You might have thought the “my body, my choice” movement was motivated by an underlying emphasis on female autonomy and making informed decisions about one’s body. Yet the left’s reaction to growing female concerns about contraception would seem to suggest otherwise. Apparently, women sharing their stories about the pill — and deciding to reject it in favor of embracing the natural cycles of their fertility — is not a choice they are supposed to make.
On March 21, The Washington Post unleashed a flurry of “reporting” on an alleged “misinformation explosion” regarding birth control that included a “cascade of misleading videos vilifying hormonal contraception” on social media outlets such as TikTok and Instagram. “Debunking common birth-control misconceptions,” was the title of one such WaPo article, which noted “misconceptions about the safety and efficacy of hormonal birth-control methods” by citing another WaPo article released on the same day. That other WaPo article, in turn, circularly cited the “debunking” article as evidence for the “cascade of misleading videos.”
A growing number of American women are sharing their stories about their experiences with birth control, noting all manner of negative side effects. Yet, the WaPo claims, those experiences don’t align with “the data,” which, its reporters claim with straight faces, demonstrate that the likelihood of developing blood clots, gaining weight, becoming depressed, suffering other mental health issues, or increasing the likelihood of infertility are all low. (Would you be surprised to learn that the leading funders for contraception research and development worldwide include the pro-contraceptive Gates Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the contraceptive industry itself?)
Yet not satisfied just to cite a $21.5 billion industry that has every incentive to encourage pro-contraceptive research and discourage findings that undermine the narrative that contraception is a critical component to female empowerment, corporate media are taking it upon themselves to silence the dissenters. “TikTok recently removed at least five videos linking birth control to mental health issues and other health problems after The Post asked how the company prevents the spread of misinformation,” reports WaPo in self-congratulation.
Nor is WaPo alone: MSNBC, PBS, The New York Times, the L.A. Times, and Slate, among others, are all ringing the warning bell of “misinformed” public concern about contraception — hey, such efforts worked to stop “misinformation” about Covid and the Hunter Biden laptop story.
There’s also the concerning fact that the Biden administration earlier this month issued an executive order to “advance women’s health research and innovation” to the tune of $12 billion. Indeed, the U.S. government is the largest donor to global family planning and reproductive health services efforts and is one of the largest purchasers and distributors of contraceptives internationally, spending more than half a billion dollars on it annually. But surely an alliance of media, government, and “Big Science” to promote contraception doesn’t present any conflict of interest, right?
The Problems with Contraceptives Are Too Obvious to Ignore
It is worth understanding what exactly birth control pills are: synthetic steroid hormones, consisting of progestin and sometimes also estrogen, which suppress the release of certain hormones from the pituitary gland in the female body. This significantly reduces the chances of ovulation and, consequently, fertilization by a male sperm cell. Obviously, injecting hormones into one’s body, potentially for years, is not natural, which is why medical websites with no anti-contraception agenda acknowledge the manifold number of potential side effects.
Yet, of course, we are also talking about a chemical solution that since the 1960s has been billed as the preeminent liberator and empowerer of women the world over. “The pill, along with safe, legalized abortions are the two biggest keys to women’s rights,” Dr. Sarah E. Hill, author of This Is Your Brain On Birth Control, told The Guardian four years ago. Thus even as research piles up regarding the effects of contraception — including on stress levels, incidence rates of breast cancer, attraction, sexual motivation, hunger, eating patterns, emotion regulation, friendships, aggression, mood, and learning — the media, government, and pharmaceutical industries have an obvious reason to downplay or disparage such research as “misinformation.”
Nor should we lose sight of the purpose of all these chemical and plastic procedures: obstructing the natural processes of the female body. Contraception, whether it be the pill, intrauterine devices, or anything else, are not like other medicines or procedures aimed at helping the body do what it is naturally intended to do, but to prevent it from doing so. The contraceptive mentality sees female fertility as a problem to be solved, not a biological reality for women to understand, appreciate, and celebrate. This explains a bizarre zeitgeist in which those who usually champion all things natural find themselves deriding natural alternatives to contraceptives, though “natural” is precisely how to describe family planning methods that seek to understand women’s natural reproductive cycle, rather than curb it with chemicals or plastics.
Women Must Be Free to Tell Their Stories
Mary Harrington in Feminism Against Progress, urges women to become “un-neutered by progesterone” and take command of their own reproductive cycle. “By thus reclaiming human sexuality as something that men and women govern together as part of our common life, we can begin to claw the power of sexuality back from its current jaded, affectless role as low-consequence leisure activity or mere marketing tool.” Harrington learned that lesson from personal experience, as have many other women now coming forward to tell their stories.
The irony and hypocrisy of leftist elite attacks on women rejecting birth control is arresting. Female autonomy is an indisputable goal of the feminist movement… except for women who question the pill. Women’s voices need to be heard and amplified… except for those who repudiate our contraceptive culture. Women should seek to understand and embrace their bodies as naturally good… except when it comes to their reproductive cycles.
Then again, haven’t we come to expect this from the leftist establishment as it pertains to “acceptable” female behavior? Women who come to regret their abortions and speak out against Planned Parenthood are vilified. Those who choose raising a family over pursuing a career are ridiculed. Those who celebrate traditional gender roles are labeled extremists and white supremacists.
Some might ask, based on this prejudicial policing of what women can and can’t discuss in the public square, if modern feminism and its gatekeepers in the media, academy, government, or medical industry can faithfully and fairly represent American women and their diversity of opinions and experiences. Based on their unwillingness to believe the rising chorus of female concern about contraception, I think we already have our answer.
Casey Chalk is a senior contributor at The Federalist and an editor and columnist at The New Oxford Review. He has a bachelor’s in history and master’s in teaching from the University of Virginia and a master’s in theology from Christendom College. He is the author of The Persecuted: True Stories of Courageous Christians Living Their Faith in Muslim Lands.
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