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posted by cmn32480 on Monday March 20 2017, @05:39PM   Printer-friendly
from the no-makin'-babies dept.

A review has reiterated that oral contraception is safe and effective for adolescent females, and found that negative side effects are rarer among teens than adult users. The review also found no evidence linking the use of oral contraceptives to increased or riskier sex:

Nearly five years ago, the nation's leading group of obstetricians and gynecologists issued a policy statement saying the time had come for oral contraception to be available without a prescription. We wrote about it and everything.

In the intervening years, some states have changed their laws. California authorized pharmacists to distribute most types of hormonal birth control. Oregon passed a similar law covering both pills and patches. But neither law changed the status of birth control pills from prescription to over-the-counter. Only the Food and Drug Administration can do that. And in Oregon's case, the law does not apply to people of all ages. People under 18 are still required to get their first contraceptive prescription from a doctor.

But researchers say there is no evidence that adolescents are at greater risk from birth control pills than adult women. A review of oral contraceptive research [DOI: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2016.12.024] [DX] presents the most comprehensive evidence yet that, as the authors state, "There is no scientific rationale for limiting access to a future over-the-counter oral contraceptive product by age."

"There is a growing body of evidence that the safety risks are low and benefits are large," says Krishna Upadhya, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the lead author of the review, which was published this week in the Journal of Adolescent Health. In fact, she says, some of the potential negative side effects of oral contraception are less likely in younger people. For example, birth control pills that contain both estrogen and progestin come with an increased risk of a type of blood clot called a venous thromboembolism, but that risk is lower in teenagers than in older women. As a result, the pill is "potentially safer the younger you are," says Upadhya.


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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @08:29PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @08:29PM (#481748)

    I'm fairly certain I comprehend the point you're trying to make. The problem here is that (wo)men are not angels. In this case, there's another thing compounding the problem. Men are not devils, either.

    Now, I can be a cruel, heartless bitch. I'm perfectly ok with letting a woman and children she may have because she did not abstain or use birth control starve to death in the street. Unfortunately, I'm also beholden to a warlord called the USA, for the sole purpose that my warlord keeps other warlords off my lawn. It just so happens that, because men are not devils, I'm pretty much alone in my willingness to allow such a thing to happen. In one form or another, my warlord will take money from me to pay for this woman and her children so they do not starve in the street.

    So, I'm left with a dilemma. Either I can pay for birth control on the hope that women will use it in lieu of having unplanned pregnancies, or I can pay my warlord to feed, house, and clothe women and their children from unplanned pregnancies. One of these options is quite a bit cheaper: let women have access to birth control at no out-of-pocket cost.

    Because men are not angels, they will have children they cannot afford. If men were angels, they would either ensure that children will not result from sex they choose to have or abstain all together, but they are not angels. Because other men are not devils, we will all pay for either contraception or care of those children they cannot afford themselves.

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