The Billings legacy in China

By Paul Schratz

China, the country that introduced the world to the nature-defying one-child rule, may have just blinked.

Increasing reports say China is under growing internal pressure to review its notorious one-child rule, a draconian policy that prevents families from having more than one baby.

The legacy of that policy has been forced abortions, an aging population unsupported by offspring, and a male over female imbalance of tens of millions.

Now more and more political groups and scientists warn things have to change. The policy is wreaking havoc with China's demographics, skewed abnormally toward men and leaving a culture fraught with pronounced personality disorders among the myriad only-children.

There couldn't have been a more fitting tribute to Dr. John Billings than China reconsidering its policies, and he lived long enough to see some of those encouraging signs coming out of China.

Dr. Billings, who died on Palm Sunday, was the man who took the world beyond the outmoded rhythm method by developing the Billings Ovulation Method, a scientifically legitimate understanding of the reproductive system that could be used by couples either to achieve pregnancy or to postpone it using methods that conform to Catholic teaching.

Because the method is simple to learn and more effective than pill or barrier methods, it became authorized in China, the only natural means to receive approval in a country where preventing births is an obsession.

Sue Fryer, a Billings instructor on Vancouver Island, told The B.C. Catholic the Billings method is 100 per cent effective in China when taught by accredited teachers. There are now Billings centres in 14 cantons, and an estimated 37,000 Chinese teachers are now trained. Close to 3 million couples use the method, and 32 per cent of infertile couples give birth after receiving the information. In areas where it is taught the abortion rate has dropped dramatically.

The professor who conducted a trial on the method, which was published in the Chinese Medical Journal in 1998, described Dr. Billings as "the best friend China ever had."

At Dr. Billings's funeral Mass in Australia, Msgr. Peter J. Elliott said Dr. Billings had reached out to bring the culture of life "beyond our community to people of other faiths and no particular faith. He offered them all a way beyond and above the false ways of what is significantly called `birth control.'"

In his homily, Msgr. Elliott pictured Dr. Billings being welcomed into eternity by the Holy Innocents: "I invite you now to see in your mind's eye those countless women in China who could rise up on the Day of Judgement to say, "Thank you, thank you, Dr. John."

Dr. Billings and his method helped not only the women of China, said the priest, "but women and men all around this planet, especially the poorest of the poor. Let us think of those to whom Blessed Teresa of Calcutta ministered. Let us never forget that one key element in the work of her sisters among women was made possible by her friend John Billings."

You don't read any of this in the mainstream press. Those that reported on Dr. Billings's death portrayed his method as an ineffective means of preventing children plagued with erroneously high failure rates.

Mind you, that's what happens when you rely on sources that have a bias against NFP, which is what is offered at Science World in Vancouver these days. The exhibit's BodyWorks exhibit (not to be confused with the recent controversial BodyWorlds exhibit) on the human body includes a component on human sexuality and birth control, exclusively emphasizing contraception.

There's a question and answer wheel, for instance, that deals with condoms and pills, with no mention of fertility awareness methods.

In fact, the display looks like something produced by Planned Parenthood, which isn't surprising since there's a literature rack offering brochures and business cards for that organization, which has relabelled itself Options for Sexual Health.

Science World was contacted and encouraged to offer its visitors some information on NFP and the Billings method. Its administration was told Dr. Billings had just died and some handouts on his work would be informative and timely. Science World was offered some professionally produced material on NFP that could easily be made available alongside the Planned Parenthood material.

Science World politely replied that it was satisfied with the information Options provides.

Here's how the Options Web site describes natural family planning: "Fertility awareness (commonly know as the rhythm method)."

Of course, NFP is about as far away from the rhythm method as you can get, but it's in the organization's best interest to discredit NFP by presenting it as the rhythm method.

If you really want some credible information on NFP check out the following site instead: www.woomb.org.
Dr. John Billings would be pleased.