As the Obama Administration’s assault on religious liberties and individual freedom from the HHS mandate continues, the liberal, feminist blog Jezebel alerts readers that the injectable contraception shot, Depo-Provera, doubles a woman’s risk of breast cancer.
Doubles a woman’s risk of breast cancer. That’s worth repeating. The shot is used by about 1.2 million women in this country. Because of the HHS mandate, now women will be able to get this breast cancer-inducing drug for free and have it paid for by their employer, willingly or not.
But Jezebel, quick to look on the bright side of things, reminded readers that a woman’s risk of getting breast cancer, barring family history and age, is relatively low so even doubling that risk isn’t that bad. But it gets better because once a woman goes off the shot, her risk of developing breast cancer goes back to normal within “several months.” Has anyone studied the long term effects of the use of synthetic hormones like these?
What about those women who do have a family history of breast cancer or who are older and are at higher risk? There is no good news for them if they are on Depo - their risk of getting the disease just spiked to very uncomfortable levels.
The drug causing this spike is synthetic progesterone, the same drug used in most birth control pills. The National Cancer Institute admits that women, especially younger women, who use oral contraceptives which contain progesterone, are at an increased risk for breast cancer, even for as long as 10 years after discontinuing use. The World Health Organization has classified the Pill as a Group 1 carcinogen, meaning that the use of this drug knowingly causes cancer. Other Group 1 carcinogens are asbestos, formaldehyde, neutron radiation, plutonium, and tobacco.
I have serious concerns that the government is stripping away our First Amendment rights by forcing religious employers to pay for drugs that they are morally opposed to. Putting aside the serious constitutional issue, women’s groups should be on board with this argument for the simple reason that oral contraceptives are extremely harmful to women. Where are these supposed “women’s health” groups that so value easy access to a known carcinogen?
Kudos to Jezebel and others who have posted the possible harmful effects to women who are on the Depo shot. Coming up with a silver lining when a woman has been on some form of synthetic hormones is a challenge but convenience should never trump human life.
Women have easy access to affordable birth control today and they do not need taxpayers picking up the bill for a Group 1 carcinogen. Maybe a war on women is happening but it’s not coming from the religious groups. To the contrary, it’s coming from the very party and their leaders, many of whom are women, who supposedly want the very best for women’s health. Giving women free access to cancer-causing drugs is nothing less than a death sentence, which in the words of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, may not be so bad because less people in the world accounts for much lower healthcare costs.
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