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This news will not change most women's daily lives, attention to their menstrual cycles, or their contraceptive choices. Women should be alert, however, for changes in contraception, infertility treatments, and basic medical knowledge that may come as a result of this pathbreaking study. Perhaps even more important, Christians should be alert to ways in which media biases, naïveté, and rushed research may misconstrue the facts.

Jenell Williams Paris is a fertility awareness instructor and author of Birth Control for Christians: Making Wise Choices (Baker Books, 2003). She is also associate professor of anthropology at Bethel College in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Copyright © 2003 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Paris's Birth Control for Christians can be purchased at Christianbook.com and other book retailers.

Paris earlier wrote for Christianity Today on the sexual lies our culture proclaims—and which seduce even Christians.

Christianity Today's recent articles on contraception and fertility include:

Make Love and Babies | The contraceptive mentality says children are something to be avoided. We're not buying it. By Sam and Bethany Torode (Nov. 9, 2001)

'Be Fruitful and Multiply' | Is this a command, or a blessing? By Raymond C. Van Leeuwen (Nov. 9, 2001)

Souls on Ice | The costs of in vitro fertilization are moral and spiritual—not just financial (June 24, 2003)

400K and Counting | Christians recoil at explosive growth of frozen human embryos (June 24, 2003)

Books & Culture Corner: More Sex, Fewer Children | Mixed messages on condoms, contraception, and fertility. By John Wilson (Sept. 10, 2001)

How to Make a Person | New reproductive technologies raise difficult moral issues. (Jan. 6, 1997)

Mourning the Morning-After Pill | A Christianity Today Editorial (Apr. 7, 1997)

Charity Defies California Law on Contraception | Court to decide if state can require Catholic ministries to pay for birth control (June 25, 2002)

No Room in the Womb? | Couples with high-risk pregnancies face the 'selective reduction' dilemma (dec. 10, 1999)

Hannah's Sisters | At a Washington Assembly of God, prayers for fertility are answered (Mar. 21, 2002)

Embryo 'Adoption' Matches Donors and Would-be Parents | 'Snowflake' program is only of its kind in dealing with leftover fertilized eggs (Nov. 2, 1999)

Today's Christian Woman, a Christianity Today sister publication, also examined natural birth control, and Books & Culture examined whether making love still leads to making babies.

For more current news on fertility and pregnancy, see Yahoo's full coverage area.

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July (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47