Birth control pill for men?

To Sandyone: birth control pills don't break something that already works. For many years birth control has been used to prevent cysts on the ovaries, uterus, etc. Not to mention regulating periods and minimizing cramping, which is a BIG deal for those unfortunate women who may bleed for 2 weeks a month and cramp so bad they can't get out of bed. Sure there are negative side effects, but for some those are outweighed by the benefits. So birth control isn't all bad. And it is 99.99% effective if it is taken correctly, and that doesn't only mean remembering to take it every day. That also means finding the RIGHT pill for your body. My mom always told me that if a BC pill makes me spot, it is not working, even though doctors tell you that spotting will eventually stop. If you spot, it is not the right pill for you. I had to try about 5 different pills before I found the right one, and when I did, there was no spotting - ever. The amount of estrogen and other hormones in BC pills vary, so you have to experiment to find the right one.

Also, think about how things were before birth control came along. In that time period in America, women really were the stay at home and do what your husband says type of women - that's just the way it was for women back then. Look how many children our parents or grandparents had. Women had to worry about getting pregnant every time they had sex with their husbands. The Movie "If These Walls Could Talk" gives an insightful look into the way it used to be. So birth control freed many women who were slaves to childbearing. They could finally stop having new babies, raise the ones they had, and also pursue other things, such as college or work or hobbies - or just have some time to herself for a change.
These days birth control is not as significant in the same way as it was in the past, as it's rare for people to have more than 2 or 3 kids. Now birth control is significant in a different way: preventing overpopulation and/or unwanted children who are raised by the state. Whether you believe in overpopulation or not, here are the facts: every organism on earth must consume, and create waste, in order to survive. The earth is running out of resources, as evidenced by rising gas prices, for example - it's a nonrenewable resource that is running out. When it's gone, it's gone. I can't say how many more people the earth can support, but to be sure, we are approaching that line.
The point is, birth control in one form or another is necessary. Dolphins and humans are the only mammals who have sex for pleasure, and sex carries the risk of pregnancy - period (unless you're infertile of fixed). Since women are the ones who carry and bear children, they are usually the ones who bear the responsibility for preventing pregnancy. It takes two, right? I have said for a long time now that men need birth control pills, and yet funding for males sexual research seems to go to erectile enhancement. One need only look at the commercials on TV to see where America's priorities lie as far as sex is concerned: erectile enhancement for men, and mostly birth control for women are the commercials you see. What message does this send? The men have to work to get it up and the women have to work to keep from getting knocked up?
The reason that most insurance companies don't cover BC but do cover Viagra is because they do not make decisions based on logic - just like the American government. If their decisions were based on logic, then they would do things like, oh, pay for beriatric surgery in order to reduce the health care costs for the diseases caused by obesity, such as diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, just to name a few. They spend billions on testing and treatment for these diseases, and won't cover the surgery that would eliminate all of these problems. WTF!!!??? It doesn't make sense, and that seems to be the new American theme: if it doesn't make sense, you're probably in America!
Seriously, if a guy is too irresponsible to put on a condom every time he has sex, he's gonna be too irresponsible to remember to take a pill every day, even when he's not having sex.

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First of all I don't have any kids so eveybody being in the realm of parenthood is B.S Not one person that I've read on this board has mentioned that when your in a relationship not marriage a condom is the best option not just for birth control for AIDS, Syphillis, Gonnorea etc. prevention. Things like depo shots are good, but when thats just your girlfriend or boyfriend. Both or a condom should be effective (Oh and take the time to apply it correctly, because at times when you rush and apply it incorrectly is when breakage etc. happen)if your not ready for marriage & planning a family thereafter.
If your b.f or g.f has a problem with it that then you have to ask yourself "If they really care about me". It's not just about trust its responsibility and loving yourself and someone else that is being responsible with your actions... PERIOD!

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I think if they come out with a pill for men then they should have to take it. I was with a guy for seven years and when I decided to take a break from birth control because I was having problems with it we decided to use condoms everytime we had sex instead of not using them all the time....well long story short he decided to pretend he was using them and wasn't and got me pregnant to trap me into staying with him, guess what I have a 3 year old he has never seen or supported in anyway because he has choose not to....

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Remember, condoms also protect you and your partner from STD's - which NO pill does. Always use a condom!!!

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Shanon, you are dead wrong when you say that bc pills don't break something that's working. The purpose of bc pills, particularly in this conversation, are to prevent the reproductive system from working properly.

BC pills are also used to cover up the symptoms of other problems, but this isn't necessarily good medicine. The symptoms are gone, but the illness/irregularity within the body is not addressed. Women should demand more for themselves. Why is a packet of pills and a pat on the hand enough? Doctors should do the research and work with the woman to determine what is causing her abnormal symptoms. When a woman bleeds excessively, has intense pain or has irregular periods, there is a reason. That reason should be found and fixed, not simply covered over. To simply prescribe The Pill is to revert (remain) in the mindset that you eschew later in your comment...that men don't treat women right.

For some medical problems, bc pills are a legitimate treatment and the ill side effects are justified, just like with many medicines.

We call sterilization "getting fixed", but what we're really doing is breaking the reproductive system, permanently. Let's not pretend that we're not. That may be the desired result, but that doesn't change the fact that it takes something that works and breaks it.

The way it used to be is, sadly, the way it still is for many, many women. Birth control may have freed women from childbearing, but it hasn't freed them from the poor treatment and relationship troubles. I haven't said that birth control shouldn't be available. What I have said is that Natural Family Planning offers pretty much everything that the women in this thread of comments has asked for:
It's perfectly healthy with no ill health effects, it's extremely effective (http://www.parentdish.com/2007/02/21/rhythm-method-as-effective-as-the-pill/), it involves male responsibility and participation, it is quite simple, and, once the technique is learned, takes very little time.

NFP has the added benefit of helping to uncover health problems that would otherwise be missed. NFP doctors have been *more* effective in helping couples achieve pregnancy than all of your expensive, intrusive IVF clinics. Yes, more effective because they target the cause of the infertility, treat it and then let the body work it's magic. IVF and other treatments just try to steamroll over the problems.

People like to reject NFP because "it's that church thing". That's a pretty immature manner of reasoning. I have presented, without any of that "silly church reasoning", an excellent method of birth control and yet, there are several people who call me a moron or tell me that I'm wrong. (let me tell ya...I'm cryin' on the inside) This kind of willful ignorance and intellectual dishonesty is a bit frightening. It seems that people would rather continue to suffer and whinge about how they wish things could be. They won't even investigate the solution that's been offered. I'm tempted to say that these people *shouldn't* procreate, but I don't subscribe to eugenics in any form.

I'm right there with ya on the stupidity of insurance companies, but if I were running a health insurance company, I'd only pay for the pill for medically sound reasons. The logic that the pill generally breaks what works and Viagra fixes what's broken is still correct. That doesn't change just because the insurance companies are illogical money-grubbers.

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SANDY, PLEASE READ ME!!

Hi, Sandy. I just posted a long (informative, of course!!) post and I think it was kicked from my mailbox. I have to verify all of my posts to get them to post. If you have it, could you please re-send it to me or get it posted?

Thanks!

Sandy

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Natural Family Planning IS NOT a reliable form of birth control. It is better than nothing but it cannot be given as a real option that is on par with things like the pill, the shot, the patch, IUDs, or condoms. Assuming all guidelines for each method are followed to the letter... more than 25 out of every 100 women (more than one in four women)using "NFP" will get pregnant within the first year, that is more than double the failure rate all of the aforementioned methods combined. "NFP" AKA The Rhythm Method is only slightly more effective than "pulling out".
There is nothing truly scientific about "NFP" because it does not test and compare actualities, it's a marginal approximation of things that can and do change every month depending on how your ovaries react to every hormone released into your body up until that point. I am sure it gives women who have the time to obsess over something so ineffective and whom feel powerless otherwise... a sense of control in their lives/relationships but it is not a practical nor effective way for the average woman to prevent pregnancy.

The other thing I am finding sad yet funny in all of this is the concern of females for the health of the males in their lives when males show little, if any concern for the health of females. From the risks of hormonal birth control, tubal ligation, and even childbirth itself... I do not see males expressing any real concern for female safety rather for their own desire to be (or not to be) a father. There are far fewer risks with male hormonal birth control and vasectomy but even females don't seem to be too keen on promoting them. I know that this is due in part to the fact that males are/can be very immature and irresponsible but if females don't delegate some responsibility to them at some point... that will never change and it truly needs to.

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Victorious, you are obviously reading some of what I write, but clearly not all of it. I write more for others who might read your comments and be misled than I write for you (see comment #65 with it's reference to willful ignorance and intellectual dishonesty).

Did you read the article about the study? If you did, there's no way you could have come up with your 25% number. If you were to say, "Well, with perfect use, NFP has an effectiveness level that rivals the pill, but most people aren't going to be that vigilant so the effectiveness is going to drop", you would have a leg to stand on. Instead, you spout that "it doesn't work" when you clearly have no knowledge of the science behind it. Then you mix and match statistics to "prove" your point. Go back and look at the research. To save you the effort, which you so obviously won't expend, I've copied a small excerpt. "Lead researcher Dr Petra Frank-Herrmann said: 'We maintain that the effectiveness of STM is comparable to the effectiveness of modern contraceptive methods such as oral contraceptives, and is an effective and acceptable method of family planning.'" The perfect use rate they come up with (from their studies, not your imagination) is 0.4 pregnancies per 100 per year. That's incredibly lower than the 25 per 100 that you've claimed.

Your next part deals with how surprised you are that women are more concerned with men's health than their own. True love demands that both partners be as concerned about the other's health as you are of your own.

You say, "if females don't delegate some responsibility to them at some point... that will never change and it truly needs to." Did I not demonstrate that NFP is a method that shares the responsibility? Just because you want no responsibility and to have sex anytime you want it doesn't mean that NFP isn't scientific and that it doesn't encourage shared responsibility.

And stop calling it the Rhythm Method. They are two different things and your continued ignorance of that fact indicates that you have no interest in the facts, only your uneducated opinion.

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I have read more than a dozen articles/studies on "Natural Family Planning" and it does not come close to rivaling the effectiveness of hormone birth control or condoms in real world applications. And once again, you can put any spin you would like on it... it is still the Rhythm Method. The effectiveness you've quoted was achieved in a clinical environment with the use of multiple tests, not in the at home application of the methods you are touting. The true ignorance here is all you.
If someone is having sex just for pleasure and not procreation do you honestly think they are going to put the time and effort into something that can disallow sex anywhere from 8 - 15 days per month?!? You may have the time and mindset to sit and monitor your mucus and deal with the high likelihood of an unwanted pregnancy but trying to push that on others in place of truly effective methods is completely ludicrous. Also, (as others have pointed out) your lackluster methods do nothing in the way of preventing STDs/STIs.

How does "NFP" delegate any responsibility to the male?!? Not having sex with your partner during their "optimal fertility window" is not taking any real responsibility. As a whole, married... dating... or single... males are not at all concerned with the (reproductive) health of females, they are fine with females being inundated with hormones/drugs and whatnot as long as their own sexual needs are met and they don't have to deal with unwanted pregnancies.
More of your ignorance can be seen in your self righteous approach the over all subject of sex. I am 23 and a virgin, I cannot take hormone birth control because of other health issues and I cannot use condoms because most brands contain a form of fluoride and I am allergic to fluoride. My only real option will be an IUD. You assume because people choose not to put in the huge amount of effort required for something as ineffective as "NFP" that they are out mindlessly having sex.

All of the aforementioned self righteous behavior on your part leads to one conclusion, you are an unfulfilled housewife with nothing better to do.

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