Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

You probably have already seen the National Catholic Register story about the findings of a Boulder Colorado study which found that synthetic estrogen is showing up in waterways and causing havoc with fish.  The Register reports on what one of the scientists doing the study had to say:

It’s “the first thing that I’ve seen as a scientist that really scared me,” said then 59-year-old University of Colorado biologist John Woodling, speaking to the Denver Post in 2005.

They have determined that these hormones that are causing deformation and sterility in fish are coming from urine processed in water treatment facilities.  The ultimate culprit is birth control pills and patches.

The big news is that this hit the newspapers two years ago and evironmentalists have ignored it since then.  Here is what some of them have said as Reported in the Register:

Dave Georgis, who directs the Colorado Genetic Engineering Action Network, took to the streets of Boulder on several occasions to hold signs demanding that Boulder County regulate genetically modified crops from existence.

When asked about the genetically modified fish and the contaminated drinking water, however, he said: “It just has so much competition out there for stuff to work on.”

He told the Boulder Weekly that nobody needed to consider curtailing use of artificial contraceptives out of concern for the creek.

“You can’t have a zero impact, and this is one of the many, many impacts we have on the environment in everyday life,” Georgis said. “Nobody is to blame for this, and I don’t have a solution.”

[snip]

Curt Cunningham, water quality issues chairman for the Rocky Mountain Chapter of Sierra Club International, worked tirelessly last year on a ballot measure that would force the City of Boulder to remove fluoride from drinking water, because some believe it has negative effects on health and the environment that outweigh its benefits. But Cunningham said he would never consider asking women to curtail use of birth control pills and patches — despite what effect these synthetics have on rivers, streams and drinking water.

“I suspect people would not take kindly to that,” Cunningham said. “For many people it’s an economic necessity. It’s also a personal freedom issue.”

Another activist, Betty Ball the nonviolence coordinator for the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, said that while she is concerned they do not have the time to work on it.  She admits that it is a political hot button issue:

To avoid genetically modified crops, Ball said, one needed only to buy organic, genetically modified organism-free products at health food stores. Asking residents to stop polluting water with hormones, however, “gets into the bedroom.”

“I’m not going there,” Ball said. “This involves people’s personal lives, child bearing issues, sex lives and personal choices. Maybe people are saying, ‘O my God, what do we do about this?’

I suppose that this is not surprising.   With the first hint of problems with pharmaceuticals, the FDA is forced to take drugs off the market.  However, with contraceptives everyone always advises caution.  We all know that taken as directed, they are “safe.”  What this really means is that the risks of breast cancer and a host of embolism related maladies are worth it when the alternative is something much more horrifying…a woman’s fertility.

It seems that without God, we have become worshipers of science, especially medicine because of its relation to health.  When there is no eternal life, we want to hang on to natural life at all costs–almost.

For some reason the one thing for which we do have the courage to face the risk of death is when we are presented with the danger of bringing a new life into the world.  And some have wondered what the tie is between contraception and the culture of death…