At this moment our world holds 6.23 billion people. By the year 2050, we will have grown to 9.1 billion (Total Midyear Population For World 1950-2050). The rapidly increasing population is something that is growing too fast for us to control. The improvements in the medical fields are enabling our elderly population, and the terminally ill to live longer. Our population growth can be tamed a bit by birth control. This allows a couple to take precautions during sexual intercourse, so to lessen the chances of a pregnancy. Birth control also benefits the health of our nation. There are so many sexually transmitted diseases floating around that many types of birth control, also known as, contraceptives, can help protect against those as well. Birth control can be dated back as far as 2,000 years, but my focus is comparing and contrasting the nineteenth century birth control to modern day types. There are many factors and people that affected how the world now views birth control.
In the early1800Õs, a native-born American woman bore an average of 7.04 children. This number continuously decreased to 2.74 now (McFarlane and Meier 28& 32). These numbers started to decline after the1860Õs after the birth control movement started to evolve. Marie Stopes had a large influence on the development and availability of birth control in the nineteenth century in England, while Margaret SangerÕs influence on birth control issue in America was large. These two women strived with great determination in what is known as the birth control movement. They each put a large amount of work into convincing that birth control is a right for women and necessity. Stopes founded and opened the first birth control clinic in London in 1920, with the help from Sanger (Soloway 190-191). While Sanger opened the first American birth control clinic in Brooklyn, New York, in 1917, it was quickly shut down and not reopened until (Soloway 190). ![](marie_stopes.jpg"align="left"hspace="20"vspace="20"width="200"height=200")
they were thicker and tied with a string at the end. Douching was also used often. Women douched with various substances such as alum, quinine, lemon juice and baking soda. Wilhelm Peter Mensinga, a German physician, is credited to have invented the first diaphragm in 1882 (McFarlane and Meier 29-30). The cervical cap was also designed in this century by a German gynecologist, who noticed that farm families only had 2 Ð 3 kids because the midwives had placed a wooden block in front of the cervix. America learned about this invention when the German immigrants came over here (McFarlane and Meier 29). Two other methods of contraception were prolonged nursing and abstinence. A woman would nurse up to two years, because that would help with prolonging the body into thinking it is already pregnant. However, this can cause problems, with a child breastfeeding until the age of two. Whether or not that is too old is a question. Abstaining from sexual intercourse was the best method, since there was no chance for pregnancy, by not having any sexual contact (McLaren 119-121).
The modern day woman has over twenty options when choosing a birth control method. These methods can be divided up into 4 categories. These categories are behavioral, physical, medical and surgical. Behavioral methods are those that are focused on the conscious behaviors of both the female and male in a sexual situation. The first and obvious method is abstinence. Abstaining from sexual intercourse will not allow the couple to become pregnant because there is no sexual contact. Breastfeeding is also an option is modern times. Prolonging the body into believing it is pregnant, allows for more time for sexual intercourse without fertilization. Fertility Awareness Charts, such as the Basal body temperature chart and the rhythm method chart, allow a woman to calculate her menstrual cycle and body temperature to know when she is the most fertile during a month. Outercourse is also recommended for pregnancy prevention. This entails petting, kissing, oral sex, and cuddling. This allows couples to be physical with each other, but not to the point of complete intimacy. Coitus interruptus is also still commonly used today as prevention for pregnancy. Withdrawing, however, is not very dependable hence the Òpre-ejaculationÓ stage (Birth Control).
Physical methods that a woman and man can use consist of cervical caps, diaphragms, condoms, and intrauterine devices (IUD). Cervical caps, diaphragms and female condoms, are physically inserted by a woman into her vaginal cavity each time before sex. The male also has access to condoms for himself. The IUDÕs are metal devices that are inserted into the vagina 
and can stay there for up to a year. There are several types of IUDÕs that can be used whether it have more progesterin (the hormone needed to maintain a pregnancy) or be an emergency IUD that can be inserted up to 7 days after unprotected sex to help in terminating a pregnancy (Birth Control).
The medical methods that a woman has to choose from consist of an oral pill, spermicidal foam, a tri-monthly shot and an emergency contraceptive pill. The most commonly oral contraceptive is known as Ortho-Tri cyclen, a prescriptive pill., This pill is taken daily for the prevention of pregnancy. The hormones within the pill replace and suppress the hormones that the body normally produces and sends a false signal to the hypothalamus that there has been no ovulation. The hormones also alter the tubal transport system so that fertilization is not possible (Bullough 81-82). The spermicidal foam can be bought over the counter and is inserted into the vagina before sex so that all semen is killed once inside the female. Depo-Provera is a shot, taken every three months, which injects only progestin. This enables fertilization and can cause the female to stop having a period for up to 6 months after final injection (Bullough 106). The emergency contraceptive pill (ECP) is a prescribed pill that can be taken up to 72 hours after unprotected sex, to terminate a pregnancy or protect against fertilization. These are pills that are two large dosages of the regular pill (Emergency Contraceptives).
The surgical methods of contraception are tubal sterilization, vasectomy, Norplant implants and abortion. A tubal sterilization, Ògetting your tubes tied,Ó blocks the fallopian tubes that transmit the ova from the ovaries into the uterus. This method can be reversed but it is difficult. A vasectomy is a reversible surgery that a male has, so that the passageway of the sperm can be closed, by blocking a section of the vas deferens. The vas deferens transports the sperm from each testicle to the prostatic urethra (Bullough 152).
The nineteenth century physicians viewed birth control to be unnatural and degrading in their mental effect, and injurious to both the husband and wife in their physical interactions (Banks 98). Medical persons saw birth control as a type of self-help and were opposed to this (McLaren 14). Physicians felt that married couples, who used birth control, were being selfish in choosing to have family limitation. These people were evading their duty to bear children, in order to enjoy sexual pleasure over domestic pleasure (Ittman 160). PhysicianÕs opposition to birth control was focused mainly from an ethical standpoint. The medical fieldÕs stance on this issue comes from the general characteristics of its approach to health care. The first characteristic is that doctors were slow to dedicate themselves to preventive medicine. This is because birth control is a Òself-helpÓ type issue that can be compared to alcoholism. This leads into the characteristic that birth control is an inappropriate subject to become involved in since it was associated with the activities of non-professionals-the quacks, retailers of rubber goods and midwives-and respectable physicians do not want to be associated with these lower class people. Another reason, doctors were quick to oppose this issue is because they confused abortion with contraception. For some reason, these physicians could not see the difference between terminating a pregnancy and preventing one. Fourthly, doctors were extremely convinced that contraception was dangerous to the health. If a physician would help a patient obtain birth control, they would scare the patient into thinking this practice could result in sterility, amnesia, insanity and suicide. The final characteristic is that of the moral dilemma. The doctor saw himself as a family counselor, and felt duty bound to rebuke women who, in their attempts to limit their own fertility, challenged him as a male, medical physician, and moral arbiter (McLaren 118-119).
Nowadays physicians are looking to help keep their patients healthy. They recommend certain types of birth control but their main stance is on abstinence. In the 1970Õs, the medical field felt that they had one job only- healing the sick. Many physicians felt that the prescription of oral contraceptives was a ÒdebasementÓ of the moral vocation, Òa misapplicationÓ of medical knowledge and totally unworthy of a great profession (Marks 116). The pill was a drug with potentially dangerous medical consequences, which turned the act of prescribing it into a legitimate medical activity. Women on the pill had to be continuously examined, to be sure that it was safe for their bodies. With the enforced routine check ups for women on the pill, more research was developed into the side effects on the body. This medical response to the increased interest, in oral contraceptives, was part of the wider phenomenon of increasing medical intervention in areas of womenÕs reproductive health, for example pregnancy and childbirth (Marks 117). The increased interest in womenÕs health has been a great development for the medical field as we find ourselves in the early 2000Õs. Now, doctors are extremely willing to prescribe birth control with our daily population increase, and the widespread of sexually transmitted diseases.
Our contraceptive methods and views have come along way in the past 200 years. The technology and intelligence our world holds only can insinuate the new types of birth control methods that are to come. With a world population growing by the second, birth control is one way we can help improve and control where we live. The United States alone houses 60 million women that are in their childrearing years (15-44), and a positive point of that is 64% practice some type of contraception (Contraceptive Use). Though there are many people still out in the world that are against birth control, the knowledge and technology of this development is important.
"Birth Control." Planned Parenthood. 29 April 2002. http://www.plannedparenthood.org/bc/
Bullough, Vern L. and Bonnie Bullough. Contraception, A Guide to Birth Control Methods: Condoms, Spermicides, Diaphragms, Sterilization, Natural Family Planning, The Pill. 2nd ed. New York: Prometeus Book, 1997.
"Contraceptive Use." The Alan Guttmacher Institute: Facts In Brief. 1 May 2002. http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_contr_use.html
Ittman, Karl. Work, Gender, and Family in Victorian England. London: MacMillian Press Ltd., 1995.
Marks, Lara V. Sexual Chemistry: A History of the Contraceptive Pill. New Have: Yale University Press, 2001.
McFarlane, Deborah R. and Kenneth J. Meier. The Politics of Fertility Control. New York: Chatam House Publishers, 2001.
McLaren, Angus. Birth Control in Nineteenth Century England. London: Croom Helm, 1978.
Soloway, Richard Allen. Birth Control and the Population Question in England, 1877-1930. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1982.
"Total Miid-year Population for World 1950-2050." U.S. Census Bureau. 29 April 2002. http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/worldpop.html
Special Thanks to sites that provided the pictures: Margaret Sanger-http://www.time.com/time/time100/leaders/profile/sanger.html Marie Stopes-http://womhist.binghamton.edu/birth/doc16.htm Sheath-http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyan/condill.htm IUD-http://health.indiamart.com/familyplanning/intrauterine-devices.html cow-http://www.willyworries.com/safersex.htm This page was written by Amanda Poli, and is maintained by Melanie Ulrich. This page was last updated Saturday, 18-May-2002 08:28:11 CDT