There’s a lengthy article here, in the Toronto Star (clearly not the mouthpiece of the pro-life movement) about young women moving away from the Pill.
I have been talking for a long time about the negative side of the Pill, mostly from a women’s health and welfare angle. I have also critiqued the Pill because it distorts the relationship between the sexes and harms women’s chances of long term relationship happiness in something called marriage.
This is something that ideologues have loved to critique. I’m “anti-sex” or “religious” or this or that. I’m betting they won’t say that about the Toronto Star.
I have been on the birth control pill, and the sadness factor, or feeling distant from life, the world and myself is what I experienced. It wasn’t pleasant but at the time, so many moons ago, I had no way to understand what was happening or connect the dots. When I came off the Pill that feeling went away. And so, in hindsight, I realize my life had became more difficult, and coping strategies that I would have had naturally were taken away, thanks to the Pill messing with my hormones.
Anyway, you can read more, for yourself. But let this moment stand, and enjoy it: People opposed to the Pill had good reason, and the rest of the world is now catching up.
Some of the women say they became uncomfortable with putting synthetic hormones in their bodies. Many say the pill affected their emotional state.
A large-scale, longitudinal study published in September in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, part of the Journal of the American Medical Association network, suggests hormonal contraception could cause depression.
The study analyzed data from more than one million women aged 15 to 34, collected from Denmark’s National Prescription Register and Psychiatric Central Research Register over 14 years. The authors concluded women who took the birth control pill had a 23 per cent greater risk of depression than those who did not take the pill. Compared to non-users, the risk associated with progestin-only pills was 34 per cent greater.
Other methods of birth control carried a higher risk of depression, which may be linked to dosage, the study says: women using the progestin-releasing IUD faced a 40 per cent greater risk than non-users; the risk for vaginal ring users was 60 per cent greater. The birth control patch doubled the risk of depression.
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