I can't even believe we are having this discussion in 2012. How quickly we forget the recent past....like the 1940's and 1950's.
First of all, birth control pills are one of the most widely used medications in the world for a reason. They have changed women's lives, because for the first time in history, women can
control their own fertility on a continual, daily basis without having to consult, get permission from, get approval from or be judged by anyone. Need I mention that men don't have to beg their bosses to let them get their Viagra covered by insurance.....and is Viagra
ever medically necessary?
It may not be a big deal for a man who never has to think, each and every time he has sex, that he may end up with another human being growing inside of him. But remember the good old days when young people had sex until an accidental pregnancy and then
had to get married? Or risk your life and face jail with an illegal abortion? What a wonderful world that was.
Now, for the first time in human history, a woman does not have to plan her life around whether or not she is going to have sex today or tomorrow and
therefore face a pregnancy each and every month of her 30 years of fertile life. Not to have two kids, six kids, eight kids or twelve kids unless she really wants them. Not to face one pregnancy (and several miscarriages) after another until her body is worn out, like our grandmothers and great grandmothers. To have children when she is ready for them, not just when a random sperm makes it to an egg.
A miraculous life change for women, children and the men who care about them. Just by taking one pill every day. Like science fiction a hundred years ago, but everyday reality today.
Second, WTF does it matter why a woman is taking the pills? That is absolutely nobody's business but hers and her medical professional. I have had serious medical problems related to reproduction all my life. As a young woman, I had debilitating cramps for two-four days each month. This radically disrupted my life--each month I basically lost three days of my life to horrible pain, vomiting, diarrhea, etc. I also became anemic.
I tried diet, exercise, vitamins, heat packs, over the counter medications. Nothing worked, because as I learned years later after a miscarriage, I had a serious medical condition--uterine tumors. Birth control pills probably would have helped greatly, but there is no way I could have gotten them with my (abusive, religious, conservative) family situation. Ironically we lived in Arizona when I was 14, so today it would be an issue with the effing STATE as well as with my own family. WTF?
Incidentally, as a very religious and self-controlled teen, I would not have been using them primarily for birth control, but so what if I had been using them for both? As it was, I just had to put up with the awful pain from age 14 until having a hysterectomy due to huge tumors at age 36. And one little pill a day might have saved me from all that?
Why would it matter to my employer? Well, they would have had a better employee who was not sick so much, for one thing.
[1] Contrary to popular wisdom, menstruation is not exactly earth mother "natural". Being pregnant or nursing constantly, and having almost no periods from age 15-45 is just as "natural" and is what most women the world over endured until the mid-20th century. Birth control pills, by mimicking the hormones of pregnancy, are taking women back to what was "natural" before, without the risks of constant pregnancy and childbirth.
No periods, no cramps, reduced fibroid tumors and ovarian cysts and endometriosis. No pregnancies, no miscarriages, no babies unless wanted. So, yes, there are
medical and
social reasons for birth control pills beyond just preventing one incidence of pregnancy during one sex act. That is what barrier methods like condoms are for--and these should also be used to prevent STD's. Birth control pills, on the other hand, should be called
fertility empowerment pills instead. Then conservative men can be even more afraid of them....
