I've been seeing a significant increase in posts about male birth control pills and injections that are just on the horizon. This is excellent news! However, the top comments are almost always posts saying how it will never happen, feminists will never let men have reproductive autonomy.

Now, I don't deny that it's possible for feminists to fight tooth and nail to prevent these medications from hitting the market (however if they don't it will be a bright day indeed for the future of men's rights). But I'm starting to feel that many of you overestimate the power they have, because while they do have a lot of power, there are several vested interests that are even more powerful than them.

Let's look at the recent legislation to cover female birth control. Few would deny that this is a good thing for women and men. Covered birth control inevitably means that more women will actually use it. The fact that even things like IUDs and hormonal implants like Lexplanon are also covered eliminates the risk of a woman forgetting to take her pills and landing you with a baby. Obviously it does nothing to protect you from occasional vindictive women who may lie about their birth control, but the overwhelming majority of unwanted pregnancies come from a lack of contraceptive usage or not using them properly. So that's good.

So during the campaign to have these things covered, there was massive support from feminist lobbies (no surprise there), but also from pharmaceutical companies and insurance providers. The reasoning being, that pharma gets paid the big bucks from more women going on birth control, and insurance companies save a metric fuckton of money because it's cheaper to pay for pills than it is to pay for a pregnancy. The overwhelming support from these powerful organizations were almost single-handedly responsible for its passing, despite opposition from religious institutions. Awesome.

Now I see, as male birth control looks to be on the horizon, a lot of defeatist attitudes. "It's been on the horizon for 15 years, why should it come now?" Although feminists possibly won't support its introduction or provision by the ACA, this will be a big paycheck for any and all pharmaceutical companies who carry it. If it gets approved by the FDA, there will be massive dollar signs in their eyes.

Between feminist lobbies and pharma companies, who do you think has more money and therefore more power in our government? I'll give you a hint: it sure as fuck ain't the feminists. Male options are guaranteed to be introduced and sold almost the moment they get FDA approval. Add to that the overwhelming likelihood that insurance companies will probably be in favor of covering them for the same reason they were for covering female birth control, and you have an excellent chance of these methods being covered by the ACA, although it will admittedly be more difficult than just getting them on the market.

I could be wrong, but it seriously looks to me like this is a case of government corruption actually playing in our favor. There are far more politicians in the pocketbooks of insurance and pharmaceutical companies than there are those for the major feminist lobbies.

We all know one of the main reasons marijuana, for example, remains illegal is because insurance or pharma companies cannot profit from a plant. This is not the case with male birth control. This is a fucking goldmine and no medical company is going to be stupid enough to turn it away. So have a little optimism! Reproductive autonomy is closer than you think!

EDIT: Don't forget, feminist leaders have a public image they need to maintain. They preach "equality," even if they may sometimes push for the exact opposite. A large portion of women who describe themselves as feminists only do so because they've bought into the arguable idea that feminism = equality. That's definitely why I used to think I was a feminist. If mainstream feminists got the idea that their organization was actively trying to destroy men, they'd be leaving in droves. Feminist leaders can't afford to bring their possible ulterior motives into light for all the world to see, it could destroy them.

EDIT 2: Made some changes to the verbiage so it doesn't sound so accusatory. Being a woman myself, I definitely know that the overwhelming majority of women aren't con artists who are trying to get a baby and a meal ticket. I apologize if it looked like I was making that generalization.