The Vatican on BC pills

I've seen news stories lately about the Vatican's recent take on the evils of contraception - Vatican blames the Pill for environmental pollution. I'm a fan of birth control pills myself, so this caught my attention, and my first thought was how disingenuous.

If the Vatican had been paying attention, they would have read of the evils of estrogen to the environment years ago - I can remember reading about the infertility problems of frogs due to estrogen in the environment (released in plastics) about 10 or 15 years ago. It's true that estrogen is causing harm to amphibians and fish and birds, etc (and maybe us), but there are hundreds of releasers of estrogen and estrogen mimics ..... industrial pollution, detergent additives, cosmetics, estrogen replacement therapy drugs, plastics additives, some pesticides like DDT, and one of the biggest, livestock manure (another reason to become a vegetarian), as well as the urine of pregnant people and animals (the most popular estrogen replacement drug is made by forcing pregnant horses to stand in "pee lines").

So yes, perhaps birth control pills do release estrogen into the environment, but they also have some benefits to users beyond contraception (taking birth control pills cuts the risk of ovarian cancer, for instance). I'm not saying we shouldn't try to protect the environment from estrogen - I think we should - but I'm betting BC pills are not the biggest offender, and that the Vatican cares more about controlling women's reproductive lives than it does about the environment.