Paper short abstract:

Drawing on conversations with young people, observations in pharmacies, and in-depth interviews with national level distributors and policy makers in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, this presentation focuses on reasons behind and responses to the growing popularity of the emergency contraceptive pill.

Paper long abstract:

Emergency contraceptive pills have been developed at an international level as a back-up method: to be used when other contraceptive methods have failed or after having unplanned, unprotected sexual intercourse. Like other contraceptive technologies, the emergency contraceptive pill is not a neutral object and how women actually use it in their daily lives may vary per country and differ from the way its developers intended people to use it. Fieldwork conducted in Addis Ababa - where the emergency contraceptive pill was introduced a few years ago and made available over-the-counter in pharmacies and drug stores - shows that a growing group of young women use emergency contraceptive pills repeatedly, as their preferred method of birth control.

This paper explores the reasons behind the growing popularity of this pill by focussing on the characteristics of the pill itself, reproductive intentions within relationships, perceptions about beauty, and the multiple roles fulfilled by men in emergency contraceptive pill use. It also explores pharmacists' and chemists' worries about and responses to customers who come to buy the pill repeatedly. Finally, the paper looks at how national level distributors and policy makers in Ethiopia feel they can't control the use of the emergency contraceptive pill and feel how, instead it "has taken on a life of its own".