Holly Grigg-Spall - Sweetening the Pill: or How We Got Hooked on Hormonal Birth Control

Holly Grigg-Spall is fearless, and her courageous advocacy on behalf of women whose stories are too often silenced is a model for others trying to make positive change through health activism. Read the book and get inspired, get angry, and most importantly get information. Sweetening the Pill is exactly the thing needed to energize and mobilize this important womens health conversation.

Laura Eldridge, author of In Our Control: The Complete Guide to Contraceptive Choices for Women, co-author and co-editor with Barbara Seaman of The No-Nonsense Guide to Menopause and co-editor, again with Barbara Seaman, of Voices of the Womens Health Movement.

In Sweetening the Pill Holly Grigg-Spall lays out the reality of hormonal contraception, and the ubiquitous political and commercial interests at play, with breathtaking precision. With most young women using these drugs, and providers cynically side-stepping informed consent and respectful consultation, this is a core and urgent issue of our time. If you are interested in teen girl and womens health, and the wellbeing and evolution of society as a whole read Sweetening the Pill. Its a riveting read and a powerful tool for change.

Jane Bennett, co-author of The Pill: Are You Sure Its For You?, The Natural Fertility Management Contraception Kit and A Blessing Not A Curse.

Holly Grigg-Spall effectively melts the candy coating that obscures a simple truth: what we dont know, can indeed hurt us. Sweetening the Pill, equal parts personal journey, investigative journalism and feminist manifesto, cracks open the paternalist and corporate-driven ethos of self-improvement that undermines womens body literacy. Weve got to demand better: more transparency, more options and more support for self-determined health care. Getting there begins with the kind of courageous inquiry Grigg-Spall inspires.

Chris Bobel, associate professor of Womens Studies at University of Massachusetts Boston and author of New Blood: Third Wave Feminism and the Politics of Menstruation and The Paradox of Natural Mothering.

We discovered in the 70s that the personal is political. Holly Grigg-Spall starts with her and other womens personal experiences with the pill, then thoughtfully and thoroughly considers it scientifically, medically and philosophically to discover the political truth of the pill. She shares strategies for finding new ways to control our fertility while regaining control of our destiny. Grigg-Spalls careful study on the pills effect on womens health is long, long overdue. We are so busy fighting to keep hormonal birth control available that we dont want to question what it is doing to our health and our lives. After reading this book, we can never see the pill in the same way again.

Carol Downer, is a veteran womens health activist and author of A New View of a Womans Body, How to Stay Out of the Gynecologists Office, A Womans Book of Choices and Woman Centered Pregnancy and Birth. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Feminist Womens Health Centers of California, which operates eight Womens Health Specialists clinics.

Oral contraceptives have done so much for so many, but when they dont stand up to scrutiny, women have a right to know more. Sweetening The Pill is a fascinating and up-to-the-minute account of the persistent questions around the effects of birth control pills. Holly Grigg-Spalls cross-cultural perspective provides keen insights into the impact of the latest US health care initiatives. Consolidating personal testimonies, current thought and the controversy surrounding the widespread and prolonged use of oral contraception, this book is a toolkit for action.

Chella Quint, is a writer, educator and performer at Adventures in Menstruating.

First published by Zero Books, 2013
Zero Books is an imprint of John Hunt Publishing Ltd., Laurel House, Station Approach,
Alresford, Hants, SO24 9JH, UK
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Text copyright: Holly Grigg-Spall 2013

ISBN: 978 1 78099 607 3

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publishers.

The rights of Holly Grigg-Spall as author have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Design: Stuart Davies

Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

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I am going to thank just a few of those who have given me encouragement and support, although there have certainly been many more who have given their time, conversation and guidance and so contributed to this book. Thanks to Laura Wershler for her collaboration and determination; Elizabeth Kissling for welcoming me into the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research and providing the fantastic re:Cycling blog; Geraldine Matus for her edits and suggestions; Alexandra Pope and Jane Bennett for the book that first opened my eyes; Laura Eldridge for tracking me down; editor at The Independent Louisa Saunders for believing in what I had to say along with Jessica Stites at Ms. and the health editors at Easy Living; all those who wrote angry comments on my Bitch blog posts and so trained me to defend my position; Mt Holyoke college for planting a seed in my mind; Laura Tricker for sharing her story; my mum and dad for their backing; Molly Butterworth for her time and thoughts; Laura Holness for figuring things out with me in that Asda parking lot years ago, and all of the women whove contributed to my blog, told me their stories and thanked me for speaking out. Thank you to my husband Guy for encouraging me to just write and not wait to be asked, for supporting me in my decision, and for sticking with me through the worst of it.