Where's birth control for men?
Women get stabbed with needles, swallow pills daily, get a device shoved into their uterus, get arm implant surgery and to my dismay, the list of ways women try to avoid pregnancy goes on. How many ways do men try to avoid pregnancy? Not many. That’s because birth control has been treated as a women’s issue when it should be everyone’s issue.
Pill, patch, nuvaring, intrauterine device (IUD), depo shot, nexplanon, internal condoms and sterilization are the many forms of birth control used by women. Pulling out, external condoms and vasectomies are the only forms of birth control men have to worry about.
Don’t get me wrong –– vasectomies are a huge deal. But men in the U.S., according to a study by the Brookings Institute, don’t choose this option as much as women choose to sterilize themselves. Men opt out of getting vasectomies even though it is more effective at preventing unplanned pregnancy, six times cheaper and has a much lower risk of major complications than female sterilization.
I’m not saying all men need to get vasectomies. I’m asking why aren’t there more birth control options for men like there are for women. As the saying goes: it takes two to tango. It also takes two to make a baby.
So why are we — as a society —convincing women that it’s their responsibility to get on some form of birth control that’s more effective than a condom? It’s because we haven’t given men more effective options than condoms and less permanent options than vasectomies.
Women already experience side effects from having their periods. On birth control, many women deal with side effects such as migraines, weight gain, depression, increased acne, mood swings and lessened sex drive for months.
According to the Cleveland Clinic online, up to 400 eggs will be ovulated in a woman’s reproductive lifetime while, according to Live Science online, “the average male will produce roughly 525 billion sperm cells over a lifetime.”
Where are the birth controls that will lessen sperm count? I feel like that would be extremely helpful. If both women and men were on birth control, wouldn’t that be the best way to prevent unintentional pregnancies that, by the way, still happen when only women use birth control?
According to Birth Control online, a male birth control shot has been created. However, the study for the male birth control shot was stopped because “men were complaining about the side effects.” These side effects included problems such as mood swings, depression and acne. The exact same side effects female birth control has on women and what “women experience on a regular basis when they have their period.”
Women have been dealing with birth control side effects for years. Men just need to suck it up and take it like we have.
I can’t wait for the day when pills, patches, shots, arm implants and whatever else scientists come up with will be available for men as new forms of birth control, so it’ll no longer only be on the shoulders of women.
