Blog #4 - Contraception and the Southeastern Woman

       

The article "The 'natural' body, God and contraceptive use in the southeastern United States" investigates the different beliefs held by women from low socioeconomic status on how the concept of God affects their opinions on contraception and childbirth and how a distrust of the medical community and pharmaceutical companies drive the choices that women make about their contraceptive methods. Many of the women in the survey believed that God was the major decision-maker in whether they had children; they also voiced concerns regarding the chemicals that comprise various hormonal birth control methods, stating that the natural body was being harmed by the use of chemicals in various ways. The study suggested that the concepts of religion and culture must be considered when educating women about reproduction and contraception.

This article illustrates how the culture dictates what is healthy and natural, not biology (Woodsong, Shedlin, & Koo, 2004). The people interviewed, and I would imagine many others nationwide, do not have a clear concept of the way their body functions. My concern is with the education that we provide in public school on health overall, not just sex education; to know how the body works seems like fundamental knowledge, in my opinion. I understand that the Christian belief is in abstinence before marriage but the education of how reproduction occurs should not lead to premarital sex; reproduction and sex will occur at some point in the majority of people’s lives, the knowledge can be used when it is appropriate for the individual.

Another point of interest, in this article, is the distrust that the health-related institutions have created in our society, especially among people of color and people of low income; the incidences that have fueled this distrust comes from issues of abnormally high hormone levels in medications, disreputable research methods, such as the Tuskegee syphilis study and concern about Agent Orange (Woodsong, Shedlin, & Koo, 2004). This distrust fuels some of the beliefs that women have about contraception and how it changes the way the body functions from its natural/non-medicated state. This perspective changes the methods that women use to prevent pregnancies, some women claimed that the hormonal therapies made them incapable of becoming pregnant.

Woodsong, C., Shedlin, M., & Koo, H. (2004). The 'natural' body, god

and contraceptive use in the southeastern united states. Culture,

 Health & Sexuality, 6(1), 61-78.