Jim Bob Duggar Causes Controversy By Blaming Birth Control For Michelle’s Miscarriage

Members of the Duggar family obviously don’t have much experience using birth control but this doesn’t stop them from trying to educate their fans about the pill. Unfortunately, Jim Bob Duggar might want to do a little more research before talking about the way a woman’s reproductive system works while she’s on birth control.

According to InTouch Weekly, Jim Bob recently tried to claim that contraceptives can be abortive. The 19 Kids & Counting star believes this because of the miscarriage that Michelle Duggar suffered in 1988 and he talked about the tragedy at this this year’s Value Voters Summit.

“Something we didn’t know is that the pill can allow women to get pregnant, but then it can be aborted. That’s what happened with Michelle… She went on the pill after Josh and then got pregnant, and then the pill actually caused a miscarriage, and so that was really when we started examining this. We started looking at the fine print of the contraception, and it said this could happen, and then we talked to a Christian doctor, and he explained this to us.”

However, Salon pointed to a 1995 study that found that birth control use can “actually help preserve a woman’s eggs and reduce the risk of miscarriage for older women.” This study was published long after Michelle Duggar suffered her first miscarriage in 1988 and made the decision to completely stop using birth control. The 19 Kids & Counting star miscarried again in 2011 after becoming pregnant with what would have been her 20th child. According to People, Michelle was 19 weeks and 1 day into her pregnancy when the miscarriage was diagnosed.

Columbia Health’s Go Ask Alice! Explains why oral contraceptives don’t cause miscarriages.

“Continuing to take the birth control pill before or after a pregnancy is confirmed will not abort the fetus. Oral contraceptives don’t cause miscarriages because they do not have any effect on a fertilized embryo. Birth control pills — generally made of estrogen and progestin (synthetic progesterone) — essentially prevent pregnancy by inhibiting ovulation and/or causing the cervical mucus to thicken. It is also unlikely that taking the pill will have any effect on fetal development.”

Jim Bob Duggar also caused controversy for using the word “aborted” while talking about miscarriages. But to be fair, miscarriages are sometimes referred to as “spontaneous abortions.”

His comments come after a slew of abortion-related Duggar controversies. Jessa Duggar was criticized for comparing abortion to the Holocaust last month after she visited the Holocaust museum. Her future father-in-law, Michael Seewald, fired back at Jessa’s critics by labeling them “Hitler’s doppelgangers.” TLC seemingly responded to the backlash to Jessa’s comments by censoring the Duggar family’s anti-abortion T-shirts in a recent episode of 19 Kids & Counting.

What do you think of Jim Bob Duggar’s comments about birth control and miscarriages?

[Image credit: TLC]