Can my daughter be on birth control under the following circumstances?

[Scooby]

My 16-year-old daughter recently approached me and asked if she could be put on birth control even though she doesn’t plan on having sex. The type of birth control she would like to be put on is the Depo Provera, which is an injection given once every three months. It tricks your body into thinking it is already pregnant and as a result no egg is produced. This also means she eventually would have no period, as well and no emotional ups and downs and that is the reason she wants to go on Depo Provera.

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

While medication that is ordinarily used for contraceptive purposes can be used for other legitimate therapies, I would be very hesitant to agree to putting a 16-year-old on Depo-Provera without having consulted with specialists to find out if there are other non-contraceptive means to control mood swings and problem periods. First, Depo-Provera may carry serious health risks (source). Second, while your daughter may not be planning to engage in sexual relations, in this day and age for a teenager to be on a contraceptive medication may provide a temptation to do so later on down the line.

I recommend talking to your daughter’s physician to find out what options are available for her treatment. You can also contact the Pope Paul VI Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction for information on alternative therapies that you and your doctor might want to consider for your daughter. The National Catholic Bioethics Center may also have helpful information on the Catholic bioethics concerns that you face. In the end, if the best course of treatment turns out to be Depo-Provera, it can be licitly used for non-contraceptive purposes. Only if it is used by your daughter for its contraceptive properties would there be a moral problem.