Associated organisationsBirkbeck, University of London · King's College Hospital · King's College London · Manchester Metropolitan University · University of Bristol · University of SussexEurope PMC affiliations are not treated as award recipients or mapped locations.
Funding£3.9M
PeriodSept 2025 — May 2030
In plain English
AI plain-English summary
Pills taken after a missed period could blur the legal and clinical line between contraception and abortion. Current contraception often fails women—many find hormonal methods unacceptable or ineffective, and innovation has stalled. This project tackles that gap by studying “contragestives,” drugs that ensure a state of non-pregnancy without ever confirming whether conception occurred. These pills operate in the invisible window between possible fertilisation and early abortion, challenging the rigid clock-time that currently defines reproductive events. The research unpacks the history and philosophy behind terms like “contraception” and “abortion,” tests legal frameworks, and generates new clinical knowledge. If successful, it could reshape how fertility control is regulated, prescribed, and understood—potentially offering women more acceptable options without forcing a binary choice between hormonal contraception and abortion. The project is primarily conceptual and preparatory: it does not develop a drug or run a trial. Instead, it lays the philosophical, social, legal, and medical groundwork for a future where contragestives exist as a legitimate category. That foundation could eventually influence policy, clinical guidelines, and the rights landscape around reproductive timing.
View original technical description
Contragestive Time expands our understanding of the timing of reproduction to prepare the ground for the next generation of fertility control. Contraception has not delivered its promise - women struggle to find acceptable, effective methods, and are turning away from hormonal contraception. Innovation is urgently needed and is likely to come in the form of pills taken weekly, monthly or just after a missed period. ‘Contragestives’ operate in the invisible time between a possible conception and the possibility of an early abortion, ensuring a state of ‘non-pregnancy’ without it being known whether pregnancy ever existed. Contragestives challenge clinical, ethical and legal distinctions between contraception and abortion which is both their promise, and their risk. Contragestive Time carefully and collaboratively opens the possibility of intervening in this time. Deliberately moving beyond entrenched disagreements about the timing of ‘life’ and the ethics of contraception and abortion, it unpicks the history and philosophical implications of terms that maintain these boundaries and the ‘clock time’ that measures reproduction. Creating new meanings of reproductive time, it tests legal frameworks, generates new clinical knowledge, and considers their impact on policy and rights. Contragestive Time prepares the philosophical, social, legal, medical and political grounds for a contragestive future.
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