Just want to drop this here.
Birth control is great.
Some methods of birth control are bad for you specifically. Not all birth control is equal. You are a complex piece of equipment. Birth control alters the way that equipment works. There are side effects, no matter what, and they are listed because the were well documented in clinical trials.
That does not mean you should not use birth control. It means you should work with your doctor to find the one that works best for you.
My wife tried a birth control medication that had an interaction with another medication and made her very drousy. My sister took one that made her feel suicidal. They shopped around and found something that worked.
Just do condoms?
I practice natural family planning
It’s called being ugly
The states that imposed these Draconian laws have terrible maternal mortality rates now and they’re trying to hide the data so they don’t have to acknowledge the harm they did. Same way it was during COVID where some state governments like Florida were attacking independent investigators for having accurate numbers when the state changed theirs to try and look better.
Gotta grow new soldiers for the next war
It’s being pushed by the TERF/radfems on tumblr (covert alt right movement) as well. Birth control messes up your goddess energy or something.
I highly encourage anyone that doesn’t want to ever have kids, to go get tied or snipped so that you won’t ever have to worry about it.
I won’t do this until we have a surgery that allows you to turn your sperm production on and off at any time with the push of a button.
I don’t want kids but I may want them someday, and I rather not have to go through surgery twice and spend a bunch of money just because I changed my mind.
How would you feel about adopting?
I got snipped and then got married to someone who already had a kid, so I ended up being a (step-)parent anyway. But I told my doctor that if I ever changed my mind, I would adopt.
And if you’re in a conservative hell state in the United States where doctors refuse to do a tubal ligation unless you have one child, are over 30, or “get your (nonexistent) husband to sign off on it”, find a doctor in Washington, California, Massachusetts, or really any non Republican dumpster fire, and they’ll likely treat you like an adult. Likely. Not bitter about that at all.
One of my best friends had endo. She tried to get it fixed (she is not straight and never wanted kids) and she was told “no, there’s other options, we’re not doing a hysterectomy” multiple times.
I believe it was her third suicide attempt after being admitted multiple other times for self harm that they finally took her shit out.
She’s been fine since then. No suicide-inducing pain, no debilitation, no problem. You’re right—it’s fucking insane that it has to come to that.
There’s an open source period tracker called drip that doesn’t collect your data. Everything is kept local. My wife used it for a while and learned some things about her cycle. It was also cool being able to know almost exactly when she’d be on her period 2 months ahead of time.
Seems more like this post was done to peddle big pharmas and the patriarchies idea of how women should be available for sex by being constantly drugged on hormons.
Condoms are a thing and protect against many STDs too.
patriarchies idea of how women should…
How about women have the right to choose how they want to plan their families how they see fit
For which they should know about the risks of hormonal contraception rather than it being swept under the rug.
drugged on hormones lmao? birth control doesn’t have psychoactive effects, chill.
on condoms: stealthing is a thing, condoms break, and no single birth control method is 100%. not everyone can afford the risk of pregnancy by relying on a single layer of defense
Hormones most definetely effect the psyche. There is a lot of women who have strong psychological side effects from hormonal birth control.
Denying and downplaying these, like this post seems to advocate for, is not in the interest of anyone except the companies selling the drugs and men who think they are entitled to rawdog without consequences.
I knew a woman who stopped taking birth control because of occasional headaches, and she and her husband both ended up with one that didn’t move out until 23 years later.
This actually happened to me. The doctor said the birth control was raising my blood pressure. I said “I don’t think so” but turns out she was right. So I quit them and immediately got pregnant.
But when you say “occasional headaches”? The other thing I found out when I quit them is that they were amplifying my migraines quite a lot. Occasional headaches does not adequately describe that pain, vomiting from the pain.
Back to good old withdrawal method and coat hangers in the US for birth control
The whole point of everything they’re doing is to create an uneducated population of easily manipulated fodder. Of course people are forgetting. This effort has been running for 20-30 years (or longer) at this point, and it’s working.
Yup, and it’s working so well they’ve shifted into next gear and are stepping up the plans.
Sure, the general “birth control is bad for you” message is not optimal. But the root of this misinformation are insights about the side effects coming up more or less recently. iirc one third to half of all women on hormonal birth control experience major side effects like headaches, nausea or mood changes. I can see how these significant findings combined with patriarchy awareness and associated anger led to exaggerated messages.
Nonetheless, I think people thinking more critically about birth control is a good thing as one should always consider both benefits and risks.
Edit: Or did I misread this post? If so, I’m very sorry…
Do you know what has all of those adverse effects in much greater frequency while also having a profound effect on your life? Pregnancy
Yes, the medical field has done a fucking terrible job of communicating the adverse effects of anything to do exclusively with AFAB bodies - look up what an IUD insertion is like without anesthesia - but again, if we compare hormonal birth control to pregnancy in terms of adverse physiological and mental effects, it’s not even on the same planet.
Yeah, it might not be great for a sizable percentage of folks, and a minute percentage of folks have more immediately dangerous adverse effects that make taking hormonal birth control impossible, but in almost every case pregnancy is worse.
There’s an obvious reason to get pregnant, for sure, but it comes with much, much greater risks than preventing it, especially if you don’t want the intended outcome of pregnancy.
There are some serious health implications too like reduced bone density, heart issues, and cancer risks. Women should have the choice to take them if they want to obviously, but there can be very real side effects.
Handing out endocrine disrupting medication to teenagers is a pretty crazy idea if you stop to think about it. Not to throw the baby out with the bath water, but we do have a lot to learn about how the human body works.
Everyone should be using condoms, though. It’s a good backup for monogamous couples and it’s the bare minimum that people who change partners more frequently should do. Have you seen the Gonorrhoea stats lately? And the antibiotic resistance? Bag it!
Handing out endocrine disrupting medication to teenagers is a pretty crazy idea
JK Rowling would be proud.
the ole’ “we don’t have enough data to let children have autonomy over their bodies”
That’s one way to read it. That’s not what I meant. Not everything is about that troll.
I think there is a lot you can about side-effects on anti-conception (from condoms are a hassle to pills mess with hormones), but lately young people are more in favour of ‘natural sex’ such as you pulling out early when the woman is ovulating which is (obviously) far less effictive. But the thing is,
one should always consider both benefits and risks.
young people aren’t good at considering the the results of those results because a) their brain is still developing and b) experience comes from trying. They need to be protected against themselves, just like we do with alcohol, drugs, driving etc.
I think headaches and nausea are preferable over unwanted children for most people
I get where you’re coming from, but there’s a bit of a (hopefully unintended) subtext in your comment that women must be the ones to bear the inconvenience in order to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
Used correctly, condoms are about 1% off from hormonal birth control in effectiveness. But I guess headaches, nausea, and other side effects for women aren’t all that bad compared to some reduced sensation for the penis. After all, women are already used to it from their cycles, right? /s
Discomfort or inconvenience of condoms would also be preferable to an unwanted child for most people. Be safe, use both
Yeah the pill is a great tool but can definitely have its side effects. I know my wife on it had a terribly low libido to the point we joked that’s how it kept you from getting pregnant
Look into open-source apps. You’re on freakin’ Lemmy.
Cycle tracking in Apple’s Health app is also private.
It is, for now, but what if the fascists eventually order Apple to give up the info?
No source code, no trust with information about my period.
Bootstrappable and reproducible builds; mother fucker!!!
I honestly think we need to assume that all (US-based) tech giants are compromised, and the gov has full access to every single bit of data they have on you.
Even if this isn’t the case (yet), this is the most prudent way forward.
well, thats tumblr
I think we just need to type louder.
What?
THEY SAID:
I THINK WE NEED TO TYPE LOUDER
Thanks, I couldnt read it the first time 😂
