Last week, it was contraception’s 50th legal anniversary: on June 7, 1965, the Supreme Court ruled in the Griswold v. Connecticut case that banning contraception was unconstitutional. Rolling Stone published an article celebrating the news, listing the five ways birth control has “changed America for the better.”
Birth control has certainly changed America! Let’s look at five more ways birth control has contributed to the “betterment” of America.
1) America gained a new class 1 carcinogen
The World Health Organization classifies the estrogen-progesterone form of hormonal contraception – most commonly known as the Pill – as a class 1 carcinogen, along with tobacco, UV radiation, asbestos and coal-tar pitch (not entirely sure what that is, but it sounds nasty).
Women on the Pill (the most common form of birth control) at a 50 percent higher risk for breast cancer than women who are not, according to a recent study. Contracepting women can also enjoy an increased risk for stroke and heart attacks associated with the pill.
2) Birth control is likely shrinking women’s brains and making them more masculine
A recent study out of UCLA, with collaborating researchers from Harvard and UCI, found that the pill could be shrinking parts of women’s brains that process emotion and memory, causing them to react to emotional events in ways more similar to men.
Because why would you want a female brain when you can chemically altar yourself until you have a male brain? So much for feminism!
3) Women have gotten worse at selecting good genetic matches as mates
A recent study published in the journal “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” found that women are attracted to different men when they are using hormonal contraceptives compared to when they are not. The added hormones in the Pill interfere with a woman’s natural ability to find a man to whom she is attracted because he is a good genetic match. This means a woman who is hormonally contracepting when she marries, and later goes off the pill, may find herself no longer attracted to her husband. Also, studies show the pill may also decrease women’s libido.
Interesting, for that something that is supposed to make sex lives better for everyone.
4) We are now shocked by basic biology
The fact that sex makes babies never went away, and though it may be effectively blocked sometimes, there’s no guarantee that it will work every time. Yet birth control creates a false sense of security and control, so that when a child does come along, it’s seen as an unwelcome interruption, a cause for panic and perhaps termination (read: death by abortion) rather than as a natural and obvious consequence of sex.
And although the abortion rate overall has decreased recently (praise God), there has been a skewed effect – the abortion rate among the wealthy has gone down, but has increased by 18 percent among poor women, making them even more vulnerable to depression, anxiety, and complications in future pregnancies.
5) Women are told the most important part of their health is their ability to avoid having children
Since when did sticking metal coils – the sole purpose of which is to cause scarring and infection – in a woman’s Fallopian tubes sound like a good idea? Since avoiding children at all costs became the mantra of “women’s health.” The pharmaceutical company Bayer scandalously continues to ignore the cries of thousands of women whose lives has been devastated by FDA-approved birth control Essure.
The way that women are told to pursue contraception at any cost to the rest of their health (cancer, blood clots, pierced organs) is where the real “war on women” is taking place.
And that’s how contraception has made America “great.”
Originally posted on Catholic News Agency