The History of Birth Control, Nia Beals

                                                           The History of Birth Control

                                                                       By: Nia Beals

Birth control has been around since the since the beginning of time. Before any forms of contraceptives, women had to trust their partners to pull out or they would just get abortions. However, according to ourbodiesourselves.org, people began to use fish bladders, linen

  sheaths, and intestines as condoms in 3000 B.C. Over the years, the use of birth control began to evolve. In the year 1500, the first spermicide was introduced. The spermicide was used by dipping whatever they were using a condom into a chemical. Once the condom was dipped in the chemical, the person had to wait for the condom to dry[1]. Another form of birth control that we may consider absurd is how women in China would drink lead or mercury to prevent pregnancy. This form of birth control should sound ridiculous to us today because we know how dangerous it is to consume lead or mercury. Which is why I am not surprised that a lot of the women who consumed lead or mercury resulted in being sterile or dead. The most absurd birth control method was practiced in New Brunswick, Canada, the women would drink a concoction of dried beaver testicles with extremely strong alcohol[2]. Surprisingly the use of rubber condoms did not come about until 1838. This surprised me because it took approximately 4,138 years after the use of fish bladders as condoms to come to the conclusion of rubber condoms. Even though rubber condoms and other forms of birth control were invented did not mean that everyone was allowed to use them. In 1873, the Cornstock Act prevented people from receiving birth control or even information on birth control. Also, the act gave the postal service to confiscate any birth control that came through the mail. This act was not revoked until 1938. Another thing that surprised me was that only married people were allowed to use birth control. This seemed kind of ass backwards to me because I felt that unmarried couples may benefit more from the birth control than married couples. Birth control was not legalized for all until 1972.

Birth control did not stop evolving with the invention of the rubber condom. In the 1990s many new forms of birth control were discovered such as the patch, vaginal rings, and new forms of injectable birth control. Another form of birth control that was invented in this decade were emergency contraception. An example of an emergency contraception is the Plan B pill. The Plan B pill is sometimes called the morning after pill because Plan B is most commonly used the morning after having unprotected sex.

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[1] "Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc" plannedparenthood.org. http://www.plannedparenthood.org/files/PPFA/history_bc_methods.pdf (accessed January 21, 2014).

[2] "Birth Control: A Brief History of Birth Control" . http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/book/companion.asp?id=18&compID=53 (accessed January 21, 2014).

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