EC: It Isn't Just For Women Anymore (Exactly)

By Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser

When I was an undergrad interested in women’s health care, my end-of-semester project for biology class was to study sperm. My friend (and lab partner) and I had solid reasoningsa for this: the kind of revolutionaries we wanted to be in the women’s health field were ones who created a viable male contraceptive (besides condoms, which we knew from experience males did not particularly like). This project, by the way, dates me because it was just at the early cusp of the AIDS epidemic back when sexually transmitted diseases basically meant gonorrhea, syphilis and herpes. Anyway, the point was that almost all research was going into new contraceptives for women (the sponge, for example), and some of it felt invasive or scary to us, personally. Certain IUD’s were facing recall. Depo-Provera and other long-acting drug fixes weren’t necessarily safe, but were being pushed and the pill had undergone some serious refining from its early days when the hormonal doses were way too high and had caused many problems. We noticed that female contraceptives had a way of being pushed before they were well tested, but that male contraceptives didn’t seem to reach the widespread testing phase. Obviously, we understood that like with condoms, compliance was an issue that worried those in public health; men, given their inability to get pregnant, perhaps would be less responsible than women about using contraceptives.

These days, condoms are, at least in theory, critical for both males and females.

Interestingly, now that Emergency Contraceptives (EC or Plan B, or the Morning After Pill) are going to become available over the counter in pharmacies (including, after a lawsuit, Wal-Mart), both women and men can buy them. The barrier now isn’t gender but age: you have to be eighteen to purchase EC (see this article in Women's ENews). Having said that, boyfriends, sisters, brothers or mothers can now obtain EC for women under eighteen (as long as they have picture ID). The other barriers may be cost (Medicaid won’t cover over-the-counter drugs), and ensuring that all pharmacists provide it (although now chains will, what about individual pharmacists at independent pharmacies?).

While more types of female contraceptives are widely available, no significant gains have been made in creating or marketing male contraceptives. And the rate for unintended pregnancy rate in the US remains high: forty-nine percent in 2001.