Ideal Vs. Real: Revisiting Contraceptive Guidelines (Commentary‪)‬

We read, with interest, the lead article in the September-October 2010 issue of IRB: Ethics & Human Research. (1) We are grateful to Chris Kaposy and Frangoise Baylis for keeping the important issue of the ethical use of contraception in research on the forefront of issues in ethics involving human participants. In many ways, we agree with the central points of the Kaposy/Baylis paper: contraceptive requirements for participants in research must be evidence-based, must apply equally to men and women, and must carefully balance the risks and benefits of participation in research (p. 7). Yet despite these general agreements, we take issue with both the characterization of our proposed policy and with the implications of some of the terminology employed in that counterproposal. In this article, we will clarify our position and its motivation, as well as describe several experiences that have resulted from the implementation of the policy at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC).