Engender blog

Guest Post: Exploring contraception as a feminist issue

As discussions around schemes which offer women support on the condition they utilise long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARC) continue, we've hosted a series of blogs by Elspeth Wilson discussing her research into how LARC has historically been - and continues to be - used to control the fertility of marginalised people. Read Elspeth's previous blogs here.

In her final blog, Elspeth explores adequate and accessible contraceptive care as a feminist issue.

The Pause programme highlights that accessible contraception is only one part of the fight for adequate contraceptive care. Conversations on contraception frequently focus on access and whether and how people can get the kind of contraception they want to use. Obviously, this an important concern but it is only one side of the conversation. I hope that in my discussion of consent and information in the other blogs in this series I have been able to show that the question of who gets offered what contraception and why must also be central to feminist discussions of contraceptive care. If we are to approach contraception as an intersectional feminist issue the question of whose fertility is (de)valued and whose is seen as something to be controlled is imperative.

This is bought into sharp relief by the introduction of the Pause programme to Dundee where vulnerable women need to use a form of long-acting reversible contraception (LARC), such as the implant or the coil, to be eligible for the kind of holistic support the scheme provides which would be unlikely to be available to them otherwise. Making contraception a requirement to receiving help violates consent and shows that too much focus on access to LARC can lead to an unbalanced conversation which lacks nuance.

Posted on July 24 2019 at 14:55

Tags: health womensrights disability guestblog larc
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Guest Post: Contraception information and consent - two sides of the same coin?

As discussions around schemes which offer women support on the condition they utilise long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARC) continue, we'll be hosting a series of blogs by Elspeth Wilson discussing her research into how LARC has historically been - and continues to be - used to control the fertility of marginalised people. Read Elspeth's previous blog here.

In her second blog, Elspeth discusses ideas around informed consent.

"… it’s fine it’s just very medical if you know what I mean. It’s just very much like here are all the possible side-effects but you’re like well, it’s probably quite unlikely I’ll get almost all of these, you want to hear more realistically what people actually have."

[quote from research participant]

"… they did not mention any of the side-effects nor provide any kind of informational material about what the injection does." [quote from research participant]

Inextricable from consent in contraceptive care – and medicine in general – is accurate, accessible information. Given that forms of long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) like the coil/IUD and the implant require medical intervention to stop using them, it is especially imperative that patients are given an accurate picture before insertion as they cannot decide to stop use on their own, like with the pill. This is doubly important because of the difficulties with removal that some participants encounter, which was a depressingly common theme when I conducted qualitative research on LARC.

Posted on July 4 2019 at 12:02

Tags: guestblog abortion disability health womensrights larc
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Guest Post: Why contraception needs a Me Too moment

As discussions around schemes which offer women support on the condition they utilise long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARC) continue, we'll be hosting a series of blogs by Elspeth Wilson discussing her research into how LARC has historically been - and continues to be - used to control the fertility of marginalised people.

In this first blog, Elspeth discusses ideas around contraception and consent.

I am being told for the third time in a row that there is no possibility that the coil I have fitted could be causing any of the repeated vaginal discomfort and infections that I have been experiencing for months. I explain, again, that I previously had a coil before and that this was the only other time in my life where I had consistent infections but that, because it was my first time using a coil, I had been more easily placated when told there was no possible link. Now, faced with the same difficulties (which ironically made the point of the contraception moot in the first place due to the severe irritation) my literal lived experience of my body caused me to suspect that the coil was the cause of my woes.

Posted on June 21 2019 at 11:58

Tags: guestblog womensrights health disability abortion larc
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