Aug 6, 2021 | Reproductive Coercion
If you answer yes to any of the following questions you are being or have been subjected to reproductive coercion. It should be noted that reproductive coercion isn’t confined to men using it against women, but also to women using it against men.
Are you being constantly pressured into having sex?
Do they decide whether you can or cannot use the contraceptive pill?
Have you been pressured into having children?
Have you been threatened if you do not agree to have children?
Have you been threatened with violence if you didn’t agree to terminating or continuing with a pregnancy?
Have they promised to withdraw during sex then don’t?
Have they removed the condom during sex?
Have they put holes in the condom?
Have they threatened to leave you if you do not have an abortion?
Have they threatened to leave you if you do have an abortion?
Has your partner lied about having a vasectomy when they haven’t?
Has your partner claimed they are using the contraceptive pill when they are not?
Has your partner claimed to be using another form of contraception, for example an IUD when they are not?
Reproductive coercion is rarely on its own but part of other forms of abuse. It is all part of controlling the victim. If a child or children are born it makes it so much harder for the victim to leave. First there is finding a safe place to stay and then there are the financial implications. If the victim is financially dependent upon the abuser because they have given up work, often forced to give up work to care for the children, how do they support the children and themselves? The abuser will in some circumstances threaten the victim to take the children away if they attempt to leave. This is all part of reproductive coercion as well as a wider pattern of abuse.
Aug 6, 2021 | Reproductive Coercion
From the outset of the relationship with my husband, I was open and honest about my experience of using contraception. I had been on the pill – two different types – but had some side effects from both. My doctor at the suggested I came off the pill as at the time I wasn’t in a relationship. Upon getting serious with my future husband, I explained the situation to him and said I would be willing to go back on the pill. He said no, he would take care of our contraceptive needs. I appreciated his offer, although the thought of using a condom did concern me.
At first everything was well. The one advantage of being on the pill was that I had regular periods. Off the pill, I was all over the place. I never knew from one month to the next when it was going to start, when it was going to end and whether it would be heavy or light. This did irritate him. Once again I offered to go on the pill, but he refused.
The use of contraception was an issue throughout our marriage. I was prepared to go back on the pill, but he was against it. He constantly complained about having to wear a condom and the irregularity of my periods. When I entered perimenopause, he told me to hurry up and get through the whole menopause journey so he didn’t have to bother with wearing a condom.
As was to become the pattern of our relationship, his job took him away. The first two times happened before we were married and were for three months each time. He managed to come home at weekends. The second time was difficult because I was quite ill, yet he still expected sex. The warning signs were there, yet I excused his behaviour.
With my usual impeccable timing, my period started on our wedding day. Our “official wedding night” happened when we arrived at the hotel in Ireland where we had gone for our honeymoon. My new husband, despite me having my period, insisted on consummating the marriage. He didn’t wear a condom and refused to wear one from that moment. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, but not long after our wedding I became pregnant with my son.
My second son was conceived the same way. One night he decided he wanted sex, didn’t use a condom and nine months later my second son was born.
During my pregnancy with my first son, a glaring incident stands out. When I was sixteen weeks pregnant, I had to visit the hospital where I was going to have the baby. It was at this appointment I would have had the test to see if the baby had Down’s syndrome. A couple of nights before the appointment, I felt the baby move. I made up my mind that come what may, the baby was going to be born and I would handle any consequences. When I told my husband this and he called me a fool and to obtain an abortion if the test came back positive. Should the baby have Down’s syndrome, he told me he would refuse to have anything to do with it. He took me to the appointment. During it, both the midwife who I saw tried, with my husband, to persuade me to take the test; I refused. She accepted my decision, but on the way back from the appointment my husband gave me the silent treatment, his method of showing his displeasure with me.
Looking back, I find it amazing that I only became pregnant twice. His job did take him away a lot and when he was home, he would go to bed to sleep. On the nights he wanted sex he made a big fuss about having to wear a condom. He made me feel guilty, which was part of his power play. Likewise, the sex was all about him. All I could do was lie back and let him get on with it. There were times he forced me into sex acts that I wasn’t comfortable with. When on the rare occasion I had refused, he would either refuse to have sex with me or give me the silent treatment. I was more upset with the silent treatment.
In those last years of his life, our sex life such as it was, was dominated by his erectile dysfunction. Our sex life had always been like a game of Russian roulette and one of my biggest fears was getting pregnant in my late forties or early fifties. I needn’t have worried; he was on many occasions incapable of having an erection. I was blamed for wanting him to wear a condom, which he believed caused him to be unable to have an erection. At that stage I was beyond caring. The truth was that neither the condom nor I were to blame. His heart was failing and it was physically impossible for him to have an erection.
I have only discovered about reproductive coercion in the last year or so. Just when I thought I had found out everything about my relationship, I read an article about someone who had been subjected to reproductive coercion. I could have written it. I felt sick. It was the closest he had come to physically harming me, but how do you prove it? Yes, I was at times forced into sex acts that I was uncomfortable with. Yes, both the boys are the result of reproductive coercion. Yes, he did control our birth control method and refused to use a condom on many occasions, but this is hardly a conversation you want to have with someone who isn’t a healthcare professional. Seeing a healthcare professional was on the list of things I wasn’t allowed to do, so I suffered in silence.
It isn’t easy to talk about such an intimate part of my life. The boys do know about it, a conversation I would have dearly preferred not to have had. Reproductive coercion doesn’t just happen to women, but to men as well. No man or woman should be subjected to it and this is why I am being open about my experience of reproductive coercion.
