A Disaster for Women? THE PILL

Herald Sun, Tuesday, April 27, 1999

It has been responsible for damaging women’s health, breaking up families and exploiting the very people it was meant to liberate. So say its critics. JEANETTE KUPFERMANN reports on what some say could be one of this century’s most damaging inventions.

FUTURE generations will look back on the Pill as a poison amid society.

They will see it as one of the greatest disasters or the 20th century - not only from a medical point of view, but from a social and moral one, too.

Once again, the oral contraceptive pill is making headlines.

An eminent cancer statistician has raised new fears over its safety, warning It could triple the rates of breast cancer within a decade.

Professor Rum McPherson, of London’s School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, says potential harmful effects on women who start rising the Pill in their early to mid-teens have been overlooked In the numerous studies into Its long-term safety.

It seems a fair argument.

Most of the earlier studies into Pill safety were done on older women who married and had children earlier.

They tended to use It to space out their babies.

Today, women are having sex earlier and their babies much later. They will he taking the Pill for many more years than their mothers or grandmothers.

It Is yet another question mark over what has come to be regarded as a wonder contraceptive.

In time, we will view it as the cause of damage not only to Women's finely balanced hormonal systems with lasting impact on their health and fertility, but their equally finely balanced relationships with the opposite sex and their own families.

This conclusion can be drawn not from any religious convictions but from weighing the evidence and using common sense.

We talk of the Pill as liberating women - freeing them from unwanted pregnancy and giving them an opportunity to explore their sexuality in a way that their mothers never could.

We talk of it as if it magically created better lives for them, banishing oppressive "outmoded" notions of chastity and fidelity.

What is rarely appreciated is that while chastity and fidelity (which went out the window with the Pill were adhered to - at least as an ideal - women were protected.

As soon as the Pill put paid to the notion of sex taking place only within marriage, with one partner, women felt they "had" to be sexually active, to experiment with several partners and to be prepared to take the initiative.

This may have opened up an exciting new world of sexual possibilities, but It also left women open to exploitation like never before.

Their sexuality became a commodity and pornography, based on male fantasy, set the tone for what was expected from them.

All women were expected to act like tarts - to meet male expectations. Women became "available" to men in a way they'd never been before and quick sex, that hallmark of the late-20th century, was born along with the Pill.

The result was something one writer has called ‘the Geishaisation of women" - the woman who is there to pleasure the male.

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Not only did vanishing notions of chastity and a growing promiscuity affect male/female relationships but It also rebounded on family dynamics.

Sexual attraction is notoriously ephemeral, and with the Pill it became harder to hold any relationship together.

Divorce and family break-up Increased. Where once the mother/child relationship was the most important thing in a woman's life, the emphasis shifted.

The pressure was on for women to find sexual fulfilment often at the expense of the children and extended family.

If it benefited anyone, the Pill ultimately benefited men. But even there it has had the paradoxical effect of destroying rather than creating real intimacy.

The man could remove himself from any responsibility in contraception, bypassing the need for discussion on this most important of issues, which once demanded real closeness before it could be tackled.

Social and moral concerns aside, the health risks of the Pill have never really gone away.

It has been the subject of several scares since It "revolutionised" women’s lives in the late 1960s.

At least four major studies have linked it to breast cancer, In 1995, a major American study linked it to cervical cancer.

What is so confusing is that for every claim that the Pill is harmful, there is a counter-claim that it protects women against this cancer or that, and that it has positive benefits ranging from the treatment off fibroids to acne.

It is hard to get at the truth - and the truth is that there remains a lot of uncertainty.

In the latest 'scare’, Prof. McPherson raises genuine concerns about the Pill’s safety.

He points out that a woman’s risk of breast cancer has been linked to hormonal levels in her body during the years that elapse between her first period and her first pregnancy.

It Is not unreasonable to assume exposure to synthetic hormones in the Pill will also be a factor.

Predictably, the vociferous "pro-Pill" brigade who will brook no criticism of their wonder contraception, have responded angrily.

They attacked Prof. McPherson for "scaring women", trotting out their well-rehearsed mantra that "the benefits of taking the Pill far outweigh the risks".

But can anyone reasonably claim that any more? Instead of acknowledging Prof. McPherson’s concerns, his critics accuse him of creating a panic that will result in unwanted pregnancy and abortion. It is "unhelpful" to worry women in this way, they say.

But Just how helpful - and honest - was it to women to give the Pill a "clean bill of health" this year.

This followed publication of a study of women who began talking it in the 1970s - hardly representative of today’s users.

Ten years after stopping taking it they were found to have no greater risk of death from heart disease and cancers than non-Pill users.

Just 10 years! Was this really long enough to earn its clean bill of health?

Prof. McPherson’s findings, published in Britain’s Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, make horrifying reading.

If his fears prove correct, the proportion of women developing breast cancer could rise from one in 50 to one in 18. Common sense dictates that today’s Pill users will be affected in ways their mothers were not.

Why is it so difficult for anyone to come clean about this? And, of course, cancer is not the only health concern.

There are sexually transmitted diseases that accompany unprotected sex with a greater number of partners.

We know that despite the wide availability of sex education and fears about HIV, many women on the Pill take risks and have unprotected sex.

They are exposed to infections such as chlamydia, a known cause of infertility, and the human papilloma virus, which is implicated in cervical cancer.

So the Pill can compromise a woman’s health in the long and short term and her fertility. But is that spelled out to her by the family planners and doctors who seem to have only one moral absolute "thou shalt not get pregnant?

The nightmare legacy of the Pill has Just I believe less to do with liberation than with ill health, the exploitation of women, and the decline of the family.

It has also vested a concentration of power and control with sex educators and family planners, whose critics claim have little time for informed debate.

Isn’t it time women saw the writing on the wall?

JEANETTE KUPFERMANN is a feature writer for London’s Daily Mail newspaper.