I like to collect studies on my blog so that I can always find them when I get into a debate. One of the things I like to argue against is recreational premarital sex. It’s pretty hard to argue this with non-Christians if all you are going to do is quote the Bible. But you can make a pretty good case that will win you the argument from studies, and so I keep a nice collection of studies to use.

Here’s the report from The Federalist:

Oral contraceptives raise the risk of depression, according to a new international study that surveyed more than 264,000 women. Teenagers were at the highest risk, with a 130 percent higher risk of depression in women who started using birth control as adolescents, compared to a 92 percent higher risk among those who started as adults.

The study provides conclusive results to a growing body of research linking oral birth control with the use of anti-depressants, depression diagnoses, and depressive symptoms.

While adult users saw a decrease to more normal risk after using “the pill” for more than two years or getting off the pill, teenage users were still at increased risk even after stopping usage.

Very interesting. I clicked on the link to the study and made sure it was peer-reviewed. It was. So what do we learn from this?

Well, this is not the first time I am hearing about the emotional and mental problems with birth control pills. So, I think the lesson here is to definitely do your research first, so that you don’t get involved with things that will cause you problems later. The woman who told me about had tried to go on them, but she immediately noticed how much it changed her moods, and she went off them. I think it caused her some problems in her life, because she ended up taking 5 years to complete her degree, instead of the normal for. So, using these things could really cost you.

Now you might be wondering about other birth control methods, and the team that did this study has a plan for future work:

This study only examined combination birth control pills, but researchers plan to study other contraceptive options.

“In a future study, we plan to examine different formulations and methods of administration. Our ambition in comparing different contraceptive methods is to give women even more information to help them [m]ake well-informed decisions about their contraceptive options,” Johansson said.

The article also notes (with links, which I removed):

In other studies, birth control methods have also been linked to increased risk of heart attack and stroke, blood clots, breast cancer, and cervical cancer.

Despite significant evidence of risk, researchers still insist that birth control is safe to use…

Normally, I am pretty hard on women on this blog. I feel like they make way too many decisions by following the crowd, instead of thinking about what they want in the long-term, and then making decisions that are likely to get those results – whatever anyone else thinks. I think that women need to be smarter than that, and instead of forming their views by peer pressure, they need to form their views based on truth. And truth is not on the bottom shelf.

I see women getting taught all about sexual topics by public school teachers, entertainers, athletes, celebrities, etc. It makes no sense to me. These people are insulated from real life, for one reason or another. And then I see Planned Parenthood going into the schools and teaching children about birth control and sex. They make money by getting these kids to become sexual active and then pay them to get abortions. Young women cannot trust women their own age to know about studies. They can’t trust teachers with degrees in English. They can’t trust celebrities, entertainers and athletes – they probably cannot even read, much less read studies. Women have to do their own research and make their own plans that work for them.

Today women are being taught from preschool to college and beyond, that they need to use their “young years” to seek happiness by playing the field with tall, hot men who give them tingles. They are told to delay marriage (boring) and children (demanding) for as long as possible, in order to have no-commitment sex with the hottest men they can get. Somehow, having sex with a lot of hot men is thought to raise the value of the woman. It builds her self-esteem, or something. This is objectively stupid behavior. But this is why they jump all over birth control, because it helps them to do stupid things that they’ve been told to do. They don’t even know the long-term effects of the behavior they’re doing. It’s monkey-see, monkey-do. The blind leading the blind.

So, I think it’s good for us as grown-ups to point them towards the data that they should know about. They can certainly ignore it, and go with their feelings. But some of them will prefer to get the real truth about how the world works, and those are the ones we need to reach. They should at least have a choice to make.

By the way, I’m not saying that it’s a bad idea to give someone a Bible. I got one when I was young, and that worked for me. But for people who ask questions, you need to have the studies ready. Always be ready for anyone who asks you questions about why you believe what you believe.