The Case For Birth Control

This collection of statistical material and opinion -- chiefly medical -- is designed to do for birth control what the Brandeis-Consumers' League briefs did for the eight-hour day and minimum wage legislation.Some fault might be found with the arrangement of the material, the failure to provide an index or a bibliographical list of authorities, and the indifferent proof-reading. The academic Malthusian may also be tempted to adverse criticism of the absence of any material bearing on the larger economic aspects of the problem. Such criticism, however, would be unfair and entirely out of place, because the book -- as indeed Mrs. Sanger's whole propaganda -- is not designed to attack any long-range problem of population in relation to natural resources or to international rivalries, but to help in the immediate and pressing task of rationalizing public sentiment and informing the judiciary with regard to the real issues and facts involved in the law's edict concerning the giving of information on contraceptive methods.And it must be said that even the most puritanical exponent of the ignorant, prurient idealism of our "black walnut" period would find in this volume that which might give his conscience a beneficial shock. He could hardly brush aside the weight of medical fact and opinion here marshaled, nor the well presented statistics of birth, death, and infant mortality rates, showing the remarkable and sinister correlation between high birth rate and high infant mortality. One especially interesting fact brought out is that the number of deaths of women 15 to 44 years of age from puerperal septicemia, etc. (9,876 in 1913), is second only to the number resulting from tuberculosis (26,265). In all the literature of population, there is a curiously obtuse failure to give consideration to the vital costs of large populations and high fertility rates. This may be attributed to the fact that it has been chiefly economists, and among them chiefly those strongly under the influence of classical materialism, who have studied population problems seriously. A second explanation lies in the fact that most of the writers have been men, upon whose sex the vital costs do not fall heavily. Certainly social science and ethics, as well as law and social politics, have lost greatly from the fact that women have so long been discouraged -- or rather not encouraged to enter a field of study which concerns them in so fundamental a manner.--"The American Economic Review," Volume 8

Considered the definitive statement on modern birth-control technologies, this Anniversary Edition includes new, up-to-date chapters on the dangers of Norplant and the risks women on the Pill face today. Because it tells the truth about the Pill, this book provides women with the information they need to make good choices for their own body.

This collection of statistical material and opinion -- chiefly medical -- is designed to do for birth control what the Brandeis-Consumers' League briefs did for the eight-hour day and minimum wage legislation. Some fault might be found with the arrangement of the material, the failure to provide an index or a bibliographical list of authorities, and the indifferent proof-reading. The academic Malthusian may also be tempted to adverse criticism of the absence of any material bearing on the larger economic aspects of the problem. Such criticism, however, would be unfair and entirely out of place, because the book -- as indeed Mrs. Sanger's whole propaganda -- is not designed to attack any long-range problem of population in relation to natural resources or to international rivalries, but to help in the immediate and pressing task of rationalizing public sentiment and informing the judiciary with regard to the real issues and facts involved in the law's edict concerning the giving of information on contraceptive methods. And it must be said that even the most puritanical exponent of the ignorant, prurient idealism of our "black walnut" period would find in this volume that which might give his conscience a beneficial shock. He could hardly brush aside the weight of medical fact and opinion here marshaled, nor the well presented statistics of birth, death, and infant mortality rates, showing the remarkable and sinister correlation between high birth rate and high infant mortality. One especially interesting fact brought out is that the number of deaths of women 15 to 44 years of age from puerperal septicemia, etc. (9,876 in 1913), is second only to the number resulting from tuberculosis (26,265). In all the literature of population, there is a curiously obtuse failure to give consideration to the vital costs of large populations and high fertility rates. This may be attributed to the fact that it has been chiefly economists, and among them chiefly those strongly under the influence of classical materialism, who have studied population problems seriously. A second explanation lies in the fact that most of the writers have been men, upon whose sex the vital costs do not fall heavily. Certainly social science and ethics, as well as law and social politics, have lost greatly from the fact that women have so long been discouraged -- or rather not encouraged to enter a field of study which concerns them in so fundamental a manner. --The American Economic Review, Volume 8

An eye-opening book that reveals crucial information every woman taking hormonal birth control should know This groundbreaking book sheds light on how hormonal birth control affects women--and the world around them--in ways we are just now beginning to understand. By allowing women to control their fertility, the birth control pill has revolutionized women's lives. Women are going to college, graduating, and entering the workforce in greater numbers than ever before, and there's good reason to believe that the birth control pill has a lot to do with this. But there's a lot more to the pill than meets the eye. Although women go on the pill for a small handful of targeted effects (pregnancy prevention and clearer skin, yay!), sex hormones can't work that way. Sex hormones impact the activities of billions of cells in the body at once, many of which are in the brain. There, they play a role in influencing attraction, sexual motivation, stress, hunger, eating patterns, emotion regulation, friendships, aggression, mood, learning, and more. This means that being on the birth control pill makes women a different version of themselves than when they are off of it. And this is a big deal. For instance, women on the pill have a dampened cortisol spike in response to stress. While this might sound great (no stress!), it can have negative implications for learning, memory, and mood. Additionally, because the pill influences who women are attracted to, being on the pill may inadvertently influence who women choose as partners, which can have important implications for their relationships once they go off it. Sometimes these changes are for the better . . . but other times, they're for the worse. By changing what women's brains do, the pill also has the ability to have cascading effects on everything and everyone that a woman encounters. This means that the reach of the pill extends far beyond women's own bodies, having a major impact on society and the world. This paradigm-shattering book provides an even-handed, science-based understanding of who women are, both on and off the pill. It will change the way that women think about their hormones and how they view themselves. It also serves as a rallying cry for women to demand more information from science about how their bodies and brains work and to advocate for better research. This book will help women make more informed decisions about their health, whether they're on the pill or off of it.

This book is about the birth control and the right of women to control their own fertility. The author Margaret Sanger was the founder of the birth control movement in the United States and an international leader in the field. She founded the American Birth Control League, one of the parent organizations of the Birth Control Federation of America, which in 1942 became the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

These four papers supplement the book Contraception and Reproduction: Health Consequences for Women and Children in the Developing World by bringing together data and analyses that would otherwise be difficult to obtain in a single source. The topics addressed are an analysis of the relationship between maternal mortality and changing reproductive patterns; the risks and benefits of contraception; the effects of changing reproductive patterns on infant health; and the psychosocial consequences to women of controlled fertility and contraceptive use.

A Chicago Tribune "Best Books of 2014" • A Slate "Best Books 2014: Staff Picks" • A St. Louis Post-Dispatch "Best Books of 2014" The fascinating story of one of the most important scientific discoveries of the twentieth century. We know it simply as "the pill," yet its genesis was anything but simple. Jonathan Eig's masterful narrative revolves around four principal characters: the fiery feminist Margaret Sanger, who was a champion of birth control in her campaign for the rights of women but neglected her own children in pursuit of free love; the beautiful Katharine McCormick, who owed her fortune to her wealthy husband, the son of the founder of International Harvester and a schizophrenic; the visionary scientist Gregory Pincus, who was dismissed by Harvard in the 1930s as a result of his experimentation with in vitro fertilization but who, after he was approached by Sanger and McCormick, grew obsessed with the idea of inventing a drug that could stop ovulation; and the telegenic John Rock, a Catholic doctor from Boston who battled his own church to become an enormously effective advocate in the effort to win public approval for the drug that would be marketed by Searle as Enovid. Spanning the years from Sanger’s heady Greenwich Village days in the early twentieth century to trial tests in Puerto Rico in the 1950s to the cusp of the sexual revolution in the 1960s, this is a grand story of radical feminist politics, scientific ingenuity, establishment opposition, and, ultimately, a sea change in social attitudes. Brilliantly researched and briskly written, The Birth of the Pill is gripping social, cultural, and scientific history.