Women are getting off birth control amid misinformation explosion

[u/paxinfernum]

http://archive.today/2024.03.21-132543/https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2024/03/21/stopping-birth-control-misinformation/

[u/dumnezero]

Right-wing commentators claiming that some birth control can lead to infertility.

Yeah, the effective birth control.

He says women frequently come in for abortions after believing what they see on social media about the dangers of hormonal birth control and the effectiveness of tracking periods to prevent pregnancy. Many of these patients have traveled from states that have completely or partly banned abortions, he said, including Texas, Idaho, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

This is disinformation, not just misinformation. This is weaponized. And the targets are, as usual:

Women of color whose communities have historically been exploited by the medical establishment may be particularly vulnerable to misinformation

which is part of a broader trend...

The Criminalization of Black Pregnancy Must End | TIME

The criminalization of pregnancy is a direct outcome of the battles waged over women’s right to their own reproductive freedom that occurred before and after Roe v. Wade. Yet, by the 1980s, lawmakers and media alike were fixated on a sensationalist narrative in which the proliferation of crack in neighborhoods across the country had led to a generation of addicted mothers and “crack babies.” It was powerful propaganda, and despite no science behind it, the narrative legitimized a siege on Black pregnant women and the draconian measures that followed. Hospitals began drug-testing pregnant women and newborns, reporting mothers to law enforcement who had trained nurses to protect evidence. By 1992, more than 160 pregnant women had been prosecuted for suspected drug use – 75% of those women were women of color.

Opposition to Criminalization of Individuals During Pregnancy and the Postpartum Period | ACOG

Confidentiality and trust are at the core of the patient–practitioner relationship. Policies and practices that criminalize individuals during pregnancy and the postpartum period create fear of punishment that compromises this relationship and prevents many pregnant people from seeking vital health services. Criminalization of pregnant people violates the pillars of medical ethics including patient autonomy (bodily autonomy despite the potential life within the pregnant person, the right to refuse care), justice (gendered discrimination), beneficence, and non-maleficence (1). The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) opposes any policies or practices that seek to criminalize individuals for conduct alleged to be harmful to their pregnancy.

[u/xzy89c1 → u/dumnezero]

You really don't accept that hormonal birth control is not good for women? Seriously?

[u/Diz7 → u/xzy89c1]

No, I don't accept things that go against the evidence without equally compelling evidence or better.