Can we talk about contraception?

[Amethyst24]

Someone mentioned on here the other day that contraception is still an issue for feminists.

I think the comment was that more research needs to be done into the side-effects of hormonal contraception, rather than minimising women's experiences of them (I've experienced this loads - "Oh, yes, you might put on weight but only a few pounds" etc).

It's an issue that's weighing on my mind at the moment, because we've decided it's time for my partner to have a vasectomy, and I am feeling irrationally guilty about it, even though he suggested it in the first place.

I'm not sure what I'm asking really . Is there any recommended reading about contraception from a feminist perspective?

Thanks all. I don't feel sad really, I've never wanted children. It's guilt, yes, and I think it is a mixture of the vital essences thing and a bit of "wait, you're making him go under the knife so HE can do something that's YOUR job?"

I wonder whether the Pill death thing is calculated on a global scale? If so it would be explained by fewer risky pregnancies.

Nope, it was a large UK study and does indeed say death from all causes ... except violence, which was very slightly higher in the pill-takers! That could be because proportionately more of the pill-takers were alive to be murdered :(

Reported by Time magazine.

Agree with most of what's been said upthread. The pill was massive in giving women control over their fertility - you only have to see the situation in countries where contraception and abortion are not readily available to realise that, but (love this phrase, btw) it has been leveraged by the patriarchy.

I was one of those women who really didn't get on well with the pill - massive depression and complete loss of libido (even with the depression, I could still see the irony in that one!) The amount of pressure I've come under from medical professionals over the years to use hormonal contraceptives rather than condoms has been immense. But I've just started on HRT and compared to my menopausal symptoms, it's the best fucking thing since sliced bread. Yet the side effects of the pill are just a "price we have to pay" for being sexually available, while the side effects of HRT are not worth it - menopausal women should just "suck it up" (according to some - mercifully I have a lovely GP). Statistically, of course it does matter - for instance, for a woman my age, it takes my risk of breast cancer from something like 2 in 1000 to 4 in 1000 per year.

(And there's always the possibility that the progesterone half of the cycle is why I've been so arsey with some of the muppets on FWR recently... or it could just be because they're muppets).

Garlic It could be DV I imagine - pill-takers more likely to be in relationships, under 30 etc. Very sad, anyway.

Please don't get me wrong - I think the availability of contraception has been a huge step forward for women and I'm not dissing the Pill or those who use it, at all.

I have an IUD now and it's great, minimal side-effects. But getting the right one for me has been a bit of a palaver.

There is also the fact that for some women, going on the pill is great for troublesome (too heavy, too irregular or too painful) menstruation.

SGB That's true, of course. But I find it interesting that positive side-effects of the Pill are just that - side-effects. As far as I'm aware, no one went, "Oh gosh, heavy, painful periods, troublesome skin in adolescent girls, those are things that need a solution." HRT likewise.

I used to have a cervical cap, not a diaphragm. I can't get it through our local doctors any more.

It wasn't a "faff"; it was great, and it is reliable if you use it right.

Doctors push hormonal contraceptives because they don't trust patients to behave responsibly. Statistically, doctors are right, but I find this attitude unacceptable when it comes to my health.

I can see why women having very little control over their own fertility was seen as a larger problem than bad skin/painful menstruation at the time. Of course, research since the advent of the pill seems to have stalled somewhat, and you're right - it would great to see more research into alleviating both pubertal and menopausal symptoms in women using alternative methods.

I wanted a Second child and ended up with twins. Having 3 kids under 3 really did me in mentally and I didn't want any more children but doctors wouldn't sterilise me as I was in my 20s. So I told DH in no uncertain terms that either he took responsibility by having a vasectomy or he could stay at home and look after all the children we would have. I told him it was only fair, that I had had strange men's hands ( all be it they were doctors) up my vagina and I had categorically had enough. So he did. That was 20 years ago.

I have. Viewpoint as a mother regarding my son's control over whether they want children. So scarring was it for me having twin and a toddler ( I cannot over state this enough, I was damaged by it) that I was totally proactive in preventing my then teenagers becoming parents. For my daughter it was easy, we went to the nurse and discussed options and choose one. For my son's though, it was a case of taking them to family planning, getting free condoms and that was it.

So whilst I personally would not trust a bloke who said he had a birth control injection, I see the validity of men having more option to control their choice whether to have children.

As it is now, th irony is that I doubt whether I will have grandkids at all

There definitely needs to be a variety of methods - it seems the default assumption is that it's the "woman's problem" which is so sexist. I personally like taking the pill and took it even when I didn't need it as I liked having total control over withdrawal bleeding and having clearer skin. However given my recent issues and needing to move to the POP I wish there were more options for men, beyond condoms, which I personally don't enjoy. The contraceptive burden is very much placed on women - an issue beyond the pill, which I see as something of an innocent victim in all this!

There is also the fact that for some women, going on the pill is great for troublesome (too heavy, too irregular or too painful) menstruation.

Yes indeed. Any concerns I occasionally have about the chemicals swimming round my body are soon dismissed when I remember the excruciating pain that would completely mess up my life once a month.

I get very depressed on the pill - and it concerns me that when I went to my GP initially, at 17, and said I thought it was affecting my mood she ridiculed the idea, said that my mood change couldn't be to do with the pill - and I kept on taking it for a year and continued to be depressed until my mother persuaded me to stop taking it - my mood lifted in weeks of stopping. Then again, at 20, another GP persuaded me that different brands suited different people, and again I became depressed, I quit my job, I couldn't get up in the morning - my mood lifted when I stopped taking it.

I'm glad that the pill is available - it has undoubtedly been great for many, many women, but I read this week somewhere that there is still no proven link between the pill and depression - and I know I'm not alone in my reaction. I do think side effects are down played. Although I think that is less to do with patriarchy and more to do with capitalism.

My Mum always said that the pill was rushed onto the market with little testing. It's a touchy issue for feminists because the pill was such an important area for the women's movement in the 60s and 70s but it was also important for increasing men's ability to get consequence-free sex.

However a journalist called Barbara Seaman was talking about the pill's effect on mental health in 1969 according to this obituary:

www.nytimes.com/2008/03/01/nyregion/01seaman.html

She raised suicidal depression as a side-effect as well as the other, more familiar ones such as heart attack and thrombosis.

She was apparently blacklisted as a writer and pharma companies would pull their advertising from publications which printed her articles (according to wiki) to stop her talking about this to women.

I suppose it was inevitable that the words 'pharma' and 'chemicals' would come up at some point.

yes, the pill contains hormones and as such some women will get side effects which can include mental health problems. This is neither news nor a secret.

no medication is without side effects. Nor are pregnancy or difficult periods.

'imposed on us by the patriarchy'. Yes, of course I am too dumb to make my own informed decisions.

No doctor has ever raised with me the possibility of mental health problems being a side effect of hormonal contraception. From the women I've talked to, none of them have had it raised by GPs either.

I'm not sure what you're quoting specialsubject - who said "imposed on us by the patriarchy"?

the phrase is further down the thread, too annoyed to re-scan.

the side-effects are all in the leaflet that is in every pill box.

I listened to a Woman's Hour podcast in the gym earlier and heard this wonderful interview with Helen Brook - really worth a listen.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02c7sd5

It's interesting that there is no mention of what single men did about accessing contraception (it was mostly condoms she's talking about) in those days.

specialsubject I think the issue people have with side-effects (I do, anyway) is that they are so minimised.

I've been very clear that I don't like using hormonal contraception because of weight gain, low libido, splitting headaches and other problems I've had, but I still get told, "But have you tried X, Y or Z pill?"

I understand why the medical profession wants women using reliable contraception that is relatively unaffected by user error - of course I do. But when you actually talk to someone about what to use, the side-effects are barely mentioned. I quizzed my practise nurse for ages about the Mirena coil and she was adamant that there were none, it's the holy grail of contraceptives, etc etc. After using it for a month I was a miserable, fat mess. And then I got told to leave it and see if it would "settle down".

Ahem. The quote was "I reject the idea that it's been imposed on me by the patriarchy!"

That part of any political discussion about the pill covers incredibly wide-ranging topics linking patriarchal precepts with capitalist industry. I think every poster here recognises this.

No-one actually said it.

Here's the leaflet from the Family Planning Association about the combined pill. No mention of mental health impacts.

www.fpa.org.uk/sites/default/files/the-combined-pill-your-guide.pdf

Here's the NHS page about contraceptives, again no mention of mental health impacts.

www.nhs.uk/Conditions/contraception-guide/Pages/combined-contraceptive-pill.aspx#Advantages

Has anyone ever read a leaflet that comes with medication? It's the epitome of small print, both literally and metaphorically.

Florafox I do, but I'm one of those people who just can't resist reading stuff.

I remember when I first went on the Pill at 17, reading the entire package insert, and one thing that stuck in my mind was the relatively tiny number of deaths directly attributed to the Pill vs pregnancy and childbirth.

It's a Good Thing, I don't think anyone is denying that. But it does place responsibility for birth control, as well as the ability to control fertility, disproportionately on to women, and it does have some unpleasant side-effects that women are to a great extent expected to just suck up.

I asked my doctor about the cap. She said it's not the cap that's the issue - it's the spermicidal gel, which has been shown to expedite the transmission of HIV and so is hardly made any more. And without the gel as well the cap isn't really effective enough

Wonderstuff, I had a very similar experience to yours - young GP dismissing my concerns about depression and saying it couldn't possibly the pill. Fortunately I ignored her, stopped taking it and my mood lifted within a matter of days. Switched to the diaphragm (which had the side benefit of helping me to overcome my vaginismus - yes, my early sexually active years were a bundle of laughs!)

I wonder if there's an element of medical paternalism (rather than patriarchy) about this, though? That a lot of doctors are simply trained to think in terms of "what's most effective at a population level?" So a few women with depression are a good trade off against lots of unwanted pregnancies. This goes on with other drugs too - my dad had the "I'm going to put you on statins even though you're healthy, have perfect blood pressure and eat a healthy diet, because the NHS says this is what we do these days" approach. The statins caused liver problems (fortunately he's fine now he's stopped taking them). Though it's telling that the groups who seem to be hardest hit by this sort of thing are those considered "lesser" by society as a whole - women, the elderly. I am inclined to put the primary blame on an "ooh, look we can fix this, what's the odd side-effect?" attitude in the medical profession as a collective (there are some individual doctors who are brilliant), with a side order of "our patients whinge about nothing, and we know what's going on inside their bodies better than they do."

People over the age of 50 do get a shit deal, as far as I can see. For instance, a lot of elderly men end up having operations for prostate problems, which carry a 1 in 3 risk of impotence. A lot of post menopausal women go to the doctor with vaginal atrophy and are told to get KY jelly (VA requires topical oestrogen creams - normal lubes will not help). My impression of NHS attitudes to cataracts is "well, we'll bother when the patient actually goes blind" (my parents paid to have my mum's done privately - and it's yet another of those things where if you did the sums - cheap cataract op versus hip replacement because patient tripped when they couldn't see where they were going), it's a no-brainer.

Sorry, bit of a digression - but in short, while I'm sure women's issues being sidelined is part of this, the overall reasons are more complex.

Well, well, Josie, I'm having to speed-update my info!

"From 1996 to 2000, a UN-sponsored study conducted in several locations in Africa followed nearly 1,000 sex workers who used nonoxynol-9 gels or a placebo. The HIV infection rate among those using nonoxynol-9 was about 50% higher than those who used the placebo; those using nonoxynol-9 also had a higher incidence of vaginal lesions, which may have contributed to this increased risk.

"Whereas these results may not be directly applicable to lower-frequency use, these findings combined with lack of any demonstrated HIV-prevention benefit from nonoxynol-9 use led the World Health Organization to recommend that it no longer be used by women at high risk of HIV infection.

"The WHO further notes that 'Nonoxynol-9 offers no protection against sexually transmitted infections such as gonorrhoea, chlamydia.' A 2006 study of a nonoxynol-9 vaginal gel in female sex workers in Africa concluded that it did not prevent genital human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and could increase the virus's ability to infect or persist."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonoxynol-9

YY Garlic. The POP leaflet that the clinic gave me mentions nonoxynol 9 with the warning about HIV.

Im currently on Zelleta Its a mini pill with a 12 hour window rather than a 3 hour one.

Ive been on it since mid September. The first two months my periods were pretty normal as in the same as they are when im not on the Pill but now im on the third blister pack its slightly different more like heavy spotting and im still getting period pain.

when i was much younger it was the combined Pill. Femodene and Logynon. Then i had Norplant which was the original contraceptive implant (i had that in my arm for 3 years but had it removed after DH and i hadnt had sex because i wasnt bunging myself up with hormones for nothing. Had the Depo injection for 5 years between 30 and 35.
And then this pill over the last two months.

I knew 20 years ago at 21 that i didnt want children. In my mid 20s i asked to be sterilised and was told i was too young. Told the same again at 30.
How come women are told they dont know their own minds when they say they dont want children but arent told this when they say they want DC? Im now 41 and i havent changed my mind on the motherhood front. From what i can recall my DM went through the menopause at 47 so mine may not be too far away.