I’m sure most of you now know that the Food and Drug Administration south of the border has approved Lybrel, a birth control pill that would eliminate a woman’s monthly period. The ability to limit your period is not new, but Lybrel would mark the first time a method is intended to be utilized to cease it completely. Already the debates have started, both here and in the States where the drug is readily available. It does indeed bring up a variety of issues, some sane and others completely insane, but I’m interested to know what readers think of the idea.
As someone who has been on the birth control pill for almost a decade and has ocassionally taken it continuously to avoid my period for an event, vacation or (cough) “tryst,” I am not necessarily opposed to the idea. Also, as someone who experiences a reasonably painless period, I don’t think I’m in a position to state that it is “wrong” for a woman to want to eliminate a painful period from her life.
Having said that, I am slightly uncomfortable with some of the rhetoric around the pill - it seems to promote a sense of shame around mensturation that I can’t abide.
Thoughts?
And for your amusement, care of The Onion:
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seven comments
I received an article about this at work, and my favourite quote from it was where a U.S. sociologist very diplomatically said "It gives me mixed feelings because menstruation is not a medical condition that requires a cure."
For the women who do have painful periods I'm sure it is a good thing. But for the rest of us, which I think is the vast majority, it gives me the willies! I do think that limits, consequences and cycles are part of what it means to be a living being on the planet, and that the more examples of that that we see in our lives, the more in touch we are with, ahem, what it means to be alive. So things that try and help us deny all those reminders of our existence seem creepy to me. And on a much more practical level, we menstruate for a reason. What will happen when we don't anymore?
Posted by Thea
May 25, 2007, 10:12 AM
I agree with Thea -- and I do have painful periods. Usually with the migraine bonus pack, woo. hoo.
I went off the pill after several years because I just felt... off. A little dulled. A little like maybe I wasn't the boss of my hormones anymore. What I went through when I went off the pill really drove home to me that I had been dosing up on hormones for years, and my body was not pleased. No one really talks about what happens when you cut off the hormones (severe acne anyone?).
As I understand it, you don't have a period anyways when you're on the pill -- so in that respect Lybrel at least seems more honest. The pill stops ovulation completely (by making your body think you're pregnant). The reason you bleed at all is because the designers felt women would be 'disconcerted' by the absence of a period: that we needed some sort of bleeding to cue that we weren't pregnant.
What you experience during the placebo pill days (or during the week you're not taking any) is a response to not taking the artificial hormones -- it's just called a period for simplicity. But it's not a menstrual period.
Its proper title is a "hormone withdrawal bleed". The uterine lining is shed, but it differs from a "real" period because you're not shedding an unfertilized egg along with the lining (what with the whole not-ovulating-anymore extravaganza).
I loves me some science, but this seems like an area where we're a little too quick to shove nature aside in favour of something newfangled, and not nearly attentive enough to long-term implications.
Posted by catherine
May 25, 2007, 12:55 PM
I'm with Catherine. I actually have been reading via some reports that the original pill was designed with a period to please the Catholic Church of all things.
I too made the decision to go off the pill at one point and ended up going to see a chiropractor three times a week because of severe back pain. The chiropractor informed me that I too had been "tricked" into thinking that I was fine for many years and now, off the pill, I was feeling what my body was suffering. My solution after a year of $lengthy$ chiropractic treatment I could no longer afford? Go back on the pill.
As Catherine has eloquently detailed, this new pill brings very little new real controversy in my mind - more interesting to me is how the media has tried to depict a feminist age where "women want to be like men."
Posted by Stacey May
May 25, 2007, 5:17 PM
Malcolm Gladwell on the pill and the Catholic church, and an interesting assertion: frequent menstruation may not be healthy nor "natural."
Posted by Wesley
May 28, 2007, 12:49 AM
Although I agree that you all have valid points here, I'm sorry, I LOVE the idea of not having a period. I'm in touch with my own body, but I believe that this pill option puts me in control of my hormones. Without the pill I have HORRIFIC periods, the same ones that led my mother to an early hysterctomy. Yes, thy're that bad. If a pill can prevent me from from having to actually have my uterus cut out, I'll take it. At least with the pill I can stop it when I want to.
I think that this is a great option, and I'm glad that we are free to choose to take it, or not. That's the beauty of being an intelligent, self-reliant woman, we can make our own choices.
Posted by Tracy
May 30, 2007, 1:58 PM
I have always had heavy periods, and have been through some embarrasing and painful situations because of "flooding". Having said that, I find myself with the need to reject the idea of a synthetic pill to stop something as natural as menstrating. As a woman, I am created to menstrate and even though it may be a nasty month, I'd rather have the natural cycle of things happening in my body. You know, working themselves out and changing as I age. Hormones are so key to how I function overall...taking something synthetic to stop my period seems a bit outrageous to me.
Why would I want to stop having a period? Soon menopause will kick in and yada yada. With all the natural bio identical hormone balancing treatments available, I'd rather take that route then support an already obese pharmacuetical company!
Posted by rivergirl
June 6, 2007, 11:23 AM
Well you guys have covered a lot of ground here so I'll just say this:
I just went off the pill a few months ago. I didn't have many problems with the pill, but my monogamous relationship came to an end, so I didn't see any reason to stay on it.
Since then, every time I have a *real* period with a *real* ovulation - even though I get some cramps and a bit moody - I can't help but think: Kick ASS! How cool is it that my body goes through these regular ebbs and flows all on its own? Rad.
Posted by ZOE
June 7, 2007, 7:38 AM
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