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Recently in Salon Health & Body

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Lip service
Is kissing the most intimate act or a coming attraction for sex?
By Virginia Vitzthum
[08/10/99]

Urge
Black market, black book
Allison breaks down and decides to profit from her business.
By Tracy Quan
[08/09/99]

Sexpert Opinion
Don't be sore
The hysteria over herpes is way overblown.
By Susie Bright
[08/07/99]

Slather it on!
Caviar facials leave you shiny and opalescent.
By Debra Ollivier
[08/06/99]

House debates vaccine safety
Critics say mandatory inoculations may do more harm than good. But what about all the lives that have been saved?
By Arthur Allen
[08/05/99]

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It's the third time Tanya, who asked that her last name not be used, has been injected with Depo-Provera, a contraceptive that will allow her to have sex whenever she feels like it for the next three months, without really worrying about getting pregnant. And getting pregnant is the last thing she wants; she already has two children, both conceived while she was on the birth control pill. "I was in shock, I didn't expect to be pregnant," she says.

After having the second child, who is now 19 months old, she learned about this contraceptive, which she says her doctor never told her about. "With Depo, there's a slight weight gain and sometimes I get headaches, but I'd rather do that than get pregnant again," she insists. Tanya says she sometimes forgot to take the Pill every day at the same time and thinks that's why she got pregnant. Finding the right contraceptive for her has meant not adding another baby to her family.

It's been nearly 40 years since the Pill first came on the U.S. market as the first oral contraceptive, revolutionizing women's lives and the lives of those around them. The invention of the Pill has been called one of the greatest achievements not only of the last century, but of the last 2,000 years.

But opinions differ as to the significance of advances since then. Everyone bemoans the lack of the perfect, truly revolutionary birth-control method for women. At the same time, there have been some advances -- the IUD, injectables, implants and so forth. And as we end this century and begin the next, a slate of potentially liberating new methods are expected to make their way to the U.S. market -- including a patch, an improved injectable and a new form of implant.

To some, this is proof that birth control as we know it in America is about to change. "With an extended availability of products, we're hitting the next revolution," says Dr. Elof Johansson, vice president of the Population Council and professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Rockefeller University in New York. "I think it will further empower women to take contraception into their own hands and that will be very good."

Find out more with drkoop.com's Sexual Health Center and information on contraception.

To others, however, the list only shows how little we've progressed after all these years. Carl Djerassi, known as the man who gave birth to the Pill, is sad that what he predicted a decade ago -- that no new revolutionary methods will appear by the turn of the century -- has come true. "Gullible people think something is about to happen, when nothing is," says Djerassi. "They are repackaging old goods in new clothing and it's not doing the public any good." Many of these products are not new, he explains. They have been in other countries for years. What's more, they are not new approaches to contraception. They are mostly just different methods for delivering hormones.

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Out in the waiting room at the clinic in San Jose, a woman leafs through a pamphlet called "What Is Right for You?" that contains descriptions of the birth control pill and other contraceptive options already on the market. On this hot summer morning, women stroll in off the street, some toting toddlers for the clinic's pediatric care, others coming to use the walk-in service to find out if they're pregnant. One woman in her early 20s, who was using condoms and foam, is late. But she says she's happy with what she's been using. Thirty minutes later she finds out she's pregnant.

For three-quarters of a woman's child-bearing years, she is trying to avoid getting pregnant, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a not-for-profit organization that focuses on reproductive health. Those in the field of fertility and contraceptives say this illustrates how important it is to have as many birth control options as possible; women need different types of protection during the many stages of their sexual lives. Insufficient birth control choices, according to the Guttmacher Institute, is one of the reasons why one out of two pregnancies is unintended.

"It's one thing to pick the wrong lover; it's another thing to pick the wrong father," says Pepper Schwartz, a sociology professor at the University of Washington and the author of numerous books on sex. "If you can control your fertility, you can control the other." In terms of importance to a woman's life, Schwartz ranks a woman's ability to control her fertility right after life and death. As a testament to its significance, one doctor says when the wall came down in East Germany, among the first things to sell out were Tampax, Kotex -- and birth control pills.

Next page | The father of the Pill is P-I-S-S-E-D off