Male Birth Control Pill Debate Essay

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…

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…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…