Our body, our decision.

As you know, 2016 was deemed a popular time for contraception in the world of media, particularly surrounding a certain case study involving men. For those of you who don’t know, climb out from under your rock and give ‘men’s contraception’ a quick google.

What you’ll find is a case study involving men trying two different contraceptive methods. FYI, it wasn’t successful. ‘The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism’ published the results showing that the drug had too many negative side effects. Shocking, right? Some of these oh-so-dreadful side effects included: mood swings, weight gain, acne, depression and muscle pain.

Sound familiar? Oh, wait, that’s because they ARE familiar. Women experience these side effects daily. Although 75% of the men said they would choose to continue with the contraception, they won’t need to worry. The conclusion for this is down to men not needing to be at risk of the negative side effects as they don’t have the risk of falling pregnant themselves. In other words: It’s our problem.

Ms. Gharib, a student representative, said: “I’m sick and tired of always being the one who’s responsible. 9 times out of 10 a man will hope the woman is on contraception because he doesn’t enjoy wearing johnnies.

“They never stop to consider whether I don’t enjoy taking contraception or that it’s a matter of being sensible, not a matter of preference”.

Negative side effects aren’t the only reason contraception is continuously up for debate. IUDs and the ‘morning-after-pill’ (MAP) are now being considered as early abortions, rather than forms of contraception.

IUDs and MAPs do not allow the fertilized egg to attach to the walls and begin development. This is thought to be immoral and classified as an ‘early abortion’ as the fertilized egg had potential to grow into a new life.

Over the years, it has become clear that there is a wide range of diversity between our lifestyles as women now. Change is occurring and us women need to stop being scrutinized and ridiculed for every choice we make and start getting credit for the things we do and go through to benefit not only ourselves, but others around us. Be it you agree with contraception and abortions or you don’t. It will always be your body and your decision.