Podcasts News Reveal The Long Campaign to Turn Birth Control Into the New Abortion

The Long Campaign to Turn Birth Control Into the New Abortion

Published: Oct. 8, 2022, 4 a.m.

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When the Supreme Court\\u2019s decision undoing Roe v. Wade came down in June, anti-abortion groups were jubilant \\u2013 but far from satisfied. Many in the movement have a new target: hormonal birth control. It seems contradictory; doesn\\u2019t preventing unwanted pregnancies also prevent abortions? But anti-abortion groups don\\u2019t see it that way. They claim that hormonal contraceptives like IUDs and the pill can actually cause abortions.

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One prominent group making this claim is Students for Life of America, whose president has said she wants contraceptives like IUDs and birth control pills to be illegal. The fast-growing group has built a social media campaign spreading the false idea that hormonal birth control is an abortifacient. Reveal\\u2019s Amy Mostafa teams up with UC Berkeley journalism and law students to dig into the world of young anti-abortion influencers and how medical misinformation gains traction on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, with far-reaching consequences.

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Tens of millions of Americans use hormonal contraceptives to prevent pregnancy and regulate their health. And many have well-founded complaints about side effects, from nausea to depression \\u2013 not to mention well-justified anger about how the medical establishment often pooh-poohs those concerns. Anti-abortion and religious activists have jumped into the fray, urging people to reject hormonal birth control as \\u201ctoxic\\u201d and promoting non-hormonal \\u201cfertility awareness\\u201d methods \\u2013 a movement they\\u2019re trying to rebrand as \\u201cgreen sex.\\u201d Mother Jones Senior Editor Kiera Butler explains how secular wellness influencers such as Jolene Brighten, who sells a $300 birth control \\u201chormone reset,\\u201d are having their messages adopted by anti-abortion influencers, many of them with deep ties to Catholic institutions.

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The end of Roe triggered a Missouri law that immediately banned almost all abortions. Many were shocked when a major health care provider in the state announced it would also no longer offer emergency contraception pills \\u2013 Plan B \\u2013 because of a false belief that it could cause an abortion. While the health system soon reversed its policy, it wasn\\u2019t the first time Missouri policymakers have been roiled by the myth that emergency contraception can prevent a fertilized egg from implanting and cause an abortion. Reveal senior reporter and producer Katharine Mieszkowski tracks how lawmakers in the state have been confronting this misinformation campaign and looks to the future of how conservatives are aiming to use birth control as their new wedge issue.

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