One question almost every woman has given serious thought through the years (and if you haven’t, you should) is this: Would you want to stop having your period if you could?

At first it sounds like a great idea to abolish periods — they’re a pain. They are uncomfortable and bring with them all kinds of nastiness like cramps, PMS and nausea. And it’s guaranteed your period will always come at the wrong time, like right before the weekend or while you’re on a road trip.

For those of us who have been fully briefed on our contraceptive options, we should know the utopian Period-Free World has been open to us for some years now. With the wide range of birth control available to women these days, it is completely possible to rid ourselves of the “burden” of menstruation thanks to medical breakthroughs like the pill (taken continuously) and Depo-Provera.

A new product recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration has brought up anew the possibility of controlling the inconvenience of periods. However, Seasonale is actually nothing “new:” It is just a repackaging of the same birth control pill women have taken for 40 years with a reduction in the levels of estrogen and progestin, two main ingredients found in contraceptives.

Seasonale works on a 91-day, or 13-week, cycle instead of the usual 28-day cycle common to pills like Ortho-Cyclen. With the new cycle, women will take pills for 84 days, or 12 weeks, with one week of placebo pills at the end — this means women would only have four periods a year instead of the usual 13.

The chairman and chief executive of Barr Laboratories (maker of Seasonale), Bruce L. Downey, said in a New York Times article the new pill “represents the single most significant advance in oral contraception in the past 40 years.”

And, in some respects, he’s right.

When women have the option to forgo a monthly period, it gives them freedom to never think twice about doing things their periods may sometimes inhibit, like traveling, having sex or just getting through the day pain-free.

Liberating women from the “old ball and chain” of menstruation could be another step toward equality of the sexes. I can’t imagine how offering a woman a chance to experience life like men have for centuries could be a bad thing.

But while freedom from periods sounds enticing, I must admit I found the methods of birth control currently available that enable this aren’t all they are cracked up to be.

For two years I was on Depo-Provera, the birth control shot, which eliminates periods in most women. For the first six months or so I was fine, but after that it all went downhill. I began to gain weight and found myself unable to work it off: By the time I had stopped taking the shot, I had gained more than 10 pounds. This was coupled with a nearly complete loss of sexual drive.

But worse than these was the depression affected upon me by hormonal imbalances. I was so unhappy all the time then, and to this day I can still find nothing so wrong in my life that would have made me that way.

When I was on birth control (both the pill and the shot), I didn’t feel whole — I felt like something was wrong with me. Now I know what it was: All current birth control methods put women in a medicated state. They mess with your hormones and your natural body cycle. While they do enable women to have sex more freely, which is a great thing, they can also reduce your libido.

What use is our sexual independence if we don’t ever feel like having sex and even have problems when we do?

I have thought for a very long time about my position on birth control and liberation from a monthly period. There are very positive aspects of birth control — like allowing women the freedom to be the sexual beings they were meant to be — but I have found I feel much more connected to my body and who I am as a person when foreign hormones are not manipulating my feelings and bodily functions. I have more of a responsibility to myself now in matters of pregnancy, but condoms serve just as well toward that purpose.

Seasonale has been shown to have no more side effects than the regular pill, but there are still too many harmful things done to women’s bodies by these hormones.

Until a method of birth control is produced that women can take with no adverse effect on their bodies whatsoever, I cannot say I would choose it for myself — what other women choose isn’t my business.

Before women decide to say goodbye to Auntie Flow, I hope they think twice about the side effects these contraceptive options can have on them.