Birth control is undergoing a revolution, thanks to innovations in natural family planning. Technology and contraception have been united to create the revolutionary app, Natural Cycles, the brainchild of physicists and husband and wife team, Dr. Elina Berglund and Dr. Raoul Scherwitzl.

Since hitting the market in 1960, birth control has always been surrounded by controversy. Government regulation, religion, sexism, racism, and accessibility are just some of the issues surrounding the blister packs of pills, including the abhorrent way in which the drug was tested in its infancy.

Factor in side effects and potential long-term consequences of using prescription contraceptives, and almost any woman with first-hand experience will attest to the physical and mental anguish birth control can cause. From depression and anxiety, to bloating and life-threatening blood clots, the residual symptoms run the gamut. Not to mention the inconvenience of needing to take it at the same time every day.

In exchange, however, it does tend to keep unwanted pregnancies at bay when used properly, and is still considered by many a win for women’s reproductive rights.

Yes, there are IUDs, shots, rings, and other methods for administering the hormones without needing a reminder in your calendar, but it’s still a disruptor to your body’s system. 

With that in mind, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Meet physicists Dr. Elina Berglund and her husband, Dr. Raoul Scherwitzl, the couple responsible for creating Natural Cycles–the world’s first app to be certified specifically for contraception.

Dr. Berglund said the idea for the app stemmed from a time when “I was in a happy and stable relationship with my husband and co-founder Raoul. I didn’t want to use hormones anymore and, to be honest, we were not exactly excited about using a condom every time. We looked into natural family planning solutions, but there was nothing out there that made it easy and reliable to use.”

She also notes the pitfalls of typical natural family planning, including human error, the antiquity of the devices on the market, their high cost, and what she calls “simplistic algorithms.”

Dr. Berglund is also credited for being on the team that discovered the Higgs Boson, leading to a Nobel Prize in physics. “When I had achieved that [Higgs Boson], I wanted a new challenge and applied all my knowledge and mathematical skills into developing the algorithm,” she says.

“The app works by entering your basal body temperature every morning, then the algorithm crunches the numbers and instantly gives you the result of your fertility status for the day–red or green day,” says Berglund. “Red means you should use a condom if you do not want to get pregnant, and green that you are ‘good to go.’  Besides temperature, we take into account sperm survival, variation of your cycle length, ovulation day, temperature fluctuations, length of follicular and luteal phase, and gives green days only when ovulation has been detected, and the ‘non-fertile’ phase of the cycle is entered (as the woman’s fertility changes through her cycle).”

In addition to preventing pregnancy, Natural Cycles can also help with detecting infertility (only available in Sweden) and getting pregnant–just ask Dr. Berglund, who says that she and her husband used it to conceive, as well as prevent unplanned pregnancies. “The beautiful thing about Natural Cycles is that it supports a woman through any stage of her life…we also love to see it as a means of getting to know your body,” she says.

And the product isn’t a gimmicky cycle tracker app. It’s got legit science cred. “Tüv Süd, one of the leading notified bodies worldwide, certified Natural Cycles as a class IIb medical device intended to be used for contraception,” notes the press release.

“The certification meant everything for us,” says Berglund. “We always knew our product was effective for contraception, but getting the certification meant that we could tell everyone else about it too. For women, the certification means they have an additional option for contraception to choose from-effective, non-hormonal and non-invasive.”

When compared to prescription birth control, Natural Cycles holds its own. With typical use, the efficacy rate is said to be 93 percent and with perfect use, it’s 99.5 percent. Plus, the app is available for both iOs and iPhone operating systems, and is comparable in cost to, and in some cases less than, prescription birth control at $79.99 per year.  

“Personally, I hope we will soon enter into a new era in which women are much more in control of their bodies than before,” says Berglund. “We see a trend towards this, with lots of other apps like ours entering the market, although we are the only certified one. At the same time, we see access to contraception being stripped away in many parts of the world, so apps like Natural Cycles can help conquer that and enable women to take control of their fertility in new ways.”

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ColumnThe Supreme Court decides that Hobby Lobby is a person with values that matter. Women? Meh.

This week, the Supreme Court took a big step toward preventing women from easily accessing and paying for birth control.

In case you missed it, here’s what happened: Hobby Lobby and its cronies argued that having to cover the cost of specific forms of contraception, like the morning after pill, as part of its employee health insurance was the same as paying for abortion, which goes against the owners’ Christian beliefs.

On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled in Burwell V. Hobby Lobby. According to The New York Times, 5 of the 9 Justices decided “Requiring family-owned corporations to pay for insurance coverage for contraception under the Affordable Care Act violated a federal law protecting religious freedom.”

This decision, while a direct attack on abortion and access, is more than a right wing assault on Obamacare. It’s another move toward prioritizing corporations over humans—specifically lady humans.

What the ruling means is that corporations are being granted the same rights as people, which makes no sense at all. But, the precedent was set back in 2010 with the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case which promised free speech rights to  corporations—a case that was actually about campaign contribution limits, not free speech, but I digress.

To date, in addition to Hobby Lobby, there are 71 companies with owners that have said they don’t want to pay for birth control either. And not that it’s anyone’s business—especially an employer’s—why a woman might choose to take the pill, but for many, the decision has nothing to do with pregnancy prevention. About 1.5 million women use birth control to help with medical issues such as ovarian cancer, ovarian cysts, endometriosis and endometrial cancer, according to a 2011 study.

But, with the Hobby Lobby case, contraception coverage is just the tip of a giant discrimination iceberg.

Why the Hobby Lobby Case Is a HUGE Deal

This ruling is an extreme attack on women’s health coverage here in the U.S., and it will impact women in developing nations as well. And while the Hobby Lobby case is about access to healthcare and contraception, like the Citizens United Case before it, the language in the ruling represents a massive shift in how we value corporate responsibility versus individual freedom.

This week’s ruling has sweeping consequences, according to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (who wrote a dissent chock full of staggeringly awesome quotes that earned her the social media title The Notorious RBG almost instantly). One consequence is that any company can declare a religion for itself and have at it.

How might that go? Justice Ginsburg has an idea. She wrote, “”Would the exemption…extend to employers with religiously grounded objections to blood transfusions (Jehovah’s Witnesses); antidepressants (Scientologists); medications derived from pigs, including anesthesia, intravenous fluids, and pills coated with gelatin (certain Muslims, Jews, and Hindus); and vaccinations[?]…Not much help there for the lower courts bound by today’s decision.”

Okay, so don’t work for a company with a religious affiliation, and you won’t have these problems, right? In her dissent, Justice Ginsburg warned that the ruling would have wide repercussions and “untoward effects.” She wrote, “Although the court attempts to cabin its language to closely held corporations, its logic extends to corporations of any size, public or private.”

Can. Of. Worms. Or, as Ginsburg put it: “The court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield.”

Oh, By the Way, Hobby Lobby Invests In the Abortion Pill

In case it’s not clear that, in reality, this is a financial issue and a power grab couched in morality, it turns out that Hobby Lobby (which does still cover Viagra and vasectomies) invests in the abortion pill, according to Mother Jones.

Oh, fancy that! Hypocrisy. Sweet, sweet hypocrisy.

Here’s what Mother Jones uncovered: “Documents filed with the Department of Labor and dated December 2012—three months after the company’s owners filed their lawsuit—show that the Hobby Lobby 401(k) employee retirement plan held more than $73 million in mutual funds with investments in companies that produce emergency contraceptive pills, intrauterine devices, and drugs commonly used in abortions. Hobby Lobby makes large matching contributions to this company-sponsored 401(k).”

So Now What?

I would love to wrap this up with something positive, but this ruling is a shitshow. The best thing we can do is to keep supporting candidates that value women and basic human freedom. We also need to continue supporting Planned Parenthood (because as our insurance stops covering reproductive care we need a place to go) and supporting Mother Jones, a publication that consistently offers up spectacular reporting.

Most importantly, four months from now, we have to vote in the midterm elections. The candidates we elect have approval over Supreme Court Justice appointments, people that arguably have more power than the President and much longer shelf lives. Each Representative and each Senator has a vote that can help us or hurt us, so pay attention to local elections.

Donating is a great start (and donor numbers do send messages), but dollars don’t count as people—yet. So get offline and vote, unless you want the company you work for to do it for you.

That Happened is Libby Lowe’s weekly column for EcoSalon analyzing media, news and pop culture through a feminist lens. Keep in touch with Libby @LibbyLowe.

Image: Nicholas Eckhart

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ColumnThe government shutdown has a lot to do with your reproductive health.

The effects of this week’s government shutdown are massive. Kids aren’t receiving access to cancer trials. The agency that certifies that organically labeled food is actually grown organically isn’t functioning. Have a civil liberty complaint? Hope it can wait because The Department of Homeland Security’s civil liberties complaint lines aren’t operating.

What was that about the right to life, liberty and … oh well. Whatever. What was important to Republicans earlier this week was that your employer wouldn’t have to pay for your slutty self to slut it up all over town. Slut-shaming at its best.

Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., breaks it down like no one else.

As this story develops, so does the backpedaling, thankfully. On Wednesday, Republicans removed the “conscience clause” from the funding bill. The clause would allow employers to judge women’s choices about reproduction by opting out of providing health care services that they find morally or religiously objectionable, including birth control.

The provision was part of a broader one-year delay of Obamacare.

But, this isn’t over. Check out Wonkette for what might happen if Republican dreams come true as the government shutdown drags on. Hint: Services in DC where most of them reside will remain functional, and national parks would reopen. Sorry, kids with cancer.

Image: qwrrty 

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