Rebelling against the pill: 'Pulling-Out' of conventional birth control

An increasing number of women are rejecting hormonal birth control and even condoms in favour of an even older method ... Withdrawl. Spurred by health concerns and often ambivalent about pregnancy, they have been dubbed ... the Pull-Out generation.

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More than four decades ago, the Pill offered women unparalleled reproductive freedom. But it may be losing popularity.

The sexual revolution might just have been a sexual skirmish without The Pill. It transformed the way many women planned families, careers, entire lives. But some 21st century women are not as convinced of the Pill's virtues as their mothers and grandmothers.

We heard from Elinor Keshet, Kate Wardell and Cara Migliazza, all in Toronto and range in age from their mid-20s to early-30s. They shared how they navigate their birth control options.

Columnist Ann Friedman believes a quiet but growing group of women have given up on hormonal birth control entirely. She calls them The Pull-Out Generation.

A study released this summer from Duke University analyzed data from a U.S. survey of more than 2000 women aged 15 to 24. It found that about a third used withdrawal as a form of birth control at least once between 2006 and 2008.

• Ann Friedman is a columnist for New York Magazine's website and a freelance writer. She was in Los Angeles.

• Holly Grigg-Spall, is the author of Sweetening the Pill: Or How We Got Hooked on Hormonal Birth Control. She was also is in Los Angeles.

• Kate Carraway is a writer in Toronto, and curates The Hook-Up and The Dating Diaries for The Grid.

And in case you're wondering where the men figure into this... we're working on a segment about men's contraception -- and why choices and new advances are relatively few. Stay tuned for that in the days ahead.

Let us know which form of contraception you trust... the pill? Or are you part of the pull-out generation? What do you think of that idea --of a pull-out generation.

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This segment was produced by The Current's Shannon Higgins.

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