ETHICAL

Keeping Sex Safe
getting sick. You'll still need barriers against all the rest of the microscopic
nasties.
Birth Control
Mother Nature is called that for a reason-sometimes it seems like
she wants everybody to be a parent. Even when you utterly know that
you don't want to get pregnant this time, some deeper urge can easily
lead you to forget a pill or count the days wrong. Birth control involves
tricking the busy little eggs and sperm into not doing their jobs and
tricking your own instincts into letting you do the trick right.
Birth control technology is, alas, far from perfect: reliable, reversible,
easy, side-effect-free contraception is still a dream. Unwanted pregnancies
need no longer be the life-shattering tragedies of yesteryear, but they
are still awful, and we hope that none of you ever has to have one.
If you are female, have intercourse with men, and could possibly be
fertile, you must take active steps to ensure that you won't get pregnant
until and unless you choose to. The possibilities include birth-control
pills, longer-term chemical birth control like Norplant and Depo­
Provera, diaphragms and cervical caps, condoms, IUDs, sponges and
foam, and tubal ligation, among others. Some women with regular
menstrual cycles succeed at the rhythm method, particularly if they
and their partners learn to enjoy outercourse during their fertile periods.
There is a lot of good information available about the risks and
reliability of all these methods; your physician, clinic, or Planned Parenthood
can help you make a good choice.
For men who have intercourse with women, the choices are (unfortunately)
quite limited. If you know you are unlikely to want to father
children in the future, a vasectomy is minor surgery that will relieve
you of a great deal of worry. If you hope to be a father someday, use
those condoms-and lobby for research into better male contraception.
The surgery to sterilize women is more involved: the surgeon
will cauterize the fallopian tubes-this requires a hospital, and a little
recovery, but nothing dreadful. Remember, you'll still need protection
from infectious diseases.
When someone gets pregnant unintentionally, this can be, to put
it mildly, difficult. If everyone involved agrees that an abortion is the
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