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Article History

Accepted: 10 October 2024

First Online: 14 March 2025

Declarations

:

: The author declares no competing interests.

: 1 While anecdotal, my experience tracks with studies about the influence of Catholic-associated and Catholic-owned hospitals on family planning services. The Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Services states that “Catholic health institutions may not promote or condone contraceptive practices” (USCCB ). In practice, the side effects of hormonal oral birth control and hormonal IUDs– lessening or ending heavy periods or reducing acne – have served as alternative reasons for their prescription. The benefits of a Copper IUD—that do not have these side effects – mean they are explicitly and only for contraception and do not offer a work around for providers affiliated with Catholic hospitals. Larger studies track this inconsistency with birth control prescription but confirm that copper IUDs along with methods of sterilization, such as tubal ligation, present strikingly different results. A 2017 study of 144 clinics found that when called to book appointments, “ninety-five percent agreed to schedule a birth control appointment, but only 68% a copper IUD; 58% would schedule a tubal ligation, and 2% abortion” (Guiahi et al. , 209).2 These references to my roommate, her comments, and her own procedures appear with her permission and consultation.3 According to the National Institute of Health (NIH), IUD use has increased year over year with 14% of contraception users choosing the IUD (Lanzola and Ketvertis ).4 My verb choices here play on Heidegger’s concept of “entbergen” which negates “bergen” (“to rescue, to secure, to harbor, to conceal”) (, 11).5 Published not long after Shulamith Firestone’s The Dialectic of Sex, we may also imagine that Ehrenreich and English more implicitly mean it as women’s natural subservience to medical technology that allows them to control reproduction. For a critique of this limited view of technology and its pessimism about a relationship to one’s own body, see Donna Haraway’s discussion in Simians, Cyborgs, and Women (, 10).6 See also the work of Ann Rudinow Saetnan, who writes, “new reproductive technologies (e.g., the Pill, in vitro fertilization, and sonograms) are among the great liberators of our time…and yet to others—or even at the time to the same people who appreciate what new reproductive technologies offer them—these technologies are among the great oppressors of our time” (, 1).7 This was true for the first wave of IUDs as well. Andrea Tone writes, “The IUD promised one-stop birth control; in theory, once the device was inserted, a woman need not worry about contraception again” (, 268).8 My phrasing here paraphrases the official language from ParaGard: “Paragard works by preventing the sperm from reaching and fertilizing the egg and may also prevent implantation.” The “may” is to obfuscate whether fertilization has happened, which renders the device an abortifacient (ParaGard n.d.).9 My roommate’s concerns were at least warranted. A small 2015 study shows that the “overall, the median actual pain experience by women during insertion was significantly lower than the expected pain median” (Brima et al. ) and a 2019 study showed “negative perceptions of IUDs was the most significant predictor of pain during IUD insertion” (Akdemir and Karadeniz ). Unlike patients, however, physicians tend to underestimate patient pain (Maquire et al. ).10 Both pieces are difficult to track down online, which points to the ephemerality of these narratives. The stories that I found online in the spring of 2017 are not the same ones that pop up now.11 I am not the first researcher on the IUD to reflect on my insertion story in order situate the feminist author within a political landscape. While undertaking her larger research project, Takeshita wrote on her IUDs and consistent with my argument here about the IUDs unknowingness, how “having a device did not ‘put me in touch’ with other IUD users or help me know them better” (, 40).12 I do mean to claim these texts function exactly the same; however, I make this analog partially alongside Fissell, who notes that the inspiration for Vernacular Bodies came from reading Emily Martin’s analysis of the rhetoric used for reproduction in women’s self-narratives, medical textbooks and other more popular sources in contemporary Baltimore (Fissell , 12).13 For example, TikTok has proven incredibly effective at disseminating short audio, visual, and textual narratives of IUD insertion that also disseminate a “negative IUD user experience” to millions of viewers, as a recent study found (Wu et al. ).14 For an astute summary of the history and these arguments, see Ross, “The Color of Choice” (, ).