Talk:Birth control/Archive 1

message: I don't think that Abstinence should itself be a top-level topic just to discuss abstaining from intercourse in order to avoid conceiving a child.  Abstinence can mean abstaining from about anything: from meat if you're a vegetarian, from alcohol if you're a teetotaler, etc.  If we don't want these to be subpages of contraception, perhaps that should be something like 'Abstinence as contraception'... although some opponents to contraception may see abstinence as an alternative to contraception, rather than a form of it.
:Abstinence is a very important option for many adults but it can be an unpleasent and unnecessary choice for those just wishing to live a healthy life free from std's there are safe ways to enjoy intercourse and we are very impressed with many of them that are described in a wonderful reference about birth control.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.223.132.217 (talk • contribs).
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Abstinence can mean the avoidance of many different things , but in ordinary use, I think it almost always means abstinence from sex, with abstinence from alcohol a distant second; see .  "Abstinence from alcohol" has other descriptive terms ("sobriety," "teetotalism"), and "sexual abstinence" has one very important synonym: "chastity."  But the latter has many religious connotations that the former doesn't have.
So, I'd propose the following article titles:
* abstinence a pointer page, pointing to sexual abstinence, chastity, and either sobriety or teetotalism
* sexual abstinence for a discussion of the sociology of sexual abstinence
* chastity for a discussion of religious and moral aspects of sexual abstinence
* either sobriety or teetotalism for a discussion of anti-alcoholism
--[[Larry Sanger]
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Thanks for putting my abstinence comment up on the main page.  I also like the article titles you proposed.  In my experience, chastity is used to refer to 'sexual purity,' which would be sexual abstinence for those unmarried, and sexual faithfulness to one's spouse for those married.  I think that was the second entry for chastity at dictionary.com.  But it still seems very appropriate to link to the topic from the Abstinence page.
A related topic might be fasting, as in temporary abstinence from food, or just from certain types of food, for a limited period of time, whether for religious or medical reasons.
--Wesley
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Can I suggest the first sentence of the intro be changed to read "Birth control is the practice of reducing probability of pregnancy or ending an unwanted pregnancy."  Birth control is not a method, technique, device or drug. Moriori 03:08, 8 Nov 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Old Discussion

message: I am refining the reference to family planning; birth control designates a subset of the activities of constituent of those termed family planning. Specifically, family planning often involves efforts to effect a pregnancy, not avoid one.
Furthermore, the statement that abortion is not birth control may be POV. Humanae Vitae, the Catholic encyclical which state's the Churches' position on birth control, applicable today to 1.3 billion persons, lumps abortion right in there with everything else under the heading Unlawful Birth Control Methods. The Church would seem to differentiate then between contraception and birth  control, and this would be a POV which demands to be addressed.
:It is not "POV" to say that abortion is not birth control, depending on what definition of birth control were working with. As mentioned in a comment below, the words contraception and birth control have been muddied, and further so by the implantatio/fertilization argument. It is made quite clear in the FIRST paragraph of the article, however, that this article uses the definition of preventing preganancy (thus equating contraception and birth control together). Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy that is already implanted and has begun gestation. No "birth control" option can terminate a pregnancy that is already in gestation, though they can possibly cause problems or induce a miscarriage, albeit rarely. But they are neither effective enough nor primarily used for that purpose, so they are labelled as birth control methods. Abortion (and chemical abortion) are terminations of pregnancies, and in no way "prevents" them in the medical sense of the word.SiberioS 17:51, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Appellations of Birth Control 

message: Doesn't a pregnancy occur? --Rakista 16:46, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I suppose that technically, anything that prevents a birth is, etymologically speaking, birth control.  The confusion is because "birth control" and "contraception" are often used interchangeably.  Any effect that takes place after conception is not contraception.  (This is further complicated by both the existence of methods that can work either before or after fertilization, and the fertilization vs. implantation debate, which I'm not even going to get into here!) --Icarus 06:11, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

text: I don't understand some of the comments here at all.  It seems clear to me that anything that controls whether birth occurs or not is birth control.  That includes abstinence, contraceptives and abortion.  Or do you consider an abortion to be a form of birth, therefore an abortion is not "controlling" birth because the birth happens in any case?  "Birth" means a baby coming out of the mother -- it's the thing that happens at the end of pregnancy.  Conception happens around the beginning of pregnancy.  An abortion is usually not referred to as a birth, as far as I know.  I believe the Pill and the IUD sometimes or often or usually work as abortifacients.  If so, they are birth control but not necessarily contraceptive.  --Coppertwig 16:02, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  How is an abortificient birth control? 

message: On the subject of Chrisitan attitudes towards birth control, I would like to know: Where in the Bible does it say that contraceptives are bad? Can anyone give some quotes to support this? (It might be relevant to have these in the article.) SpectrumDT 17:23, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Story of Onan and spilling of the seed. -- Jbamb 05:40, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Birth control in the Bible? 

message: After a quick look on this article, there's nothing about social issues, women's rights or feminism... Ericd 21:09, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Women's rights 

message: Imagine a 100% effective, 100% reversible, minimally invasive method of male contraception. Well, it seems it exists: http://www.malecontraceptives.org/methods/risug.htm DalkeyArchivist 22:07, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: RISUG — Omegatron 22:21, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  RISUG 

message: From the "History of birth control" paragraph:
The Greek gynaecologist Soranus in the second century AD suggested that women drink water that blacksmiths had used to cool metal.
Is this sentence supposed to be refering to a kind of folk abortifacient or rather a contraceptive?  Does anyone have a source to verify this? I've only managed to find two references to such a practice (one a remedy for anemia/spleenic disorders?):
* The Proceedings of the 11th Annual History of Medicine Days: page 149, "Drinking blacksmith’s water to prevent pregnancy persisted from Ancient Greece (Himes 1963)."
*Descriptions of Blood and Blood Disorders Before the Advent of Laboratory Studies: "Celsus (tr. 1960) made one reference to a rural method of reducing splenomegaly which was the taking of water in which the blacksmith from time to time had dipped his red hot iron (? treatment of the splenomegaly that may on occasion accompany iron deficiency)."
-Severa  (!!!) 10:32, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The way the article was written when I first saw it, I assumed that information was from the John Riddle book in the references.  Before modern understanding of reproduction, people had no way of distinguishing between contraceptives and early-acting abortifacients - they were all just methods of birth control.Lyrl 14:03, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the clarification. -Severa  (!!!) 11:17, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Blacksmith's water

message: The section has been edited in such a way that it is biased against fertility awareness and withdrawal.  I suspect such edits will be common if that section is left.  I do not want to leave such biased edits there, but I also do not want to be continually "guarding" that section.  I would like to simply delete that section from this article, and leave effectiveness discussions to the individual articles. What do others think of this proposal? Lyrl 00:14, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd love to code either a table or template for this, or help out in that regard, once we can decide on the right course of action. I feel like a basic comparison table could work for the main article, and perhaps have a more detailed template for the individual articles. And to address Lyrl's concerns, I think users would be less likely to edit war over the numbers in a table, especially if each and every figure is backed up with reliable sources. --Andrew c 01:31, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Lyrl - I have not really peviously watched this article, and it is not immediately apparant from the history, but whom do you feel you have been "guarding" against - anons or registered users. If the former and this has been systemtic, then I believe articles can be made 'restricted status' by admins (allows only registered users to edit) - but I'm not sure what the criteria are for this to be felt an appropriate restriction on wikipedia's "the free encyclopedia". David Ruben  Talk  01:59, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Effectiveness of birth control section 

message: Let's all work on reaching a consensus for a new infobox to be placed on each individual birth control method's article.  I've created one to start with on the Wikipedia Proposed Infoboxes page, so go check it out and get involved in the process. MamaGeek (Talk/Contrib) 12:07, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Quick call for final viewing of infobox before I turn it live with active coding (for the optional parameters). Also please confirm suggested name of BirthControl infobox . Thanks David Ruben  Talk  02:35, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed Infobox for individual birth control method articles 

message: This section was expanded, I moved the information to the main article Christian views on contraception.  But then the information was re-added to this article. Is the expansion necessary for the summary on this page?  There is an entire article dedicated to the subject of Christianity and contraception that readers could go to if they wanted to read more. Lyrl 01:58, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd say keep it on the subpage, as long as there is a [main] tag directing to it. But let's give anon a chance to defend the position.--Andrew c 02:21, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Opposition to Catholic teaching on birth control 

message: An editor removed the following from Sexual intercourse with the statement that it would belong better here.  Opinions on how to integrate the material would be welcome.
:A prophylactic such as a condom is among the most effective methods of birth control short of sterilization or abstinence, with the World Health Organization stating that with "typical" condom use (in which condoms were sometimes incorrectly or inconsistently used), they have a failure rate of only 10-14% (with "ideal" use, they are 97% effective).World Health Organization, "Effectiveness of male latex condoms in protecting against pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections" Fact Sheet #243 (June 2000), online at http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs243/en/. Surgical sterilization (tubal ligation for women or vasectomy for men) is considered permanent birth control, though it can sometimes be reversed surgically, or, rarely, the body can repair itself. Outercourse, and other sexual contact (such as mutual masturbation or oral sex), in which there is sexual activity without penis insertion, can be performed without resulting in pregnancy provided that semen does not come in contact with the vulva.
Cheers, Kasreyn 02:40, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Content removed from [[Sexual intercourse]] 

message: The Modern folklore section refers to "the myth that a woman cannot get pregnant if she has sex during her period"
This has a kernal of truth to it, though.  Studies have shown that the intercourse on the first 5-6 days of a menstrual cycle has a less-than-1% per-year chance of pregnancy (Weshler says five days, Kippley says six).
Exceptions are annovulatory bleeding (which someone not tracking fertility signs would be unable to recognize) and women who tend to unusually early ovulations (common during perimenopause).  And many women have periods that last longer than five or six days.
Sex during menstruation is certainly not effective birth control (absent other fertility awareness practices/knowledge).  However, I'm reluctant to leave in that sentence that dismisses the entire idea of the first few days of a cycle being infertile.  I'm not sure how to modify it to both be more accurate and still discourage uneducated attempts at unprotected intercourse. Any suggestions? Lyrl    Talk     Contribs   01:43, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How about something like "While women are commonly significantly less fertile during the first few days of a menstrual cycle, it is still false to say that a woman can never get pregnant if she has sex during her period...." Sound ok? something along those line..--Andrew c 01:51, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Modern folklore clarification 

message: These links have been deleted several times, with no explanation in the edit summary.  Do other editors have opinions on whether they should be included? Lyrl    Talk     Contribs   13:25, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The editor who removed them had been posting an affiliate link site to several articles, and I removed them all since I deemed the URL to be of no benefit. I assume the removal of the other sites, which seem to be correctly placed in this article is a reaction to the revert of his previous postings. If you agree with my analysis, then IMO, that would be considered deliberate removal of content. --Brat32 15:45, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links to NFP sites 

message: Thanks, Lyrl.  That's a much better revision, and my complaints are put to rest.  
As an aside, is anyone else having trouble saving revisions?  I've lost two saves--including this one--in two days.  May just be a Mac thing or something else specific to me, but I'm asking anyway. --BCSWowbagger 03:54, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sex education and birth control 

message: I moved this section here from the article:Many Catholic couples praise the ease, convenience, and low cost of NFP, noting that the woman's period of fertilization is never more than five days a month at the very worst.  Such couples often note further that even during those five days of fertilization, couples are free (even by church teaching) to enjoy each other's bodies without sexual intercourse.
I am a practitioner of fertility awareness (NFP for non-Catholics, basically), and while I love the method, that "five days a month at the very worst" is absolutely false.  Normal is eight to ten days fertile days per cycle.  Stress, premenopause, breastfeeding, and certain hormonal disorders can greatly increase that number.  If a woman practicing NFP is only identifying five fertile days a cycle, she is at high risk of unplanned pregnancy.  This is further discussed (with references) in the fertility awareness and natural family planning articles.
Secondly, for observant Catholics, orgasmic acts outside of intercourse are considered sins.  That last sentence of the quoted section is completely and totally misleading.  This is discussed (with reference to the Catechism of the Catholic Church) in the Christian views on contraception article. Lyrl    Talk     Contribs   13:17, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As a practicing Catholic, I can say that you are absolutely correct.  I tagged it with {fact} in case anyone wanted to contest my eventual deletion.   So I agree with your removal. --BCSWowbagger 19:57, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ease of using NFP