We are entering a shocking new era in birth control politics, as President Donald Trump launches the most serious effort in decades to curb contraception.
The Department of Health and Human Services recently New guidance issued It outlines a major change in federal family planning programs – prioritizing childbearing over contraception, and privileging “natural family planning” such as period-tracking apps over far more effective methods such as the contraceptive pill. The Trump administration is also set to establish new rules that would eliminate further funding for Planned Parenthood chapters.
Millions of Americans who receive federal support family planning services The impact of such a policy change is likely to be felt. And there is real political risk in this. Birth control remains highly popular in the United States: Only 8 percent of Americans According to a Pew Research Center survey, using contraception is morally wrong. (Most Americans object to drinking, getting divorced, or being extremely rich).
Given the widespread support for birth control, it is not surprising that politicians have long been reluctant to address it. So, what has changed?
The burgeoning political coalition that sent Trump back to the White House in 2024 is demanding action. For various reasons, a coalition of MHA followers, social conservatives, and reproductionists are eager to defund birth control. With Trump’s defeat in the elections and his coalition falling apart, he may want to do something for his core supporters. But whether it succeeds or not, the administration’s move signals a major shift in America’s culture war: Contraception has gone from being politically untouchable to becoming a de facto target on the right.
A little history emphasizes how important this change is.
In 1960, the Food and Drug Administration approved the birth control pill and a broad Unanimity in support of birth control Caught it quickly. Nearly a century after moral crusaders enacted the first laws criminalizing the use, mailing, or sale of birth control, millions of Americans began using the Pill.
At the same time, as sexual mores changed, opposition to contraception became a liability to an emerging anti-abortion movement. These workers claimed to be champions civil rights of the unborn child. If they also targeted birth control, they opened themselves up to the argument that they were actually trying to control women or police sex. The result: For years, even after Congress passed it, outright opposition to birth control was a political third rail. TitleProviding free or low-cost contraception to low-income patients.
Social conservatives launched indirect attacks on contraception in the 1980s and 1990s. Some Republicans called for repeal of Title X because it poured money into the coffers of groups like Planned Parenthood in which abortion was also offered. The Reagan administration argued that parents had the right to limit teenagers’ access to birth control.
However, when conservatives directly attacked the idea of ​​contraception, they paid a price. This was a central lesson of Robert Bork’s failed 1987 Supreme Court nomination. A hero of the Federalist Society, Bork was widely expected to be confirmed and ultimately cast the deciding vote to overturn Roe vs. Wade.But when he testified before Congress at his confirmation hearing, Bork condemned Supreme Court decisions recognizing the right to birth control. The response, led by a Delaware senator named Joe Biden, Nomination canceled.
In the intervening years, conservatives remained reluctant to campaign against birth control, even though they won some policy victories, such as effectively blocking it. Research on new contraceptives.
The new attack on contraception is a result of the changing political, cultural and legal landscape in the Trump era and the major factions of the Trump coalition uniting on the issue.
Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to throw out Roe deer This was a major victory for social conservatives, but it angered the public. Since then, election And the election results have made it costly for the Conservatives To further restrict abortion access. At least so far, the Trump administration has been slow to make changes to mifepristone, the abortion pill used by anti-abortion groups. are aimingand ignored calls from social conservatives to use Comstock Act19th century obscenity law to ban the mailing of abortion drugs.
The Trump administration’s reluctance to take further steps on abortion has frustrated social conservatives, who have threatened to reduce campaign spending in the midterms or tell their voters to stay home. Attacking contraception as an alternative way to appease the socially conservative base could strike Republicans. After all, anti-abortion groups have long championed emergency contraceptives and some birth control methods like the pill. As abortionistsAn argument that helped win the Supreme Court Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby","Add":{"Target": :"New","Property":(),"url": :"https://www.oyez.org/cases/2013/13-354","_Identification": :"0000019d-c55a-d18b-a79d-cf7fff38000d","_Type": :"33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df"},"_Identification": :"0000019d-c55a-d18b-a79d-cf7fff38000e","_Type": :"02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266"}”>Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby (2014), A challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate.
In recent years, abortion opponents have also reworded their arguments to reach a broader audience. They emphasize that Americans cannot trust pharmaceutical companies to tell them the truth about how birth control drugs work. The attacks on Big Pharma have upset some Americans at a time when the country is still grappling with the opioid epidemic and revelations of irresponsible marketing of the drugs. like oxycontin.
worry about Birth control is also spreading rapidly To the growing group of wellness influencers on Instagram and other online platforms. People who are already invested in healthy living – or trade daily doubts about drug companies and vaccine safety – find chemical contraceptives problematic. The COVID-19 pandemic helped clarify these concerns and expand the reach of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again plan. Agitation.
The anti-contraception message appeals to MHA voters by convincing them that the Pill or IUDs are as unnatural as food additives or pesticides. Ironically, public confirmation about the safety of common contraceptives deepens those doubts, leading some to believe that the dangers of contraception are being concealed by an untrustworthy public health establishment. A study of the most viral TikTok videos on contraception found this 34 percent expressed no confidence of health care professionals.
With new allies, social conservatives have become more willing to argue that birth control threatens marriage and families. The Heritage Foundation, which has taken a hard-right turn under Trump 2.0, has claimed that chemicals in birth control pills have polluted groundwater, potentially leading to increased levels of estrogen and compromising your masculinity.
Heritage and its allies also condemn birth control for promoting the sexual revolution and marriage for allegedly weakening men and women. less happy. Without the Pill, conservatives seem convinced that women would be more likely to prioritize marriage and child-rearing. And if that happened, these lawyers suggest, we would all be better off.
Then there is the growing influence of reproductionists, who want to see more babies born and blame contraception in part for the decline in birth rates. In 2024, US birth rate affected Record low of 1.6children per woman (echoing the decline in fertility rates around the world at large and especially in developed countries where more women are attaining higher education and fewer teenage girls are becoming pregnant).
While most Americans don’t seem concerned about it falling birth rateReproductiveism is increasingly attracting a conservative group, which is claiming that birth control, combined with low birth rates and an aging population, could short-circuit economic growth and threaten national security. For this group, anything that prevents more births, such as contraception, is a barrier to overcome.
Meanwhile, anti-immigration conservatives, another key part of the Trump coalition, are also convinced that the only way to address the country’s declining population is not for more people to move to the United States, but for Americans who already are to have more children.
Anti-abortion activists have provided an ideal alternative to all of these groups: natural family planningIn which people track their menstrual cycles and try to avoid pregnancy by not having sex during the most fertile period of a woman’s cycle.
Natural family planning is not a new idea: In the 1920s, scientists proposed that rhythm method is calledwhich advised women who did not want to become pregnant should abstain from having sex for a period of eight days around the second week of their menstrual cycle. in the 1950sThe Catholic Church, which still strictly prohibits the use of contraceptive drugs and devices, has approved the rhythm method, which it has named Natural Family Planning. In recent years, the number of evangelical Christians has increased Natural family planning also adopted.
Since women can ovulate more than once in a cycle, however, the rhythm method is famously ineffective, largely 25 percent By using it, people become pregnant within a year. New devices to track basal body temperature and cervical mucus changes have made fertility tracking methods somewhat more effective, and fertility awareness apps such as fame And natural cycleSome of them have been funded by religious conservatives, they have capitalized. But these are still not considered as proven as birth control pills; Mayo ClinicFor example, these methods have been described as “the least effective methods of birth control.”
That reality doesn’t matter to the Trump administration, which has put natural family planning at the center of its new guidance. The reasons seem obvious: Targeting traditional birth control methods is a way to appease social conservatives at a time when the Trump administration is unsure how far to go on abortion. And A way to strengthen the broken coalition that helped return Trump to office in 2024.
And because some Americans are not entirely satisfied with their contraceptive options, anti-birth control claims and even misinformation can sometimes find a receptive audience. are common contraceptives side effectsSuch as spotting, headache, acne and nausea. And like all medications, contraceptives have risks; For example, the pill reduces the risk of some cancers. increase danger to others.
Unfortunately, even though Americans would love to have a variety of contraceptive options, research and development on medications has stalled since the 2000s. Worried about political blowback from social conservatives, drug companies have not developed new products that might work better for consumers. Now Trump and his coalition have targeted birth control at a time when many people are not entirely happy with their choices.
Again, this doesn’t mean that the anti-contraception campaign is risk-free for Republicans. Surveys show that more than 90 percent Americans support access to contraception. Even the conservative super-majority in the Supreme Court has shown no interest in revisiting the idea of ​​a right to contraception. And being somewhat unhappy with current contraceptive options is a far cry from supporting new policies that would hinder access to the most effective family planning solutions.
But whether or not the Trump administration can effectively wage a war on contraception, the apparent political consensus of the past 60-plus years is a thing of the past. The battle for one of the oldest cultures of the country is raging once again.
