Can You Please Explain That Birth Control Is Not Abortion!

This week's question wasn't submitted through my website. It was from a very angry phone call I got from a friend of mine.

Apparently, something was released in the press this week that basically called birth control abortion, and my friend was pissed. Since I spend a lot of time talking about this, with her permission I decided to make this this week's question.

I find that when most people use the term birth control, they're usually talking about hormonal methods. I like to actually separate anything that's hormonal out by calling it “contraception” because I think it helps with this kind of confusion about what is and what is not an abortion. So when I use the term contraception here, I'm talking about hormonal methods of preventing pregnancy.

That one phrase - preventing pregnancy - means that it's not abortion.

There are quite a few hormonal methods of contraception that are available for women right now. These include the pill, the hormonal IUD, and the implant. These last two are called LARCs. Long-acting reversible contraceptives.

There are other options, like the shot, the patch, and the ring, but the pill and LARCs are the most popular in the United States.

And hands down, the LARCs are the most effective. I’m talking 99.9% effective at preventing pregnancy.

All hormonal methods basically work the same way. The main way they work is to stop the ovary from releasing an egg. If there’s no egg, then there’s nothing for sperm to fertilize. Which means no pregnancy.

There are other things that hormonal methods due to help prevent pregnancy. If you want to know more, just ask!

Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy. If someone is using a hormonal method to prevent getting pregnant, then its’s not an abortion.

To be honest with you, I've never understood why people who are anti- abortion are not more pro-contraception. If you really don't want fetuses being aborted, you should be doing things to stop that from happening. Like making contraception more easily available. And providing people with comprehensive sex education, so that they understand not just their options for preventing pregnancy, but also so they can understand how these options work.

Which brings me to the second part of the question - why don't people know this basic stuff by now.

I’m always a little surprised when people ask me things like this, because as a whole, our educational system does a poor job when it comes to sex education.

Think about it, did you have sex ed in K-12? If you did, was it any good?

The students in my college courses tell me they had very little sex ed. And what they did have was usually just trying to scare them with things like unintended pregnancy and STIs.

They tell me there was very little information provided on how to actually protect themselves from pregnancy and STIs.

And they learned virtually nothing about the reproductive system.

While it’s true that every once in a while, there will be one person who tells me they had amazing sex ed in school, they are most definitely the exception.

So is it really all that surprising that we have a lot of adults who have no idea how bodies work in terms of reproduction? Or why there are laws and policies that are instituted based on this lack of knowledge?

Someone do me a favor and submit a question asking about why comprehensive sex education is actually an effective way of reducing unwanted pregnancy and abortion. Thanks!

Until next time, be safe, and have fun!

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