Keep in mind the health effects of your choices. This is the HealthyShe blog after all! Birth control does have side effects. We propose a healthy lifestyle free from "outside" and unnatural measures which can affect your happiness and well-being.

According to OB/GYN Kathleen Raviele and many other studies, hormonal birth control also leads to the following medical consequences (and this is very small sampling of the side effects):

• 70 percent increased risk of depression
• 2-3 times more likely to attempt or commit suicide (even higher with DepoProvera or Norplant)
• 3.5x times more likely to get blood clots; much higher with DepoProvera or Norplant
• Higher rates of breast, liver, and cervical cancer (even 5 years after stopping); higher still among African-American women
• A 2009 study further found that women on oral contraceptives are at 4 times greater risk of triple-negative breast cancer, a particularly difficult cancer to treat
• Hormonal contraception places the woman in a state of pseudopregnancy, resulting in weight gain. As hormone levels stay constant on the pill (lacking high levels of estrogen normally seen during the fertile period), many women experience decreased libido.
• Research has shown that the hormones also affect a woman’s sense of smell, causing her to be attracted to a man similar to her rather than one who is dissimilar. This can lead to reduced attraction and thus higher divorce rates when she comes off the pill.
• Women who take oral contraceptives for five years or more are 80 percent more likely to contract an STI (even after adjusting for all lifestyle factors), and those who use DepoProvera or Norplant are 350 percent more likely. Why? These drugs/hormones kill your immune system. This is what they inject into lab rats when scientists want them to contract a virus.

And perhaps the biggest reason birth control is not a good alternative to abortion is because it causes abortions. Even pro-birth-control groups admit that women on the Pill still have at least a 5 percent “breakthrough ovulation” rate. This means that while the pill is designed to stop ovulation, women still ovulate every 20th cycle or so. (Some studies show more like every 10th cycle.)

In those cases, the pill uses its secondary effect. It keeps the endometrium from sustaining the life of the new baby, causing it to die 8-10 days after conception. So, sexually active women who may never have even considered abortion are likely allowing themselves to have many abortions while using hormonal contraception.