Many people find they experience decreased sensation with condoms, and they require the interruption of what lots of couples want to be a spontaneous and sensuous moment they’re not a method where the burden is borne only by the male partner in a heterosexual pairing. But they require perfect use every time, kind of like the contraceptive sponge and the diaphragm, neither of which is exactly a popular method of birth control in 2021. Condoms, unlike hormonal contraception, can prevent the spread of infections. And it’s certainly a good thing that women have the ability to control their own reproductive capacities without relying on male partners.Īnother answer is obvious enough from the list above: there simply aren’t any hormonal or otherwise medical and impermanent contraception options for men. One answer to the question of why men don’t bear their fair share of the contraception burden is obvious: men also don’t bear the burden of pregnancy, and so there is far less incentive for them to take the lead in preventing it. (When I asked my own doctor about the copper IUD years ago, she told me to get it only if I was okay with bleeding and being in pain for the next year.) And non-hormonal methods aren’t necessarily a solution: The copper IUD, which does not contain hormones, can cause heavy bleeding and severe menstrual pain. Anecdotally, a great many women I know are diehard pro-choice advocates for a wide range of contraceptive options, but personally forgo hormonal contraception because of the side effects. Hormonal methods, including the pill, the Depo-Provera shot and the hormonal IUD, among others, come with side effects that can include weight gain, mood changes, nausea and – perhaps most offensively – decreased sex drive, which kind of defeats the purpose of using contraception, so you can have sex for pleasure without risking pregnancy. Pill-related blood clots tend to be in the legs and sometimes the lungs, not the brain, and are generally treatable.Īnd no contraception method is without its flaws. That said, the two aren’t necessarily comparable. The birth control pill remains very safe, but it also comes with elevated blood clot risk – a higher risk than that of the Covid vaccine. Which led a lot of women to ask: what about the pill? The European Medicines Agency has recommended that the AstraZeneca shot not be given to young people. After a pause to evaluate the evidence, the CDC deemed the Johnson & Johnson vaccine safe, but noted that in a very tiny handful of cases, there was a slightly elevated risk of blood clotting for women under 50. The question of why women are the ones doing nearly all of the work to prevent unintended pregnancy – when an accidental pregnancy requires as much involvement from men as women – is newly salient thanks to questions about whether the Johnson & Johnson Covid vaccine in the US, and the AstraZeneca vaccine in the UK and Europe, elevate risks of blood clots. There is a built-in presumption that women will bear nearly all of the reproductive burdens, even though reproducing (at least the old-fashioned way) always takes two. But for too many men – and even in conversations about family planning and reproductive rights – vasectomy remains an afterthought. And it gives men with female partners an opportunity to more equally share in the work of planning their families. It allows men more control over their own fertility. It’s also safer and easier to reverse than tubal ligation. The recovery so minimal that urologists have deemed the month of March to be “ vasectomy season”: men schedule the procedures to coincide with March Madness, so they can sit on the couch with a bag of frozen peas on their crotch, watching basketball.įor men who have already had children or know they don’t want children, vasectomy is the safest, easiest and most effective method of contraception. Neither is time or even pain: vasectomies are simple outpatient procedures. Neither is risk, given that vasectomies are overwhelmingly safe. Vasectomies are typically covered by insurance, so cost isn’t the primary factor.
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