Untitled (Response to "Some Facts about contraception") by Jeffrey M. Palun In response to Ms. Michelle Murphy. To paraphrase Shakespeare, A rose is as lovely even if called something else. Ms. Murphy, in your article you play the game of semantics. Killing a human being is still despicable no matter what you call it. The purpose of my article was to raise awareness of exactly how "contraception" really works. I find it amusing that you criticize my medical facts when you use the same medical facts in your own article. What other medical facts do I state other than the functions of "contraception?" Yes, I state that the third function causes an abortion. "The third function is that which causes the abortion. The uterine walls become virtually inhospitable to the implantation of an embryo." I also state that, "they may define an abortifacient differently. Drug companies usually define something as "contraception" even if it stops the pregnancy process by stopping the implantation of the fertilized egg." This is because there is dispute over when a pregnancy starts. Does it start at conception or implantation? Ms. Murphy claims that it starts at implantation. Ok, we'll define it her way; but we are still going to take a look at what is going on. Contraception: literally it means, "against conception"--it prevents conception. How can stopping the implantation of an embryo in the uterus of a woman stop conception? Conception has already occurred! Therefore it is NOT contraception. Other words may be defined such that people can claim it is contraception (ie. contraception is what stops pregnancy and pregnancy starts at the implantation of an embryo… therefore anything that stops the implantation of a new life is contraception…); if you still want to define contraception as such fine. However, let me go further. Onto abortion, "abortion is defined in medical literature as "the termination of an established pregnancy;" (Ms. Murphy). Ms. Murphy if you want to define abortion as such, that's fine… but then every live birth is an abortion. What is birth but the termination of a pregnancy (with a live child as the result)? I think your definition of abortion is a tad bit vague to be a true definition of what abortion is. Abortion is the intentional killing of a developing human being that is located inside its human mother. Therefore I claim that anything that intentionally kills the embryo after conception is an abortion. Still if you wish to define abortion differently… I will call it something else, but it will still be killing a human being and it will still be something very tragic. "Palun is obviously unaware of the medical definitions and FACTS" (Murphy). On the contrary, I am very aware of them. I just choose to think. Jeffrey M. Palun, Executive Member UCSFL Freshman Mechanical Engineering This article will not be published in The News Record, the University of Cincinnati's Student Newspaper. They refused to run this article. Return to Main Page