If you’re a woman, here is a story that may sound familiar: you’re 16 years old sitting in a GP’s office. She asks you a couple of routine questions – do you have a family history of blood clots, could you be pregnant? Ten minutes later you’re out the door, a little sleeve of contraceptive pills in hand. “Remember to take them at the same time each day.” You’ll probably never see her again.
Think back – do you remember her telling you about the pill’s myriad side effects, for example that all forms of hormonal contraception are associated with an increased risk of depression? Or talking you through the different pills available and which might be best suited to you? Likely not.
Perhaps the pills prescribed worked for you, and that’s the end of your story. Or maybe, like myself and so many other women, you have spent the years since like some kind of laboratory experiment, putting yourself through immeasurable physical and mental turmoil trying to find a contraceptive method that suits you.
And now to add to the mix, new research has found that all types of hormonal contraceptives carry a small increased risk of breast cancer, with progesterone-only methods associated with a 20-30 per cent higher risk.
Contraception is already such a minefield for women that news like this simply flies under the radar. We face an under-researched guessing game of throwing things at a wall and seeing what sticks, with every method accompanied by some ghoulish unforeseen side effect.
I don’t know a single woman who is completely satisfied with her method – whether it’s having your coil fall out on the toilet, going blind in one eye due to complications from the pill, passing out during a coil insertion, falling into a suicidal depression on the pill or having chronic pain for five years (all horror stories from myself and my friends) it feels like there are simply no good options.
Meanwhile, male hormonal contraception clinical trials began in the 1970s and yet still there is nothing on the market. Numerous possible methods have been proposed, but each has eventually met a brick wall, written off due to undesirable side effects that are extremely common in female versions.
It is impossible to overstate the privilege that living in a country with safe access to reproductive healthcare affords. But why should we have to be in constant battle with our own bodies in order to access it?
