The right to abortion is again an increasingly popular topic, let's take a look at contraception throughout history and how people have regulated events within the matter. As researchers determined in 1997 that the next reason for having sexual intercourse is the birth of a new being, this "consequence" has forced us for centuries to come up with ways to avoid or prevent it.
Our ancestors around the world had different ideas when it came to contraception. For example, in ancient China, women drank cocktails of lead and mercury to prevent pregnancy. It turned out to be very effective, as the cocktails turned its consumers lethal.In Medieval Europe, magicians recommended strapping a weasel around the ladies’ thigh or a necklace made from the severed foot of a weasel or anus of a hare (which turned out to be a very popular homeopathic remedy). Canadians on the other side, swore by liquor made of beaver testicles soaked in moonshine.
Anyhow, over time, these antiqued methods of contraception didn’t make any sense or understanding of how lady business works.
Over time silphium appeared, and it seemed to have real contraceptive and abortifacient properties. Around 2600 years ago, the Greek island of Thera was becoming overpopulated. Shortly after the Cyrenians discovered silphium this weed in the fennel family that was growing in the hillsides around town. They were suitably impressed by the plant, not only because it was a delicious garnish to goat tenderloin, but it was also really good at keeping women from getting pregnant, and preventing pregnancies from progressing.
Pretty soon, the ancient versions of gynecologists had women drinking the juice of the silphium plant once a month, or just kind of wedging some wool that had been soaked in silphium juice up vagina. Silphium was all the rage, the Cyrenians were exporting it all over the place and though we can document the decreased birth rates in ancient Rome during silphium's heyday, we will never know how effective it actually is because the ancients humped it into extinction.
Modern birth control can be divided up into a few categories: sterilization, barrier methods, hormonal methods, contragestion
Sterilization may seem the most logical to you, it is based on binding or blocking the ducts that transport sex cells and it is considered an irreversible method. So, if you ever decide on this option, make sure damn well you don't want a baby.
Now with barrier methods, the idea is to block the sperm before it gets through the cervix and to the egg. So condoms and diaphragms fit into this category. Even though nobody even knew about sperm until like the mid 15th century people have been suspicious about the role semen played in the whole pregnancy situation for a long time. There are cave paintings in France dating back to around 15 thousand BC depicting condom use. Well, I mean, probably, it's kind of hard to tell what's going on in a cave painting. We're also pretty sure that Ancient Romans had condoms and so did Ancient Egyptians. The thing is a lot of times these beta version condoms were made of like oiled silk paper or lamb intestine so, you know, not 100% effective.
So fast forward, quite fast, to the 1950s when some American drug companies started researching a way to make synthetic progesterone a hormone that helps regulate the female menstrual cycle. By the early 1960s they had developed the first oral contraceptive a honkin' horse pill of hormonal goodness which was far from perfect but it was pretty reliable at making you not have a baby and the ladies of the 1960s were pretty frickin' psyched.
Anyway, these days we've got all kinds of hormonal birth control methods like the pill, hormone implants, shots, patches, rings, and hormone-laced IUDs.
Basically, all of these things just release synthetic estrogen and/or progesterone into a woman's system at the right time each month essentially preventing her ovaries from releasing eggs or making her womb sort of an inhospitable environment for fertilized eggs. In this way, hormonal methods of contraception are like barrier methods they prevent the sperm and egg from ever meeting each other. In fact, the word contraception really means against fertilization.
Now we come to contragestive methods like intrauterine devices, or IUDs. They allow the sperm to fertilize the egg but prevent the fertilized egg from implanting on the wall of the uterus. So contraception means against fertilization. Contragestion means against gestation. The most common contragestive method of birth control comes in the form of IUDs although IUDs kind of straddle the lines as it were between contraception and contragestion.
IUDs are these T-shaped pieces of plastic covered with coiled copper wire that is inserted directly into the uterus. Some of them release low levels of synthetic progesterone as well. though partially the coiled copper works as a spermicide to kill all the sperm before they can ever find the egg. Also, IUDs kind of inflame the area which means there are a lot of white blood cells that somehow start attacking the sperm and even a fertilized egg.
So these days, we've got a bunch of different options for birth control and you'd think we'd be satisfied. While you're reading this, many future products are being tested, so make sure to stay updated!
*do not take this article as sex or reproductive health advice*
Iva Ivanišević
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