Stefan Rehder
August 18, 1960: Exactly 65 years ago, the U.S. pharmaceutical company Searle launched the first birth control pill under the brand name "Enovid". Enthusiasm was overflowing, and not only in the land of unlimited opportunity. Men and women alike praised the pill as a "historic invention", "women's liberation" and a "blessing for mankind".
Many people are now wiser and more aware of the numerous dangers associated with regular use of hormonal preparations. These include a significantly increased susceptibility to thromboembolism, stroke, breast cancer and loss of libido.
But that's not all: Recent research comparing brain scans of women who have been on the pill for years with those who have abstained shows that the hormones taken with the pill also alter the brain, both structurally and functionally. What's more, women who take the pill regularly exhibit all the markers that scientists currently use to detect chronic stress. This is also detrimental and can lead to hippocampal shrinkage and reduced neurogenesis, and even the overt development of severe depression.
And that's not all: the pill also changes men, for whose sake women often take these artificial hormones that damage their bodies. "Men who have become accustomed to contraceptives could lose respect for women and, without considering their physical well-being and spiritual balance, degrade them to mere instruments for the satisfaction of their desires and cease to see them as partners to whom respect and love are due," warned Pope Paul VI, ridiculed in Germany as "Paul of the Pill," in his encyclical "Humanae Vitae" in 1968. Who would dare contradict him today?
This is a translation of an article that first appeared on the website Die-Tagespost. For the original article in German, see here . Republished in Omnes with permission.
