The Importance of Birth Control :: Contraceptives, Birth Control Essays

We have all heard sad stories of unwanted teenage pregnancies. There are the girls who drop out of school to care for babies they did not really want, having to work to support their unexpected new "families." There are the guys who marry before they are ready and perhaps to wives they would not otherwise have married-so often these marriages end in divorce. Most tragic of all, though, are the children who grow up knowing that they were not wanted in the first place, knowing that they were more a burden to their parents than a joy even before they were born. Clearly, we as a society need to get a grip on this problem of teenage pregnancy, and the obvious solution is to encourage teens to be responsible and practice birth control. But we face so many choices in deciding which type of birth control to use. Condoms? IUDs? Diaphragms? DepoProvera injections? "The Pill"? Abortion? Abstinence? Which method of birth control is the most practical and the most likely to provide a legitimate s olution to the problem of teenage pregnancy?      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Far and away the most common method of birth control today is the birth control pill. The pill is relatively easy to obtain through Planned Parenthood clinics, the price is not unreasonable, and the pill has an excellent record of success in pregnancy prevention. However, the pill places all the burden of birth control on women, and although it is usually the women who have the most to lose in unwanted pregnancy, shouldn't [GR#1] men take some of the responsibility for birth control, too? Plus, the pill is something that users must remember to take every day, even if they do not engage in sex for months or years. The pill may have the added advantages of making menstrual cycles more regular, and decreasing the sometimes painful intensity of a woman's periods, but as far as being purely a method of birth control, the pill has drawbacks, too. Besides being something that the user must remember to take each and every day regardless of the frequency of sexual activity, being on the pill involves visits to the doctor's office or to Planned Parenthood with annual or even more frequent exams and tests that may be unpleasant and cost more money.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Diaphragms? IUDs? DepoProvera Injections? These methods, too, place all the burden of birth control on the woman.