The human reproductive system is one of the most complex and sensitive biological machines ever devised, so honestly it's not that surprising that synthetic hormones might do stuff like this:
Oral birth control may alter the part of the brain responsible for emotion, anxiety and fear, possibly making women on the pill more likely to engage in unsafe behaviors.
Researchers from Canada studied 139 women aged 23 to 35 years old and found those taking oral contraception had thinner regions on their frontal lobe than those who had never taken or had stopped taking OCs.
That thinning "is thought to impact social conduct and impulsivity, possibly leading to women on OCs having lower inhibitions, taking more risks and having less fear."
Hmm. What could go wrong?
I kid, I kid.
(Sort of.)
Maybe there's a reason that women tend to be more risk-adverse than men — perhaps because they're more at risk of suffering significant consequences of risky behavior, whether it's physical danger or sexual intimacy? Perhaps God designed women to be a counterbalance to male risk-taking?
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Look, I don't make the memes; I'm just saying that by God's grace men have women to help them make smart decisions, and those decisions affect whether society succeeds or fails. Women are literally the gatekeepers of the next generation! But our hormone-tweaking games seem to be making more women into, well, men.
Maybe God's design is such that the human body is pretty freakin' perfect as it is and we shouldn't be loading it with mass-produced hormones the effects of which we only barely understand?
The scientists conducting this study "said more research needs to be done" (ya think?!) but "their results suggest exposure to sex hormones plays a role in the structure of the nervous system." (YA THINK?!)
For better or worse, women are going to be taking hormonal birth control for the foreseeable future, of course; it's extremely popular and embedded in our culture.
But we should have all the facts. Which is why, yes, we need more research.
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