Someone recently asked me what I knew about “the pill”, also known as oral contraceptives.  Though I knew the facts which were passed onto me via the grapevine, I hadn’t ever done proper research about the pill, what it does, its what side effects it might have.

I found a very informative
website, which seems to give solid facts based on Randy Alcorn’s research, and the research done by various pharmaceutical companies as well as medical docters.

There was a quite a number facts which I’ve never been aware of, specially such as the evolution of the pill from the 1960′s until now, but also that it has three main mechanisms  – not only one.

The pill was introduced commercially sometime in the 1960′s, and its estrogen content back then was a very high 150 micrograms.  After proving that this had some serious side effects, the estrogen dosage was reduced to a mere 35 microgames in the late 1980′s, and today the dosage varies between 20 – 35 micrograms.

Serious negative side effects of estrogen had been clearly proven. These included blurred vision, nausea, cramping, irregular menstrual bleeding, headaches, increased incidence of breast cancer, strokes, and heart attacks, some of which led to fatalities.

The highest available dosage today being 50 micrograms, but this isn’t readily available, and I would assume that you need to get a docter to recommend this for you in order to use it.

Below are the three main  mechanisms of birth control pills:

1.      inhibiting ovulation (the primary mechanism),

2.      thickening the cervical mucus, thereby making it more difficult for sperm to travel to the egg, and

3.      thinning and shriveling the lining of the uterus to the point that it is unable or less able to facilitate the implantation of the newly fertilized egg.

The first two mechanisms are contraceptive. The third is abortive.

The reason why I’m going on about the dosage is that the research done, basically implies that the contraceptives with a high dosage would inhibit ovulation, the the contraceptives with a low dosage would not necesarily ensure that ovulation doesn’t occur, but the chances that the uterus lining will be too thin for the fertilized egg to implant itself is pretty good.

Its for this reason that people have been saying that oral contraceptives are just much an abortion as when you go to an abortion clinic to get it done, but sadly a lot of people are not aware of this, or they’re just too ignorant to investigate.  I guess in the end its still something each woman has to decide for herself, but its just good to have the facts straight when making your decision.