This blog by Timothy F. Murphy is part of a series on ethical and legal perspectives in sexual and reproductive health. Readers may be interested in the companion piece ‘Transgender children: limits on consent to permanent interventions‘ by Heather Brunskell-Evans. Academics, clinicians, and trans people have focused a great deal of attention recently on so-called […]
Category: screening
Transgender children: limits on consent to permanent interventions
This blog by Heather Brunskell-Evans is part of a series on ethical and legal perspectives in sexual and reproductive health. Be sure to check out the companion piece ‘Capacity-based decision-making for transgender adolescents’ by Timothy F. Murphy. When we talk about ‘transgender children’, we are referring to those children allegedly born with an innate transgender identity […]
Adverse effects of Male Contraception: How Much is Too Much?
By Carmen Abbe and Alison Roxby A clinical trial on a novel male contraceptive was recently terminated early due to participant side effects, or adverse events. Yet it is well known that many contraceptives used by women cause significant adverse effects. Our recent paper in BMJ Sexual and Reproductive Health sought to better appreciate the […]
What do we know about sexual and reproductive health among recently incarcerated youth?
by Elizabeth Barnert, Ava Sun, Laura Abram, and Paul J Chung Rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among incarcerated youth are 10 times higher than the general adolescent population. One-third of incarcerated girls in the United States report having been pregnant. Clearly young people who have contact with the juvenile justice system are in great […]
Exploring the low uptake of sexual health services among trans people
By Matthew Hibbert and Aedan Wolton The sexual health needs of trans people remain understudied in the UK and internationally. It is estimated that the worldwide prevalence of HIV among trans women is around 19%, but there is currently no research in the UK regarding HIV prevalence among trans people. Previous research into trans sexual […]
Climate change and contraception
John Bongaarts and Regine Sitruk-Ware Global climate change represents a grave threat to the future of human welfare and our natural environment. The contentious ongoing policy debate about potential interventions focuses on switching to renewable energy sources and increasing energy use efficiency. But, given the urgency of the problem and the lack of political will, […]
Why neglect of STIs and infertility could be undermining family planning programmes
Why do people still not use effective contraceptive methods? One reason is that many women and their families in low- and middle-income countries fear the most effective contraceptives can cause infertility. A conventional response to this is that people simply need more information to put them on the right track – that women who, […]
Male contraception: where are we going and where have we been?
John Reynolds-Wright New male contraceptive methods are closer than they have been before. Progress in developing new reversible male contraception has been slow – research originally began at roughly the same time as female contraceptive research in the 1950s but did not enjoy the same success and investment as female contraceptives. Various publicly funded initiatives […]
Violence against pregnant women is wrong. Full stop.
By Isra Arif and Susan Bewley Pregnancy Termination and Intimate Partner Violence In a recent paper in the International Journal of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, Khan et al. address the well-known association between intimate partner violence (IPV) and pregnancy terminations in Latin American countries and are clearly empathetic towards women affected by IPV. However, they seem […]
Small-sized ‘gold standard’ copper intrauterine devices may have lower discontinuation and fewer side effects than standard-sized counterparts
By Hannat Akintomide Pain and bleeding are the commonest unwanted effects of copper intrauterine contraception and pose barriers to continued use. When choosing copper intrauterine contraception, the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare recommends a ‘gold standard’ intrauterine device (IUD). Gold standard IUDs are the most efficacious and have the longest duration of use. They […]