Ashley Hamrick’s doctor was trying to get to the bottom of something: Why, exactly, did Ms. Hamrick want to get off birth control? “Are you feeling any side effects?”

No, that wasn’t it. Ms. Hamrick, who was 26 at the time, felt normal. No unusual weight gain, no mood swings. But a couple of questions had wormed their way into her mind and lodged themselves there: Who am I without birth control? Will I feel some sort of difference coming off it?

Ms. Hamrick had started taking birth control pills a decade earlier, when she was 15. Now, as she browsed her social media feeds, she kept stumbling on videos of women saying how much better they felt when they stopped taking the pills, content she wasn’t seeking out. The posts typically went like this: a glowing blonde in a workout top — the picture of health! — saying that she had stopped taking birth control pills and immediately felt more clarity of mind. Like an emotional fog had lifted, like she was a brand-new, much happier person.

Ms. Hamrick’s doctor was clear with her. If she wasn’t experiencing any side effects, there was no reason to stop taking birth control. Ms. Hamrick wasn’t so sure. The more videos about the pill she watched, the more skeptical she became, and the more she felt drawn toward experimenting. She was, after all, in a moment of change. She had moved, on a whim, from Indiana to Texas. Soon after settling near Houston she met a guy and they started dating, then looking at engagement rings.

Just over a year since Ms. Hamrick decided to stop taking the pills, she has figured out who she is without birth control: She is a mother. Her baby is four months old.

Three years since the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson, birth control has also become a more contested terrain, politically but also socially and culturally.