Contragestive Time: Pregnant Uncertainties in Fertility Control is a 5-year multi- stranded research project, funded by a Wellcome Trust Discovery Award. The project takes place across Birkbeck, University of Bristol, University of Sussex, Manchester Metropolitan University, King’s College London, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, and Take2Health.
Our vision is to make possible the next generation of fertility control.
Why is innovation in fertility control necessary? Modern contraceptives are used by 75% of women of reproductive age in the UK, yet for many, side effects, the need to take some contraceptives daily, and health risks, are barriers to use. Uptake of hormonal contraception is declining and 45% of pregnancies in the UK are unplanned. It is clear that the 1960s promise that ‘the pill’ would offer ‘sex without fear of pregnancy’ has not been fully realised.
Contragestives are alternative forms of fertility control. Unlike contraceptives, they act in the time after when fertilization may have occurred, but before early abortion is possible. This is a time in which pregnancy is uncertain. It is an ambiguous time, about which little is known, biomedically, experientially, or socially.
New contragestive pills are being developed that can be taken weekly, monthly, or only when needed (after sex or a missed period). They sustain a state of non-pregnancy without it ever being known whether pregnancy occurred. In doing so, contragestives blur the traditional boundaries between contraception and abortion; this ambiguity is both their promise and their risk.
Our project, Contragestive Time, carefully and collaboratively explores how to intervene in this invisible time. We will examine the historical, cultural, philosophical, and temporal concepts that sustain the distinctions between contraception and abortion, and the ‘clock time’ through which reproduction is measured. By creating new understandings of reproductive time, Contragestive Time will test legal frameworks, generate new clinical knowledge, and consider implications for policy, rights, and care.
Contragestive Time aims to prepare the philosophical, social, legal, medical, and political ground for a contragestive future.
Our approach is disruptive, opening debates in areas that are mired in binary arguments; engaged, driven by the perspectives of those who might use or have a stake in contragestive technologies; deeply inter- and transdisciplinary, with a clinical study embedded in a broader social science and medical humanities project; and approaches this work with inclusiveness and care.
Contragestive Time: Pregnant Uncertainties in Fertility Control is a 5-year multi- stranded research project, funded by a Wellcome Trust Discovery Award. The project takes place across Birkbeck, University of Bristol, University of Sussex, Manchester Metropolitan University, King’s College London, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, and Take2Health.
Our vision is to make possible the next generation of fertility control.
Why is innovation in fertility control necessary? Modern contraceptives are used by 75% of women of reproductive age in the UK, yet for many, side effects, the need to take some contraceptives daily, and health risks, are barriers to use. Uptake of hormonal contraception is declining and 45% of pregnancies in the UK are unplanned. It is clear that the 1960s promise that ‘the pill’ would offer ‘sex without fear of pregnancy’ has not been fully realised.
Contragestives are alternative forms of fertility control. Unlike contraceptives, they act in the time after when fertilization may have occurred, but before early abortion is possible. This is a time in which pregnancy is uncertain. It is an ambiguous time, about which little is known, biomedically, experientially, or socially.
New contragestive pills are being developed that can be taken weekly, monthly, or only when needed (after sex or a missed period). They sustain a state of non-pregnancy without it ever being known whether pregnancy occurred. In doing so, contragestives blur the traditional boundaries between contraception and abortion; this ambiguity is both their promise and their risk.
Our project, Contragestive Time, carefully and collaboratively explores how to intervene in this invisible time. We will examine the historical, cultural, philosophical, and temporal concepts that sustain the distinctions between contraception and abortion, and the ‘clock time’ through which reproduction is measured. By creating new understandings of reproductive time, Contragestive Time will test legal frameworks, generate new clinical knowledge, and consider implications for policy, rights, and care.
Contragestive Time aims to prepare the philosophical, social, legal, medical, and political ground for a contragestive future.
Our approach is disruptive, opening debates in areas that are mired in binary arguments; engaged, driven by the perspectives of those who might use or have a stake in contragestive technologies; deeply inter- and transdisciplinary, with a clinical study embedded in a broader social science and medical humanities project; and approaches this work with inclusiveness and care.
