Is it just me, or is it a little bit ironic that there’s a column in today’s post by Father de Souza called “What contraception has wrought” and then just a few pages before, an article about rising infertility in Canada?
It’s somewhat sad that the situation we face is one where girls are told to pop pills for years, only to discover at said magical moment when they want to have children that it is too late.
Contraception has wrought infertility, in no small part. And many other things, of course, but no need to go on about those here. I suppose my point with this post is for women in particular and society in general to draw a connection between those contraception and infertility. Infertility may be a sad burden for many women to bear, but it will only continue and increase if we don’t acknowledge the conditions that create it.
(I’m aware that this is counter-intuitive for many and so I link to the Pill discussion PWPL did some while back.)
by 
Father de Souza is a wise man. I think it is, however, a bit simplistic to link infertility and contraception use in such a black and white way. Fundamentally, the fertility crisis is related to age – women are waiting much longer to have children. Yes, that choice is enabled by the use of contraception. But there are multiple other social factors at play that contribute to the delay. We are in school longer, we want to develop a career, we are travelling and exploring in our twenties and there is a widespread belief that you need those years to ‘find yourself’ before you could ever commit to a partner and start a family. As someone who did in fact choose to wait until I was in my 30’s to try to conceive, I’m quite sure that I am a better parent for it and I don’t regret any of the experiences I had prior to having children. Contraception (of all sorts, not just the pill) has allowed women to make these choices and take these paths. Of course, at that ‘magic time’ when we decide we’re ‘ready’ to have children, many of us struggle to conceive. But the primary reason for that problem is that we are 30ish and our fertility is well into its decline.
There are multiple factors at play, but it is naive to say that because your own fertility wasn’t affected by your contraceptive use, no one else’s is. I’ve heard of numerous cases where this very thing has happened to women. Chemical contraception is the biggest science experiment ever perpetrated on the female population.
All you write is true, Sarah, no disagreement from me there. Of course no person can ever conclusively know whether they would be a better/worse parent at a different time… Perhaps I would be a better wife were I to have married young, but I’ll never get to enact that experiment!
Anyway, many women are quite surprised that when they want to conceive they can’t. And it doesn’t change (for me, anyway) the fact that the Pill is an experiment and not healthy for women’s bodies, on top of all the cultural, societal changes it brings about in the way it is used. Furthermore, it wouldn’t have to be used, at all. There are other reliable ways to prevent pregnancy.
I have met women (my friends) who actually believe that the example of 40-something Hollywood stars can and will happen to them. (babies born after rounds of expensive IVF at a late age.) And that boggles my mind. I have (no joke) heard a 39-year-old friend say she’s waiting until she’s 40 to start trying. She has multiple degrees and is very smart in other ways.
Also, I am big (not surprisingly) on the “some things are not a choice” motto. And the Pill enhances our ability to live in a dreamland where we can indeed choose whatever we want, without repercussion or responsibility. Infertility is the surprise waiting at the end though, for some.
Please show the studies supporting your theory that contraception causes infertility. The vast majority of American women are fertile in their child baring years even with use of contraception. I agree with Sarah that age is much more of an issue than pill use. Fertility declines with age regardless of contraception usage or not.
Michelle, I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear. I’m not saying that physiologically the Pill necessarily causes or increases infertility. (Although quite frankly, I wouldn’t rule that out, given how Big Pharma already conceals negative ramifications of the Pill.)
I’m saying that the Pill is largely the mechanism women choose with which to delay child bearing, and by so doing, many more are infertile at the end of the day than were in the past. So it is age that causes infertility, but the Pill brings women to that point.
To be continued in the next comment since my own website is telling me my comments are “spammy.”
(continued from previous comment) …
What I’m saying is that the Pill is largely responsible for a massive cultural shift in the way in which we view s*x and children. S*x when on the PIll need not be connected to children. And subsequently, when women have delayed enough, s*x will not be connected to children because of age.
It’s not so simple as to say “the Pill causes infertility” but the Pill has undoubted caused a shift in how we consider our own sexuality.
By the way, if women used Natural Family Planning to delay their fertility until their late 30s, I’d consider it culturally less detrimental, because the essence of natural family planning is to work with the woman’s cycle, and she understands her own fertility better as a result. NFP brings women closer to their own bodies, where the Pill pushes them further away.
Some more thoughts to throw into the discussion.
I’ve been thinking recently about the incompatibility between modern work structures and women’s biology. Women’s bodies are designed to have children during the early years of their adulthood, which is also when people are expected to establish careers. From a biological point of view, a women should have all the children she wants during her twenties, then start any additional child spacing methods in her thirties (which naturally corresponds to lower fertility anyway). That not only makes it easier to make sure she actually CAN have children – it also prevents having to over-use child spacing methods during her most fertile years.
An education / work structure that works with, rather than against our biology, might include higher education in the late teens / early twenties as is done now; primary concentration on childbearing and rearing in the twenties, possibly into the early thirties; updated training / education and focused training in a specialty (internships, master or phd) during the late thirties, and then establishment of a career in the forties.
In a way, this doesn’t seem all that different from the way professional athletes, at least men, seem to develop their careers, since their “first” career is also highly driven and limited by biology. A huge difference, of course, is that a pro athlete’s “first” career actually makes them money, while the “first” career of child bearing and rearing *requires* money.
So the big question is, how do you allow for women to be mothers according to their biology, without marginalizing them or making them overly dependent on others, especially in a society where independence and power seem directly related to money or money-making ability?
By the way, I suffered from “secondary” infertility, because we waited until my early thirties to try to have children. I managed to have only one child, (who was wonderfully ‘unplanned’, since we had all but given up) in my late thirties, and then I was done.
I just want to add one more point on this: lots of women (including myself) wait to have children knowing fullw ell that there is a real risk we will struggle to conceive. The fact is, however, that we choose to study, work, travel, explore or whatever and even knowing there is really no good time to have a baby, we don’t think 25 is the best time. I made that calculation – was married 7 years, finished school and well into my career – and am not unhappy with the decision. I was not surprised that it didn’t happen instantaneously either once we started trying. It was hard and frustrating and fortunately for us it did resolve quickly. Indeed, there is no way to know if I may have been a better parent in my early 20s – I likely would have had more energy – but I think I was right to wait.
This conversation could go start to go in circles… I just wanted to add that I don’t have any problem with what you are describing, Sarah, (though I do have a problem with using the Pill to achieve it, but that’s a totally different stream of conversation).
But the point should be at this stage in our culture to re-inform women on what their bodies can and can’t do. You were and are fully informed, and had you never been able to have kids, it sounds like you would have been fine with that. Not every woman would say the same thing, and personally, my experience has been that all the work/travel/adventures is valued as being worth more than mothering, which it isn’t.
So I take it as my mission to correct mis-information where I see it, especially as I’ve lived it, and continue to live it. It doesn’t feel all that great, to be blunt, to be staring down the possibility of never having children. But I know for every person and every life there is a purpose and a plan, so it doesn’t get me down too, too much. But not every woman has the faith I do, and we’ve all been fed a certain amount of misinformation about what our bodies can and can’t do. We should be correcting that.
I’m not sure we entirely disagree here, but the emphasis seems to be slightly different, is all. Thanks for joining the discussion!
The problem is, Sarah, as you say, you were fortunate that you were able to have children at all. It’s not so much a question of whether or not it’s better for a woman to wait, so much as that the longer she waits, the bigger the risk she takes that she won’t have any children at all. It’s not just a case of being prepared to have to wait and dealing with frustration.
This isn’t meant to be a judgment of your choice. This is an issue I wrestle with, probably because the result of my choice is that I actually did wait too long, even though we started trying around the time I turned 30. My husband and I had definitely hoped for more than one child.
There’s always the risk that a woman won’t be able to have children, but by delaying child-bearing into her thirties (maybe 35?), she is working directly against her biology. No one would tell an athlete to wait until she was established in a non-athletic career before starting to compete, because it would be self-evident that she was taking a huge risk that she wouldn’t be able to compete if she waited. In a similar way, a woman who waits too long (definitely 35, but I wonder if it may be earlier?) to try to start a family is taking a huge risk as well.
It’s one thing for a woman to accept the fact that she may not be able to have any children or as many children as she’d like; it’s another to realize that she missed her chance because the usual career / life sequences are organized around men’s biology.
Just saw Andrea’s post.
Yes Andrea, I completely agree with you about getting the information out, and I reiterate that I’m not against Sarah’s choice at all.
What I worry about is whether we actually HAVE the correct information about the decline of fertility. How much real research has been done? We already know that some causes of infertility aren’t accounted for because of the “abortion distortion.” I think there’s probably also a distortion based on hormonal contraception. What else are we missing? What if the real big fertility decline actually is closer to 30 than 35 for most women who’ve used certain types of contraception?
Also, western culture seems to have no respect or accommodation for women’s biology at all. (Or perhaps for men’s either – but women’s biology affects the choices they are able to make much more than a man’s biology does.)
1. Society basically tells a woman, through the acceptance of the high divorce rate and unmarried motherhood rate, that she should be prepared to raise any child or children without help from the father. This is going to affect how financially secure she feels she needs to be, which affects the decision on where she ought to be in her career, which affects how old she is when she feels ready to have a child.
2. Society also sends a clear and constant message that a woman’s ability to conceive is something that is completely under her control. This was something that I was totally taken in by. Stupid, I know. I knew all the statistics and we started well before the “danger point” at 35. Yet I had spent so many years worrying only about not getting pregnant that it was a shock to realize I couldn’t count on getting pregnant. One thing NFP does – it definitely teaches a woman that her fertility is a strange and awesome thing that she can influence but definitely does NOT have full control over.
3. Society also sends a clear and constant message (to me, at least) that it is much more of a tragedy to get pregnant and have a baby without (what society considers) adequate financial resources than never to be able to get pregnant at all.
Hi Mary
Let me just say that I really appreciate that you have weighed in here – although I wish it were under different circumstances than you having had to experience, first hand, the information-distortion that society shells out.
Just for the record – I love your athlete analogy. It is bang on.
And the last 3 points you made are clear and well-articulated.
You are so right. Some women are well-informed and choose to wait and they are fine with the consequences. But for most women, the drivel we’ve spent years being fed, about the fact that we *can and should* control our own fertility – has successfully produced a largely naive population who really don’t have a clue.
For all our airs of sophistication, we are *not* an informed society. Not even remotely.
I am glad you were blessed with your child. He/she will grow up with parents that truly appreciate the unadulterated gift that parenthood is.