Birth Control

Birth Control has become one of the daily medicines that women take, including myself. There are various types of birth control that have developed throughout the years. Today, birth control is a huge part of women’s life for different reasons such as: menstrual cycle and to help prevent a pregnancy. The top form of birth control used nowadays is a tiny little tablet, better known as the pill. Throughout my research paper on the topic of birth control, my goal is to learn about the history of birth control and how it has evolved.

The question I would like to have answered by the end of my research is: Who and where did the contraception come from? What ingredients were used to conduct the first from of contraceptives? How did this drug change the world? Why was there controversy with religion and birth control? Why was there a misconception about sexual behavior and the Pill?

To correctly answer the questions I have developed, I will thoroughly explain my opinions and personal beliefs about the questions. Along with my personal beliefs and my opinions I will use research evidence from my sources explored while studying birth control. I will look at each question and examine them in different ways, and the main topic will be based upon the outlook of people in history on their beliefs for creating the idea about birth control; whether they are for it or against the idea.

According to John T. Noonan, Jr., “The existence of contraceptive technique in the pre-Christian Mediterranean world is well established. The oldest surviving documents are from Egypt. Five different papyri, all dating from between 1900 and 1100 B.C, provide recipes for contraceptive preparations to be used in the vulva (the external opening of the vagina or reproductive tract in a female mammal or mematode).” The Kahun Papyrus has three different formulas that were used to create the first form of birth control such as: pulverized crocodile dung in fermented mucilage; honey and sodium carbonate to be sprinkled in the vulva; and a substance, whose name is now undecipherable, to be mixed with mucilage and sprinkled in the vulva (Noonan). This type of conceptive was said to prevent pregnancy up to three years by a recipe of acacia tips, coloquintida, and dates, mixed with honey, to be placed in the uterus. The Ramasseum Papyrus IV reports that to prevent pregnancy crocodile dung should be placed on moistened fibers in the opening of the uterus (Noonan). A recipe to prevent pregnancy given in the Berlin Papyrus is fumigation of the uterus with the seed of a particular grain (Noonan). In the Carlsberg Papyrus the contents of the recipe are lacking, but the contraceptive purport of the formula is evident (Noonan). Personally, I do not understand how these techniques could possibly work.

The first oral contraceptive was called Silphion, which was founded by Greek colonists (DeNoon). Silphion was an herb which was thought be a similar to a