A pill that stops menstruation has been approved by the FDA.
One of Ann Althouse’s readers comments,
I know that my opinion isn’t the popular one here, but menstruation, like childbirth, is just part of being a woman. If another woman would want to escape it, then sure, she should go for it. But, not being punny, it just wouldn’t feel right to sidestep it.
An interesting response to the “unnatural” allegation showed up on The Volokh Conspiracy, my favorite legal blog. (Uh, you do have a favorite legal blog that you read every day, right? No? What kind of citizen are you?)
…there’s nothing “natural” about the amount of menstruation that a 21st Century woman does in her lifetime. For most of human history, women started having babies shortly after they reached sexual maturity (mid-teens), and continued having them on a pretty regular basis for the next 20-odd years.
…
every time the woman ovulates, the ovum has to punch a hole in her ovary to reach the fallopian tubes. These holes heal, but each new hole/regrowth has the potential to result in mutated cells as part of the regrowth. Such mutations can lead to ovarian cancer. So the unnaturally large number of ovulations a modern woman undergoes in her lifetime contribute to ovarian cancer. By preventing ovulation and menstruation, this risk is reduced (among the other benefits of the new pill).
[Note: this commenter notes he's quoting an eight-year-old article from memory.]
Of course, being an SF fan, I immediately thought of Connie Willis’ Nebula Award winning story, “Even the Queen”. From a spoiler laden review:
The main joke of the story is that the “Cyclists” of the future – inspired by “a mix of pre-Liberation radical feminism and the environmental primitivism of the eighties” – reject the technological advance offered by the abolition of periods, in the name of “freedom from artificiality, freedom from body-controlling drugs and hormones, freedom from the male patriarchy that attempts to impose them on us” (basically much the same rhetoric used in our world by the more evangelical advocates of natural childbirth). Perdita, the narrator’s younger daughter, is thinking of joining the Cyclists; the narrator herself uncomfortably defends her decision in the name of Personal Sovereignty, “the inherent right of citizens in a free society to make complete jackasses of themselves”.
Oh, and via Ann again, a list of euphemisms for “period”. Um, some aren’t very euphemistic. “Full Stop.”