How many other uses does the pill have? (birth control pills)

My friend's doctor gave her birth control to clear up her Acne.

Doctors give women the pill for a lot of reasons such as heavy bleeding, severe cramping and endometriosis.

she got put on them to help her get cycling regular - she was always sort of underweight(arrggghhhh - she can have my extra) and that was something to do with it

Why debate secondary reasons when the primary one is plenty sufficient?

Just got done listening to Mike Malloy defend the pill on AAR by resorting to this "other uses than birth control" stuff, and it just doesn't sit well with me. It's like saying birth control alone isn't good enough or something.

Anyway, sorry if I took the question the wrong way, but we'll be getting a lot of this in the near future, I suspect.


MDN

and refusing to give legal prescription medications without knowing the patient, what s/he is taking them for, or any other circumstances.

This is just plain wrong on so many levels.

When you go into medical practice at any level, you realize you have to take all comers, even if you think they're contributing to their own illnesses. You don't get to judge, and you realize that people have the right to make bad decisions.

What you don't get to do is second guess another practitioner and withhold treatment. If these pharmacists withhold birth control today, they may decide pain patients should tough it out tomorrow, or that prayer should be tried before those anitbiotics are given.

Their licenses should be withdrawn immediately. They can have a wonderful future preaching.

Pull their licenses immediately. They have no business being in the profession for another minute.


MDN

Silly me, I thought the story I read the other day was a JOKE. If a doctor or a pharmacist refuses to prescribe/despense drugs on 'moral grounds', they need to get the fuck out of their respective professions. This is discrimination against women, plain and simple. I cannot believe states are passing laws allowing this bullshit! ARGH!!!

Clearing up acne is a sin, too.

There is no excuse for your little blue bullets of unholy murder, sinner!

Just keep your damn legs crossed and reproduce when we order you to, and everything will be Jeeeessst fine.

If a pharmacist refused to refill my birth control prescription, I would go PMS on his ass. What is this country coming to? When did we start de-evolvolution? It's time to kill and bury the patriarchal paradigm. 2,000+ years of human misery is long enough.

I forget...but cant you take a handful of these things right after unprotected sex...and basically kill anything that may have been concieved...

Folk tale?

the info is available online.

Pcat

I was put on the pill as a teenager to regulate cycles...Later, I was put on it to try to curb problems...didn't work, ended up having a hysterectomy...but there are lots of non-contraceptive reasons for the pill.

if they are undergoing chemotherapy, or taking other medications that can cause birth defects, like Accutane (for cystic acne).

fifties, only abortions. Why are they trying to ban it now?

the 1950s were too liberal and secular.

I know there was a lot of opposition in some parts of the country, notably New England. Wasn't it Griswold v. Connecticut that went to the Supreme Court?

I think widespread legalized abortion has led people who oppose it to think more about when life begins and to oppose any contraceptive method that might cause an early embryonic death. That's the concern with the pill and IUD, and that's why some pharmacists don't want to dispense the pill: it can kill an embryo conceived while a woman is taking it. I haven't heard of any pharmacist refusing to sell condoms, spermicides, or diaphragms, have you? I don't think it's the prevention of conception they object to but early, and perhaps unintentional, abortions.

the pill's ability to keep my menstrual cramps down to a liveable level. They also help a LOT with my chronic acne. In recent years the birth control aspect has been relatively unimportant. NOBODY takes my pills away!!!!!!!!!!!!

such as irregular, sudden hemorrhage-like periods.

to help with cramps and to make my period regular. that was common in the 80's i dont know if they still do that now.