The Public Debates Regarding the Use of the Contraceptive Pill and PrEP: What can the Arguments Used Tell Us About Attitudes Surrounding Sexual and Reproductive Rights in Norway?

Abstract

The introduction of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in 2012 in the US ushered in new technology for preventing HIV in people who are seen as at risk of contracting HIV. However, the rollout of PrEP has been filled with various debates and controversies ranging from concerns about effectiveness, adherence levels, cost-effectiveness, and moral responsibility for HIV prevention. In this context, some commentators have noted the uncanny similarities between this debate on PrEP and the debates that surrounded the launch of the oral contraceptive pill (the Pill) some 50 years ago. In this article, we provide the first to our knowledge analysis that compares how debates surrounding the launch of the Pill and debates which emerged concerning the launch of PrEP. Our analytical setting is the launch of the Pill in Norway in the 1960s and the launch of PrEP in 2016. Moreover, we wanted to focus on how both pharmaceuticals were framed in news media in Norway. We argue that such an analysis can tell us something about how the pharmaceuticalization of sex and sexuality often becomes dominated by discourses of morality and pivots around various issues of responsibility, in particular when it comes to female and gay sexualities.