Last month, Kellyanne Conway made waves within the Republican Party when she announced she was visiting Capitol Hill to promote access to contraception. Her rationale? A pro-contraception message could turn the tide for “young voters” in a post-Roe world. But instead of garnering support, especially from young women, Conway faced intense backlash from within her own party.
Not only were her efforts misguided, but she also contributed to the longstanding lie about women’s health and reproduction.
From 2017 to 2019, around 65 percent of women ages 15 to 49 were reportedly on some form of contraception. The extensive list of side effects and risks associated with hormonal contraception is well documented, especially the increased risk of breast cancer. Other side effects include weight gain, headaches, mood changes, acne and nausea.
Along with these concerns, contraception is often used as a band-aid for many problems young females face. Painful periods? Contraception. Heavy bleeding? Contraception. Irregular periods? Contraception.
Many women spend most of their teenage and young adult years on contraception only to stop taking it when wanting to conceive. Devastatingly, some of these women experience unexplained infertility or excruciating stomach, back and leg pain. Contraception, it turns out, masks serious reproductive conditions and diseases that can lead to infertility, heavy bleeding, and extreme pain.
One such disease, endometriosis, affects at least 1 in 10 women nationally. It is an inflammatory disease where tissue similar to that of the uterine lining grows outside the uterus. The disease typically presents itself in the pelvic region, but in rare cases, it can spread to the lungs, brain and has even been found in the eye.
As the disease spreads, it creates scar tissue, which can form into adhesions, causing organs to stick together and resulting in intense pain, especially during a woman’s menstruation. Women diagnosed with endometriosis are often also diagnosed with other reproductive conditions, including polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), interstitial cystitis (IC) or fibroids.
Endometriosis is underresearched and underfunded. Even though at least 10 percent of the female population has endometriosis, the root cause of this painful disease is unknown. There is no foolproof cure for endometriosis because there is no consensus within the medical or scientific community on what causes the disease.
Even within the medical community, expertise about the disease is difficult to find. The only way to diagnose and treat the disease is laparoscopic excision surgery, which often leads to repeated surgeries.
Medical providers routinely opt to place teenagers and young adults on birth control rather than investigate the underlying cause of their pain and bleeding. While contraception may mask or suppress certain symptoms of the disease, it does nothing to slow the growth of the tissue, which may be compared to growing like cancer. Likewise, Lupron and other medically induced menopausal drugs often prescribed to women suffering from endometriosis have never been definitively proven to shrink the tissue.
Even Planned Parenthood, which prides itself “as the nation’s leading women’s health care provider, advocate, and educator,” fails to mention endometriosis, PCOS, IC, fibroids or any other reproductive condition in its 2021-2022 Annual Report. The report contains one line in a footnote about ablation surgery, which is used to treat endometriosis, as a procedure provided, grouped together with other diagnostic procedures. But ablation is commonly understood within the endometriosis medical community as a less-than-favorable treatment for endometriosis.
By “women’s health care,” Planned Parenthood just means abortion, contraception and “gender-affirming hormone therapy” — all of which are incessantly discussed in the annual report. While Planned Parenthood received $670.4 million in government funding in fiscal 2022, in 2019, only $13 million of government funding was allocated to endometriosis research — “less than $1 per year for each diagnosed patient.”
The disparity in government funding is telling. It is almost like the so-called reproductive rights and women’s health care community is driven by ideology and the bottom line rather than truly concerned about educating and addressing the real reproductive health issues plaguing women.
Conway is right in one regard. Young conservative women care about reproductive health care — just not the type of “quick fix” she is suggesting.
Women need answers and solutions to their pain and infertility, not more drugs with their own side effects that allow reproductive diseases like endometriosis to fester and potentially create worsening symptoms. If the GOP wants a win with young women, it should pivot from contraception as a token solution to the real reproductive issues plaguing women.
Natalie Dodson is a policy analyst with the Ethics and Public Policy Center’s HHS Accountability Project.