The Use of Birth Control

Everyday another young girl is finding out that she is pregnant and telling their partner. Why are more and more young girls becoming pregnant nowadays? Due to the lack of birth control. These young girls are either unaware or incorrectly using birth control and not thinking about the possible consequences. They are decreasing their chances of going to college, traveling, or achieving their goals in life. Instead, they are increasing the possibility of becoming pregnant or getting an STD or disease, of which neither they are mental, physical, or economically ready to handle. Birth control has become a very important part of teenagers” lives across the world because they are choosing to become sexually active at young ages. Without birth control, more and more young girls especially and women will continue to have babies that they are more than likely not able to care for. By using birth control more young girls will be able to become the doctors, lawyers, and corporate business women that they were meant to be without the set back of having had children too early. Birth control is now more important than ever. In order to stop the production of unwanted children, overpopulation, and poverty birth control must be used and used correctly. This report contains information that all women young and old need to know about birth control- its history, different options, and how it is done around the world.

The earliest uses of birth control can be found in the “Ebers Medical Papyrus, a medical guide written between 1550 and 1500BC” (Birth Control). Birth control has been in existence for thousands of years and across cultures. Past cultures have used things such as “dried crocodile dung and honey as vaginal suppositories; a fiber tampon moistened with an herbal mixture of acacia, dates, colocynth, and honey to prevent pregnancy; and various substances to prevent pregnancy or induce miscarriage” (Birth Control).

Some of the birth control methods that we use now in the United States where created by different cultures. The ancient Turks and Arabs created the IUD when they would insert smooth pebbles into the uterus of their camels so they couldn’t get pregnant will on long trips in the desert (Birth Control). A physician of King Charles II of England came up with the condom, which was made of sheep intestines. It wasn’t”t until 1844 that condoms became used as a form of birth control after the vulcanization of rubber (Birth Control). Yet, though all these birth control methods were created and practiced in various cultures, birth control in America was not legally allowed until after Margaret Sanger”s birth control movement. She began in 1912 publishing and distributing materials about women”s reproductive concerns through articles, pamphlets, and books to women across the United States. In 1914 she was arrested for doing it because it was a violation of the Comstock Law, which didn’t”t allow the mailing of obscene information about birth control and its methods (Birth Control). Though she was jailed and knew it was illegal to educate women about the choices they had to not become pregnant, Margaret continued on spreading the word with the help of her sister, Ethel Byrne (Birth Control). They opened the first birth control clinics in America on October 16, 1916, in Brooklyn (Birth Control). If Margaret Sanger had not had a strong passion for educating women about their choices of birth control regardless of the laws prohibiting it, the Comstock Law would not have been changed in 1963 (Birth Control). Though it did take many years of birth control advocates including Ms. Sanger, going to court and jail for the United States government to realize that they should not infringe on women”s birth control rights, their fighting was not in vain. In 1965 the Supreme Court struck down the last state law prohibiting birth control.