Full stop

No more periods, here. I have a lot of questions about this, though. First of all, when you're on the regular pill, you don't have a true period, so you don't get true PMS, either. (Some women believe they do, of course, but that's because most of PMS is psychological. Says me, smugly, who doesn't have it anyway.) So "alleviating PMS" is not a valid reason for the no-period pill; regular pills alleviate it already (and are often prescribed for this reason precisely). And Saletan makes a good point: the regular pill has benefited men as much as (or perhaps even more than) women, and this super-pill is just more of the same, making women seem more sexually available to men for more of the time, without taking into account the nature and sources of genuine female desire. However Saletan also makes the important point that monthly periods for thirty or fourth years aren't natural either, since the female body evolved to be pregnant or lactating (and thus not ovulating) during most of the fertile years. And there's no doubt that preventing pregnancy has been a mostly unalloyed good for women. I just wish men would pitch in a little. (I'm lucky in this regard.)

I promise this isn't just a bitter personal rant; this particular issue doesn't affect me one way or the other. I don't have difficult periods, and in any case I loathe being hostage to a daily pill and would never go on the pill for that reason and others.