Ejaculate Responsibly: A Whole New Way to Think About Abortion

by Gabrielle Stanley Blair

Consider the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, which was paused for ten days when a risk of blood clots was discovered. Six people out of the seven million who had received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine developed serious blood clots. One of them died. At the time, it was scary to read the headlines, though the risk of blood clot from the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is less than one in a million. In contrast, the common forms of women’s birth control come with a much higher risk of blood clots—oral contraceptives triple the risk of blood clots. According to the FDA, the risk of birth control users developing a serious blood clot is three to nine out of 10,000 each year (and 327 million people are taking hormonal birth control worldwide).

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The United States in particular is a difficult place to be a mother. It has inaccessible, expensive healthcare; no paid leave from work; crumbling infrastructure (including public schools); and little by way of a social safety net when things go wrong. Every attempt to improve our policies is met with resistance. Instead, women are fed messages that all will be okay if we just dig in a little harder, give up some sleep, get an extra job, and sacrifice for the greater good—while also looking totally gorgeous, obviously.