‘Archaic, revolutionary’: An OBGYN’s complicated feelings on the pill
By Kate Dries‘Archaic, revolutionary’: An OBGYN’s complicated feelings on the pill
By Kate DriesDr. Crystal Goldsmith joins The Paper Machete this week to provide the history of a form of birth control so popular it got its own nickname, and argues that “choice doesn’t just mean ‘abortion.’ It means having options for contraception and support in obtaining those options.”
Read an excerpt or listen:
“Every morning, as a doctor — an OBGYN — I get to go upstairs and I get to make my post-partum rounds and I check on all my patients who just had lovely little babies and I say the same thing to all of them: What can I get you for birth control?’ And invariably there is some woman — many women — who say, ‘Um, I think I’m just going to use the pill.’ And this makes me want to gauge my eyes out.
And I look at her and I smile and I say, ‘Okay, you just had your third C-section in three years, but I will happily write you that prescription for the pill…although there are some better options.’
It’s true. As an OBGYN, hearing women say they want to use the pill is sometimes like hearing nails on a chalkboard.
The pill is archaic. It’s cumbersome. And women are notoriously bad at taking it.
And nonetheless, despite all that baggage, it’s pretty darn revolutionary.”
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