Birth Control

HISPANIC COMMUNITIES are blossoming in nearly every city, town and hamlet in the United States, but the flower of Hispanic girlhood is wilting badly. A young Latina is more likely to live in poverty, drop out of school, get pregnant as an unmarried teenager, succumb to drug use and attempt suicide than any other demographic group. They are in worse shape than young black males, who had previously held the title of this country's lost souls. These girls and young women are caught between the cultural traditions to which their immigrant parents expect them to adhere -- particularly, service to the family -- and the galloping teen culture in which they find themselves in this country, a culture about which their parents are particularly uninformed.

Boston -- For reasons that remain somewhat mysterious to me -- curiosity? duty? sheer masochism? -- I am spending this holiday season reading the Republican Contract with America.So far, I must say, my very favorite chapter is the one called ''The Personal Responsibility Act.''Though it lacks the bodice-ripping spice of Newt Gingrich's upcoming novel with its ''pouting sex kitten'' and ''exotic mistress,'' it's still pretty sexy stuff. At least it's about sex.The PRA is ostensibly about welfare reform.

A Midwestern Roman Catholic bishop has struck a responsive chord among some Maryland Catholics. He recently compared his church to a "dysfunctional family" because it refuses to consider the laity's views on birth control."

Diagnon Corp. of Rockville said yesterday that it has won a $9.95 million contract from the National Institutes of Health to help research new forms of birth control.The five-year contract will allow Diagnon to boost its staff by 15 percent, to 115, and hopefully will contribute to solving such problems as teen-age pregnancy, said Michael O'Flaherty, executive vice president.The company won't be working to invent new contraceptives, Mr. O'Flaherty said. Instead, Diagnon will do research that should help drug companies develop and bring products to market faster.

REGINA SMITH wanted her tubes tied.She was 17 and had just given birth to her daughter, Crystal.She didn't want another unplanned pregnancy, but her doctors told her that, as a rule, they don't sterilize teen-agers.After her daughter was born 18 months ago, the South Baltimore woman used no birth control method, she says. "I won't take the pills," she says adamantly, shaking her head while hoisting baby Crystal on her hip. "They're a pain and a hassle to remember every day."The pain and hassle were reduced last week, when, in a 20-minute procedure, a midwife inserted into Regina Smith's upper arm a birth control implant lasting five years.

In an article Tuesday about birth control, The Sun misstated the price Planned Parenthood of Maryland charges for oral contraceptives. The price, over a five-year period, is $540.) The Sun regrets the errors.The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved yesterday the first new birth control method available to U.S. women in 30 years -- an implant that prevents pregnancies for five years once it is inserted under the skin of the upper arm.The implant, called Norplant, consists of a fan-shaped arrangement of silicone rubber capsules -- about the size of small matchsticks -- that slowly release steroid hormones into the bloodstream.

The continuing bad news about hormone replacement therapy has me upset. Can you clear up another question for me? The news has focused on the dangers of estrogen plus progestin for older women. What about the danger to younger women taking the same hormones as birth control pills? Are our daughters at risk from using birth control pills that contain estrogen and progestin? Most birth control pills are combinations of estrogen and progestin, not that different from postmenopausal hormone replacement therapy (HRT)

WASHINGTON -- Basic birth control information that was removed from a popular health book on orders from the Bush administration will be mailed to federal workers who received the censored version.The reversal comes a month after key members of Congress blasted the decision to remove the chapter from all copies of "Taking Care of Your Child," a best-selling health book sent free to 275,000 families nationwide in the Blue Cross-Blue Shield federal employee program."This chapter should have been included in the first place," says Rep. William L. Clay, D-Mo.

ATLANTA -- Now for a brief conversation about the pill. Yes, that one, the oral contraceptive that was dropped into midcentury American mores with such an impact that it was forever after known simply as the pill.These days we have discovered a new irony on the prescription pad: The only pill your insurance may not pay for is the one we call the pill.This is the crux of the new conversation about women's health and wealth. How did we get to a place where we treat birth control differently from all other health care?

Thirty-five years ago this month, the introduction of the birth-control pill promised unprecedented sexual freedom and personal choice for American women.The pill became a catalyst for both the sexual revolution and the women's liberation movement. It promised to end unwanted, unplanned pregnancy and give women ultimate control over the decision to bear children.But 35 years after the Food and Drug Administration approved the world's first oral contraceptive, the issue of birth control remains complex and resistant to simple solutions.