Recent alarming statements from the Trump Administration have indicated that soon, birth control may be facing increased regulations or even bans under the false notion that certain types of contraceptives—namely the Pill, IUDs, and hormonal implants—are ‘abortifacients’. This comes after they destroyed nearly $10 million of contraceptives intended to be distributed by U.S.A.I.D. to low-income countries, which, in their statement to the New York Times, the administration justified by saying, “President Trump is committed to protecting the lives of unborn children all around the world. The administration will no longer supply abortifacient birth control under the guise of foreign aid.”
An ‘abortifacient’ is defined as a substance or device used to induce an abortion. Birth control, even in forms such as the morning-after pill, which is frequently and inaccurately conflated with medication abortions, does not do this. Instead, they function by preventing a pregnancy from ever occurring in the first place—the only variance between varieties is the method by which they accomplish it, knowledge that (theoretically) is possessed by anyone who has passed a basic high school health class. Defining birth control as abortifacients suggests that the administration is operating under the notion that even simply impeding ovulation—which is how many forms of hormonal birth control operate—is an abortion, and therefore, is not a federally protected right.
This is incredibly alarming. Birth control in the modern day is an uncontroversial medical right, and most recent political disputes over it have only extended to the degree to which the federal government should fund it. Hostility towards it is utterly unwelcome by the millions of people who use it for any number of reasons, ranging from its intended purpose of avoiding unwanted pregnancies to reducing the intensity of periods. The Sword & Shield will be keeping a weather eye out for any moves made by the administration to ban, destroy, or otherwise restrict access to contraceptives within the United States.
