Pro-Lifer Blasts Consumer Mag for Omitting Facts on Contraceptives
by Bill Fancher
January 7, 2005
(AgapePress) - A pro-life activist is giving the latest edition of Consumer Reports a negative review, charging the publication with failing to tell the whole truth about contraceptives and abortion. The February issue of Consumer Reports magazine takes a look at birth control and abortion products. The article offers an evaluation of 25 kinds of condoms, including two types made of polyurethane, for those allergic to latex, and a "comparative guide" that purports to give "the facts about 17 birth control methods." Also, a segment called "Birth-control choices" details the latest developments in contraception.
But although the Consumer Reports piece on contraceptive products and "abortion options" apparently touts itself as comprehensive, Judie Brown of the American Life League (ALL) finds the six-page report objectionable, particularly for what it leaves out. "At no place in this article does Consumer Reports give the full and total description of these pills -- one of the descriptions, of course, being that a mode of action of the pill is that it aborts babies prior to implantation in the womb," she says.
For this reason, Brown considers the Consumer Reports feature dishonest and feels the periodical has allowed itself to become a tool of the death culture. She charges the article with sidestepping a critical issue -- that many birth-control methods "work" by killing an unborn child -- and says, "Consumer Reports completely avoids and negates that as a reality -- which, of course, it is."
Furthermore, the ALL spokeswoman adds, "What really is troublesome is [that the authors of the article] also misrepresent abortion by saying that abortion is safer than childbirth, which is also false." Suddenly, she contends, Consumer Reports "has become a political tool for the culture of death and is no longer, in my humble opinion, reliable. And they're not honest on any aspect of this question, at all."
ALL notes that full information on how birth control pills work is posted on patient information sheets and in such sources as the Physician's Desk Reference. These sources readily disclose the known fact that the birth control pill can work in one of three ways: to prevent ovulation, create conditions in the cervix that are inhospitable to sperm, or change the lining of the uterus so that, should the first two methods fail and pregnancy does occur, the unborn child will die before he or she can actually become attached to the lining of the womb.
Brown says Consumer Reports "deceptively chose to omit the third way in which the pill can work." But if this respected consumer product review publication is serious about presenting fair, unbiased information to the public, she says the magazine must stop its selective omission and instead tell consumers the whole truth about these birth control products.
Consumer Reports needs to get its facts about birth control pills straight, Brown says, or else stick to reviewing traditional consumer products like sewing machines and toasters. Meanwhile, she notes, ALL is calling on the publication to issue a correction and "tell the full story about the deadly nature of the pill." The pro-life group is also encouraging concerned citizens to write to the magazine, expressing their concern about its exclusion of such vital information. The publication's address is Consumer Reports, 101 Truman Ave., Yonkers, NY 10703-1057.
