Hormonal Contraception, the IUD, and Abortion

Your birth control might kill your child.

Very bad, do not take.

***

People tend to ignore the more surprising implications of their moral beliefs. A common example is the relative lack of concern for wild animal suffering, even amongst those (e.g. ethical vegans) who might be most expected to care about it. My contention in this post is that the use of hormonal contraceptives and IUDs is, as one friend of mine put it, “the wild animal suffering of abortion.”

Empirical evidence suggests that various forms of birth control—particularly hormonal contraceptives (e.g. the pill, birth control implants like Nexplanon and Implanon, depo shots) and IUDs—have postfertilization effects, meaning that they sometimes work by preventing the implantation of a new human organism.¹

Importantly, the potential for such effects can last for several months after a woman stops using the relevant contraceptives, meaning that many women who have halted their use of these methods in order to avoid abortifacient effects may still be vulnerable to this occurrence. (Indeed, they may initially be more vulnerable, as the probability that they will ovulate goes up dramatically after they stop taking the pills, even while the possibility of chemical abortion remains in place. This effectively leaves a several-month period of abstinence as the only available option.)

If one (correctly) believes that human personhood begins at conception,² then this is essentially an indirect form of homicide, one which (due to the sheer frequency of contracepted sex) very possibly kills as many people as the abortion industry itself. It would certainly be gravely immoral to use such contraceptives.

Also worth considering is that many, many women who would not wish to use these methods if they knew about their potentially abortifacient effects are nevertheless given them without ever being informed of the risks. I am far from the first person to observe that this amounts to an enormous violation of informed consent.

In addition, note that even if one does not think that zygotes are likely to be persons, there is still a substantial moral risk argument against the use of contraception. Even if one thinks that the probability of zygote personhood is only, say, 5%, there will be a not-insignificant chance (taking both this probability and the probability of implantation-prevention into account) that contraceptive use will result in a homicide. (This is somewhat analogous to an argument for veganism put to me by Matthew Adelstein.)

So, why do so people not know/care about this issue? One obvious reason is that people are not told about the potentially abortifacient effects of the aforementioned birth control methods. Another reason is that if people were to accept the arguments given here, then they would have to radically change their behavior: they would have to stop using birth control, and then remain abstinent for at least several months before engaging in sex. Most people simply are not willing to give up even trivial pleasures for the sake of averting morally catastrophic consequences. Even many on-the-whole pro-life people find it hard to believe that their contraceptives might be causing the very problem they are often invoked to solve, namely the death of unborn children.

There are two major takeaways from all of this:

1. For the love of God, don’t use the aforementioned methods of birth control. If you’re currently using them, stop doing so, and remain abstinent for several months before engaging in sex.

2. Please, try to think through the implications of your moral beliefs to the end, even when the results are uncomfortable.

I basically never say this, but please consider sharing (or at least talking about) this post. Virtually nobody addresses this issue, and it’s extremely morally serious.

1. A useful summary of the issue, written by a layperson for a lay audience, is Randy Alcorn’s book Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions? It’s what it says on the tin: Alcorn simply draws attention to, and helpfully summarizes, the existing literature on the topic.

2. For defenses of fetal personhood, see, e.g. Rodger, Blackshaw, and Miller (2021), Blackshaw (2021), Kaczor (2023), Playford (2023), and Miller (2023, 2024a, 2024b). Vukov (2017) also defends an account of personhood which includes unborn human beings (as well as the severely disabled), though he does not specifically raise the issue of abortion. Hershenov (2023) defends a view of personhood (the “healthy development” view) which differs in its metaphysical particulars from the traditional “rational substance” view, while still including the unborn, the severely disabled, etc.