Elevated Risk: Injectable Contraceptives and HIV — a Reproductive Justice Perspective from South Africa

Guest Editor, Rajani Bhatia’s note: DifferenTakes has featured the hormonal contraceptive, Depo-Provera (DMPA) multiple times as new issues and controversies surrounding its use have arisen. Lately these include the release of more observational studies pointing to the possibility of an increased biological risk of acquiring HIV while using DMPA, new guidance from the World Health Organization (WHO) acknowledging that risk, the launch of an ethically questionable, large-scale clinical trial (known as the ECHO study) to test the association between DMPA and HIV, and the promotion of DMPA in a new self-administered form called the Sayana Press. Marion Stevens interprets these changes through her experience as a health and reproductive justice advocate in Cape Town. She argues that governments and international agencies provide inconsistent and contradictory policy and guidance on the provision of DMPA that might espouse reproductive rights but fail to uphold them in practice.