What are the odds of dying in childbirth or pregnancy?
Are they less than the patch?
I doubt the arguement is against chemicals; it's against artificial birth control in general.
Artificial birth control is generally harmful.
17 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births is the approximate rate for the US. Which translates to 34 out of 200,000, or about eleven times the risk from the patch, which is given at 3 deaths per 200,000 cases in the article above. FYI ;)