Value Conflicts in Biomedical Research into Future Contraceptives

Abstract

Techniques for contraception are not the invention of recent biomedical research. Contraception has been sought and used by people for ages, and for a long time has been primarily an issue of politics, and not of technology.1 However, the politics of contraception changed dramatically with the shift in technological base from products developed by lay men and women (condoms, diaphragms, and pessaries) to products emerging from biomedical laboratories, from medical surgery, and from the drug industry (the “Pill,” IUDs, and laparoscopic tubal ligations). In fact, what is new about contraception in the last thirty years is the promotion of the development of new biomedical contraceptives by scientists and physicians, national governments, private groups concerned with the rate of population growth, and the drug industry. Because of this, the research and development of new contraceptives has become entwined in politics, both national and international. Furthermore, in the last ten years, these politics of contraceptive research have changed dramatically, largely out of the growing awareness of the question of safety of biomedical technological contraceptives. What has been realized is that there are two critical considerations in the evaluation of safety: one is “risk” and the other is “safety.”