CONTRA.PIL
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Area: Feminism
Msg: #367
Date: 12-30-94 11:05 (Public)
From: Donna.
To: Chris Czech
Subject: Contraception
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> There are too many ways not to get pregnant. Unwanted pregnancies would
> probably be a fraction of what they are, if people used more common
> sense. All forms of birth control are readilly available, just not
> readilly used.
Probably because they're not readily useABLE. Check out the below, and
tell me how much has changed since it was first posted here. Then perhaps
we could discuss (1) how many parents prepare their kids with even with
this kind of information, (2) how many school systems are permitted to
mention this stuff in school, and (3) how readily available this
information is to folks who grew up without being told about it by either
their parents or their teachers.
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Nov 1988
From: KIM STORMENT
To: BOB MEDLEY
Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 4105 (RE: ABORTION)
> Birth-control is amazingly simple. If you can't depend
> on the man to do his share then you can either use the
> pill or refuse to have sex with him until he complies.
Comments like that show such an AMAZING naivte' about birth control that I
think it's time to post a little information on the subject.
This is going to be rather long, but I urge everyone who is not familiar
with the effects and effectiveness of various forms of birth control --
ESPECIALLY MEN WHO BLITHELY ASSUME THAT PREGNANCY IS EASILY PREVENTABLE
WITH EXISTING CONTRACEPTIVE TECHNOLOGY -- read through to the end.
The information is taken from a pamphlet entitled "Information About the
Pill" from Mead Johnson Laboratories (Ovacon brand "detailed patient
labeling").
"Oral contraceptives ('the pill') are the most effective way (except for
sterilization) to prevent pregnancy. They are also convenient and, for most
women, free of serious or unpleasant side effects. Oral contraceptives must
always be taken under the continuous supervision of a physician.
It is important that any woman who considers using an oral contraceptive
understand the risks involved. Although the oral contraceptives have
important advantages over other methods of contraception, they have certain
risks that no other method has. Some of these risks may continue after you
have stopped using oral contraceptives. Only you can decide whether the
advantages are worth these risks. . . .
WHO SHOULD NOT USE ORAL CONTRACEPTIVES
"A. If you have any of the following conditions, you should not use the
pill: (1) Clots in the legs or lungs. (2) Angina pectoris. (3) Known or
suspected cancer of the breast or sex organs. (4) Unusual vaginal bleeding
that has not yet been diagnosed. (5) Known or suspected pregnancy.
"B. If you have had any of the following conditions, you should not use the
pill: (1) Heart attack or stroke. (2) Clots in the legs or lungs.
WARNING:
"Cigarette smoking increases the risk of serious adverse effects on the
heart and blood vessels from oral contraceptive use. This risk increases
with age and with heavy smoking (15 or more cigarettes per day) and is quite
marked in women over 35 years of age. Women who use oral contraceptives
should not smoke.
"D. If you have scanty or irregular periods or are a young woman without a
regular cycle, you should use anther method of contraception because, if you
use the pill, you may have difficulty becoming pregnant or may fail to have
menstrual periods after discontinuing the pill.
DECIDING TO USE ORAL CONTRACEPTIVES
"If you do not have any of the conditions listed above and are thinking about
using oral contraceptives, to help you decide, you need information about the
advantages and risks of oral contraceptives and of other contraceptive
methods as well.
"This leaflet describes the advantages and risks of oral contraceptives.
Except for sterilization, the IUD and abortion, which have their own
exclusive risks, the only serious risks of other methods of contraception are
those due to pregnancy should the method fail. Your doctor can anser
questions you may have with respect to other methods of contraception. . . .
"1. What Oral Contraceptives Are and How They Work. Oral contraceptives are
of two types. The most common, often simply called 'the pill', is a
combination of an estrogen and a progestrogen, the two kinds of female
hormones. The amount of estrogen and progestrogen can vary, but the amount
of estrogen is most important because both the effectiveness and some of
the dangers of oral contraceptives are related to the amount of estrogen.
"This kind of oral contraceptive works principally by preventing release of
an egg from the ovary. When the amount of estrogen is 50 micrograms or more
of mestranol or 35 micrograms or more of ethinyl estradiol, and the pill is
taken as directed, oral contraceptives are more than 99% effective (i.e.,
there would be less than one pregnancy if 100 women used the pill for 1
year). Pills that contain 20 to 35 micrograms of estrogen vary slightly in
effectiveness, ranging from 98% to more than 99% effective.
"The second type of oral contraceptive, often called the 'mini-pill',
contains only a progestogen. It works in part by preventing release of an
egg from the ovary but also by keeping sperm from reaching the egg and by
making the uterus (womb) less receptive to any fertilized egg that reaches
it. The mini-pill is less effective than the combination oral contraceptive,
about 97% effective. In addition, the progestogen-only pill has a tendency to
cause irregular bleeding which may be quite inconveninet, or cessation of
bleeding entirely. The progetogen-only pill is used despite its lower
effectiveness in the hope that it will prove not to have some of the serious
side effects of the estrogen-containing pill (see below) but it is not yet
certain that the mini-pill does in fact have fewer serious side effects. The
discussion below, while based mainly on information about the combination
pills, shuld be considered to apply as well to the mini-pill.
OTHER NON-SURGICAL WAYS TO PREVENT PREGNANCY
"As this leaflet will explain, oral contraceptives have several serious
risks. Other methods of contraception have lesser risks or none at all. They
are also less effective than oral contraceptives, but, used properly, may be
effective enough for many women. The following table gives reported
pregnancy rates (the number of women out of 100 who would become pregnant in
1 year) for these methods:
PREGNANCIES PER 100 WOMEN PER YEAR
Intrauterine device (IUD), less than 1-6
Diaphram with spermicidal products (creams or jellies), 2-20
Condom (rubber), 3-36
Aerosol foams, 2-29
Jellies and creams, 4-36
Periodic abstinence (rhythm) all types, less than 1-47
(1) Calendar method, 14-47
(2) Temperature method, 1-20
(3) Temperature method--intercourse only in post-ovulatory
phase, less than 1-7
(4) Mucus method, 1-25
No contraception, 60-80
These figures (except for the IUD) vary widely because people differ in how
well they use each method. Very faithful users of the various methods obtain
very good results, except for users of the calendar method of periodic
abstinence (rhythm). Except for the IUD, effective use of these methods
requires somewhat more effort than simply taking a single pill every morning,
but it is an effort that may couples undertake successfully. . . .
-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-
#! rnews 3675
Path: tomquartz.niestu.com!f113.n114.z1.fidonet.org!donna.
From: donna.@f113.n114.z1.fidonet.org (Donna.)
Newsgroups: fido.feminism
Subject: Re: Merlin
Date: 30 Dec 1994 21:26:16 GMT
Organization: FEMINISM Echoes 'R' Us
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X-Comment-To: Butterfly
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2]
> I'm wondering if there is a decreasing human interest in perpetuating the
> species. Or whether there is no difference except the current
* Message split, to be continued *
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* Origin: FEMINISM Echoes 'R' Us (1:114/113@fidonet)
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Area: Feminism
Msg: #368
Date: 12-30-94 11:05 (Public)
From: Donna.
To: Chris Czech
Subject: Contraception...part 2
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* Continuation 1 of a splitted message *
> technolgoical feasibility of population control. I'm speculating that
> there *is* a decreasing interest . . . that the interest in offspring is
> dwindling.
[...]
> Maybe you're right. Maybe it's not ontological dread after all. Maybe
> its economic reason. But it's my impression that a lot of people are
> making the no-offspring decision (via multiple means) for alotta reasons,
> and often can't articulate any.
You're asking, and they can't answer? How are you asking?
My impression of childfrees is that there's a whole litany of reasons for
being childfree, and many of them know just what those reasons are, but
they're tired of facing public negativity for their "selfish" choices and
so don't often comment on those reasons unless they're sure it's safe to
"come out". Maybe I just attract childfrees cuz I tend to be so
outspoken about it. When I look at the question from the other direction
-- why do people want to have children? -- I find more "but that's what
we're put on earth to DO!", "doesn't everybody?", and "oh, you know, it's
just instinct" answers than any other kind of answer that might reflect an
actual, solid desire to have children. Every once in a while, I've run
into very puzzled looks and the suggestion that I'm crazy for even asking
such a question.
Recorded history of personal lives is filled to the brim of women trying
to reduce the number of children they bear. Is it coincidental or causal,
the correlation that's been found time after time that, where women are
educated and have any sort of a choice, the birthrate reduces?
To be honest, I don't know of any time or place in history when folks have
=had= the option and then chose, in massive numbers TO have children. Even
upper-class women, during Victorian times, managed to effect their own
crude sort of birth control by feigning "female weakness" and, in doing
so, turned their husbands toward concubines (letting other women bear most
of their husbands' children) or abstinence. Sociobiology tells us that
human production is such a major investment that it's the reason women go
to such great lengths to find mates who can and will provide for them and
their brood (and also why we're more monogamous than men[1]);
evolutionary biology, on the other paw, tells us that non-human species
which invest heavily in each instance of reproduction tend not to
reproduce so much; perhaps the question of who to believe will be
determined by one's own opinion on whether or not homo sapiens are
very different from other animals on the planet, instinct-wise.
[1] My_Bias Notice: I tend to recoil from any theory that includes the
supposition that women are "more monogamous" than men, cuz I have a
really hard time believing that we are. Actually, it's a little more
accurate to say that I tend to recoil from any theory that includes any
supposition about homo sapiens' monogamy =or= polygamy, thanks to decades
of reading one theory after another, every one of which set my BS-o-meter
a-clanging. IOW, it's rather a Pavlovian reaction. . . .
#! rnews 1121
Path: tomquartz.niestu.com!f113.n114.z1.fidonet.org!donna.
From: donna.@f113.n114.z1.fidonet.org (Donna.)
Newsgroups: fido.feminism
Subject: Re: Turn Down The What??
Date: 30 Dec 1994 22:03:02 GMT
Organization: FEMINISM Echoes 'R' Us
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X-Comment-To: Butterfly
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2]
> > Yes, me too. Perhaps its the accompanying
> > assumption that arrives with
> > some of these messages that reciprocity *is*
> > forthcoming.
[...]
> D> But you know what I think is =really= sick? I was
> D> taught to make those
> D> same assumptions when I was growing up!
>
> ??How so?
"Guys always wanna get laid."
"If [a woman] goes there/does that/says this/wears that color/blinks
twice/looks at [a man] in nudge-nudge-'that-way'/etc. she's looking
for nookie."
That sort of thing.
(At least, I think that's what I was thinking about when I wrote the
above. Went back to my original but it doing so didn't jiggle any
memories loose. Sigh.)
#! rnews 1255
Path: tomquartz.niestu.com!f113.n114.z1.fidonet.org!donna.
From: donna.@f113.n114.z1.fidonet.org (Donna.)
Newsgroups: fido.feminism
Subject: Re: Internalized sexism
Date: 30 Dec 1994 22:13:33 GMT
Organization: FEMINISM Echoes 'R' Us
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X-Comment-To: Janet Goldstein
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2]
> PC> You could always throw them off by saying "That's a silly
> PC> question. The
> PC> same way you did!" (provided they are) Then give them a really big
> PC> smile.
>
> That would definitely not work for one of them as he is not at all
> technical. The other one.... well, I don't know how HE got to be so
> technical, and I suppose I could just throw the question back at him.
I think the important thing is to internalize that =you= ARE technical,
period. Nothing questionable about it, nothing odd about it, nothing
to wonder about -- it's who you are and how you are, and that's just
how life is. End of story.
Easier said than done, I realize, but then: those folks will someday be
part of your past, but what you've managed to internalize will forever
be part of your present.
--- ifmail v.2.3
* Origin: FEMINISM Echoes 'R' Us (1:114/113@fidonet)
