Birth Control has been a hot topic for many people in society since the mid- 1900s until now. Since the invention of birth control, it has opened up the discussion and opinions on it, made many technological advances on the forms of birth control, and educated us on many benefits of birth control for women.

\Since ancient times, people have been doing many things as a form of birth control to prevent pregnancy. Before modern day contraception, abstinence was a popular method that insured no room for possible mishaps when a woman didn’t want to conceive. Other ways that picked up were withdrawal during intercourse, and women keeping close tabs on their fertility cycles. Some places around the world had their own superstitions to avoid pregnancy, trying interesting things such as drinking mercury in China or walking three times around where a pregnant wolf had urinated for some native tribes. But the superstitions, withdrawal, and tracking cycles, never gave women much effectiveness when it came to preventing pregnancy.    

Another way of preventing pregnancy and now possible diseases were condoms. Throughout history, there have been many versions of condoms such as using linens. Around the 1900s is when the improvements to condoms began and the use of latex became invented. Although the condom quickly became the most popular contraceptive used between partners, later in the 1900s new birth control technology started to come out, challenging the use of condoms.

During the year 1957, the first birth control pills were approved but mainly only given to those with serious menstrual pain. A few years later, doctors were then able to prescribe it to married women, while many unmarried women were taking it illegally. As time went on, lower dose forms were released making more accessible around the 1980s. After figuring out better doses for the pill, not only did people noticed it helped with more regular, less painful periods, but helped with acne and fighting against things like pelvic inflammatory disease and ovarian cancer. Soon after we see the IUD, or intrauterine device around 1984, contraceptive implants in the 1990s, the depo shot in 1992, more recently the patch along with the ring and many other options are available to women.      

Avoiding pregnancy has always been a big factor in a woman getting on birth control but isn’t always the intention. There are many health reasons to get on birth control and also helps women with how bad they may get. Health benefits from birth control include; lowering the risk of uterine and ovarian cancers, reducing the risks of ovarian or breast cysts and possible regrowth, helping manage endometriosis, reducing the risk of anemia, many infections, bone thinning, and much more. Women can also experience very irregular periods, heavy periods, along with very painful cramping, hormonal acne, and PMS. All of which are mainly due to hormone fluctuations, which get balance over time while being on birth control.

The discussion over birth control is important for everyone for many reasons. Talking about options of birth control for people can help their quality of life in many ways. Many people have many things that they would like to have established in their life to be able to provide as best as they can for the quality of their lives and their children’s, and birth control allows them to have a little more control on their life that way. Birth control can improve women's health and help with a less painless life.

The talk of defunding places like Planned Parent can lead to a lot of problems for so many women. Planned Parenthood annually, 2 million women get birth control, 4.2 million STD tests and treatments, 320,000 breast exams, and around 295,000 pap smears. Because of all of the services and due to the fact that it is very accessible and common in underserved communities, it’s many women’s main source of health care. Leading to other health care providers unable to pick up the slack and leaving at least 2.4 million without healthcare.

Citations/ Sources

“10 Benefits of Birth Control Beyond Preventing Pregnancy.” Healthline, 2016.

Dexter, Katharine. “A History of Birth Control Methods.” Planned Parenthood, 2012.

Pazol, Karen. “Impact of Contraceptive Education on Contraceptive Knowledge and Decision Making.” NCBI, Aug. 2016.

“The History of Birth Control.” Beforeplay, 2 Feb. 2015.

“The Impact of Defunding Planned Parenthood.” I Stand With Planned Parenthood, 2018.

“Why Equal Access to Birth Control Is So Important.” NURX, 2018.