Some Women Seeking Alternatives To Oral Contraceptives

In the five decades since the birth control pill was approved, its "boastful promise to unfetter women rings hollow to some," and a "small but vocal chorus of women" is encouraging the medical community to re-examine its reliance on oral contraception, the Washington Post reports.

About half of all U.S. pregnancies are unintended, and almost four in 10 women using the pill and other reversible birth control methods are unsatisfied with them, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

Laura Wershler, executive director of Sexual Health Access Alberta, said, "There's this huge distance between what women want and what (the medical community) is willing to provide." She added, "We're so used to and comfortable with this fast-food birth control, we don't want to take the time to think about fertility management."

Lawrence Finer, director of research at the Guttmacher Institute, said that he expects new studies to show an increase in the use of non-hormonal forms of contraception. The 2002 National Study for Family Growth found that U.S. women use the pill more than any other form of contraception.

According to the Post, the Internet has given women an outlet to communicate their concerns about the pill and search for information about alternative forms of contraception. Some of these women might feel that their doctors have not provided them enough information about contraception, according to Beth Jordan, medical director of the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals. Jordan said that prescribing the pill is "a knee-jerk reaction," adding, "The pill is always offered." She said that the pill is "great ... but we need a richer, more nuanced conversation about the different options" (Bell, Washington Post, 5/11).

Pill Changed Relationship Between the Sexes, Washington Times Columnist Wetzstein Says

Washington Times columnist Cheryl Wetzstein writes that one unintended consequence of the pill "is that it changed the relationship between men and women in a way that did not benefit women: Both unplanned pregnancies and unwed childbearing remain common, despite the pill." She cites the arguments of former Secretary of Education William Bennett, who wrote that the pill -- and legal abortion -- meant that "[f]or the first time, on a large scale, sex has been delinked from both marriage and procreation." Wetzstein writes, "Put another way, the pill ushered in an era of 'disciplined' childbearing -- and 'undisciplined' sexuality" (Wetzstein, Washington Times, 5/11).


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