Contraception

Friday, March 2, 2007
Contraception


Wow! I just completed a couple of conferences and read a new book or two. It is amazing what data is available, if you look long enough. I specialize in Women’s Health; therefore I am always pursuing new ideas and studies that might be of assistance to my patients. I ran across a really interesting article on the history of contraception, and I thought I was the guru for contraception .Evidently, sometime prior to 1276, Peter of Spain wrote a comprehensive recipe book for contraception. Now this alone isn’t all that interesting, but what is surprising is “In 1276 he became Pope John XXI. The book itself was titled Thesaurus Pauperam, (Treasure of the Poor). Much to everyone’s surprise, many of his recipes have been found to be quite effective. That is so cool, a pope that wrote recipes for birth control. And if it weren’t for Margaret Sanger, where would we be today? A wall in a French cave has the earliest known depiction of a man wearing a condom during intercourse. It is estimated to be anywhere from 12,000 to 15,000 years old.

I just had lunch at the “beans with the mayor”. what a joke, I honestly wasn’t thinking about going to the lunch when I put on my Freedom of Speech, Take it Back t-shirt. Boy did I get some nasty looks from the conservative base around me. I felt like a leper. I can not imagine how Margaret Sanger felt as she pushed for contraception and women’s rights. She was arrested numerous times for distributing contraception material and for opening birth control (family planning) clinics.
Sanger always disdained the idea of a “cradle competition” between rich and poor, native and immigrant, white and black. She preached an ethic of individual self-improvement that would come from within. She advanced public health and welfare policies fostering universal health and fitness and providing essential economic safety nets, and she spoke out against immigration prohibitions and other stereotypes. I could go on and on about her life and legacy, but instead I will save that for another day.