Questioning and quitting the pill are current hot topics, fueled in no small part by Holly Grigg-Spall’s recently released Sweetening the Pill Or How We Got Hooked on Hormonal Birth Control. Her book has drawn ample backlash, brilliantly addressed by re:Cycling blogger Elizabeth Kissling.

Adding to the media clamour was Ann Friedman’s New York Magazine online piece No Pill? No Prob. Meet the Pullout Generation which explores how and why women she knows are ditching hormones and depending on withdrawal and period tracking apps for birth control.

Black Iris by Georgia O’Keeffe, photographed by Laura Wershler
at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Both writers, along with Toronto freelancer Kate Carraway, recently discussed the topic Rebelling against the pill: ‘Pulling-Out’ of conventional birth control on CBC Radio-Canada’s The Current.

Listening to Grigg-Spall, Friedman, and Carraway discuss the pill rebellion affirms that while many young women are through with hormonal birth control, their transition off the pill, etc., is not without risk-taking and pushback.

Grigg-Spall nailed the pivotal point when she said “It’s a provider issue.”

The rise of the “pullout generation” is proof that sexual health-care providers and educators, among whom I count myself, have failed on two counts:

1) We’ve failed to address a key aspect of contraceptive use: how to transition successfully between method groups, in this case from hormonal to non-hormonal methods. We’d rather present the so-called “latest and greatest” hormonal methods and say – earnestly, pleadingly – try this! The CBC panelists provided strong anecdotal evidence that more and more women are having none of it.

2) We’ve failed to adequately acknowledge and serve women who can’t, won’t or don’t want to use hormonal methods. We are NOT providing across-the-board support and programs that include easy access to diaphragms or certified training in fertility awareness based methods (FABM), either onsite or through collaborative referral strategies.

For over 25 years I’ve advocated for increased access to information, support and services for women who want to use non-hormonal methods of birth control. It’s self-evident such services must include access to qualified instruction to learn FABM that have effectiveness rates over 99%. This is not to say there isn’t a place for withdrawal as an effective back-up. Check out this confessional how-to post by fertility awareness instructor Amy Sedgewick.

As Friedman said on The Current, women are intimidated by the idea of learning fertility awareness. I believe this is mostly because mainstream sexual health-care providers have never fully educated themselves about FABM or fully committed to presenting these methods as viable options to drugs and devises. Do they think that most women can’t or don’t want to learn fertility awareness skills? That would be like thinking most girls can’t or don’t want to learn to read.

As I’ve written elsewhere: “Fertility awareness, like riding a bicycle, is a life skill.”

If you can learn to swim, ski or snowboard, knit a sweater, read a balance sheet or master Adobe InDesign, you can learn to observe, chart and interpret your menstrual cycle events. We can all acquire body literacy.

Until sexual health educators and care providers develop programs to fully serve women who won’t use or want to stop using drugs and devises for birth control, we will continue failing to meet the growing “unmet need” for effective non-hormonal contraceptive methods.

The reign of hormonal birth control as the top-of-the-contraceptive-hierarchy gold standard appears to be coming to an end. The pullout generation represents just one thread in this transition. The questions is: Are sexual health educators and care providers paying attention and, if so, what are they going to do about it?

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