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Comment by cup | Hacker News Reader

I think thats the point a lot of people miss. Yes, standards are far more stringent today and we take better care of individuals during clinical trials. That doesn't change the fact though the bulk of responsibility for birth control falls on women and the history of birth control is particularly nasty and cruel.

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Personally, I think if there was a birth control option for men that was even remotely in the same ballpark as the pill in terms of effectiveness, reversibility and pre-plannability it would easily equal or surpass the pill's usage rate.

if they came out with a monthly pill or a 90 day shot in the arm for men, the birthrate in this country would plummet nearly overnight. Right now men really only have 3 non-permanent birth control options and all of them suck:

1) Bag over the dick - makes sex less enjoyable

2) Fully trust your partner to not "forget" to take her birthcontrol or lie about being on it in the first place.

3) Abstinence.

I'm not suggesting all women or even a significant percentage of women are evil liars. However, there have been many studies & surveys that have indicated nearly half of all women are willing to lie about contraception in order to get pregnant, regardless of their partners wishes, and fully half have said that if they became pregnant by another man but wanted to stay with their partner, they would lie about the baby’s real father.

I'd much rather know for sure by taking personal ownership of birth control myself.

But would you take a 90 day shot if it meant experiencing depression, serious cramps, and genital bleeding for long periods of time?

I don't know a single woman who has been happy on a single form of BC for a long time. My fiancee was on the implant until she started bleeding and didn't stop for five months.

In my case I went full bore and got a vasectomy. I literally let someone take a scalpel to by boys so yeah.. cramps? sure.

Genital bleeding is really a very gender specific thing. Women already bleed from their genitals the issue is that it is now prolonged. If a man started bleeding from the penis that'd probably be a fairly serious condition lol. I get your point though. That said discomfort is a perfectly reasonable trade to avoid 18+ years of responsibility and a financial cost currently estimated at $250K per child (not including opportunity cost mind you)

I know a few woman that are really happy with their birth control. They used to have heavy pain during their irregular periods, and birth control made their periods relatively painless and completely regular (useful e.g. for planning holidays). Of course, there might be other negative side-effects, but it seems that the positive effects prevailed.

4) Get out in time :D

Men have just as much interest in safe sex, as women do. In fact, one could realistically argue men have more interest in safe sex, because the decision on whether to continue the pregnancy is exclusive to the woman, however men are still legally and financially liable for the outcome.

except as a man i cant die during a pregnancy or get saddled with pregnancy related illnesses for the rest of my life.

You can get saddled with the cost of raising an unwanted child for 18 years.

I don't understand why women would want to keep a child on such an illegitimate basis (without the father's consent) but it does/can happen and is horrifying. Men have not right to choose, unlike women, which makes some sense, but can put you in a pretty nasty pickle.

Well, the death rate for births in the US right now is .9 per 10,000 which is thankfully pretty low compared to what it used to be and is about the same as driving to work for a year. A lot lower than the percentage of people in this study who got depression and committed suicide, for example (though who knows if that was causal).

Of course in terms of discomfort, trauma, having your life turned upsidedown, etc you certainly can't compare paying alimony to having to give birth to a child.

That’s why I didn’t really commit to that argument, leaving it as hypothetical.

For one thing, not all women would even consider abortion of pregnancy as an option, due to personal beliefs. There’s also emotional impact of such decision to consider.

The point was not to put absolute values on the risk of unprotected sex for either gender. I’ve only tried to illustrate that men have, just as women, enough of an incentive to consider protection a very serious matter.

> That doesn't change the fact though the bulk of responsibility for birth control falls

Under modern paternal support laws, I would say the unfairness of biological burden of pregnancy has evened out. So it should be a non-complaint. Especially, since abortion decision is exclusive to the woman.

The financial burden may have evened out somewhat (note that motherhood decreases earnings, for instance, while fatherhood increases them).

The social burden hasn't (the stigma of unwed motherhood remains; there's no significant stigma to unwed fatherhood).

And you're completely ignoring the medical burden of pregnancy, which STILL includes risk of death. There's the physical pain of childbirth and major tearing of the flesh of one's genitals (and often added to that, a major abdominal surgery).

And pregnancy often brings major changes to the body that linger for the rest of the woman's life - from swollen feet to incontinence.

So men (those who don't discover that most states have a way for men to opt out of legal responsibility early in the pregnancy if they also relinquish all parental rights) now actually take on some responsibility for a pregnancy they participated in causing. Good. But don't think for a moment that the burden is now equal.

The woman should know those risks - if she follows through with an unwanted pregnancy despite those risks, the burden is 100% on her.

If Elon Musk gave me a free ride on a rocket ship, I know the risks and I can refuse - I don't have to complain about how life is so unfair because the rocket ride could kill me.

> But don't think for a moment that the burden is now equal.

I didn't say that. But the medical and social burden though real, are not things that should be tackled with policies to prevent.

Medical burden is a law of nature. Neither of those are factors that should be neutralized.(Think surgical castration of women at puberty.. bad idea.)

Social burden is there for a reason and society(and culture) will evolve if the reasons die out.

So overall, complaining about burden of reproductive control is simply whining and reinforces the "women are whiners" cliche.

Birth control responsibility always falls on the partner who really cares about its effectiveness. Trusting your partner is a non-starter, statistically, overall.

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