Definition
Any method that prevents the conception of offspring in sexually active women.
Introduction
Birth control became popular in the 1960s when it was introduced to the public as a means of preventing unwanted pregnancy, which has played a major role in the movement of sexual liberation for women (Cobey et al. 2011). Birth control is unique to humans because it grants women the decision to choose who they want to conceive offspring with while giving them the liberty to engage in copulation with those they do not want to bare children with. Of course, sexual intercourse without the implication of pregnancy only works if the method of birth control is used correctly. Hormonal contraceptives work by mimicking pregnancy in the female body through the implementation of synthetic hormones like estrogen and progestin, disrupting the natural hormonal...
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References
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Padich, S., Wedberg, N. (2018). Birth Control. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_433-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_433-1
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