Ricki Lake got behind the camera to produce the 2008 documentary The Business of Being Born – the film about how “many common medical practices may be doing new mothers more harm than good.” Although her two-year-old marriage to Christian Evans is coming apart, Lake is keeping her film career together. She’s now filming another documentary with director Abby Epstein about the side effects associated with taking birth control pills, it’s called Sweetening the Pill.
“In the fifty years since its release, the pill has become synonymous with women’s liberation and has been thought of as some sort of miracle drug,” said Lake and Epstein. “But now it’s making women sick and so our goal with this film is to wake women up to the unexposed side effects of these powerful medications and the unforeseen consequences of repressing women’s natural cycles.” Sweetening the Pill is based on the book by Holly Grigg-Spall with the subtitle “Or How We Got Hooked on Hormonal Birth Control.” The film will be released in 2015.