The History/Evolution of Birth Control *Ladies Only*

[Paisley]

An interesting note, according to http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/266799-overview, surgical tubal ligation also become safer and more economic (being covered by health insurance) during the 60s.

It's great if you can get one. A friend of mine has been trying to get her tubes tied for years, but the doctors are sure she'll want kids someday. It must be nice to be able to know what someone will be thinking years down the road.

 

[crwritt]

Thanks Lady Day for posting this. This is all so riveting and in some ways sad.
I don't agree though, that it should be for female eyes only. Men really should know what women have had to go through. After all, it does take two.
I might add that what saved me from having more than two kids is a good marriage and my husband's vasectomy.(His idea)

 

[kamikat]

It's great if you can get one. A friend of mine has been trying to get her tubes tied for years, but the doctors are sure she'll want kids someday. It must be nice to be able to know what someone will be thinking years down the road.

The doctors I've talked to won't do one on a woman younger than 30 or a woman with less than 2 kids. Part of that is practicality. The surgery is more invasive than a vasectomy and the reversal is more invasive than a vasectomy reversal. However, I do know that it's much easier for a childless male to get a surgical solution at any age. This goes back to the political/feminist issue again.

 

[Paisley]

This friend of mine (no, it's not me) is about 35, divorced and had two stepchildren.

I think there's an assumption that at some point, a women will feel she needs to have kids. But while doctors might see women patients when they're trying to conceive, a patient probably isn't going to announce to her doctor that the urge has gone away. And women who are childless and satisfied (instead of barren and anguished) don't make for interesting media stories.

Not that I've researched it, but I've never heard of a man having a hard time getting a vasectomy.

 

[Lady Day]

I think there's an assumption that at some point, a women will feel she needs to have kids.

Some doctors still look strangely at young women who dont want to have kids, and want a procedure to make sure it does not happen. Its almost like a doctors self preservation mechanism kicks in.

"I better have her under go psych evaluations to make sure, so I dont get sued down the road if she 'changes her mind'".

And then there are some who wont do it at all.

LD

 

[MissAmelina]

Some doctors still look strangely at young women who dont want to have kids, and want a procedure to make sure it does not happen. Its almost like a doctors self preservation mechanism kicks in.

"I better have her under go psych evaluations to make sure, so I dont get sued down the road if she 'changes her mind'".

And then there are some who wont do it at all.

LD

Exactly.....this happened to a friend of mine, who has been thinking for years about having the procedure done (she is 37 now), and the doctors always give her a hard time....until she discovered she has two uteruses (uteri?), also known as a "cloven uterus" so the odds of her being able to carry a child to full term are next to impossible. But it was not until something was wrong that it became acceptable in their eyes.

Side note---You gals remember that Laura Dern movie "Ramblin' Rose"? Where, in the 1930's, she is forced to get a hysterectomy to control her promiscuity? Yeah. Good times.

 

[Gingerella72]

When I switched from the pill to an IUD, the insurance company paid every penny but had not covered anything of the pill's costs. It's still a political/feminist issue. Insurance companies will pay for Viagra but not the pill.

Hmm, my insurance prescription plan covers my pills...

 

[ThesFlishThngs]

Back when I had insurance, it covered the pill too, but the pharmacy people always exclaimed how rare it was. Funny, seeing as a monthly prescription is a heck of a lot cheaper than a child!

 

[kamikat]

Back when I had insurance, it covered the pill too, but the pharmacy people always exclaimed how rare it was. Funny, seeing as a monthly prescription is a heck of a lot cheaper than a child!

Yeah, but $65 per month is a ton more expensive than $1,000 for an IUD that stays in for 5 years. Plus, my doctor says most women don't have cycles after the first couple of month after insertion.

 

[C-dot]

Not that I've researched it, but I've never heard of a man having a hard time getting a vasectomy.

Or a reverse vasectomy! Men also don't have to take pills or worry about periods and pregnancies and all that stuff...

Apparently the male birth control pill is due to be released soon. Some men would be very willing to take a pill, but I think most still believe its "the woman's job."

Once I get married, the army will cover all my prescriptions, including contraceptives. I don't currently have an insurance plan, and didn't when I was a teenager either, since my dad was self-employed.

 

[Miss 1929]

GLASS PESSARIES?????

I mean, WTF????? Who could possibly think it's OK to put glass ANYTHING in there when you're going to have some fella pounding away???

That seriously gives me the willies.

I think Margaret Sanger was a great heroine. It's too bad that in her lifetime she was vilified for her work. Even now you have people who think she did wrong to fight for the rights of womens reproduction. Fine, if you don't think birth control is right, don't use it, but keep out of other people's business!

My mom remembers well the days when women would try all kinds of stupid things to abort, because they didn't have access to safe birth control - and it was a lot more dangerous to give birth. She had friends jumping off the roof, throwing themselves down the stairs etc. It was also the day when a lot of women and girls died of back-alley abortions and self-induced miscarriages. Some things about the Golden Era are better over and done with. Like I have always said, I like the 30s except for little things like birth control, civil rights, and penicillin...

 

[Idledame]

On a related note, when I was 14 my doctor assured me that all cramps were psychological. And to this day I only believe about 1/2 what doctors tell me. I realize they don't have the time to research everything for themselves. They mean well, but they are just repeating what they've been told, either in school or by drug companies. Even giving birth, I felt like I was in the way of the doctor and his delivering a baby. I was sort of a neccessary nuisance. It would have been so much smoother without me!

 

[Viola]

When I was *20* (not a 14 year old kid) my family doctor told me he didn't believe in birth control and it was against his religion* and when I said I *wasn't even having sex* - and I wasn't, I was just in dreadful cramping pain and wanted to regulate/reduce them - said "Sure." in a sarcastic way. I was super-irate.

*Hilariously, we were the same religion and I am to this day 99% sure I am more observant than he.

I didn't go to an actual gynocologist until I was 24.

 

[LaMedicine]

On a related note, when I was 14 my doctor assured me that all cramps were psychological.

Male drs can't/won't try to understand half of what women go through--now I will admit, female drs won't exactly understand the whole of the *male* anguish, either. However, I think females have more imagination and compassion, and try to understand, and take everything with a pinch of salt, not take everything at face value. On the other hand, one of my female classmates who became a gyn/ob told us once after she had gone into private practice that she didn't realize how much she had been *indoctrinated* in male viewpoints on women until she opened her practice. She said she is on a better track now.

My mom didn't give me a *talking* to, I don't think many mothers here do. However, I learned all I needed to learn in school...med school, that is lol
I think a heck of a lot of historic BC was very much as the cost of not only healthh but the female self esteem. :rage:

On the other hand. A lot of historic Ukiyoe artists produced what are known as Makura-bon (pillow book), Makura-e (pillow picture), or Shunga (spring pictures), to educate both the male and the females on the finer points of intimacy, and were used as *textbooks* for princesses and ladies of higher ranks to teach them what to expect upon marriage.

 

[ThesFlishThngs]

In most cases, I appreciated having a female PA or Nurse Practitioner, rather than a male. Now, with my husband entering the medical field, I do my best to keep him mindful of the female perspective. He's in mental health at the moment, and the number of women who have been taken advantage of/abused by men they know is tragic, to say the least.

 

[C-dot]

On a related note, when I was 14 my doctor assured me that all cramps were psychological.

I started taking birth control pills at 15 to control my dysmenorrhea. I'd lived with crippling cramps since I was 11. They used to get so bad that I couldn't get up and walk to get to school - One time they began at school, and were so painful I collapsed! Not once did he say I was dreaming it. I don't think I could dream up that much pain, or the month long periods that accompanied it!

fftopic: I have the same family doctor that my mum went to while pregnant with me. He is the best - he has never let me down, always listens with an open mind, and tells me everything he knows. I'm so fortunate to have him, I know how hard it is to find a good doctor, especially a male doctor.

 

[LizzieMaine]

On the question of vasectomies, we should point out that the idea of voluntary vasectomy didn't really become an option for men until the late fifties -- prior to that, the procedure was closely associated with the eugenics movement, and had a very strong Nazi taint during the Era: it was seen as something that totalitarian movements insisted on to keep "defectives" from reproducing, and no reputable doctor would do it. It really wasn't until the '70s that it became truly mainstream.

 

[C-dot]

It really wasn't until the '70s that it became truly mainstream.

Would that be because of the birth control movement?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Would that be because of the birth control movement?

That and the whole "swingin' 70s" thing. Everybody's doing it, and all.

The interesting thing, though, is that up thru the thirties, there were definite links between the birth control movement and the eugenics movement -- there was the concept among some advocates of birth control that only the "superior" should reproduce. And that tended to give the movement a rather unpleasant feel for people who might otherwise have supported it -- it wasn't really until after the war that this angle was discredited.

 

[kamikat]

On the question of vasectomies, we should point out that the idea of voluntary vasectomy didn't really become an option for men until the late fifties -- prior to that, the procedure was closely associated with the eugenics movement, and had a very strong Nazi taint during the Era: it was seen as something that totalitarian movements insisted on to keep "defectives" from reproducing, and no reputable doctor would do it. It really wasn't until the '70s that it became truly mainstream.

I've also read about it and castration both being used to "correct" prostate issues in the 19th century. The article I read about it indicated that castration helped but vasectomy did nothing to alleviate prostate problems.