributes to male infertility.




"The contraceptive pill was polluting the environment and was in part responsible for male infertility, a report in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano said on Saturday.

The president of the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, Pedro Jose Maria Simon Castellvi, said the pill ''has for some years had devastating effects on the environment by releasing tonnes of hormones into nature'' through female urine.

''We have sufficient evidence to state that a non-negligible cause of male infertility in the West is the environmental pollution caused by the pill,'' he said, without elaborating further."

Laurie Penny, a feminist liberal blogger at LiberalConspiracy.org, attacks the Vatican on grounds of being sexist, and being incorrect in their assertions:

"I don’t see the Pope asking us to stop eating so much junk in order to protect some sacred ideation of male potency. I don’t see that increasingly unfunny former Hitler Youth member and his friends asking blokes everywhere to wear looser trousers and stop smoking. Why would they, when they’ve already decided that by daring to decide for ourselves whether we want to have kids, we’ve symbolically castrated men?The contraceptive pill is one of the most important inventions of the last three centuries, and doesn’t damage the environment so much as the status quo. I’m not a Christian, but if I were I’d get down on my knees every night to thank Ratzinger’s God for the miracle of contraception."

"Oestrogens are present in drinking water from a host of sources, most notably from the by-products of plastics production, and studies have shown that most oestrogens in drinking water are natural – not the synthetic oestrogens present in oral contraception."

You can read Laurie's blog here.


My personal opinion is not something I am going to argue here (just yet)... but I would argue that Laurie is missing crucial points of the Vatican's statement. Short of reading the actual statement (I can't read Italian, I will assume she can't either), I would like to suggest that she took the Australian article at face value and believed every word of it.

What is more likely, is that the Vatican are not disputing the science that there are natural oestrogens in various water sources, but are merely making the logical point that the substances contained in the contraceptive pill may constitute, in part, of women's urine.

It is not a sexist attack, and I'm sure the Pope would also argue that it is best that men do not smoke either - though I am sure he is not so conservative as to outlaw smoking and drinking.

Smoking may damage the sperm given consistent usage and abuse, but it does not interfere with the direct act of sexual intercourse with marriage, as does a contraceptive pill or a condom.

This here is the crucial difference I see. It is not sexist of the Pope, the media spin has twisted it that way and Laurie has obviously been unduly offended. She says she is not Catholic, so I'm wondering why she bothers to take note of supposed Vatican directives if they have no bearing on her life. People will consider the facts for themselves, I believe that we can reach through reason the right decisions on whether to use contraceptives or not, irrespective of religious doctrine or scientific evidence that increased usage of the morning after pill or the use of Thalidomide can be harmful (certainly in the case of Thalidomide, anyway).

The Pope is merely making the point as part of traditional Catholic doctrine that it is wrong to use any artificial means to interfere with the natural act of procreation. Always the Catholic church has been against contraceptives and this has caused controversy in AIDs-stricken countries. Thus I do not believe the statement is saying that women's urine is unholy (or at least the ones that take contraceptives, anyhow), but is merely adding the Catholic church's medical findings (correct or otherwise) into the scientific sphere.

That is how I see the other side of the coin anyway and I value the arguments on both sides over the issue of contraception. Sex is a loving act, and should, where possible be open to the possibility of pregnancy. But there are so many variables, unforseen circumstances where contraception is necessary (in cases to prevent STIs), or where the entire Catholic doctrine, I feel should be called into question when it opposes procedures such as IVF which allow women to fulfill their natural biological instinct to procreate. That, however is another story. But women's wee as unholy? I doubt that is the Catholic position. And even if it were, I would like to ask what Laurie is supposing by highlighting the Pope's Hitler Youth past. What does this have to do with the price of bacon?

Royals

I dropped my cigarettes somewhere so I resorted to:





Royals - it's like smoking Camilla!

-- Post From My iPhone

Sex, Cigarettes, Drink and Rock 'n' Roll

Young People ignore anti-binge drinking campaigns, apparently. Quite rightly so when you watch the advert above that the Home Office put out recently, as part of a £4 Million campaign to cut down on drinking. (See BBC Source)

"A study by Birmingham and Bath universities suggests the government must stop "demonising" young people in its attempts to promote safe drinking."

Quite rightly so. It seems to me that the P.C. brigade are shifting from tobacco to alcohol.
"Professor Isabelle Szmigin, who assisted the study, told the BBC: "For young people, drinking is very much a part of their social life but we feel that a lot of the government literature tends to present a picture of it being an individual responsibility rather than a social one.

"Young people do engage with the idea of responsible drinking but far more from the social side. They ensure there are designated drivers; people looking out for each other and that their friends are safe."

Ms Szmigin said shock tactic adverts did not always work and had risk of alienating the very people they were meant to target.

She said future government policies on alcohol-related harm needed to tackle cheap prices, how drinks were marketed but without being "heavy-handed" and recognising the role of alcohol as a "social glue"."

There are two things here I want to mention and comment on - the idea of alcohol as a 'social glue' and the comment on shock tactics.

Consider the recent smoking legislation - banned in most public places in the UK in 2007 and now there are some rather vile pictures on cigarette packets, like these:

Now, I'm sure if I could find the latest, (though the BBC search engine is rather crap) that the numbers of smokers (In Scotland at least) is as bad as it was 10 years ago, and it would appear that the anti-smoking legislation hasn't helped either.

I'd argue that the Swinging Sixties generation, (a decade known for its 'free love', drug taking, sex and liberal lifetstyles) and all the medical findings of recent times into the effects of drugs, alcohol and tobacco have led to this PC brigade and campaign against booze and cigarettes and sex. Some of our best loved, most famous people have fell ill to various related illnesses (George Best to alcohol, Freddie Mercury to AIDs, Warren Zevon of REM after a history of smoking).

But I think it is time, like Smzigin says, to stop demonising young people. Do we really want a straight-edge society? It's all well and good for the government to educate people into the dangers of smoking, drinking, etc. We can't be expected to just 'know' the dangers. But it is wrong to be shamed for lifestyle choices that do not correspond to the masses.

I'm a drinker, and a smoker. And in both cases I've made friends and had many good times through social smoking of cigarettes and going out to the clubs. Sometimes, yes, I've made an arse out of myself and some of these tales are legendary and still spoken of, years after the event. But that's part of the fun. I never committed any crime (other than the obvious there), just made an idiot out of myself. Making people grow up feeling they can't experience the same fun I have had or anybody older than me (I'm looking at the likes of Professor Smzigin, I'm sure she got pissed once in her young days at university), is not the way to go. We'd be making our children of this generation not really knowing how to have fun, scaring them so much that before we know it, kids won't be going out and getting themselves into trouble and learning better from the experience.

It's like hypocondria gone mad. If we molly-coddeled our babies, made sure they were always well so they never contracted an illness as small as chickenpox, we'd never have a good enough immune system in our later years to fight infection.

By the same token, not allowing people to make their own choices, not letting them embarass themselves in public to create social tales that last a lifetime and to learn from the experience - we would lose our ability to interact with each other and socialise. People need this outlet, not to live in a society of moral panic causing everyone to stay at home and play World of Warcraft instead.

By all means, teach us the dangers of life. Not patronize us and make us feel criminal for a life choice that we can choose to act out responsibly. Sex, Drugs, Drink, Alcohol, all can be experienced in life to an effect that is responsible. Don't try and take things away from us just because the media sensationalises everything. There is a place for legislation and a place for education. That is the goal:

Ensuring Responsibility, not inducing fear.