In late 2004, the National Center for Health Statistics released a report analyzing contraceptive usage in the United States from 1982-2002. The report discovered an interesting statistic — the percentage of adult women who had sex in the previous three months but did not use contraception rose from 5.4 percent in 1995 to 7.4 […]
Category Archives: Birth Control
Netherlands Ends Free Contraception Program
February 4, 2004 – 1:00 am
The Netherlands recently ended its policy of providing free contraception to all women over the age of 21.
The free contraception policy, in combination with aggressive sexual education programs, was widely credited with the Netherlands having the lowest teenage pregnancy and abortion rates in Europe.
Teen pregnancy and abortion in the Netherlands has grown in recent […]
Researchers Develop Effective Male Contraceptive
October 28, 2003 – 1:00 am
Researchers at the Anzac Research Institute in Sydney, Australia, announced in October that a small clinical trial of a male contraceptive found the drug 100 percent effective and side-effect free.
The trial involved 55 men who received a combination of implants and injections designed to stop production of sperm.
The men were given injections of progestin […]
Study of High Dose Oral Contraceptives Finds Low Death Rates
August 9, 2003 – 12:00 am
When the first oral contraceptives were introduced in the 1970s, they used relatively high doses of estrogen. Acting on the widely held view that lower doses of estrogen were safer, pharmaceutical companies gradually replaced the high dose pills with low dose versions. A new study of women who took high dose oral contraceptives, however, […]
James Madison University Decides to Ban Distribution of Morning After Pills
July 13, 2003 – 12:00 am
The Washington Post had an interesting story in April about James Madison University’s decision to stop the dispensing of the morning after pill in its campus health center after complaints from anti-abortion activists.
The health center had been prescribing and dispensing the morning after pills for eight years. Ann Simmons, a nurse at the health […]
Argentina Judge Bans Contraception
June 3, 2003 – 12:00 am
Argentine judge Cristina Garzon De Lascano ruled in May that oral contraceptives and intrauterine devices should be banned because they constitute abortion. According to the BBC, de Lascano ordered the destruction of all existing stocks of such medications and devices.
This is not the first time de Lascano has made controversial rulings related to reproductive […]
FDA Asked to OTC Morning After Pill
May 4, 2003 – 12:00 am
Women’s Capitol Corp., which distributes the “morning after” pill Plan B, has filed a request the Food and Drug Administration to allow it to sell the drug over the counter.
Plan B has been available by prescription in the United States since 1999 and the privately held company has sold about 3 million Plan B […]
A Man’s Right to Choose?
February 23, 2003 – 1:00 am
A few weeks ago, on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade which gave women the right to make a range of reproductive choices, Glenn Sacks wrote an cogent summary of the arguments for a men’s right to choose. Sacks writes,
When a woman gets pregnant she has the right to decide whether or not to […]
Study Finds No Increased Risk of Breast Cancer from the Pill
August 30, 2002 – 12:00 am
A study of more than 9,000 U.S. women ranging from 35 to 65 has found no evidence that oral contraceptive use increases the risk of developing breast cancer.
A 1996 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine had claimed that there was indeed such an increased risk, but that was a meta-analysis of […]
Contraceptive Patch Coming Soon to Europe and the United States
March 1, 2002 – 1:00 am
The BBC reported this week that the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products has approved a contraceptive patch that has already received Food and Drug Administration approval in the United States. Women on both sides of the Atlantic should be able to buy the patch with a prescription sometime later this year.
The […]