In yesterday’s Health section of the New York Times is a very informative article entitled Weighing the Health Benefits of Birth Control. Despite the title and the solid information it contains, however, it’s not about the pros and cons of taking BCPs, it’s about how the Pill’s side health benefits are being touted as an incentive for women to use it. Apparently Big Pharma emphasizes the positive side effects over the real reason women take the Pill, because, y’know, none of us are comfortable ‘fessing up to that:
Whether it’s reducing the risk of cancer, easing cramps or enhancing complexion, it’s nice to have a medical excuse for using birth control.
WTF? Who says you need a “medical excuse”, much less a “nice” one to take the Pill? Here’s why you take the Pill: contraception. That’s your medical reason; always has been, always will be. I realize that BCPs can help with other problems–my sister uses it to treat endometriosis, for example–but birth control pills are first and foremost intended for birth control.
Of course, it’s “nice” to have a “medical excuse” because otherwise we’re just dirty sluts trying not to get knocked up. Oh, they’re not going to come right out and say that, but really, we all know why women would rather have an “excuse” to take the Pill. There are plenty of women–like the nice Southern Baptists at my alma mater–whose Pill-popping slipped under the parental and pastoral radar with the excuse, “oh, I need it for medical reasons.” Yeah, sweetie, you need it so your medical egg doesn’t get fertilized by some frat boy’s medical sperm.
Consequence-free sex is a worthwhile–and moral–reason to use contraception. Women have desperately sought it for generations–and still do in many parts of the world. But even in the liberal New York Times, there’s a subtle implication that we should be glad there are other reasons for taking the Pill so that we don’t have to admit to its true purpose.
I’ve been using the Pill for 15 years and I don’t care who knows it. And while I enjoy the positive side effects, I am using it to prevent pregnancy. I don’t need to justify my contraceptive choices to anyone or hide behind a “nice medical excuse.” None of us do.
And while we’re at it: does anyone ever say it’s “nice” to have a medical excuse to take Viagra?
I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re trying to play up the medical angle so that insurance companies are forced to cover it. I still think it’s criminal that there are insurers out there who will cover viagra but not the pill!
I take BC because I don’t want to have a baby until I intentionally have a baby. For absolutely no other reason. And I would shout that from the rooftops.
Remember the commercials with two women chatting over coffee about “you know…”, and you know turned out to be constipation or a yeast infection? This falls into that category.
On the other hand, I don’t want to see the guy yodeling “Viva Viagra” either.
@Aftercancer: I’m sure that’s true, too. Insurers who don’t want to cover the pill try to get out of it by claiming that BCPs are not “intended to treat a medical condition.” Unlike, say, Viagra, since a chronically floppy dick–even an 85 year old one that’s floppy b/c of totally natural causes–is apparently a medical condition.
It’s especially silly because of the actual medical facts involved. The reason estrogen/progesterone therapy isn’t listed as an acne medication, or a PMS/cramps medication, or a weight loss medication is because it’s not reliable for treating those things. When I went on BC, I gained weight and cried a lot, and my cramps stayed exactly the same — when my friend went on it, same brand, her period got lighter and she went up a cup size. Other than endometriosis (for which, as far as I know, BC is the only non-surgical treatment), moreover, all of those conditions can be more reliably treated in other ways. What the BCP does reliably is that it prevents conception. Full stop.
Re: the insurance thing…isn’t is a LOT cheaper for health insurers to subsidize BC (of whatever sort) than to subsidize either abortion, or prenatal care, the birth experience, and subsequent post-natal/well mom and baby care? It’s that whole once-of-prevention, pound-of-cure thing.
@PhDork: YES. But having their heads up their asses about preventative care is one of the few things health insurers do well.
@PhDork: Yup, I would think so. Insurance companies are the kind of people who see pregnancy as a disability and not as a potentially positive force (assuming it’s a wanted pregnancy).
I’ve never been on the pill, but the only “medical reason” I could see for taking it is possibly evening out my menstrual cycle. Otherwise, it’s a C-O-N-T-R-A-C-E-P-T-I-V-E.
@PhDork – but why would they want that? They’d rather more women get pregnant and need pre-natal care or abortions so they can say that health care for women costs more, justifying their higher premiums for women and unwillingness to give women coverage.
I absolutely hate the fact that all b.c commericals tote the cramp/pmdd, or acne reducing properties of their birth control ,yet never mention the one thing that it’s actually proven to do–precent PREGNANCY!!! IF and when I go one b.c(the one time I was on it, my migraines increased in frequency and severity) I will proudly say “This? These are my birth control pills to prevent unwanted PREGNANCY!”
And the fact that insurance will cover Viagra but not birth control drives me up a wall. I am so thankful I live in a state that requires both to be covered.
I think the pharmaceutical companies are hoping that women who use other contraceptive methods will decide to go on the pill for PMS/acne/etc. In my experience, there are pretty strong folk beliefs that the pill’s side effects are awesome.
Coincidentally, I’m heading down to my neighborhood P.P. later today in order to pick myself up some of that sweet, sweet contraception. And the reason why is that I don’t want a baby. End of story.
@Spark: And yet I know so many women who say “Oh, I’d never go on the Pill–it’ll give me breast cancer/make me fat/make me psychotic.” I wonder if part of the reason Big Pharma’s playing up the positive side effects is also because there’s a lot of wrong/flawed information out there about side effects.
(and yes, I realize there are bad side effects for many women, but that can often be fixed by switching to a different hormone combo)
@Becky: It seems women either love it or hate it. But then, when it works it’s a miracle, and when it’s making you psychotic, well…
When a friend of mine started the pill, we discussed the potential great side effects, and she added, “And if I’m raped I don’t have to worry about getting pregnant.” I realized that I had always secretly thought the same thing. That was a real wake-up call for me, how the fear of rape haunts women.
Now that I think about it, there’s something to be said for the privacy that medical excuses allow. When my sister went on the pill for medical reasons, I envied her for being able to have a sex life (when she was ready) without an awkward trip to PP with mom.
@Spark: True. I absolutely LOVE it but I know women who’ve had bad side effects and didn’t have the patience to keep trying new pill combos in the hopes of finding a better match.
It’s true what you say about rape and pregnancy. There were a few times in my early 20s where I went through long dry spells and wondered if I should stop taking the Pill until I became sexually active again. And in my mind I kept coming back around to, “well, what if I get raped?” And that kept me on it.
@BeckySharper – well, the breast cancer thing isn’t all myth. It only raises your risk by something like 1%. But, for example, my mother’s a survivor, so I’m already pretty at risk. That was one of my major qualms about going on BC, and one of the reasons I stopped taking it and haven’t tried other brands to find one that fit better. And, as you say, I also don’t have the patience — being on it was SO bad that I don’t want to go through that again in hopes of finding a better one.
@baraqiel: I hear you. I have breast and colon cancer in my family–thank you, Ashkenazi genes–so I’ve followed the studies pretty closely and the scientific evidence linking BCP to breast cancer is shaky. Women have been taking it for two generations now and there’s never been evidence of a definitive causation like there was on post-menopausal hormone replacement therapy. At worst, it seems to add only a tiny risk, and you can do so many other things to reduce your risk (eating well, exercising, not taking hormone replacement) that I feel okay about the trade-off.
Also, all the evidence shows that BCP significantly reduces the risk of ovarian cancer, which is more deadly and difficult to diagnose than breast cancer.
@BeckySharper – Huh, I did not know that. I knew the risk was small, but not that the evidence was so tenuous. If/when a time comes again when it would make sense to be on BC, I won’t be so reluctant to trying to find one that works. Thanks!
@baraqiel:
Here’s some solid info about different studies on the Pill and cancer over the last 15 years. As you can see, the results seem to vary from “no risk at all” to “very small risk”.
I’m always very careful to look at the source when I read something about the Pill and health risks. Anytime you see some website saying “ZOMG, the Pill gives you cancer!” it’s likely either anti-feminist propaganda or fringe-y alternative health groups with zero hard data.
http://www.nytimes.com/specials/women/warchive/960925_1017.html
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/oral-contraceptives
Thanks for the links, I’ll definitely check them out. It’s hard to find reliable, clear data about HBC and its effects. Even when I went to my health center, which is very female-friendly, and told the doctor there that I needed a different kind of pill, she seemed to have no idea what to prescribe for me and looked up a suggestion in what appeared to be a HBC manual. I wish there was some clear test or way to tell what hormone combination will work for what person — give your family history and your blood type or something, and get a brand name. But, alas, it seems no such correlation is forthcoming.
@baraqiel: Yeah, I know. I wish it were that simple. Unfortunately hormone levels are so variable that doctors usually can only make an educated guess about what combos will work, usually based on age and menstrual history (and if you start when you’re a teen, you don’t have much menstrual history to go on). And things like diet change, medication, going through depression, etc. can affect hormone levels too, so there’s a lot of trial and error, which sucks, esp. since you need at least 3 solid months of taking a certain pill to know what its side effects really are.
I once switched to a low-dose pill b/c the doctor thought it would help with my yeast infection problem, and after about 6 weeks of constant spotting, I was like “Fuck it, give me back my Ortho-Novum!”
This “medical excuse”, however, helps me justify spending $35/month on BC as I haven’t found anyone with whom I want to have sex for months now. I’m paying $35 for a 2-day period, turns out.
Seems it’s just a marketing technique. Instead of losing customers who decide to go off when they are not sexually active, or young women who aren’t even having sex yet, they tout the benefits to health, skin, easy periods, good moods, whatever. It’s all about money, I dont think big pharma cares if we’re sluts or not!
When I was 14 or 15 my doctor prescribed Accutane for my horrible acne and birth control for…birth control. But she told my mother it was to help with my “medical condition” which I think she explained as irregular, painful periods. The HBC was required because Accutane causes horrible flipper-baby birth defects but my mom was convinced as soon as I took the first pill I’d be out slutting it up. Truth was I hadn’t even made it to second base but if it weren’t for the “medical” excuse she never would have allowed me to take HBC. So if it keeps a few teenage girls baby-free I’m ok with that reasoning.
@BlondeGrlz: I have a couple of good friends who went through that. Well, they wanted to have sex and were on b/c because of bad periods, and so they had sex without having to say they were on b/c for the purposes of having sex. I’m not sure what they would have taken or done otherwise, but can’t blame them for lucking into the “Hey someone wants to do me! And I’m already on the pill!” lottery. When you’re inexperienced, I guess they were glad to have one less thing to worry about?
Sarah Haskins has a great “Target Women” about this. She makes a joke about how BC “should” be advertised:
“Do you like having sex… but don’t want to have a baby? Try BIRTH CONTROL. You can have sex… but not have a baby!”
I take BC so I can have as much consequence-free sex as I can fit into my day
Using birth control is to a large degree a selfless act and good for our planet. It would be folly to ignore the long term overview of the increase in human global population and the corresponding increase in the consumption and use of this planet’s natural resources. There is a scene in the movie ‘The Matrix’ in which Agent Smith lectures the captive Morpheus on how the human race is similar to a virus in the way they multiply and consumes everything around them and then mindlessly look for another area to exploit until nothing is left. When I was young there were less than three billion people on the planet. How many are there now all vying for the same resources, causing our roads to be clogged, and on and on. The pity of it all is that the very people who have no business multiplying and have no vagina themselves (ugly to the bone men like the head of what I refer to as the Aggressive Fascist Alliance – the A.F.A.) are selfishly having large families and indoctrinating their children with their hateful bigoted ideology, oblivious to the fact that millions of people in this overpopulated world are starving. Those who are either lesbian or, if they do have sex with a male, use a condom or diaphragm in addition to the pill, should be commended and complimented on their thoughtfulness and selflessness.