Women Deserve Better Birth Control Options

Just about every American woman will use birth control at some point, and satisfaction surveys make clear that a good percentage don't like their options, writes Ann Friedman at Good magazine. They're worried about health risks, side effects such as depression or decreased libido, and on and on. What's more, half-a-century after the invention of the Pill, the basic science hasn't advanced all that much—it's all about synthetic hormones, even if the delivery method changes.

"Are pharmaceutical companies so busy inventing illnesses and wooing doctors that they can't bother to invest in R&D for a product for which 99% of American women are potential consumers—not to mention the rest of the world" wonders Freidman. Have social conservatives made university research too controversial? Or maybe the human reproductive system is too complicated? "My friends and I would like some answers." (More birth control pill stories.)