Ohio nuns release contraception video on YouTube

A group of Roman Catholic nuns in central Ohio has produced a short anti-contraception video hoping to get it in front of Catholics in all 50 states, starting with swing states, before the presidential election.

The "You Deserve to Know the Truth: Contraception"  video, posted on YouTube by The Children of Mary order, invokes a number of statistics, studies and comments -- even lyrics to the Bloodhound Gang's “The Bad Touch." 

The video opens by saying oral contraception can make women less desirable by interfering with chemical hormones. 

It cites a study from the 1970s in which the alpha male in a tribe of monkeys became "confused" when females were injected with birth control drugs and started having sexual interactions with other males.

The video also tells viewers:

• Possible side effects of the pill include irritability, depression, blood clots, high blood pressure and migraines.
• The pill works by preventing fertilization. If that fails, it prevents implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus.
• More than half of women getting abortions say they used contraception in the month they became pregnant.
• The overpopulation problem is a myth, and contraception puts the human race at risk of extinction.
• Christians of all denominations condemned contraception as sinful until 1930. Martin Luther, John Calvin and Pope John Paul II all opposed the practice.

"The great harm in this birth control mentality is the consequent pollution of the heart that rejects the will of God and seeks selfish pleasure," the narrator says. "We allow our passions to take over our reason, and our actions become more like animals than humans."

The Catholic Church opposes contraception and says the purpose of sex is to unify married couples and produce children.

The video comes as the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops continues a religious-liberty campaign prompted by a federal health-care mandate that requires employee-provided insurance plans to pay for birth control. 

Although churches are exempt from the mandate, other religious institutions, such as hospitals and schools, are not.

"We're not stray cats that need to be neutered. We should want to procreate knowing that every new person has a unique and a mortal soul destined to live for all eternity," the video says. "Pregnancy is not a risk, it’s a privilege."

The Children of Mary, in Licking County, also offers DVDs of the video and seeks volunteers in each state to bring it to the attention of parish priests.