USA – The Long Campaign to Turn Birth Control Into the New Abortion

Now that the fall of Roe v. Wade has ended the constitutional right to abortion, many in the religious right have a new goal: undermining trust in, and limiting access to, hormonal contraception – including the pill.

October 8, 2022

When the Supreme Court’s decision undoing Roe v. Wade came down in June, anti-abortion groups were jubilant – but far from satisfied. Many in the movement have a new target: hormonal birth control. It seems contradictory; doesn’t preventing unwanted pregnancies also prevent abortions? But anti-abortion groups don’t see it that way. They claim that hormonal contraceptives like IUDs and the pill can actually cause abortions.

One prominent group making this claim is Students for Life of America, whose president has said she wants contraceptives like IUDs and birth control pills to be illegal. The fast-growing group has built a social media campaign spreading the false idea that hormonal birth control is an abortifacient. Reveal’s Amy Mostafa teams up with UC Berkeley journalism and law students to dig into the world of young anti-abortion influencers and how medical misinformation gains traction on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, with far-reaching consequences.  

Continued: https://revealnews.org/podcast/the-long-campaign-to-turn-birth-control-into-the-new-abortion/


It’s the 100th anniversary of the first conference on birth control. Here’s a look at contraception’s lesser-known legacy.

Hannah Good, The Lily
November 6, 2021

One hundred years ago, a group of prominent doctors, social workers, economists and advocates convened at what was then called the Hotel Plaza in New York City for a first of its kind conference. Their aim was to explore the benefits and legality of a technology that was simultaneously novel and impossibly ancient: birth control.

“Our definite aim is to repeal the laws so that the medical profession may give women at their request knowledge to prevent conception,” organizer Margaret Sanger said in her opening speech at the conference. “We believe that with the assistance of the intelligent members of the community we can bring this about in a very short time, but we need your help.”

Continued: https://www.thelily.com/its-the-100th-anniversary-of-the-first-conference-on-birth-control-heres-a-look-at-contraceptions-lesser-known-legacy/


USA – The Left Case for Fertility Awareness

The Left Case for Fertility Awareness
No pill, intrauterine device, or ultra-ribbed piece of rubber could provide the sexual liberation I experience practicing a method associated with anti-choice religious zealots.

By Megan Magray
December 26, 2019

The first time I had sex without a condom, I cried. It wasn’t that I regretted having condomless sex; I regretted not realizing I could have been doing it all along.

I’d opted myself out of hormonal birth control long before: I hated the hollowed-out, fatalistic feeling that enveloped me on the pill, and was perpetually skittish about both the pain that comes with IUD insertion and potential side effects. As a result, I never imagined myself having unprotected sex that I could deem safe. Conventional knowledge holds that medical birth control options—most notably, IUDs, and oral contraceptives—are the best pregnancy prevention tools for responsible women. Outside of condoms, effective alternatives to these medical interventions are generally considered to be nonexistent and are rarely made accessible. A desolate birth control landscape—coupled with the faulty premise that women are constantly at risk of pregnancy—meant that I spent years afflicted with a perpetual low-level anxiety around sex, deprived of the bodily autonomy that I subconsciously craved.

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/birth-control-fertility-fam/