Abortion Bans and Their Impact on Sexual Desire

A Road to Abstinence or Education?

By Corinne Farago

On June 24, 2022, 6 Supreme Court Justices told American women what they legally can and can’t do with their bodies.

Ending a pregnancy after 6 weeks (before most women discover they’re pregnant) is now against the law in some states, this may soon be followed by the banning of other methods to end pregnancies, including ironically, forms of birth control to avoid getting pregnant in the first place.

Banning abortions makes the act of sex so profoundly consequential, in terms of health and emotional security, that I fear many women will start to see sexual abstinence as their chosen form of birth control.

The ‘forced birth’ movement is a boot on the throat of women’s sexuality, desire, and pleasure.

For the lower desire partners I work with (men and women), the devastating consequences of an unplanned, unwanted pregnancy, is one more reason to avoid sex.

These are the words from former Texas solicitor general Jonathan Mitchell, who played a pivotal role in designing the legal framework of the state’s near total abortion ban. “Women can control their reproductive lives without access to abortion; they can do so by refraining from sexual intercourse.”

There you have it. It’s being suggested that women should simply refrain from sexual intercourse. That statement alone is frightening. Mr. Mitchell’s words suggest that he believes a woman’s sexuality is disposable and its primary purpose is reproduction.

Suggesting women stop having intercourse if they don’t want to become pregnant is advocating abstinence in relationship as an answer to unwanted pregnancies, and the demand for abortions. He (and others) are in essence blaming women’s desire for sex, and the intimacy that comes with it, as a part of life they need to view as a societal problem and threat to their freedom.

The fear and shame now put on women who seek to end an unwanted pregnancy turns sex into a political and religious weapon used to control women’s healthy sexual desire and enjoyment.

For the higher desire partners, sex is a part of life they value and want to support in their relationship. If safety from pregnancy is now one of the reasons their partner’s sexual response is low, it’s important to understand how desire works in all of us.

Sexual Desire is Born Out of a Sense of Safety

In the natural world, sex doesn’t when a threat is felt. Feeling safe allows desire to flow — the safety felt with a trusted lover, the safety that our bodies will be honored, the safety knowing that sex is for pleasure and intimacy. There is no safety if sexual intercourse has the potential to irrevocably alter a woman’s life. There is no safety if a woman’s right to choose to conceive a baby or not, is stripped from her.

I suggest that partners talk together about the implications of this suppressive  political direction, and how this naive promotion of abstinence, as a form of birth control, might affect their sex life.

If you’re in a relationship with a woman, ask her how she feels about what is happening in the United States. Discuss your fears about the consequences of an unwanted pregnancy. Discuss the importance of birth control, now more than ever.

Make an agreement that sex is important in your relationship, and that you’ll both work together to feel confident in your choice of birth control.

Why Do We No Longer Hear About Natural Birth Control

Women can take a stand, not by choosing to abstain from sexual intercourse, but by empowering themselves to avoid pregnancy to begin with. One form of birth control that I rarely hear being promoted is natural birth control.

95% of abortions are due to accidents, or a lack of knowledge about how a woman’s reproductive system works. Period.

Women have been trained out of their own inherent connection to their body’s reproductive cycles.

Natural birth control doesn’t require a pharmaceutical pill, a doctor’s prescription pad, hormonal suppression, or any other type of product that has to be inserted into a vagina. It’s not something you have to afford, or can be taken off the shelves.

Women don’t need anyone’s permission or prescription to not get pregnant.

Natural birth control is learning about, and tracking what days of the month, a woman’s body can or cannot conceive a baby; then avoiding sexual intercourse on those days, or using a condom as a form of protection. On average, the time period to avoid unprotected intercourse is approximately 6 days a month.

If there’s anything positive that could possibly come out of this assault on women’s sexuality, it’s the knowledge that 6 judges, or doctors, or the government, do not own women’s bodies. Women own their bodies, and they can diligently learn how to avoid pregnancy naturally, with up to a 93% effectiveness rate.

It’s time for women to reclaim the bodies they live in, and be empowered in their choice to become pregnant or not.

Back to the Beauty of Our Body’s Natural Cycles

The temperature method of birth control requires a thermometer, and a return to an innate attunement to our natural feminine cycles. Natural birth control asks more of a women than popping a pill once a day, or a visit to the doctor to be implanted with a foreign object. With a consistent 5 minute morning routine of daily temperature tracking, women become much more intimate with their bodies reproductive cycles.

For many, natural birth control introduces women (and men) to the beauty and power of their life-giving bodies. Rather than suppressing their natural hormones, women come into relationship to their own unique fertility cycles.

This assault on women, and society as a whole, is confronted by taking the power of choice out of the hands of others, and placing that power back in the hands of the bodies that create life. That happens through education and knowledge.

If you are a woman, know a woman, are a daughter or have a daughter, start a conversation about natural birth control, share this information, and encourage them to take ownership of what is inherently theirs, their enjoyment of safe sex, and their power to choose what happens to their body and their life.

Birth Control on Your Phone

Here is a temperature method phone app that teaches women how to avoid an unwanted pregnancy naturally, because the pleasure of safe sex is every body’s birthright. It’s safe to a woman’s health, has no contradictions or side effects, and if done properly, has a 93% effectiveness rate. Most importantly, your data is kept private.

I hope this article gets you started on your own education and research to find natural methods of birth control, or any other form of birth control, that works for you and your body, and insures your choice to procreate or not.

In this MSNBC article on birth control, by Esther Choo, there is no mention of the words ‘natural birth control’. Have we become so dependent on pharmacies and doctors that we no longer educate women on how to avoid pregnancy naturally?

In service to your pleasure,

Corinne