A tiny T-shaped object that’s implanted into the uterus, the IUD is quickly becoming one of the most popular methods of reversible birth control among young women between the ages of 15 and 44. Unlike the Pill, you don’t have to remember to take it every day, and unlike condoms, it has a success rate of close to 100%. Despite the increasing popularity of IUDs, there’s still a fair amount of mystery surrounding the insertion process. Mystery no more.
Michele Chu, a student at Pratt’s Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, is creatively envisioning a future in which we will be able to pick up a can of pregnancy and STD-repellent just as easily as we might grab some Off! before a camping trip. While just a concept right now, there is plenty of precedent for this to become reality.
A Virginia-based women’s health company hopes to reinvigorate interest in an old form of birth control with Caya, the first one-size-fits-most diaphragm. Caya is the first contraceptive diaphragm to hit the market in more than 50 years. Despite the uphill battle, diaphragms may be perfect for low-income women and those looking for hormone-free alternatives.
On Tuesday, the Center for Medical Progress — an organization that describes itself as “a group of citizen journalists dedicated to monitoring and reporting on medical ethics and advances” — released a video targeting Planned Parenthood. The organization claimed their “undercover footage” revealed the nonprofit organization selling tissue and body parts from aborted fetuses.
Naturally, their claim was misinformed and inaccurate. Planned Parenthood is literally saving lives.
A whopping 99% of sexually experienced American women have used birth control at some point in their lives, according to Planned Parenthood. Despite this widespread use, a 2010 survey cited by Planned Parenthood found that more than a third of female voters have struggled to afford prescription birth control at some point in their lives. Thankfully, the government may finally be catching up to this need.
Statistics show that when IUDs were readily available between 2009 and 2013, the abortion rate for girls 15 to 19 years old fell 42%, while birthrates saw a 40% decline among the same demographic. The state reported Colorado’s overall teen birthrate had declined more rapidly than any other state in the U.S. But that’s not the only way Colorado is reducing teen birth rates.
Contrary to what Mike Huckabee, Hobby Lobby and many conservatives believe, birth control access is hardly just about women’s (apparently) raging libidos, but in fact empowers women in a variety of ways. From a variety of medical conditions to basic economic reasons, birth control is about more than just sex.
Planned Parenthood launched the hashtag #BirthControlHelpedMe Monday to show the real impact of birth control. Countless people are participating, sharing the ways access has informed and benefitted their lives. Two tweets even point out how birth control makes better parents.
50 years ago, on June 7, 1965, Griswold v. Connecticut legalized the birth control pill for married couples, paving the way for rulings that led to birth control access for all women. Since then, the pill has been an unparalled cultural force — affecting everything from teen pregnancy rates to the wage gap.
The pill. Freedom in a tablet. The cause célèbre of the women’s rights movement. More women (27.5%, according to recent data from the Guttmacher Institute) rely on the pill than any other type of contraception, yet public discourse suggests that most, on the pill or not, have no idea about its past anchored in eugenics, sexism and racism.
The irony of the pill is that before being marketed predominately to white women in America as a symbol of independence, it was tested women of color — many of whom were forced to undergo sterilization.
New data released Tuesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics found that use
of long-lasting reversible contraceptives (LARC), such as intrauterine
devices, has “increased nearly five-fold in the last decade among women
ages 15 to 44.” Both millennials and doctors are using IUDs more than ever — and that’s great news.
The year’s worst mansplainers ranked
Ah, mansplainers: Men who must explain “difficult” topics to women because, duh, we just don’t get them.
This was a banner year for mansplainers, who attempted — with varying levels of success — to take control of the dialogue on everything from judicial battles over birth control to increased media coverage of street harassment and sexual assault.
Now this is pro-life.
One illustration shows what it would look like if birth control logic was applied to men
Slut! Whore! Baby-killer!
These are just some of the insults lobbed at women on a semi-regular basis, simply for taking control of their reproductive health. But what if the tables were reversed? Following a midterm election cycle that passed what might be the most restrictive anti-abortion measure in the country, it’s worth thinking about what would happen if men were tasked with family planning.
