Male Birth Control Pill Debate

The Male Birth Control Pill: An Overview of the Debate
Pregnancy has traditionally been socially constructed as a female concern, even though two people are needed to get pregnant—a man and a woman. The male birth control pill has only been piloted relatively recently in the history of medicine. The challenge of manufacturing a male birth control level is keeping testosterone levels low enough to ensure there is no risk of pregnancy without creating averse health risks, including low libido. But there are also cultural obstacles, including the lingering perception that birth control is still primarily a female responsibility.
The most recent trial of a male birth control pill involved 40 healthy men (ages 18 to 50) and a control group of 10 including 10 who received a placebo (Nedelman & Gumbrecht, 2019). Side effects included “fatigue, headache, acne, decreased libido and mild erectile dysfunction,” which some people have humorously observed is not entirely dissimilar from the side effects women experience from hormonal birth control (Nedelman & Gumbrecht, 2019, par.3). Even the most optimistic projections for the development of the drug are relatively modest, in terms of the timing of its release into the marketplace. Although testosterone levels fell during the month’s trial of the drug, sperm production can take several months. Also, the drug must be shown to be safe and effective for long-term use.
In a 2016 study reported upon by the NHS (National Health Service) of the UK, a male contraceptive injection was piloted in a much larger study involving 320 male subjects. This particular 8-week study found the injection to by 96% effective, but had notable side effects, including acne and mood changes, and 5% of the subjects did not regain their previous sperm count levels, further causing concerns about long-term irreversible effects, which was the case with some previously piloted forms of female birth control (Lio & Dollin, 2012). Vasectomy is a safe and viable option for males who wish a form of permanent birth control and is much less invasive than female sterilization, so the purpose of male birth control via pill or injection is the generation of a new, safe, and temporary method.
When the birth control pill itself was first released, its safety was far more questionable and standards for a drug’s release to the public were lower than they are today. As noted by Lio & Dollin (2012), the earliest form of the birth control had much higher doses of hormones than the pills in circulation today. Physical risks to women were therefore much higher, although the pill was heralded as a vehicle of liberation for women; still, many of its earliest users lacked full knowledge to make empowered and informed choices about their fertility (Lio & Dollin, 2012). Even today, hormonal birth control methods are not without their side effects, and women, especially women who are in monogamous relationships and who are considering abandoning the use of condoms (which should always be used because of the risk of STDs in non-monogamous relationships), must weigh the health pros and cons of using hormonal birth control for themselves. Women at high physical risk of complications, or those who experience negative psychological symptoms as a result of the use of hormonal birth control, may still eschew the use of the pills, contraceptive shots, or IUDs.
Of course, this is one reason why the option of being able to select the individual in a relationship for whom birth control might be most medically appropriate would be so valuable. Today, only women have this option, not men. Male birth control options are less diverse, but this raises the question as to why less research has historically been performed exploring such options. But concerns about men’s willingness to use such products, combined with fears they may be less diligent in taking the product in pill form, or updating a needed injection (due to the fact that they will not experience the physical risk of unplanned pregnancy), means that the future of the male pill still remains in doubt.References
Liao, P. V., & Dollin, J. (2012). Half a century of the oral contraceptive pill: historical review and view to the future. Canadian Family Physician, 58(12), e757–e760. Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3520685/
Male contraceptive jab ‘effective,’ but side effects are common. (2016). NHS. Retrieved from: https://www.nhs.uk/news/medication/male-contraceptive-jab-effective-but-side-effects- are-common/
Nedelman. M. & Gumbrecht. (2019). A new ‘male birth control’ pill might be safe, but there’s still a long way to go, researchers say. CNN. Retrieved from: https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/25/health/male-birth-control-conference-study/index.html