Birth Control Books

I can't believe this treasure is out of print :o( It completely changed our lives - laid it all out, what the Bible says - God wants us to give control to Him, whether He chooses to give us children or not, when to give them, and how many. Showed us that it is selfish, even sinful, to tell God to stop blessing us with more children - would we ask Him to stop blessing us with good health? Or money? Then why with children, whom the Bible calls "blessings"? I will search for a copy of this out of print gem for each of our children.

Easy to read format, very thorough. This book opened up our eyes to what the Bible says about children - that they are to be considered "blessings", and gifts from God. Brought us to the realization that it wasn't our place to tell God "when" and "how many times" to bless us. Samuel Owen, my sons, #4 and #5, thank you for writing this book - without it, they might not have been born!

Those who love to use natural methods for their family planning this is a good book for them. First get a background knowledge and follow teaching guide through the charts available. As some NFP organizations recomend this book for their teaching you will find it is very easy to follow this. If you are already a member of such an organization, you will gain a better training by refering this book. The charts will help you to keep recods and finally make a decision by talking to your huby/wife.

I am a registered nurse, and I was very skeptical about this book when a friend handed it to me. However, when I read it cover to cover, including all of the research data, I was thoroughly impressed and felt that it all made perfect sense. I left the other methods of birth control that we had been using (and disliking!) behind, and gave Love and Fertility a try. It was simply presented and yet thorough, and it WORKS. We avoided pregnancy for two and a half years, as intended, and then achieved pregnancy with ONE TRY! It had taken four years with our first child, and almost a year for our second. With the third, we followed the Ovulation Method, and it worked immediately! I have shared this book with many friends who wanted "out" of other methods of birth control, and the book has given every one of them the confidence to do so. I cannot say enough about it!

Watkins does a decent job of explaining how the idea of "the pill" came into being. It covers the initial social controversies and medical developments of birth control. The coalitions between Planned Parenthood and the original race for private grant money show an interesting alliance. Watkins really does an excellent job of looking at all the groups who had a stake in this project including the Catholic Church, FDA and medical professionals. It is not simply a feminist history but a multifaceted study of how the Pill became one of the most consumed drugs in the country.

One of the disappointing factors and the main reason I would only rate it at 4 stars is that if is very narrowly focused in the brand of pill that it follows. It really does not go into the other ones that were coming out as competition in the 1970's even as an afterthought and I feel that is important to address. The book is very well written and is a great addition to the history of science and pharmaceuticals. I really wish we had more like it.

Elizabeth Watkins' On The Pill: A Social History Of Oral Contraceptives, 1950-1970 is an informative social history of oral contraceptives covers the period from 1950-70, when the pill was at its strongest development and played a major role in changing women's lives. Chapters survey the contraceptive revolution and common misconceptions surrounding it in a set of coverages on both medical and social realities.

This book was wonderfully helpful to me. Five years after having an abortion, I was still depressed about it. No matter what your politics are regarding abortion, this book will help you work thru your feelings and be more at peace in your life. Women who suffer from abortion fallout too often suffer in silence. They feel guilty, ashamed, worthless. Usually there is no one to talk to for fear of being judged. This book helps you work through all that. I also think it's better-written and more accessible than The Healing Choice, which is a similar book

I bought this book a month after my abortion when I was having a terrible time with the anger and guilt. The exercises in this book are wonderful. It helped me to realize that forgiveness for myself and for my partner would help me release the anger that was inside me. The guilt disappeared with the anger. I realized I had nothing to be guilty for, I did not commit a crime in my world. This book helped me make peace with myself and my decision to terminate my pregnancy. I am secular humanist and this book was the one for me. It was very low on the religious overtones. Thank you to the author for writing such a wonderful book. I hope she realizes the amount of people all over the world she has helped. Keely A Armstrong

For a single-volume, in-depth history of women's struggles for reproductive freedom through out American history, college-level and many a public library holding will want to look at PREGNANCY AND POWER: A SHORT HISTORY OF REPRODUCTIVE POLITICS IN AMERICA. Historian Rickie Solinger argues that women's struggles go beyond the right for abortion: reproductive politics surfaced when slaveholders devised breeding schemes, the US government took Indian kids from families, and when doctors encouraged Latina women to be sterilized in the 1970s: thus PREGNANCY AND POWER embraces far more than the usual perspective.

Pregnancy and Power is an eye-opening exploration of reproductive politics and should be read by anyone who cares about the social injustices women are subjected to in this regard.

This is a carefully researched and elegantly written book on the relationship between sexuality and spirituality on US college campuses. It is pretty well known among scholars that high school kids are quite religious in the US. When they go to college they start turning away from the religions of their parents, often toward more generic spirituality. Why does this happen? Freitas thinks sexual experience might hold the key. In other words, as college students start experimenting sexually they push away from religion, since religion is in their view "anti-sex." That's the argument, or part of it. But at the heart of the book lie stories about these students. Kids at evangelical, Catholic, and secular schools struggling with faith and sexuality. It's brilliantly done. It's sad in many ways to see the binds that "hookup culture" put young people in. It's balanced in that there are things in here that will infuriate (and delight) conservatives and liberals alike. And it's timely. Makes me wonder what the next generation is in for heading off to college.

This is an excellent ( at times appalling - at times hopeful) book. I don't usually find sociology books that I can't put down, but I read through this one in short order. What the author does quite brilliantly is weave her study of college students and how they integrate faith/religion and sex, around the personal stories of the students that she interviews. If you are a parent (like me) it is disheartening to see the influences that kids come under when they go away to college, and the soul-destroying nature of casual "hook-ups" with people one may or may not know well.

The book is hopeful (to my way of thinking) in that it is almost exclusively the evangelicals (I am one) who believe that there is a connection between spirituality and sex, and that it is important. While it is no surprise that virtually everyone struggles with how far to go physically before marriage, it is nice to see that evangelicals are generally trying to follow what they believe God desires in regards to dating and marriage.

This is THE book for those who believe abortion is the best option for a woman who is pregnant due to a rape or incest. These are the stories of the actually women and what they really want - not what abortion advocates proclaim they need. If you have any doubts, this book will clear them up for you. Proof that, once again, abortion is not the better choice, even in such difficult circumstances.

Kudos to the authors for exploring the topic of what happens to the "exceptions" (children born of rape). Rather than just giving statistics (you will note how usually, the pro-life or pro-choice movements merely make reference to us, as it furthers their own cause), the book gives real-life scenarios. Although the message is clearly that the children of these circumstances deserve life, it's nice to hear from some real people, rather than shadowy statistics. We do exist, and it's time people realize this!

This book covers every imaginable aspect of abortion,
and it's well written and enjoyable reading.

I found myself completely embroiled in this book. To me it was excellent.

I started reading this book to get a head start on my Indepdendent Study course and came away mesmerized by the combination of ecconomic statistics and radical feminist theory combined into one package.

Petchesky's premise claims that a through understanding of the state must include reproductive rights and vice versa. Furthermore, the debate over abortion is not so much about the status of the fetus, but the very meaning and place of woman's status in relation to the larger society.

Because that question cannot fully be examined without delving into how ecconomic status and ethnicity affect women's options, a multifaceted analysis is thoughtfully woven throughout the text. Abortion is only one dimension to women's health, and different options may be appropriate for the same woman at different points in a single life time.

Although the book is dated 1990, it should not pose a deterent to the scholar because the issues we are researching have essentially remained static through the past couple of years. Petchesky devotes separate chapters to teen sexuality policy and the funding attacks of the far right--issues that are now central to the question of choice.