Why she quit taking the pill

Mary Claire Lagroue writes at Verily about the many downsides of taking oral contrceptives.

In 1960 the pill was officially approved by the FDA. It’s no exaggeration to say that this daily dose of hormones was revolutionary. Feminism, the sexual revolution, religion, marriage—the pill was the impetus for so much change and controversy in all of these arenas and more. The pill was a game changer; there’s no denying that.

Fast-forward to today, and the pill is ubiquitous—and for most, unquestioned.

...That doesn’t mean that all women are using the pill to prevent pregnancy. Doctors prescribe women hormonal birth control pills for an increasingly wide variety of reasons, from managing reproductive system issues such as polycystic ovarian syndrome and endometriosis to far more tangential uses such as hormonal acne and fibrocystic breast disease. In fact, millions of women take the pill not simply as a contraceptive but to remedy symptoms of things that may or may not be related reproductive health. Hormonal birth control has become the standard of care, the go-to drug no matter the issue.

But a half century in, modern medicine is starting to question what has become the new normal. While the pill is largely viewed as the wonder drug of women’s health, the facts show that, if anything, oral contraceptives work in ways tangential to women’s fertility and overall health. The original hype surrounding the pill is starting to give way to convincing and frightening evidence that the pill we’re popping to prevent babies, acne, or even cancer might actually being doing us harm, not good—and that’s a hard pill to swallow.

Read more here.