On the Male Birth Control Pill

Here's an article from WebMD to start you off. The bottom line is this: some researchers recently developed a pill that reversibly stops sperm development without hormonal therapy, and it's showing promising results in mice. This and other articles outlining this study list the side effects of hormonal therapies, and applaud this new technology for its ability to avoid them.

I heard about this study from a number of friends, one after the other, and they all had exactly the same reaction: "Hey, aren't those the very same side-effects that women have to suffer through with traditional hormonal birth control? Why is it okay for women to deal with that, but not men?" And to this I say simply: Hold up a minute.

In order to explain, I want to take some time to outline one of the most basic principles in biomedical ethics. When a drug or therapy is being tested for mass-market distribution, one of the first things considered is: do the benefits outweigh the side-effects? If the answer is no, it's a dud.

What is birth control for? It prevents pregnancy. From a purely social angle, this is a tool that benefits everyone (a concept I've outlined at great length on this blog), but these are biomedical ethics we're dealing with, not social ethics. Medically, pregnancy puts a massive burden on women. Its impact is felt for years, or in actuality, the rest of the woman's life. Pregnancy significantly alters a woman's health, but for men? The implications are entirely social and emotional. I'm not trying to imply that they are somehow less significant, only that they do not enter the equation when considering male birth control.

Because pregnancy is such a huge event for women, just about any form of birth control is considered acceptable. Once hormonal birth control was developed, it hit the market almost immediately. Why? Because nearly any side effects are acceptable when weighed against the alternative (an unplanned pregnancy).

But for men, this is a tricky question. We're talking about an entirely medical solution to an entirely social problem. The social impact of pregnancy for men is an invisible factor in the biomedical ethics equation. It simply can't be taken into account. There is no physical damage incurred upon men by pregnancy, and as such, almost any side effect whatsoever is considered unacceptable in this situation. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this makes the scenario entirely unique. Can you name any other medical advancements that have been developed solely to solve a social problem? Any medical treatment for which the tolerance level for side effects is zero? I can't think of even one. In that respect, this technology has no precedent.

So, before you go blowing the whistle, take a step back. I know this feels like chauvinism, but upon closer inspection, I think you'll find it's an entirely appropriate solution to a subtly complex problem.

So, what about the feminist issues I mentioned in my last post? This is exactly it: while family planning measures benefit everyone, a lack of access to said resources only hurts women. If you don't provide comprehensive sex education, birth control in its various forms and access to safe abortions, who suffers? The answer, without caveat, is women. Women have to bear the burden of unplanned pregnancy entirely. There are repercussions on every level of a woman's life when she has a baby she didn't plan on having. Her health, her social status, her financial stability, her emotional wellbeing are all shaken to the core. Men deal with a fraction of this laundry list of problems - if that - when these situations arise.

So, I try to be polite and academic when I remind you that family planning is for families, not just women, but the bottom line is, while it helps provide the resources we need to build a healthier, more stable society, it's also a massive safety net for women. Why are women staying in school longer? Why are women getting a wider variety of jobs? Why are women earning more money? Why are women having fewer health problems later in life? Why are women having fewer children and having their pregnancies appropriately spaced? Because birth control is widely available. Women can grow and flourish in every area of their lives with the comfort of knowing that they won't be derailed and devastated by an unplanned pregnancy. This issue, while important for everyone, cuts deepest for women. It's just an unavoidable truth; we can't change our biology, we can't change how we reproduce, but we can change the way we interact with that reality - by exerting control over our reproductive functions with modern medical technologies.

I'm sorry, sometimes I just need to geek out about that. The fact that we can even do that is amazing. It blows my mind sometimes that anyone would ever fight it. It's a beautiful time we live in. Relish it. You can live your life as you see fit. Across human history, that is a rarity in the truest sense.

But I digress. This advancement (aside from being really cool) is an interesting new piece in the game of sex politics. What will it mean? Will things be more balanced? Will responsibility for family planning finally be shared in equal parts? Will birth control for men be empowering for women? Will it even be popular? Or will it flutter around in relative obscurity, like the female condom? Will it be the first nail in the coffin of the "war on women?" Before we can answer any of these questions, it has to get past testing in mice. But it is a fascinating technology with a wide variety of possible social outcomes.

No matter which way it goes, I'm of the opinion that yet another resource in the family planning arsenal is never a bad thing.