A new family plan

In the beginning (1957 to be precise), man created the birth control pill.

First, 21 pills were designed to keep a woman from getting pregnant. Then, seven pills followed. But these were only placebos and assured that the woman in question would maintain her normal menstrual cycle.

There was no medical reasoning behind this other than the creator of the pill, John Rock, wanted to appease the Catholic Church. He thought that if the pill had a semblance of normality, then God, the Pope and the faithful would approve.

The pill was to be “indistinguishable” from a cosmetics compact so that it would not give “a visual clue as to matters which are of no concern to others.” In effect, the pill was to be a broom to unmentionable matters — that being a woman’s menstrual cycle — brushing it under the rug, so to speak.

Let us fast forward to the present. It’s the year 2010, and women continue to suffer from the outdated notion that the pill must conform to the standards that man (and by extension, the church) decide.

No matter what evidence suggests, women who experience a menses every month are more likely to develop certain cancers; men dictated that women regulate their cycles, and women, with limited option available for contraceptives, have no choice but to obey.

Last week, Scientific American published some very concerning evidence on the effect hormonal contraceptives are having on women’s brains.

Apparently women who take the pill have more gray matter then those who don’t — a change best likened to a woman’s brain being on steroids.

It’s about time that society at large embraces creative solutions to contraceptives.

This means demanding simpler, cheaper and more effective family planning alternatives than what is currently accepted. We can’t continue to pump our women full of hormones with unknown consequences.

If we can use our phones to surf the web, surely we can do a better job of preventing pregnancy.     

Thankfully, it seems that a revolution is upon us. Changing public opinion about birth control begins with altering the practice of it.

Women should not have to hide their pills and rings as a source of shame. Instead, men should share in the burden of family planning, a responsibility that for too long has solely been in the domain of women.

In India a reversible sterilization has been developed. An injection creates a plug in the duct carrying sperm, which can then be reversed by another injection of solvent.

This process includes no hormones and is planned to be introduced worldwide in the coming years. Other new solutions involve a special type of clothing that would “cook” the sperm into infertility with no impact on testosterone.

These developments need to be encouraged. The current view of birth control as women’s domain is a backwards perspective.

Going into the future, we need to change family planning from one sexes burden to everyone’s responsibility.


E-mail: danfleis@indiana.edu