It's Tuesday, July the 18th, 2023.

Greetings and welcome to the Daily Article Podcast.

I'm Chris Elkins with the Denison Forum,

narrating today's article written by Dr. Jim Denison.

Diet drink sales plummeted recently

when the World Health Organization declared

that they contain an artificial sweetener

that causes cancer. Then we learned that a 154-pound person would have to drink more than 9 to 14

cans of beverage every day over the course of their life to raise safety concerns. And multiple

other studies have reportedly concluded that the sweetener in question

is safe as an ingredient. In other medical news, the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration,

has approved the first over-the-counter birth control pill. At first glance, this seems like

good news for pro-life supporters. Anything that prevents unwanted pregnancies, should result in fewer abortions, or so we might think. However, as with the diet-drink controversy, there's more here than meets the eye, and the implications of this issue go deeper even than the crucial issues it raises. The FDA approved the first oral contraceptive on June the 23rd, 1960.

Until the FDA's announcement last week, however, such medication could be dispensed only with

a physician's approval and oversight. Why is this significant? The over-the-counter drug being

approved is called opal. It contains the hormone progestin and works by

suppressing ovulation and causing changes in the cervix and uterus that decrease the chance of

pregnancy. It was first approved by the FDA as a prescription in 1973. Most women in the U.S. use

birth control pills containing both progestin and estrogen.

Women on progestin-only pills tend to have more unscheduled bleeding. Some are concerned that users,

particularly teenagers, would not know to seek help of a health care provider in this case.

The National Catholic Bioethics Center strenuously opposed

...