Young women have grown increasingly skeptical of the birth-control pill in recent years as stories of negative side effects proliferate on social media and the medical taboo on discussing the downsides of hormonal contraception begins to break down in the face of new research.
But according to a Washington Post article published last week, it’s not that the internet has empowered women to educate themselves and take control of their health care; instead, young women have fallen victim to “misinformation” peddled by nefarious right-wing influencers.
“Women are getting off birth control amid misinformation explosion,” the Post claimed. Such “misinformation” includes videos made by women who claim that they’ve suffered from symptoms of hormonal birth control — depression, anxiety, weight gain, blood clots, and infertility — leading them to turn to natural family-planning alternatives. As evidence of the scale of the problem, the Post points out that TikTok removed “at least five videos” that linked birth control to “mental health issues and other health problems” in response to questions from the Post about how the company combats “misinformation.”
A Post spokesperson declined to comment.
It is now well established that hormonal contraception can increase the risk of breast and cervical cancers, according to the National Cancer Institute. It can also, when women consistently take the pill, decrease the risk of endometrial, ovarian, and colorectal cancers. Birth control has a myriad of other side effects: nausea, migraines, weight gain, hormonal mood shifts, and decreased libido.
Psychologist and professor Sarah Hill helped elevate the conversation around birth-control side effects with her 2019 book This Is Your Brain on Birth Control, which brought to light studies showing that the pill can affect “sex, attraction, stress, hunger, eating patterns, emotion regulation, friendships, aggression, mood, learning,” and more.
In an effort to convince readers that young women are not turning away from the pill for legitimate reasons, the article ignores that emerging science and downplays the personal stories of those who have been harmed, according to health professionals and journalists involved in the effort to educate women about the pill, one of whom was quoted in the Post article.
Jolene Brighten, a certified naturopathic endocrinologist, argues that the health-care system has long been negligent in educating women about birth-control risks. Those women are now beginning to turn away from the pill as new information comes to light.
“It’s not that women are rejecting the pill, they are rejecting a medical system that has decided women don’t deserve quality care because they can just be put on the pill,” she said on Instagram. “They are demanding better from healthcare providers and asking for more research because women have been not just left behind, but left to die by doctors who dismiss, downplay, and gaslight them about their symptoms.”
“Who does it serve to write an article that is ignoring millions of women’s experiences, calling for social media to silence those that share their story, and to use the tactic of ‘othering’ to try to put women in their place?” Brighten asked in her post.
According to the Post, influencers of “all political stripes seeking fame and fortune on the internet” peddle falsehoods about birth control.
Evie magazine editor Brittany Martinez, who was quoted in the Post article as a purveyor of birth-control misinformation, points out that the Post’s framing also ignores that it was “California crunchy types who shop at Erewhon and refuse to eat GMOs” — and not conservative commentators — who began the conversation around the risks associated with birth control.
“Truthfully, I hadn’t even seen ‘conservative commentators’ join the discussion until very recently,” Martinez told NR. “When Evie magazine published a viral article back in 2019 on the pill, we were the first mainstream women’s magazine to openly criticize it. Evie has since published countless personal essays, interviews with expert doctors, and various studies on the physical and emotional impact of hormonal birth control. It’s simply a matter of ‘do you believe women deserve to be fully informed about the benefits and the risks?’ I certainly do.”
“I’d argue the majority of women who have shared criticisms of the pill are predominantly liberal or not political,” she added.
While many of the women the Post chose to name in its story have political followings — for example, the Post’s report prompted TikTok to remove a video in which the Daily Wire’s Brett Cooper says that “birth control can impact fertility, cause women to gain weight, and even alter whom they are attracted to” — some have gained followings by speaking honestly about their own experiences with birth control.
The Post interviewed Sabrina Grimaldi, a 24-year-old who developed blood clots in her arm and both of her lungs as a result of taking birth-control pills. After mentioning that her doctor did not discuss side effects of the birth-control pill with her, the Post emphasized that Grimaldi’s story was extremely rare. The algorithm behind stories and videos like the one Grimaldi shared, according to the Post, “leads viewers to believe that more people suffer complications than in reality.”
Although, as the Post mentions, the risk of getting blood clots from hormonal birth control “remains lower than the risk of developing blood clots in pregnancy and in the postpartum period,” women who take oral contraceptives are three to five times more likely to develop a blood clot than women who are not on the pill, according to a Leiden University study cited by the FDA. Women are also twice as likely to suffer from a stroke if they are on birth control.
“[The Post] silencing women from telling their stories, is only making women wonder if the birth-control pill is even worse than we originally thought,” Martinez said, adding that the Post “completely brushed aside” Grimaldi’s experience.
“As you can see by the comment section, women are livid about the Washington Post piece. The question they should be asking is ‘Why are women going to social media instead of their doctors for these answers?’ It’s because doctors have dismissed their experiences for years.”
“It’s a health issue, not a political issue, despite what the fear-mongering reporters at WaPo want you to believe,” Martinez said.