1. Mediaite
  2. Gossip Cop
  3. Geekosystem
  4. Styleite
  5. SportsGrid
  6. The Mary Sue
  7. The Jane Dough
  8. The Braiser

The More You Know

Elizabeth Banks Confirms That, Yes, Birth Control Isn’t Just Used For Controlling Birth

1:45 pm, March 29th | by Rebecca Srulowitz


Yesterday, Elizabeth Banks, currently better known as Effie from the Hunger Games, stood up for women everywhere when she announced that birth control can be used for things other than contraception. I know I know- crazy. But going one step further, the star credits the pill for the existence of her 1-year-old son, who was born via In Vitro Fertilization.

In her celeb blog, she writes:

His [her son's] life would have been much harder to come by if not for the birth control pill. How’s that, you ask? Well, it’s a simple fact: The pill is used for many situations that have nothing to do with the prevention of pregnancy. The pill was prescribed to me when hormonally induced migraines kept me locked up in dark rooms for days at a time. It was prescribed to me to regulate insanely painful cramps every month — cramps so painful that I often vomited. And here’s a little secret I am happy to blow the lid off of: The pill is often prescribed during the IVF (in vitro fertilization) process to help MAKE BABIES!

All of that is 100% correct. And thank you for saying it. Not that women need a celebrity spokesperson to convey their message, but it is always nice to hear someone speak logically and truthfully about the issue of birth control. No crazy talk, nothing extreme… just pure logic.

Oh, except wait. This line did inexplicably appear in the post:

A girlfriend and I recently wondered what would be more mortifying: having to tell her male employer she needed birth control to mitigate a heavy flow or just bleeding all over herself in the office?

Right, because that situation would totally occur. Women bleed all over themselves all the time because things like pads or tampons don’t exist.

[ivillage, via Jezebel]

TAGS: | |

  • Anonymous

    If the woman has an employer it means she has a job, which means she has a paycheck, which means she can buy birth control. Birth control for medicinal reasons is ordinarily covered by insurance. The fact is, for decades millions of women have taken care of their contraceptive needs without looking for others to do it for them, it being a matter of personal responsibility, which has gone the way of personal privacy. Far too many women share far too much information.

  • Noname

    Hey Dumba—-,

    Do you know how expensive birthcontrol is ? If you don’t have a clinic to go to, you will have to pay for this. Lots of people do not have insurance.

  • Anonymous

    Haha, oh dang, I am trying to imagine a life experience where “bleeding all over oneself” is strange or illogical. It would be nice to have never pushed out a Heavy sized tampon, or overflowed a menstrual cup (they’re like tampons, but from the goddam 21st century: divacup.com ). That situation does in fact totally occur.

    I’m tired of people looking to celebrities for commentary on subjects that have nothing to do with their reason for being celebrities, but since that is clearly going to keep happening, it’s really nice to see accurate information from someone actually dealing with this stuff.

Abrams Media Network click here for advertising opportunities

© 2013 The Jane Dough | About Us | Advertise | Newsletter | Privacy | User Agreement | Disclaimer | Contact | Archives | Send a Tip | RSS RSS
Dan Abrams, Founder | Hosting by Datagram

X