NUNS SHOULD be offered the contraceptive pill for health reasons, Australian doctors suggest.
In an editorial comment published in the Lancetthis morning, cancer researchers say that, like other women who do not have children, nuns have an increased risk of dying from breast, ovarian, and uterine (womb) cancer compared with women who have children.
However, the contraceptive pill reduces mortality due to ovarian and uterine cancer, leading to today’s call for the Catholic Church to make the pill available to nuns to reduce their risk of developing tumours.
Dr Kara Britt of Monash University in Melbourne, Australia and Prof Roger Short of the University of Melbourne say studies have shown that overall mortality in women using the contraceptive pill is 12 per cent lower than in those who have never used it.
“The risk of developing ovarian and endometrial cancers falls by 50-60 per cent in pill-users compared with never-users, protection that persists for 20 years, showing a clear long-term benefit,” they say.
Nuns have more menstrual cycles than women who have children, due to the absence of pregnancy and lactation. This increased number of cycles increases cancer risk.
Other factors increasing the overall number of cycles and thus increasing cancer risk are going through puberty earlier or experiencing the menopause later.
Women who have children further decrease their risk of these cancers if they have their first child at a young age, have more children and breastfeed.
The 18th-century Italian physician Bernardino Ramazzini was the first to note that nuns had a very high incidence of breast cancer.
Their celibate lives are now known to also increase the risk of ovarian and womb cancers as a direct physiological consequence of having a greater number of menstrual cycles.
The authors conclude: "The Catholic Church condemns all forms of contraception, as outlined by Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitaein 1968.
"Although Humanae Vitaenever mentions nuns, they should be free to use the contraceptive pill to protect against the hazards of nulliparity since the document states that 'the Church in no way regards as unlawful therapeutic means considered necessary to cure organic diseases, even though they also have a contraceptive effect'.
“If the Catholic Church could make the contraceptive pill freely available to all its nuns it would reduce the risk of cancer of the ovary and uterus, and give nuns’ plight the recognition it deserves.”