Help me out here, what am I missing in this contraception controversy?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Recently, there were several stories about a medical trial for a so-called “male birth control shot”, an injection for men that is 96% effective in preventing pregnancy, that was terminated because about 10% of the men experienced side-effects like depression, mood-swings, and acne. You can read about it here.

Here are a few reactions from Facebook comments:

*1) “All women’s birth control has side effects. Poor men just can’t handle it.”

  1. “I want to feel sorry for these guys. But I so totally don’t. And while it’s obvious that this particular treatment has side effects that would cause the average consumer to balk, I think that it’s crucial that men take proactive steps in contraception as women have always had to.”

  2. “Psh! Its just the same side effects on women’s birth control pills and shots. Men are so lame. Cant deal with those little things.”

  3. “Women have been putting up with these and other (worse) side effects for years. Give these men a little cheese with their whine. Birth control should be everyone’s responsibility.”

  4. “Because it’s ok for women to suffer those side effects along with the increased risk for some cancers, but god forbid any man should ever experience the tiniest bit of discomfort.”

  5. “Seriously?!! The side effect list of women’s birth control is 10 miles long!! Can our delicate little snowflakes (MEN) not handle any side effects?”

  6. “That’s like literally the same as birth control. Oh wait… sorry, poor little men can’t be asked to deal with emotion and the responsibility of avoiding unwanted pregnancies like women do all the time”

  7. “And what about the side effects on women from birth control and in pregnancy?!? #GrowAPair”

  8. "…but a lot of participants had an increased libido, experienced a boost of energy, helped in weight loss…

Fine. Be a bunch of wimpy kids, us women will take one for the team. But let’s translate THOSE side effects into women’s BC!!!

  1. “Well we all know who the stronger sex is. The paradigm is shifting, so it’s only a matter of time before men take their actual place in this world. This isn’t a surprise.”*

Two things I want to make clear: Firstly, there are literally thousands of these comments, all left by women. Thousands, upon thousands, upon thousands. Secondly, I swear on my mother’s eyesight I’m not cherry-picking. These are 100% representative, and you can count yourselves lucky I only stopped at ten examples.

Am I missing something here? These comments seem so incredibly stupid to me, not to mention sexist. Why do none of these women seem to understand that a male contraceptive shot is subject to a different risk calculus to a female contraceptive pill? If a woman takes the pill she risks experiencing certain side effects, including (but not limited to) depression, mood-swings, irregular periods, back pains, and, rarely, potentially fatal blood clots. However, if she doesn’t take the pill she risks getting pregnant. Getting pregnant also has side effects: depression, mood-swings, back pains, diabetes, morning sickness, blood-pressure fluctuations, pre-eclampsia and, again, potentially fatal blood clots. Furthermore, the chances of getting depressed, experiencing mood swings, and getting a blood clot is higher during pregnancy than it is while on the pill. Therefore, if a woman doesn’t want a kid, it makes sense for her to use the pill. The benefits of the pill outweigh the risks.

Men, on the other hand, can’t get pregnant. If they take this injection, they run the risk of experiencing depression, mood-swings, acne, and other symptoms. If they don’t take this injection the side-effects are…nothing. Therefore, the benefits don’t outweigh the risks, especially since this injection has a lower success rate than a regular condom.

Is it unfair that nature has dictated that women have to suffer the side-effects of contraception because the side-effects of pregnancy are worse, while men can just screw around and not worry about it? Yeah. It is. It’s also unfair that nature has dictated that women live longer than men, and that, all things being equal, women have a higher chance of surviving cancer. That’s just the way it is. Nature has no obligation to be fair, men have no obligation to take on anybody else’s side-effects, and doctors have no obligation to flout the “Do no harm” clause of their Hippocratic oath just because the side effects of the pill are potentially unpleasant.

All this should be plainly obvious to anybody with a grain of sense. Am I missing something, or is this all just internet butthurt?

2

I think women are thinking in terms of a couple. When looked at as a couple, the risk-benefit situation is basically the same for each individual party.

3

Regardless of relationship status, I can’t see how the risk-benefit situation is the same in terms of health. The risks to men who take the shot are higher than the risks to men who don’t. Conversely, the risks to women who take the pill are lower than the risks to women who don’t.

I’m sure there are plenty of men in loving relationships who would happily take the injection so their wives didn’t have to take the pill. I certainly would. However, doctors testing a medication are only obligated to worry about the short and long term health effects of that specific medication on the specific people who would be taking it. Everything else is outside of their purview. Hence, it makes sense for them to pause the trial.

4

I have to admit, I had the same thoughts as those comments when I read the article. It’s like, oh no! the men are having side effects?? Well we better stop cause, you know…that’s not cool.

It just seems like…I dunno…another form of misogyny in this culture? Women are supposed to just accept that their BC methods have side effects cause that’s just the trade off not to get pregnant but men can’t be expected to do the same. I think a lot of women feel that we’re being made to carry a lot more burden and have more expected of us than men do and it’s getting old.

For the record, I’m not trying to say men have it easy or that women have it worse, just that’s how I feel the perception is around a lot of women.

5

I understand the sentiment, but does the logic of the counter-argument make sense? Women, unfortunately, have to choose between a pill that has side-effects, some of which are rare, but severe, and the risk of pregnancy, the side-effects of which are far worse than those of the pill. Men are faced with a choice between a shot which carries lesser side-effects, and absolutely no side-effects at all.

When studying the safety of the male contraceptive shot, the side-effects of the pill are completely irrelevant. The only question that matters is “Do the benefits of taking the shot outweigh the risks of not taking it?” In this case, since the health risks of not taking the shot are non-existant, the answer is obvious. The ethical thing to do is halt the trial until doctors have figured out a way to reduce the risks of the shot.

Of course, none of this precludes those same doctors from finding safer pills as well, and I fully support any research in that direction. It just seems like this whole reaction is a classic example of emotion overriding logic.

6

Ok but that’s assuming that women take BC ONLY to avoid the possible complications of pregnancy. No, women take BC because of many reasons. Most of us don’t want to become pregnant not because ‘omg I might become depressed/diabetic/gain weigh’ and more so because ‘omg I can’t afford/don’t want a kid’. And since it takes two to make a kid, both parties should be taking equal parts responsibility for preventing it.

You know the side effect of a guy not taking BC? Same as a woman. An unwanted pregnancy. Which affects BOTH of them. Why should all of the pressure/responsibilities/side effects be put on the woman just because her body’s the one that carries the baby? I mean, it’s not like the side effects were something like heart attacks, strokes or permanent sterility. It was mood swings, depression and acne. And stopping because of that just seems like…whining? I dunno how to put it nicely lol I think it all circles back around to the perception by many women that men are wimps and don’t want to do anything regarding BC that’s going to cause them the slightest bit discomfort.

7

I think it’s a shame that some people have to turn it into a springboard for a broad-brush disparaging statement about men in general. It’s not as if all men stood up and collectively terminated the study of the proposed drug.

8

That would make sense if women spontaneously became pregnant. Then absolutely birth control would lower risk for women but not for men. But there is another step involved in this equation.

9

I know a lot of men who don’t want to hear about any other birth control method other than the Pill (or Norplant, or something else hormonal), that isn’t messy, doesn’t require their dicks to be sheathed in anything, and doesn’t require a pause to put in a diaphragm or reapply gel. If a man has that attitude, then he’d better be just as willing to assume the risks, because there are plenty of ways for a woman to avoid pregnancy that don’t involve hormones. If some kind of birth control that can be taken care of well before the sex act is his choice, not hers, then he can assume responsibility for is. If he doesn’t want the side effects of the man-Pill, get a vasectomy.

I tried the Pill once a long time ago, and I was angry for three months. Not depressed-- ANGRY. At nothing and everything. Since being pregnant and having sort of pregnancy-induced bipolar disorder, I’ve decided I just have a delicate hormonal balance. I’m not trying the Pill again, and with any luck, I should hit menopause soon, but at any rate, my husband is perfectly OK with the diaphragm. So I get the Pill not being for everybody, but I don’t get not keeping it in development so that men have the choice.

That’s where my mind boggles. Viagra has a huge list of side effects, but it went through testing and approval (yes, I know development was initially for something else). I can’t believe that men wouldn’t be given the choice.

10

But it doesn’t affect both of them medically, and that’s the only thing that matters here. It only affects women medically. Medically, pregnancy doesn’t affect men at all. Therefore, when devising a male contraceptive shot, the comparison doctors are making isn’t between what men who take the shot might suffer vs what women who take the pill already suffer. It’s between what men who take the shot might suffer (depression, mood-swings, acne, etc…) and men who don’t take the shot might suffer (absolutely nothing, apart from potentially an unwanted kid, which isn’t a medical problem). Again, I’m only speaking medically, and so are the doctors who are running this test. Everything else is outside of their remit.

Why do the doctors who are running this study have to answer that question? The contraceptive arrangements between a husband and wife are no business of theirs. All they’re obligated to do is design a drug for which the benefits to the patient outweigh the risks. Clearly, in this case, the benefits don’t outweigh the risks and so they were right to pause the trial.

Well, ignoring, just for the moment, the fact that depression can kill, who do you imagine is doing the whining? Why do you think anyone is whining? Isn’t it more reasonable to think that the decision to pause the trial is just the result of a straight-forward risk/benefit calculation performed by researchers on behalf of the drug’s intended recipients?

If the reaction to this trial is driven by emotion, isn’t it reasonable to consider the possibility that this perception may be based in emotion, too?

11

I don’t see why that step is medically relevant.

12

And there are women that it is contraindicated that they use hormonal birth control, there are women who can’t take it for various reasons other than a medication they are already taking, and there are some women who have some of the more serious side effects and the idiot medical community don’t seem to want to do a tubal ligation on a younger woman who for whatever reason does not want kids [the horror of a woman with no maternal instinct or desire to pop a watermelon out of their cootchie … she isn’t a woman until she spawns and if we snip her she will sue us because she may suddenly and desperately want to spawn…] so it is then up to the man to do whatever measure for BC … and I know a few guys I have dated positively refused to wear rubbers [didn’t date those asshats for long…]

13

And then there are those couples in which the woman has an unacceptably high risk for complications with other available methods, but the man doesn’t. Maybe in some circumstances (such as this one, in which it really does take two) a couple should be considered as a single medical unit.

14

My guess is that 96% effective wasn’t worth a 10% chance of SUICIDAL depression, which is what I have heard these men were experiencing. Severe acne is no fun either.

A depot injection can’t just be discontinued either, unlike the Pill. Most women who get a Depo-Provera shot never take a second one either, because of the side effects - weight gain, headaches, loss of libido (so much for needing birth control, right?), irregular bleeding, and that’s only the beginning. It’s actually a fairly popular method after childbirth, because it doesn’t interfere with breast-feeding.

I personally believe that there will never be a “male pill”, and it has nothing to do with sexism. It’s biology. Women can only get pregnant a few days a month; men are fertile from puberty until the day they die, and shutting that process down is awfully hard to do without castrating a man, surgically or chemically.

In the 1970s, there was a drug called gossypol that was tested extensively in China, and not only did it turn many of the men into artificial eunuchs, in many cases the effects were irreversible. :frowning:

15

Agreed. Spend a few minutes digging on just this Board, let alone the Internet, and you will find a host of men who are afraid of their partners getting pregnant, for a whole host of reasons. They don’t want to pay child support. They don’t want to be a father. They don’t trust the mother to take precautions. They’re aware that condoms aren’t perfect. Etc. Why wouldn’t the drug company continue testing to allow men who prefer to take more control over their reproductive future another choice?

Well, having a child impacts both partners financially and emotionally for a lifetime, unless you think that pregnancy is the only part of having a baby that matters. There are a LOT of reasons why someone might choose NOT to get pregnant (or to have their partner not get pregnant). Using the same standards for side effects for both sexes for what might be reasonable to prevent pregnancy in terms of side effects, given the long term consequences of having a child, seems entirely reasonable to me.

16

Because birth control is equally medically necessary to both sexes-- which is to say not at all (outside of off label use for other conditions).

You make it sound like medically, birth control is the lesser of two evils. But with your logic, the only actually medically acceptable option is abstinence. That’s the only way that leads to no side-effects for anyone, right? If this is just a medical decision where the goal is to avoid side effects, I’d expect the doctors to just throw up their hands and say “nobody needs any of this stuff”.

But that’s not how medical decisions are made. I have to assume the side effects these men were experiencing were overwhelming, because a reliable male birth control pill would be an enormous boon.

17

However, there’s an intriguing reversible non-hormonal methodcurrently in the very early stages of testing in the U.S. Could be really awesome if a) the early results from testing in India hold; and b) a decent chunk of men are willing to deal with an injection into the scrotum.

18

Cite? I’ve been on it for 12 years and never experienced any of those symptoms except (arguably) weight gain. Half of my friends use it, it’s a very popular method.

As for the OP, there is zero reason to end the trial for male bc injections. If a particular man doesn’t want to take it due to the side effects, that’s his choice, but that shouldn’t prevent other men from having the choice to try it. The whole thing smacks of misogyny and men-are-delicate-little-snowflakes.

19

I don’t think you’re getting what I and a couple of others have tried to explain to you. Birth control is not taken because being pregnant MIGHT cause some medical side effects. It’s taken because being pregnant has the side effect of something called a baby. Babies are expensive and inconvenient and a lot of people don’t want them. That’s it. Barring women with SEVERE pre-existing medical problems that make pregnancy dangerous or even deadly (which is extremely rare), you will never find a woman who says she takes the pill to avoid the possibility of pre-eclampsia or neonatal diabetes. She doesn’t want a kid. Plain and simple. It’s not that complicated.

As for the depression being a side effect, yes I know it can be serious. But even the study says that the suicide that occurred during the study was not related to the drugs. Hell, many women birth control options have much more serious side effects like stroke or blood clots and they’re still considered ‘acceptable’ risks. So, no sympathy for me who might have to endure acne.

20

People I know who are against abortion for non-religious reasons (they’ve considered the question, and decided humanity begins at conception) are NOT against birth control, and in fact are hugely for it-- moreso than most, because it’s their last shot at preventing pregnancy. They would probably be all for this, damn the side effects, especially if 90% of subjects don’t experience them.