26-9-2022 is commemorated as World Contraception Day (WCD) to create awareness among the youth about all contraceptive methods world wide. This is to encourage people regardless of age, sex to make informed choices about their sexual and reproductive health. Contraception prevents unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). According to data, the number of unplanned pregnancies remain high every year. The 2030 agenda by SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT aims to ensure universal access to sexual and healthcare services.
According to global research, a lot of women are unable to access contraception. In India, contraception is still a women’s business. Men still attempt to shirk the use of contraceptives. Women being the foetus bearers are expected to do family planning. Even though sterilisation in men is easier to perform. Women are deemed less likely to revolt and hence bear the entire burden. People need to know about the equality in reproduction choices too. Public health workers should focus on male contraception too. Population control campaigns in Indian History have led to many botched surgeries and deaths and date back to 1975.
In 1975, Sanjay Gandhi, son of Smt. Indira Gandhi, led an EMERGENCY mass sterilisation campaign. Men, who were poor and underprivileged were forcefully sterilised in MASS VASECTOMY CAMPAIGNS. Although poor men and women were offered plots in exchange for getting sterilised with the threat of coercive force. Poor men were seduced by food, money, and land in exchange of their rights. Any encounter with government officials would land men on the operating tables. About 6.2 million Indian men were sterilised in a year, 15 times more than the Nazis.
India’s government was the first in the world to attempt to control citizen's fertility. This extreme population control received backlash and opposition. Vasectomy is now a thing of the past and the focus shifted back to women. Government should try to bring men back into the reproductive conversation because IT TAKES TWO TO GET PREGNANT! Now that the government has enacted abortion bans in many countries. Women have to carry the pregnancy to term. Men should take responsibility for safe sex before impregnating women.
There has always been a stigma associated with contraception. The Comstock Act of 1873 made it illegal to send “obscene, lewd or lascivious,” publications through the mail. The definition of obscene was not clear. The law made it a misdemeanor for anyone to sell, give away, or possess an obscene book, pamphlet, drawing, picture, or ad. The breadth of legislation included writing, devices, or instruments about contraception and abortion, even if written by a physician.
After Congress passed the bill, Anthony Comstock, an anti-vice activist, was designated as a special agent in the United States Post Office. After enforcing the law, Comstock was able to arrest individuals under the Act. A feminist who asserted in ‘Cupid’s Yokes’ that women should have control over their bodies, was arrested by Comstock. He also arrested a libertarian who got a copy of ‘Cupid’s yokes.’ Comstock also enforced the ‘birth control’ section in the act. Physicians who supplied written materials explaining birth control and pregnancy were arrested. A petition signed by 50,000 people requested revocation of this act.
Today the World is no different, contraception is still stigmatised and is unmet by many. The good news is, science has now shared the weight of women's uterus by changing the future of male contraception. Hallelujah! The male contraceptive pill is making its way to human trials.
(Inputs from various sources)