Babies, the Pill, and Infertility Response

Well, Edith, I think I like your theory. Now, I'm no medical doctor. My training is in theological ethics. But I find it really difficult to believe, even after only an undergraduate course in biology, that prolonged (probably around the time you're suggesting...ten years or so), use of the birth control pill wouldn't mess with one's fertility. Even if one stops taking the pill and so begins again to ovulate, it seems to me that it would take awhile for the body to bounce back to regulating itself. So, if my students at age 15 or 16 begin to use the pill, ten years later would mean that they are my age...

I'm also a little frightened at the "mini-pill" which suppresses ovulation and thickens cervical mucus (like the mainstream pill), but is taken for 12 weeks at a time...so you have about 4 periods a year. Call me old-fashioned, but this seems really weird.

What I find most fascinating is the increased rate of infertility in men, possibly linked the "anti-androgen" elements of the pill that are released into water sources.

The question then is: what are we doing??? We are inhibiting our bodies' natural functions to prevent pregnancy, supplementing our bodies with hormones that we should not really need after we get off the pill to get pregnant, risking the fertility of men...all for what...license to have sex?

The most effective way to get from point A to point B is a straight line. Instead we are running circles in our own lives to figure out where we are going.