Photo by Laura Wershler
In September, 2015, I participated in a panel on advocacy journalism at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta. As a journalism student there in 2010-2011, I became known as the women’s health writer, the one with a background in sexual and reproductive health. Although I’ve always thought of myself as a women’s health advocate, and in particular a menstrual cycle advocate, until then I’d never considered that my writing about these topics constituted advocacy journalism.
Asked to share examples of my work, I included the two blog posts I’d written for re:Cycling about the contraceptive shot Depo-Provera, posts that garnered over 1200 comments between them and demonstrated to me that when you give people a forum for sharing their thoughts and experiences about a reality that has not been broadly discussed or written about, you are undertaking an act of advocacy that serves an important purpose.
You can read the posts and the comments here:
Coming off Depo-Provera can be a women’s worst nightmare
Stopping Depo-Provera: Why and What to Do About Adverse Experiences
To acknowledge and amplify the voices of the hundreds of women who shared their adverse experiences in response to my posts about Depo-Provera, I presented an analysis of their comments at the 21st Biennial Conference of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research in Boston, MA, on June 4th, 2015. As I said in my presentation, I believe the provision of Depo-Provera too often fails to honor informed choice or serve women’s health and well-being. I demonstrated this with comment examples organized under four main themes:
- Uninformed choice
- Lack of body literacy
- Feelings of fear, anger, regret, betrayal and solidarity and
- Frustration with health-care providers
I’ve recorded this presentation to make more broadly available what I learned from the women who took the time to share their experiences with Depo-Provera, both while taking it and upon coming off this drug. If you are considering using this LARC (long-acting reversible contraceptive), or have a friend or family member considering it, you may find it of value.
Laura Wershler is a veteran sexual and reproductive health advocate and writer, SMCR member, and editor-in-chief of re: Cycling.
