Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Women: No More Periods, Period.

The Food and Drug Administration is set to announce in a news conference this evening their approval of a birth control pill that stops periods indefinitely. The birth control pill is called Lybrel and is manufactured by Wyeth. This is the first such drug that the FDA has approved for continuous usage since birth control's inception back in the 1960's. Some regulate the menstrual cycle to only 4 times a year while others stick with the 21-7 day cycle.

The advancement of birth control brings about concerns and responsibility that needs to be addressed by the potential user. In the article there are several concerns and several applauses for the advancement.

You can read more here.

Some questions:

-Do you use birth control? If so, why did you choose to utilize it?
-Do you see this new approved drug as being beneficial or detrimental? If either, why?
-Do you see a danger in preventing pregnancy?
-Do you think our culture has made it difficult to have large families?
-Do you think that such things as this should be tested over a lifetime before being approved to study the long term effects?

2 comments:

glenna marshall said...

I do not use birth control, but I would love to see some responses on this post. Even if I did use birth control, I would be VERY uncomfortable with a pill that discontinued my cycles! How unnatural is that!! It simply cannot be good for a woman's body; it is suppressing part of what differentiates a woman's body from a man's.
I'm pretty uncomfortable with the pill anyway, so one that does what this new one claims to do alarms me.

misawa said...

My wife has been on birth control since we married, but has still maintained her cycle - though the side effects (cramping, bloating, duration) have all decreased in magnitude. She had the option of skipping the "water pills" so that she wouldn't have a period at all, but chose not to - too unnatural.

I see the new drug as detrimental. Aside from impeding that natural flow (no pun intended) of events, there are other issues to consider. For example, women, due to their periods, are at a much lower risk for heart disease until menopause, at which point they are at greater risk b/c their body doesn't really know what to do with the excess iron that it used to get rid of. Now it's possible that the ladies' bodies will adjust when they begin taking this pill. However, God saw fit to make them that way - and I, for one, am no fan of tinkering with His design too much.