New York Magazine Piece Connects Birth Control Pill, Age-Related Infertility

When FDA approved the first birth control 50 years ago, it gave women "control of their bodies for the first time in history," but it also "allowed [women] to forget about the biological realities of being female until it was, in some cases, too late," Vanessa Grigoriadis writes in New York magazine. According to Grigoriadis, because of the pill, "Suddenly, one anxiety -- Am I pregnant? -- [was] replaced by another: Can I get pregnant?" Grigoriadis argues that the pill "didn't create the field of infertility medicine, but it turned it into an enormous industry," adding, "Inadvertently, indirectly, infertility has become the pill's primary side effect."

Although the pill is considered a symbol of feminist freedom in the U.S., there is "no reason not to talk about the more complex changes long-term use of the pill has wrought, instead of finger-pointing over compromising women's choices," Grigoriadis argues. Hormonal contraceptives are "remarkably safe," but while using them, "it's easy to forget the truths about biology," she continues. At the same time, "whatever 'irregularities' a woman may have experienced in her teenage years before going on the pill will likely be around when she goes off it," according to Grigoriadis.

"To arrive at the stage when one stops taking the pill and starts timing one's ovulations is to enter a new and anxious universe," Grigoriadis states. She notes that 50% of women older than age 35 will not get pregnant over an eight-month period, "and after that the odds keep dropping." Women who want to become pregnant "may enter a kind of medical and bureaucratic purgatory of doctors' waiting rooms and insurance companies and worries that's very far indeed from that freedom [they] enjoyed before," she writes.

"Sexual freedom is a fantastic thing, worth paying a lot for," but it is "not anti-feminist to want to be clearer about what exactly is being paid," Grigoriadis argues. She continues, "Choice is a more accurate word when the chooser -- us -- is aware of all the possible consequences of taking different possible paths." However, "reality has a hard time getting into these areas, let along the Brave New World of infertility medicine," and doctors "have only middling odds of recapturing fertility when a woman has crossed into early middle age," Grigoriadis writes.

"There's an easy answer to this conundrum, even though it's a little weird: freezing eggs in one's 20s," she argues. "That may be the world to which many are heading -- even more medicalized and technologized, where all women freeze their eggs and submit to assisted reproductive technologies, and with it, more complicated choices and questions that bioethicists love to hash over," Grigoriadis states. She adds, "Women have certainly come a long way -- and this, a sense of reality about these most fundamental issues, may be the next stage" (Grigoriadis, New York, 11/28).














'XX Factor' Blog Criticizes 'Formulaic' Article

In a post on Slate's "XX Factor" commenting on Grigoriadis' article, Amanda Marcotte begins by imagining "a world where writers are forbidden for a year from starting from the premise that women are dumber, more irrational, or more emotional than men." Marcotte adds, "Every hand-wringing article about the pill follows the same formula: Tacit acceptance of the profoundly positive change that reliable contraception has made in women's lives, and then straight to the red meat of worrying that it's not natural, and implying that women ... are too full of shopping information to realize that we totally can't have babies on the pill." Marcotte argues that Grigoriadis "doesn't veer from the formula one bit." According to Marcotte, "Most of the article involves hand-wringing over how the pill is an 'illusion,'" with Grigoriadis "drop[ping] terms like 'true biological processes' and 'rediscovering their bodies,' as if going on the pill somehow makes you unwoman."

However, "the notion that nature is somehow better, and that women can't know about it unless they tolerate a higher chance of unintended pregnancy, is the real problem here," Marcotte argues. "To be consistent with this argument, you really need to take it out the realm of guilt-tripping and scaring women about their sexual choices, and move on to actually attacking men for taking drugs they feel they need," she continues. Grigoriadis also "misinform[s] the public on how the pill works" when she says the pill "basically tricks your body into thinking it's pregnant," Marcotte writes. "In reality, the pill mimics your body's hormone level immediately post-ovulation to suppress ovulation," she notes. Marcotte concludes, "Maybe we just need a new rule requiring that you get the history and biology right before you start to wax on about what's 'natural'" (Marcotte, "XX Factor," Slate, 11/29).


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