Actually Japan has the lowest teen-pregnancy rate worldwide:

“Among 46 developed countries, adolescent birthrates range from being low in 10 countries (Japan having the lowest at 3.9 births per 1,000) to high in five countries, including the United States (54.4 births per 1,000 women aged 15-19) “

One shouldn’t cite a single source from 2002 as proof that it doesn’t. The article we posted concerning breast cancer referenced 3 recent studies which were published/presented in the last year, all in peer reviewed and recognized publications. In addition it noted numerous studies over the past 20 years. Also the totality of the studies does show it does increase the risk.

Finally, the study you cite found no risk for women *OVER 35* – it does not summarily dismiss the risk for those under 35!! (The women who were interviewed were from 35-64 years of age) Try actually *reading* the proof you reference, and not a secondary source!! While you are at it, try actually reading the NRFC articles you critique.

>>Whoever wrote this article needs to be summarily branded with an I, for idiot. A person with at least some understanding of causation would say that contraception became unrestricted in the US about the same time as abortion, so the rates of usage of both increased in the 1970s.

Contraception use and failure rates have a definite impact on the number of abortions.

Consider this quote: “Contraceptive effectiveness exerts an increasingly important effect on abortion rates as prevalence increases—in other words, as contraceptive prevalence rises, contraceptive failure or misuse becomes a more important factor in determining abortion rates.” That wasn’t from some idiot, but from a published Guttmacher report.

Also note that the article tries to address one group of women: unmarried teens, aged 15-19. Each age group has different dynamics, and what affects one group may work the opposite in other groups. When possible, stats for unmarried teens aged 15-19 were used.

>>The part about pregnancy rates in the 1970s makes no sense. The article’s saying that contraception encouraged teenage sex, which encouraged teen pregnancy. …a reality-based individual would conclude based on the fact that the US teen pregnancy rate plummeted in the 1960s that contraception helps,

First of all your “plummeted” link was to a chart on birth rates, and not pregnancy rates. Second of all, that chart data contains both married and unmarried teens. When possible, each group should be addressed separately. Consider that the number of married teens declined significantly in 1960-1965 and continued a slower decline from 65-70…

The reality is, that when this is broken down by marital status, the rate for *married* teens dropped in the 60s, but not for unmarried teens — it rose. The article, when possible, tries to use figures for unmarried teens aged 15-19. This is a common practice among researchers….

>>while a hack would handwave a magical explanation why contraception actually increases the pregnancy rate.

I guess a hack would just react to the article without doing some thou rough research and without providing citable sources and figures for rebuttals. And I guess a hack would just cite a single 2002 *article* about a study as proof that the pill doesn’t cause breast cancer…

>>It’s no coincidence that the country that has the broadest sex education and has the strongest contraceptive mentality, the Netherlands, is also the one with the lowest teen pregnancy rate.

Notice that the article is about the US? Stick to the subject. In any event, there are numerous reasons for different scenarios in different countries. What happens in other countries is beyond the scope of this article.

Also consider that many contraceptives are believed to act as abortifacients by preventing implantation. ( Oh yea I forgot, this isn’t considered a pregnancy by hacks who define pregnancy as beginning at implantation. ) Though the number of pregnancies which might have been aborted this way is unknown, changing the time of abortion is not a real reduction is it?

>>Russia, which under Soviet rule had unrestricted abortion but very little contraception, had an enormously high abortion rate, which went down by more than 50% after contraceptives became readily available.

As stated above, this article is about the US, and the article is very clear about that. It is the contraceptive mentality that sex is for pleasure and that offspring are optional which drives the demand for abortion in the US. There are numerous other factors which drive abortion in other countries, including the

“Not based on your comment, no.” You’re so mean.

My doctor suggested that I take birth control, but to stop when I hit 40, if I’m still on it at that point. In general one in 231 women from birthy to age 39, thats “less than” 0.5%, will get breast cancer. from 40 – 59 the chances increase to like 4%. The overall risk works out to something like 14% over a life time. ( I wrote a paper on this ages ago) this was a Canadian quoted research paper, btw, I’m not sure how much of a difference that makes.

The study that Therese is talking about is *the only* study that found a small connection between breast cancer and the pill. (We call that an erratic statistic in geography!) Dont you have to be on the pill for a consecutive 10 years for it to actually increase your risks? And you’re not supposed to stay on it for about 8 because of blood clot risks.

The pill has been proven to decrese the risk of ovarian and endometrial cancer, it obvious relieves menstral pains (any woman on it can speak for that one…), pelvic inflammatory disease and cysts.

If you’re still using older pills then your risk for breast cancer is higher, but the new ones like *shudder* elesse and try! have a decreased amount of hormones and crazy things. This takes out a lot of the down falls of the pill, like weight gain and getting moody and even breast cancer.

My doctor suggested that I take birth control, but to stop when I hit 40, if I’m still on it at that point. In general one in 231 women from birthy to age 39, thats

I was looking for the precise risk factors when I stumbled upon that smaller study saying that the pill doesn’t cause breast cancer. The precise thing I was looking for was something I wrote in a previous post, that alcohol is an even greater risk (1.15 if you have two drinks a day, apparently) and yet nobody wants to prohibit women from drinking alcohol.

Can you tell I help out in the LiveJournal Birthcontrol community?