Modern contraception begins and ends with suffering. Since the creation of modern gynecology and, therefore, contraception, women — primarily Black women — have suffered and continue to suffer in the wake of its advancement. While a wide variety of birth control options are now legal and available to the public in the 21st century, the overwhelming consensus is that birth control fucking sucks.
The road to receiving shiny pink pill packets has been a long and hard-fought battle. The notion of preventing pregnancy has been around for hundreds of decades; one of the oldest references to birth control actually originates from the Bible’s Book of Genesis. But, it wasn’t until a few thousand years later, led by Margaret Sanger in the early 1900s, that the movement for the legalization of birth control began to spread. Contraception was legalized (for married couples) in Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965, and then required to be covered by insurance under the Affordable Care Act 46 years later in 2011.
The nitty gritty of how hard women fought for the autonomy to choose when, where and how they became pregnant — if at all — is important; but despite all of the scientific advances that have perfected that tiny pill or that small piece of plastic that sits inside a woman’s uterus, it still isn’t a pleasant experience.
I have taken that tiny pill since I was 13 years old. Throughout my adolescence and into my adulthood, I have struggled with a chronic condition called endometriosis. The lining of my uterus, which would normally be shed during my monthly menstrual cycle, grows outside my reproductive organs and into my abdomen, making for excruciating pain seven to 10 days out of the month. To ease the pain that this condition caused, I was prescribed an oral contraceptive, which has been proven to be effective at not only preventing pregnancy but also for managing symptoms brought on by reproductive disorders such as endometriosis and polycystic ovary syndrome. It did end up helping, and significantly so. I continued to take it for six years without missing a day.
It is no secret that the hormone-filled pills of peace that prevent unwanted pregnancies and alleviate side effects of dysfunctional uteri come with nasty side effects. If you know someone who uses hormonal birth control, chances are you’ve heard them complain about the side effects. I used to joke with my friends about using the warning labels as a blanket — that’s how large the list of caution is — but it’s really not all that funny. I spent my pre and post-pubescent years being pumped full of estrogen and progesterone, steroid hormones that are vital for female reproductive development and fertility. This, in turn, permanently altered my body. Nausea, headaches, weight gain and irritability are just a few of the many side effects I have personally experienced from these tongue-twisting hormones. I sometimes wonder if I have ever really known myself, or if the way my body turned out was just another side effect to be listed on the packet of pills I opened on the first of the month.
As my 20s neared, I began to worry about where our nation was heading with reproductive rights. Would my pill pack be so easily accessible in a year? In five? I didn’t know. I was sick of my alarm going off every day at 9 p.m., serving as a stark reminder to take the multicolored pills that sat in my makeup bag. I felt like the pill owned me, and I wanted to make a change. I wanted a form of birth control that not only regulated my endometriosis symptoms but aided in protecting me from pregnancy. I’m young and have a degree to worry about. I decided upon a hormonal intrauterine device, or IUD (the Mirena specifically). It was a long-lasting, effective alternative to my lovely little pills.
In an interview with the Michigan Daily, LSA rising senior Gabby Scott had a similar experience with testing out multiple types of contraception.
“I took the pill, had the patch, the ring, the hormonal Skyla IUD and now I am on my second copper IUD,” Scott said.
Scott, unlike me, had a categorically bad time on the pill.
“My experience was terrible. I was so nauseous all the time, I gained weight and I was so irritable,” Scott said. “I would throw up multiple times a week and tried several different types of pills but the side effects didn’t go away.”
“And then when I was 18, I started crying blood, which is a really rare side effect (of the pill). I forget the actual clinical name for it, but the way that my body was absorbing the hormones caused my tears to get super, super bloody,” Scott said “So, if I had watery eyes, if I was crying, anything, my tears would be red, which was super weird. Everything went away completely when I was off the pill.”
I had heard horror stories about the awful side effects that come with the varying forms of birth control, but crying tears of blood was a new level. Hearing Scott’s story was demoralizing in a way. Modern science has created this little pill or insertable device that keeps us from being pregnant, but at what cost?
I remember the way I felt on the day of my own IUD insertion. Alone on the third floor of the University Health Services building, with no one to accompany me besides a welcoming, middle-aged triage nurse who held my hand while I cried throughout the entire process, I had my body altered in a way that left me reeling, mentally and physically, for days.
In retrospect, I look back on this incredibly painful and frankly traumatic experience with gratitude. I live a lifestyle in which I have not only the funds but also the accessibility and autonomy to choose to take birth control. Many women are not as fortunate.
Contraceptive deserts are defined by Power to Decide — an organization that works to advance sexual and reproductive well-being — as “counties where the number of health centers offering the full range of (contraceptive) methods is not enough to meet the needs of the county’s number of women eligible for publicly funded contraception.” More than 19 million women in America and 164 million women globally are in need of contraception, but either cannot afford it or don’t have access to it. Women across the world who want to take charge of their bodily autonomy are denied access to what millions would consider a fundamental right. And, on top of this, if a women does decide to utilize birth control, whether as a form of contraception or not, the side effects and unwanted pain that come from altering your body’s natural state through taking a pill or having an IUD inserted is undesirable at best.
While all modern forms of contraceptives are often spoken of in low regard, there is one method of birth control that seems to trump all others in terms of pain — the IUD, and its insertion process, has been widely regarded as the most barbaric form of birth control.
In order to insert an IUD, medical staff use what is known as a tenaculum to pierce the tissue of a woman’s cervix to ease the IUD into the uterus where it will reside. In my opinion, the process is unbearable. Only in recent years has pain management been offered to women undergoing this procedure and, at my own appointment, I was offered pain relief in the form of a lidocaine injection. I was told that the injection would “numb me up” and that I “shouldn’t be able to feel a thing.” I did. I felt everything. I do not believe that I could do my pain justice by describing it with words, but after the entire procedure was finished — it took roughly 30 minutes — I walked out of the room feeling like a piece of myself had been left on the examination table.
My own IUD insertion came with a litany of side effects: extreme cramping, bleeding, and brain fog for roughly two weeks after the procedure. However, some women experience much more horrific things throughout their insertion. Vomiting, spasms, and fainting from the pain of the insertion are among several common reactions to the procedure.
Scott, while recounting her birth control journey, mentioned her own experience with IUDs.
“The first (copper IUD) that I had — it ended up perforating my uterus.” Scott said.
“It is very rare to have issues (with the IUD), but I had really, really bad cramping and a non-stop period for upwards of three months,” Scott said. “They did an ultrasound, and the IUD had perforated my uterus. I had it replaced with another copper IUD, and I’ve had that one for about 6 months now. I still had implantation bleeding, but it’s been much better.”
In defense of birth control, however, and in an attempt not to completely scare potential users away, I must note that not all birth control users have bad experiences — including myself and Scott. Because of my time spent on the pill, my endometriosis symptoms were largely relieved, if not just in place of other bothersome symptoms. And, after my first month with my good pal the IUD, I can conclude that I don’t hate it (save for the insertion process). Taking contraceptives, hormonal or not, is a saving grace for millions of women who don’t want to become pregnant, need symptomatic alleviation or just want a more regulated period.
But, it’s just as important to call attention to the fact that women are irrevocably changing their hormones, and therefore their bodies, when they elect to take birth control. And that, sometimes, really, really sucks. Every experience that a woman has on birth control is valid, regardless of if it is feelings about that tiny pill pack or the rectangular patch.
I would be remiss, though, to not argue that the brutality of birth control, good experiences aside, has continued to exist since James Marion Sims, a 19th-century gynecologist, experimented on enslaved women. The harsh brutality of birth control remains deeply relevant. The deceitful and exploitative nature of the experiments performed on Black women in the Deep South or the use of women as subjects in Puerto Rican Pill trials has caused many women today to be hesitant to use the pill, patch or any other form of contraception because of everything that this modern feat of science is based on.
When it comes to birth control, fearmongering is as prevalent as ever. The explosion of social media has granted women worldwide a platform to share their experiences with contraception — the good and bad. Natural home remedies for contraception are on the rise, substituting nasty side effects for cycle tracking instead, prompting women to ditch the pill. But, with the overturn of constitutional reproductive rights like those put in place by Roe v. Wade, women are, at the same time, largely worried about unwanted pregnancies and natural alternatives aren’t always as effective. This has created an unfortunate paradox in which contraception is necessary, not just for those wishing to avoid pregnancy, but for those of us who use it for symptomatic alleviation as well. All the while it is unattainable and undesirable to millions.
Most women in my life have some kind of birth control horror story. However, I don’t want to spew misinformation or fearmonger when birth control is a necessity for millions. The medical and pharmaceutical industry’s minimization of the pain and suffering contraception has caused women is largely disheartening, and a call to action to make birth control safer and more accessible for all of the women who need or want to be on it is necessary.
Birth control saved my life and, paradoxically, ruined it. The pain that I have gone through to seek relief from endometriosis symptoms and unwanted pregnancy has permanently altered the course of my life, and I will go down swinging to speak out about the mistreatment, misinformation and minimization that women face every day when sharing their stories.
Contraception is necessary and it fucking sucks. Whether a new pill will hit the shelves claiming that it “has no side effects” or a less barbaric IUD insertion process is invented, I know, and all women know — something has to give. Choosing how, when and where to become pregnant, and taking control of the symptoms that reproductive disorders cause is as constitutional a right as the right to bear arms. If we don’t speak up and speak out about the problems that damn pill pack or plastic device causes us, then we will never see change. It’s time to take control of our bodies for the millionth time this century.
Statement Deputy Editor Anna McLean can be reached at agmclean@umich.edu.
The post Birth control: Modern medicine or modern torture? appeared first on The Michigan Daily.
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