Pregnant Pauses

The Media's Strange Antipathy to New Fertility Apps

Ever since 1960, when the FDA approved Enovid as the first hormonal contraceptive pill, the market for contraceptives has boomed. In 2018, the global market for hormonal contraceptives alone (setting aside condoms, spermicides, devices, etc.) was valued at a staggering $15.6 billion.¹

But there is a new player on the family-planning stage: fertility-tracking apps and technology. In many ways, such apps are a new take on the age-old concept of fertility awareness. They rely on the simple physiological fact that a typical woman is only fertile for approximately six days out of every month. If she can accurately identify those six days, she can avoid conception by abstaining from sexual activity or taking other precautions on those days.

But the age-old method has an age-old problem: identifying that "fertile window" isn't easy. It takes bodily awareness, patience, and discipline, traits of which people in modern American culture are particularly devoid.

Nevertheless, women now have the option of procuring a fertility-tracking app. A woman may opt for using such an app over taking the more conventional hormonal contraceptive route for a number of reasons. She may want more understanding of her body—how her hormones shift over the days and weeks, and how those shifts may affect her mood and energy levels. Or she may be concerned about the effects of taking vast amounts of hormones over several decades of her life.

Hormonal contraceptives have long been known to bring with them a host of unwelcome side effects and risks—mood swings, nausea, cramping, breast tenderness, blood clots, migraines, deep vein thrombosis, strokes, and even increased rates of breast cancer and cervical cancer.² They have also been linked to increased rates of depression and anxiety, which should come as no surprise, seeing as they operate by altering women's natural hormonal balances—a process that changes their very brain structures.³

Media Hostility

So the news of a more natural approach to understanding fertility or preparing for a family should be welcome, shouldn't it? In this Whole-Foods-shopping, toxin-reducing, organic-farm-promoting age, natural is best, right?

Wrong—at least as far as the media are concerned. Instead of welcoming this new technology, a number of media outlets have expressed downright hostility. "Fertility apps can be 'misleading' for women, review finds," reads one CNN headline.⁴ "Fertility-tracking apps: Popular, hyped—and often inaccurate," Politico says.⁵

And indeed, there is room for improvement in the sector as a whole. Some of the apps don't seem to ask for enough information to yield reliable predictions. But others, like Natural Cycles, have been FDA-approved as a contraceptive, and claim to offer 93-percent effectiveness with typical use and 98 percent with perfect use. If correct, these are effectiveness rates in line with conventional hormonal contraceptives.

But instead of trying to point out which apps work and which ones need improvements, the media pounce upon a couple of poor examples as proof that the whole product line is hopelessly flawed. If the media took the same approach with hormonal contraception, there would be no shortage of cautionary stories and warnings. Countless pills, devices, patches, etc. have been pulled from the market over the years, on account of side effects ranging from ineffectiveness, to perforated uterus or intestines, to permanent infertility, to stroke, and even to death. Any kind of medical technology takes time to perfect. New technologies require particular care, and need extra research and testing.

Upholding Women's Dignity

In the case of fertility apps, one might suppose that the surge in such app downloads, as well as market-growth predictions, might indicate to the media and others paying attention that women are pretty dissatisfied with being put on the Pill
at age 13 and told that the unpleasant side effects are just part and parcel of being female. The risk of having a baby outweighs any other risks, or so the storyline goes.

When a new technology emerges, one with the promise to countervail a hormonal regime that leaves women feeling literally sick, those who truly uphold women's rights and women's dignity should pay attention. Maybe it's not perfect. Surely it would, just like the more established methods, benefit from more rigorous testing and controls. But the fact that such technologies are growing by leaps and bounds signals that women want something better, something more in keeping with their God-given dignity as human beings, and something that also happens to be more in accord with traditional Christian moral teaching on fertility than what hormonal contraception has to offer.

Let's pay attention to what women really want, and do our best to improve technologies that have the possibility of dramatically improving women's lives.

Notes
1. Grand View Research, "Hormonal Contraceptive Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report by Method (Pill, Intrauterine Device [IUD], Patch, Implant, Vaginal Ring, Injectable), by Region, and Segment Forecasts, 2019-2026" (June 2019): grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/hormonal-contraceptive-market.
2. Lori Smith, reviewed by Debra Rose Wilson, "10 most common birth control pill side effects," Medical News Daily (Jan. 29, 2018): medicalnewstoday.com/articles/290196.
3. Radiological Society of North America, "Study finds key brain region smaller in birth control pill users," Science Daily (Dec. 4, 2019): sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/12/191204090819.htm.
4. Katie Hunt, "Fertility apps can be 'misleading' for women, review finds," CNN (April 7, 2020): cnn.com/2020/04/06/health/fertility-period-contraceptive-apps-trackers-wellness/index.html.
5. Darius Tahir, "Fertility-tracking apps: Popular, hyped—and often inaccurate," Politico (July 10, 2019): politico.com/story/2019/07/10/fertility-tracking-apps-popular-hyped-and-often-inaccurate-1563598.