By Hilary White

ROME, October 30, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A recently released study has revealed that the abortifacient Intra-Uterine Device (IUD) and the hormone-releasing Intra-Uterine System (IUS) are the most popular forms of long-term birth control in Europe among the over-30s.

Published in the European Journal Of Contraception And Reproductive Health Care, the study evaluates the use of long-acting reversible contraceptives, and notes that younger women who want children later do not use the long-term methods as much as older women.

However, the study noted that 10 per cent of women in Europe use long-term methods, the majority over 30 years of age, and that the most popular long-term methods are intrauterine (which includes both the IUD and the IUS).

But the description of the IUD or IUS as contraceptive can only be accepted together with the newly established definition of pregnancy as beginning only at the implantation, and not the fertilization, of an embryo.

The intrauterine system (IUS) is inserted into the uterus and contains a hormone cylinder that releases hormones which reduce the frequency of ovulation and induces the release of chemicals naturally occurring in the body which are believed to be “hostile” to early-stage embryos. The IUS also has a secondary effect similar to that of other chemical birth control in thinning the lining of the uterus, making it difficult for an embryo to implant.

The World Health Organisation says that IUDs are the world’s most popular form of long-term reversible birth control, used by 160 million women around the world. Non-hormonal IUDs are a plastic T-shaped frame that is wound around with pure electrolytic copper wire that is inserted into the uterus.

In 1967, when IUDs were first popularised in the US, the American Medical Association Committee on Human Reproduction pointed out the abortifacient properties of the devices, observing, “That these devices prevent nidation [implantation] of an already fertilized ovum has been accepted as the most likely mechanism of the action.”

Anthony Ozimic of Britain’s Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) commented that intrauterine “contraception” is not a form of contraception at all, but a method of procuring a very early-term abortion.

He noted that the popularity of the intrauterine devices in Europe is just another manifestation of the continent’s flirtation with self-extinction. “Interestingly,” he said, “Europa, the mythical Greek woman after whom Europe is named, had three children, whereas the average European woman of child-bearing age only has one or at most two. Killing babies and avoiding pregnancy is hardly the way forward for a rapidly ageing continent.”