History of birth control

I found this information very interesting...

1958, two doctors named John Rock and Gregory Pincus revolutionized contraception with the first clinical trials of oral contraceptives. Rock and Pincus decided that the pill would be more acceptable to women (and organizations like the Catholic Church) if it preserved women's natural menstrual cycle. So, they manufactured the pill to mimic a typical 28-day cycle. This is why many birth control packets contain three weeks worth of hormonal pills and one week of placebos or sugar pills. Withdrawal from the hormones on the fourth week triggers bleeding that's similar to menstruation. However this "withdrawal bleeding" is usually shorter and lighter than a regular period because the uterine lining hasn't been thickened.
According to many women's health experts, menstruation serves no biological purpose if a woman is on birth control. In fact, a woman can purposefully skip her period by omitting the placebo week and starting a new pack of pills, patch, or ring. Birth control manufacturers have caught onto some women's desire to have less frequent periods, and there are now several brands of the birth control pills on the market that don't have a placebo week.

I must confess that I wonder about the effect of not having a menstrual cycle on a woman's body. Sometimes I think that decisions are made before people really grasp the long-term consequences. Then again, I was raised Catholic, so maybe that's just the Pope talking.