A new article in the Washington Post warns that misinformation about birth control has become rampant on social media, and that it could have disastrous consequences. But should the birth control concerns women are sharing on social media really be ignored as nothing more than misinformation?
The article notes that women are sharing their experiences with birth control on apps including Instagram and TikTok, complaining of side effects like weight gain, depression, and anxiety. The Washington Post article claims that birth control, including hormonal contraception, is safe and effective — and that online concerns about it are part of a bigger issue: abortion.
“The backlash to birth control comes at a time of rampant misinformation about basic health tenets amid poor digital literacy and a wider political debate over reproductive rights, in which far-right conservatives argue that broad acceptance of birth control has altered traditional gender roles and weakened the family,” the article said. The authors also dubiously claim this “misinformation” is leading to an increase in abortions.
Michael Belmonte, an OB/GYN in D.C. and a family planning expert with the pro-abortion American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) told the Post that “women frequently come in for abortions after believing what they see on social media about the dangers of hormonal birth control and the effectiveness of tracking periods to prevent pregnancy.”
As if that weren’t difficult enough to believe, the Post article then claims pro-lifers are the ones responsible for spreading this so-called misinformation about birth control, stating:
The influencers’ messaging helps drive potential legislation limiting access to hormonal birth control, said Amanda Stevenson, a sociologist, demographer and assistant professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder who is studying how antiabortion activists and lawmakers are trying to restrict birth control.
Already Republican legislators in Missouri have tried, unsuccessfully, to stop the state’s Medicaid program from covering IUDs and emergency contraceptives. A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit this month upheld a Texas law requiring minors to obtain parental permission before accessing birth control.
Live Action founder and president Lila Rose was also accused in the article of trying to “stigmatize” birth control. “To be anti-fertility is to be anti-woman, and the proliferation of hormonal birth control is just another way of trying to force women to be more like men, with significant consequences for our emotional and physical health,” Rose told the Post in an e-mail. However, the Post included very few of Rose’s submitted remarks. She also wrote to the Post:
The concern about the safety of hormonal birth control is not exclusive to conservatives; it’s a topic that spans different ideologies, faith communities, ages, and geography.
As Vogue reported, “Younger women are turning away from the pill in droves – an NHS (British National Health Service) study found that the number of women in contact with sexual and reproductive health services who used user-dependent contraception, including the pill, had dropped by more than 13 per cent between 2005 and 2015.” Many women have seen the reality of the negative effects of hormonal birth control, facing the side effects as described by the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care of headaches, nausea, sore breasts, vaginal yeast infections, spotting between periods, mood swings, reduction of sexual desire, and blood clots. The FDA adds high blood pressure and weight gain to this list of risks and side effects.
The National Cancer Institute confirms that hormonal birth control puts women at an increased risk of breast and cervical cancer. As many women seek to make choices that value their health and vitality, the negative effects of hormonal birth control cannot be ignored.
Risks of birth control
The Post notes that there are legitimate side effects with birth control, yet claims those side effects are rare. Hormonal birth control is known to have potentially dangerous risks; according to the Mayo Clinic, this includes an increased risk of some cancers, as well as higher cholesterol and blood pressure. There are also risks of stroke and lower bone density. And, of course, women have been increasingly speaking out about a potentially silent killer: blood clots.
READ: Are birth control and abortion connected? Here are the facts.
Blood clots are a very real concern with hormonal birth control. The Post mentions Sabrina Grimaldi, whose chest pain was initially dismissed by doctors as a pulled muscle. It turned out she had blood clots in her legs and her lungs, which doctors told her were due to her birth control pills.
“There’s all of those crazy things on the package that say you might have a blood clot or a heart attack or death, and you’re just like whatever. You don’t actually think that that’s going to happen,” she said, adding that doctors never discussed the potential risks with her.
Other kinds of birth control, like intra-uterine devices (IUDs), can cause uterine perforation. But even when it goes well, the insertion process can be painful.
Jenny Wu, an OB/GYN interviewed by the Post, highlighted a problematic issue in the medical industry: downplaying women’s fears and experiences. Wu noticed that Gen Z patients were turning away from IUDs, and decided to look into why; it wasn’t until Wu analyzed TikTok videos about IUDs and realized that nearly half were relaying negative experiences that she began offering “a variety of pain management options including anti-inflammatory drugs, a lidocaine injection into the cervix, or anti-anxiety medication.”
The question is, why wasn’t Wu offering those things from the beginning? Why were women having something placed through their cervix and into their uterus without being offered any pain management?
While the Post did acknowledge the potentially deadly risk of blood clots, it downplayed the risk by noting that this risk is higher in pregnancy than while on birth control. The crucial difference between the two, however, is that pregnant women are monitored frequently throughout pregnancy; they are seen monthly and, later in pregnancy, even weekly. Doctors are actively checking for all risks known to be associated with pregnancy.
Women on birth control are not monitored and, as Grimaldi pointed out, are rarely even told what risks to expect. And now, some are even getting their birth control prescribed by pharmacists instead of doctors.
Other options
Women are increasingly turning to other options for family planning, including those that don’t involve hormonal contraceptives. Yet the Post paints this as a step backward.
“[M]any social media influencers recommend ‘natural’ alternatives, such as timing sex to menstrual cycles — a less effective birth-control method that doctors warn could result in unwanted pregnancies in a country where abortion is now banned or restricted in nearly half the states,” the article said.
Natural family planning (NFP) has become more popular in recent years, but media portrayals, like the one in the Post, have yet to catch up to the improvement in options that are now available. NFP is often confused with the rhythm method, in which women track their menstrual cycles with a calendar and estimate when they ovulate. However, the Marquette method, for example, uses biomarkers in urine to determine hormone levels that indicate infertile and fertile periods. Others have used fertility tracking devices, like the Ava bracelet, which can be used to both avoid pregnancy or to conceive.
Failure rates of NFP, including calculating for human error, are just 1.8% for the Sympto-Thermal method, four percent (4%) for Creighton, and seven percent (7%) for Marquette. Comparatively, IUDs have a failure rate of one percent (1%), the pill has nine percent (9%), and condoms have 18%. In addition, NFP has no health risks associated with it.
