Fr. Bryce SIbley’s recent post about the birth control patch reminds me to write about the sample I carried around in my purse for about 6 months. Fully intending to write about my astonishment at finding something so strange and so evil in a mainstream magazine (People, of course!), I toted this card with attached non-working patch with me everywhere. It fell out at Dominick’s while I was paying for my groceries. It fell out at Church while rummaging for a usable Kleenex. I stuffed it quickly back in my purse, hoping no one saw it. So I threw it in a drawer and forgot about it. Until a renewed onslaught of OrthoEvra TV ads and Fr. Sibley’s blog reminded me....

The maker’s of OrthoEvra put big advertisements, accompanied by perforated cards with a non-working sample patch, in People Magazine and who knows how many other publications that I never saw. I was so impressed with their attempt to make women feel at home with this dreadful thing that I could not resist the temptation to take it from the magazine. (This was at the dentist’s office during that bad root canal spell last fall. Of course the advertisers wanted me to steal it - that’s why they perforated the card, right?)

The card was covered with caveats about the patch being just a non-working demonstation!!!. But I couldn’t help but see lawsuit written all over it. What about young girls who see the TV ads, get the idea, don’t go much for reading fine print and try relying on the bogus patches. It would nice to see ‘the patch’ sued right out of business. I can dream, OK?