{"id":1102,"date":"2005-10-16T23:55:40","date_gmt":"2005-10-16T23:55:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2005\/10\/amazing-that-this-is-news.html"},"modified":"2005-10-16T23:55:40","modified_gmt":"2005-10-16T23:55:40","slug":"amazing-that-this-is-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/10\/amazing-that-this-is-news.html","title":{"rendered":"Amazing that this is news"},"content":{"rendered":"

In New Zealand, a physician is making headlines because of his decision to cease prescribing contraceptives.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
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Nelson GP Dr Joseph Hassan, a 40-year-old married father of four, wrote to the 50 patients a fortnight ago telling them he would no longer prescribe contraceptives or refer women for sterilisation. <\/p>\n

The letter, which listed doctors who would provide the services, told patients their fertility was a gift to be looked after and not something to be treated with medication like a disease. <\/p>\n

"I have done this in response to a personal journey," he told the Herald. " … I have been praying about God’s direction on this in my life. Over the last few weeks, in various ways, I have felt this is the direction I should take." <\/p>\n

Dr Hassan, who also opposes abortion and has set up a crisis support programme as an alternative, said he had long been troubled by the conflict between the Church’s teaching on contraception and his medical practice. He said other doctors would prescribe contraception and his move would not increase the teen pregnancy rate, which was due to other factors, "not just a lack of contraception". <\/p>\n

New Zealand has the third-highest teenage pregnancy rate in the developed world. In 2002, 3 per cent of female teenagers aged between 15 and 19 became pregnant. <\/p>\n

Ms Williams said she was surprised by Dr Hassan’s move. "It’s really out-of-the-Ark stuff these days." <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In the US, iit seems as if most mid-sized communities have one or two OB\/GYN’s or Family Practitioners who go this route. In one town I lived in there was an entire practice – 2 or 3 physicians, a PA, a nurse-midwife, I think, that billed itself as "pro-life" and did not prescribe contraceptives (or perform or refer for abortions, either, obviously). <\/p>\n

One More Soul is a website of resources, including a director of NFP-only physicians.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In New Zealand, a physician is making headlines because of his decision to cease prescribing contraceptives. Nelson GP Dr Joseph Hassan, a 40-year-old married father of four, wrote to the 50 patients a fortnight ago telling them he would no longer prescribe contraceptives or refer women for sterilisation. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}