Book review

Women's health Ethics Social determinants of health
Volume 192 - Issue 12

Being “a little bit pregnant”

Author:  Lisa H Amir

Med J Aust 2010; 192 (12): 718. || doi: 10.5694/j.1326-5377.2010.tb03712.x
Published online: 21 June 2010
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The pill and other forms of hormonal contraception. The facts. 7th ed.
John Guillebaud, Anne MacGregor. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009 (xix + 193 pp). ISBN 9780199565764.

Does life begin at fertilisation or implantation?

At times, the sticky question about whether certain types of contraception are actually causing an abortion arises with patients or colleagues. This book helps by providing a discussion of some ethical aspects of contraception in one of the appendices, where the authors argue that one can write an equation for the definition of conception as follows:

CONCEPTION = FERTILIZATION + IMPLANTATION

(being with child) (crucial) (also crucial)

This equation makes it possible to argue that methods of contraception which may block implantation are contraceptives, and not abortifacients.

John Guillebaud is Emeritus Professor of Family Planning and Reproductive Health at University College London, and a guru in family planning. He first wrote this guidebook in 1980 as he is passionate about sharing his knowledge with women: “here are the facts, now you decide”. Anne MacGregor is an Instructing Doctor in Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, London.

This “book about the Pill for a general readership” is a user-friendly explanation of the contraceptive pill and other hormonal contraceptive methods. There are plenty of diagrams, tables and flowcharts to assist the reader’s understanding of reproductive physiology, choice of pill and what to do about breakthrough bleeding and other management issues. Tables present the risks and side effects, but also the benefits of taking the Pill.

Although many people regard the Pill as “unnatural”, one could argue that having regular menstrual cycles is an unnatural condition. Before contraception was available, women would have been pregnant or breastfeeding for most of their reproductive lives. Although the Pill is not suitable for all women, many women find that taking the Pill and being “a little bit pregnant” works well at one or more stages of their life, or “contraceptive ages” as this book puts it.

Author

  • Lisa H Amir1
  • 1. Mother and Child Health Research
View this article on Wiley Online Library

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