Free Republic

This is Your Brain on Birth Control, a new book by Dr. Sara E. Hill takes a remarkably deep dive into the myriad ways that hormonal contraception alters women’s bodies, demonstrating that our sex hormones have an enormous impact on how our brains and bodies function. As we learn more about the consequences of altering women’s hormonal balance with contraception, we’ve come to find that those consequences can be very serious, indeed—in some cases, even fatal. Although the book is about the consequences of meddling with the hormones of women of reproductive age, it should also serve as a cautionary...

For the past several years, many of us have seen headlines referencing the development of birth control drugs for men. It does seem like for too long women alone have borne the burden of pregnancy prevention, despite how baby-making requires two parties to take place. Further, since men are fertile 100% of the time, while women are only fertile about a quarter of the time in their menstrual cycles, it seems a little heavy-handed to put the responsibility solely on women, for couples hoping to postpone kids. As it turns out, the history of birth control includes attempts to find...

Many people are looking forward to a time when men will be able to take an oral contraceptive. But there's a challenge with hormonal birth control: suppressing testosterone in men to super-low levels while avoiding the side effects of low hormone levels, such as changes in sexual function. (Of course, side effects have affected some women since the US Food and Drug Administration first approved "the pill" in 1960.) Researchers have looked at a number of ways to do this -- not only through a pill, but also through an injection and a topical gel. And now there's a new...