Blessed Be the Algorithm

The Implications and Psychological Dynamics of Anti-Birth Control
Rhetoric on TikTok

By Rebekah Nathan

At a time marked by mounting threats to women’s reproductive rights and autonomy, a concerning trend continues to emerge: young women are propagating anti-birth control rhetoric on social media platforms.

In July 2022, a month after the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade, Vice published an article stating that TikTok videos using #naturalbirthcontrol had been viewed over 30 million times. Now, almost a month out from the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling declaring embryos created through in vitro fertilization (IVF) should legally be treated as children, this trend continues.

The majority of this backlash is targeted specifically towards hormonal forms of birth control such as contraceptive pills and patches, and intrauterine devices (IUDs), and is accompanied by a growing trend of medical mistrust and holistic health advice on social media platforms. As TikTok has steadily increased in popularity since its inception in 2016, many young women turn to the platform to share their own experiences and learn from the experiences of their peers.

Indeed, many of the videos critiquing hormonal birth control are being made by young women speaking to their own experiences being on, and subsequently coming off of birth control. Yet, there are also a sizable number of videos being made by self-proclaimed “holistic health coaches” as well as medical doctors speaking to the harms of hormonal birth control and suggesting that going off them will improve women’s lives in a number of ways.

While few of these videos explicitly state that women should stop using hormonal contraception, the implication is clear. These videos tend to blame hormonal birth control for a variety of maladies such as weight gain, acne, low energy levels, depressive and anxiety symptoms and “imbalanced hormones”.

In a video featuring a segment from influencer Arielle Lore’s health and wellness podcast, “The Blonde Files”, Dr. Jordan Geller, a board-certified endocrinologist, states, “I always say that the birth control pill makes the doctors’ lives easier and the patients’ lives worse”. He goes on to explain that he’s seen many patients that have been prescribed birth control despite having health conditions that would make this decision potentially dangerous. As in this clip, many of these videos spouting anti-birth control rhetoric focus on instances where birth control is prescribed to aid underlying health conditions such as PCOS and acne, with the critique that birth control addresses the symptoms without remedying the underlying condition. Generally, these videos do not acknowledge birth control’s use as, well, birth control.

These videos do not exist in a vacuum. They coincide with a rise in content encouraging women to re-align with their femininity in its most “natural” state and exist as part of a decades-long push back to birth control. Across time and culture this tension has existed between sex, sexuality and gender as being both ‘natural’ and ‘innate’ and something to be policed and constrained. As such, sexuality has continued to inform the science and technologies that aid and/or control it, just as scientific and technological advancements have informed people’s sex lives (Drucker, 2020). Indeed, the FDA approval and subsequent distribution of the oral contraceptive pill for women in America, in 1960, was both informed by womens ongoing sexual lives and desires, and informed those sexual practices and the ability to act out those desires with greater freedom (Tryer,1999).

However, just as women have led political movements to gain access to agentic reproductive technologies, both conservative and liberal women have pushed against them. In 1969, journalist Barbara Seaman published a book titled: The Doctor’s Case Against the Pill, in which she provided testimony from women using the pill, as well as doctors and researchers as evidence that the pill was not as safe as had been stated by the pharmaceutical industry. A senate hearing followed, in 1970, with further testimonies, leading to some feminists turning against the pill and labeling it as yet another patriarchal form of control, and an example of drug companies harming women in the pursuit of profit (pbs.org).

While 64 years have passed since the pill was first widely available to women, many other forms of hormonal birth control have appeared on the market, and safety issues have been addressed, this ongoing trend of anti-birth control rhetoric on TikTok and other social media platforms does, in part, stem from similar and legitimate concerns. The women sharing their personal experiences of being on hormonal birth control are exposing the failures of the medical system to adequately educate women about their reproductive options and that pharmaceutical companies, in developing technologies that aid in controlling fertility, may not prioritize women’s best interests. Yet, it is partially the legitimacy of their concerns that makes the increasing propagation of this content so dangerous.

Social media influencers act as powerful social and economic persuaders through building trust with their audiences as ‘real people’ sharing ‘real experiences’ as opposed to obviously marketing products, or representing experts from fields that may be mistrusted (Lee & Theokary, 2021). While these women’s intentions in sharing their bad experiences with birth control may not be political, their effects have the potential to be. Or, rather, these videos may be co-opted by those with more explicitly political agendas to further their aims. TikTok, and other social media creates echo chambers in which one is fed information supporting one’s existing beliefs and/or suspicions. Indeed, women having health issues questioning if birth control is to blame for their health issues are likely to find videos supporting birth-control as the problem. Further, almost none of the anti-birth control TikTok videos offer counternarratives such as insight into the health benefits birth control may offer women outside of just limiting the capacity to become pregnant, or the risks of ‘natural’ birth control methods.

While promoting and furthering messages that align with conservative agendas, the creators of this content are not always explicitly conservative and often claim to be a-political. Yet, these creators repeatedly rely on the co-opting of feminist language and the perversion of ‘choice’ and ‘empowerment’ discourse, while espousing essentialist views of femininity and womanhood. Indeed, empowerment and liberation rhetoric has often been used to disguise neoliberal ideas of consumption or patriarchal ideas of coercion (Fahs, Swank & McClelland, 2018). While women should have the choice to opt-in or out of any form of birth control, the language used in anti-birth control TikTok videos is often aligned with patriarchal ideals of ‘natural’, ‘feminine’ women. The highlighting of weight loss and a reduction of acne as a possible result of going off birth control acts as an effective fear mongering tactic, relying on patriarchal standards of beauty and desirability.

Additionally, many of the women creating these videos come from privileged social backgrounds, which enhances their access to and safety in making such choices. Instead of encouraging other women to go off birth control, the focus of these videos should be on more accessibility to a range of birth control options, the development of better forms of birth control with fewer side-effects, and access to more education on the topic.

Many of the women in these videos do not mention what they have done to avoid becoming pregnant since going off of birth control. Those who do, tend to cite close tracking of their menstrual cycles or the ‘pull-out method’ – both of which are famously unreliable. They do not address what may happen if they were to become pregnant, nor do they acknowledge pregnancy as a non-health-neutral event. The choice to opt-out of birth control is only present because of the fight for the right to opt-in to it, and at a time where women’s access to technologies that aid them to have more control over their fertility are under attack, this rhetoric is problematic and uninformed at best and dangerous at worst. There is no agentic choice making, if choices are taken away.

On her Substack, abortion rights activist Jessica Valenti outlines Alabama’s embryo decision as part of a broader effort of the Republican Party to establish fetal personhood, which includes restricting contraception (Abortion, Every Day). Valenti further explains other efforts in this vein such as Indiana legislation (HB1426), aimed at expanding contraception access for Medicaid recipients, being altered to remove references to IUDs due to lobbying by anti-abortion activists who equate them with abortifacients. This highlights the trend of redefining certain contraceptives as abortions within the anti-abortion movement. Valenti states, “This is how they’ll ban birth control – not with a single explicit law, but a slow chipping away process just like they did Roe”.

Further, Valenti highlights that Republicans can effectively prohibit contraception without making it illegal by creating circumstances where it becomes unobtainable. While these TikTok videos may not be made as part of a Republican agenda, they can be used to further it. Rhetoric promoting women embracing their ‘natural state’ has historically been employed to imply that bearing children is a woman’s primary purpose. While concerns about birth control are valid, it’s crucial for women creating such videos to consider the broader implications. Public discourse advocating for women’s decision to discontinue birth control can ultimately contribute to the erosion of choice altogether.

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