"For women [with painful or otherwise difficult periods], I certainly can understand the benefits of taking these kinds of medications, but for most women menstruation is a normal life event -- not a medical condition," said Elson, who researches the sociology of gender and medical sociology. "Why medicate away a normal life event if we're not sure of the long-term effects?"
What other normal life events are we medicating away? Let me see here. Hmmmmmm. Oh that's right, being pregnant! How could I have forgotten that normal life event?!
Taking a pill to stop pregnancy or even your period because it is inconvenient is about the medical (and moral?) equivalent of giving my infant a pill that prevents her teeth from coming in because it's painful for her and keeps me up at night.
I hate to be so crass and angry sounding, but I can't help it. That this pill exists makes me angry. How many women are going to be four or five months pregnant and still taking this pill because they never knew they'd conceived, since there was no missed period to indicate pregnancy? How may birth defects will result? Why has medicine become a way to make life more convenient rather than a way to treat illness?
It makes me angry.
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3 comments:
Excellent points, Devona. I hadn't even thought about the fact that a woman who gets pregnant and doesn't spontaneously abort while taking this pill won't even know she's pregnant for a while.
I think this pill is taking us one giant step closer to the fictional future seen in the recent movie "Children of Men" where women stop having babies altogether.
Just think of the potential cultural influence of this "no period" pill. Gone are all the inconveniences of monthly periods. There's got to be a big market for that!
Before you know it, a young women's friends will think she's got something wrong in the head if they find feminine pads in her bathroom vanity. Why would any woman want to continue with all that goes along with periods when you can just take a daily pill?
I think the manufacturer has a gold mine here.
I think a large part of why so many women would be happy to take this pill (and other BC pills too) is because society at large – both inside and outside the church – has medicalized pregnancy, birth, and menstruation. In some states it is illegal to have a homebirth – either at all or attended by a midwife. Women are conditioned to believe the best and only way to bear children is in a highly medicalized setting where they are treated as if they are ill rather than about to do something that is a natural part of life. Is it any wonder then that a young woman would want to prevent such an "illness"?
I agree with you Devona, I think the marketing of this drug is irresponsible. But even more irresponsible are the doctors who will prescribe and propagate its use. Folks in the church can extol the naturalness and nobility of childbearing till the cows come home, but as long as the current medical paradigm remains in place, women of childbearing age, Christian and non-Christian alike, will be continually inoculated with the mindset that reproduction is a disease to be managed and not a gift from God. We are losing the natural insights to reproduction that have been collected and passed down since Eve started to get the hang of things. My mom never really learned them as she was medicalized, as was my grandmother before her. I only rediscovered them via the internet when 5 years of birth control pills began to evidence their damage to my body and mind and I needed truth that my doctor denied. While it is true that God can work miracles through the vocation of medicine and we should be grateful for and respectful of that, we must also remain mindful that the potential for abuse exists and we must decry it when we learn of it.
Just $.02 from someone who has suffered at the hand of “women’s health” industry. Thanks for calling attention to this!
Margaret
My doctor did extend my pill prescription so I no longer have the mood swings associated with monthly hormone flux. Thanks god a trained medical doctor helps me make decisions about my body and not a superstitious cult member of ancient mythology.
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