Are male contraceptives the future of family planning?
Male Contraceptive Initiative focuses on developing new methods of controlling family size
As the Supreme Court seems set to overturn Roe v. Wade, many within reproductive rights circles wonder what the future holds for family planning.
One aspect that remains in development deals with male contraceptives. Several groups are attempting to create treatments that would curtail the fertility men have during sex. The Male Contraceptive Initiative, an organization that focuses on this matter, raises funds for research. Heather Vahdat is its executive director.
“We saw this as a space where we could make a difference,” Vahdat said. “And so in our space, really, it's devices that are leading the charge, because their regulatory pathways are generally faster.”
The leading method is hormonal control. Currently, there is a clinical trial on testosterone gel. MCI focuses on non-hormonal therapy though because they felt the other avenue had sufficient resources for experimentation. Among the treatments, MCI is involved with is an injectable gel that goes into the Vas Deferens or sperm duct. It prevents sperm from coming out during ejaculation.
“They liken it to the male version of an IUD, or like a reversible vasectomy,” Vahdat said. “So that's the closest to the market probably. It would be closer five to 10-year window. And they've started their first in human studies.”
Traditionally, family planning has focused on controlling a woman’s ability to reproduce. That led to Enovid, which was developed by Gregory Pincus in the 1950s. It came to be known simply as the pill. Much of the controversy surrounding its development dealt with the lack of proper informed consent during the test trials in Puerto Rico along with the negative health effects seen by women in the 1960s as doctors adjusted the proper hormonal dosage used in Enovid. I detailed that evolution in an earlier newsletter here.
Vahdat said that people should know that history when realizing the difficulty of getting male birth control methods tested with modern regulatory hurdles.
“II wonder if female contraceptive methods would have made it through today's more stringent standards, given the side effects that people experience,” Vahdat said. “But I think that they are out there, and they are giving women an opportunity to complete their education and have the autonomy to decide when and if to have children.”
Could Planned Parenthood eventually offer widespread urological services to men under the guise of family planning? Possibly. That would increase the number of people who use its services, which would increase its revenue as well as political clout.
Another thing that its leaders may want to look at is the need for easily sharable STI test results. On its mobile app, Planned Parenthood doesn’t seem to have a part in which results are documented should they get tested at a facility. One can envision a dating scene in which men and women meet online, go to a Planned Parenthood affiliate to get tested and then share their results with a prospective partner through the app, which could also be connected to services like Tinder and Bumble. Demand for Planned Parenthood services would skyrocket with that. And it would possibly permit them to expand to counties they don’t currently operate in.
Vahdat sees Planned Parenthood as a potential partner, and currently one of its grantees is a PP affiliate in the Midwest.
Contraception has historically been linked to women and the feminist movement. But a larger reproductive rights movement in the future may want to focus equally on male autonomy and the ability to control their reproductive destinies as much as women.
“That association with women's empowerment sort of kept I think the male contraceptive conversation at bay,” Vahdat said. “And what we're realizing now is women are starting to say, ‘Why aren't men involved more?’”