The Pill - 50 Years and Still Controversial

The pill has been around for 50 years. Launched in May of 1960, the pill caused controversy from the day it was launched on the market.Commentators claim that the pill was a real instrument of social change that radically shifted the values of the western world.

In the early 60's thirty states had laws against promoting birth control and in it's early years, the pill was given only to women with menstrual irregularity. There were states where it was illegal to prescribe it to single women and fewer than half of the US college health clinics offered it. By 1965 nearly 6.5 million women were using it.

The pill in the 70s - Beyond birth control
By the 1970s the real impact of the Pill was being measured and the findings were incredible. The Pill changed the way women envisioned their lives and their opportunities. By 1975 as the pill became more common, the average age when women were getting married rose to 25 as opposed to the early 20s in the beginning of the 70s.

In 1963 80% of college women said they wanted three or more children. By 1973 the figure plunged to 29%. Women were suddenly able to imagine a life where they could continue working even after they got married. This gave them an incentive to finish college and invest in their careers.

Feminists worked on the window of opportunity opened by the pill and fought for title IX, enacted in 1972 which ended discrimination in education. Colleges and graduate schools stopped turning down female applicants on the basis that they could get pregnant and drop out.

From 1970 to the early 80s, women started entering law and business schools and women joined a working world dominated by men.

The pill in the 90s - The conservative backlash against birth control and contraceptives for teenagers
By the 90s conservative Christians proposed that contraception was weakening the marital bond by separating sex from procreation. They argued that God intended intercourse during marriage as a possibility of creating new life, while women's right leaders saw opposition to contraception as an attempt to return women to more traditional roles.

The pill in 2010 - Is birth control the answer to teenage pregnancy?
Fifty years after it's launch the pill is still raising controversy especially when it comes to teenage sexuality. Teenagers grow up with sex everywhere, but schools are not always allowed to talk freely about birth control.

In 2000, both Congress and the White House shifted it's funds away from family planning programs and into abstinence education while the promotion of "conscience clauses" allowed pharmacists to refuse to give contraception if they had moral issues about contraception.

In 2010, young women still seem to be confused when it comes to birth control pills, and much of what they think is wrong. According to statistics published in a May issue on Time Magazine, more than 40% think that a woman on the pill has a 50% chance of getting pregnant. The truth is that the pill is 92% effective.

The rise in teenage pregnancies can be seen as a testimony to the increased promiscuity of teenagers. Young girls are pushed into being sexually active because they want to keep their boyfriends or because they don't want to be the only virgin in their group.

The pill - Are teenagers relying on the wrong sources for sex advise?
Parents might fear that letting their daughters take contraception will encourage them to be more sexually active.

While Sexting is becoming a growing phenomenon in girls as young as 13 and 14, young women still have issues when it comes to learning more about their sexuality from the right sources.

Most of what they know about sex comes from the internet or teenage magazines and parents are still finding it hard to discuss sex and contraception.

Link to popular sex education site for teens on the internet

Link to pregnant teen help

The pill and a false sense of security
The media often point to the growing trend of teenagers posting their own seminude pictures on the internet, and parents are often alarmed to learn about their children's sexual identity. Many girls fear pregnancy when they experiment with sex, yet few are aware of the real possibility of sexually transmitted diseases when it comes to unprotected sex. Preaching abstinence rather than engaging in an open discussion about sex, or simply focusing on giving the pill in order to avoid unwanted pregnancy will not protect a teenager from STD's.

Birth control and teenage parenting - a final consideration
The pill has empowered women and opened a world of possibilities when it came to their career and education yet giving contraception to a young girl is not the panacea to teenage pregnancy.

The pill by itself cannot replace the lessons about moral values, parents and educators need to impart to younger generations.

Parents considering whether or not to give the pill to their daughters have a lot on their plate. The pill will not suddenly transform a sexually inactive girl into a promiscuous young woman, but it can effectively prevent that same child from going through the trauma of an abortion or an unplanned pregnancy that might shatter her opportunity of going to college and achieving her goals.

What the pill cannot do is teach that same girl that she has to learn to respect and protect her body, that sex is not the answer if she feels emotionally insecure in a relationship, and that if someone is pushing her beyond a boundary she is not comfortable with, that person does not really love her. Though many times teenagers look and talk like adults, they are still forming their identities and it is up to us parents to help them navigate the tricky waters of being a teenager in this crazy era.

For more information about talking about sex education with your children, click to these popular sites.

Contraception and sex education - Mayo clinic

birth control and sex education - family education

Works cited
Love sex freedom and the paradox of the pill by Nancy Gibbs Time magazine