Freedom from Religion, BigPharma and BigData: Current Trends in the Market of Fertility Awareness and Cycle Tracking

This paper examines emerging markets of fertility awareness (FA) and menstrual cycle tracking (CT), exploring how these practices intersect with religious, economic, feminist, scientific, and technocratic frameworks to regulate, transform, and sometimes empower bodies—particularly female bodies. Despite being occasionally conflated with less effective methods in misleading statistics, evidence-based approaches like symptothermal tracking offer credible, science-based alternatives to hormonal and mechanical contraceptives. The actual use of these—which require in-depth training, rigorous practice, commitment, and often mentorship—remains marginal. Yet, they now attract growing and diverse audiences, including women and couples without religious or spiritual affiliations.

Many public and media discourses still associate FA with “Natural Family Planning” and other approaches historically rooted in religious contexts, particularly within observant Catholic circles following the 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae. Over the last decades, FA has significantly secularized. This evolution mirrors broader societal tensions between religious heritage, secularism, women’s rights (Klassen 2019), and the commodification of fertility management in the digital age (Thomé 2024), especially through Femtech (Balfour 2023) or GenderTech (Tripaldi 2024). FA is marketed as versatile, serving contraceptive, procreative, or health-monitoring purposes, while emphasizing women’s body sovereignty and independence from medical providers and pharmaceutical interventions.

This contribution to the AAR will present findings drawn from a broader qualitative study investigating the competitive and often unregulated digital markets of body literacy teachings and trainings in FA and CT, including their potential religious and spiritual dimensions. The larger study documented and compared the life trajectories, focusing on religious, spiritual, or ethical perspectives, of teachers of “alternative” (non-medicalized) fertility management practices in North America and the Caribbean; however, this paper focuses exclusively on the North American context (details omitted for confidentiality). The research methodology encompassed discourse and visual analysis of published and online materials, semi-structured interviews with FA and CT teachers, and participant observation, all conducted as part of the study.

A significant finding from this research is a shift over time from teaching by (heterosexual) couples coaching other couples to women teaching women, with or without partner involvement. Moreover, some teachers engage in spiritual entrepreneurship around “sacred femininity” and “sacred sexuality,” often expanding beyond traditional FA instruction.

Another key insight is the tension between two economic models of teaching. The divide between different types of FA and CT teachers was not primarily due to differences in methods, religious affiliations, or values, but rather to their social and economic teaching frameworks. On one side, non-profit directors and volunteers promote a collaborative, associative model, prioritizing group teaching and accessibility. On the other, independent teachers criticize this model’s potential for controlling formats and contents, advocating instead for entrepreneurial freedom and personalized client relationships, aligning with a neoliberal ethos. This divide reflects competing visions of who should pay or be paid for FA and CT services, raising critical questions about accessibility, equity, and the commodification of body literacy and reproductive knowledge.

The training of teachers emerged as another relevant topic. While initial research focused on teachers’ religious or spiritual affiliations (or lack thereof), interviews revealed a deeper issue: who teaches the teachers? This prompted further exploration of how aspiring FA and CT teachers acquire knowledge, with or without accredited certification (traditionally granted by religiously affiliated groups), and the financial and structural barriers they encounter. Many teachers stressed the importance of accessibility regardless of religious views, sexual orientation, or gender expression, demonstrating an intersectional commitment to inclusivity, except regarding the affordability of paid services. This growing market fosters power dynamics between those who hold certified knowledge, those who can access it, and those who cannot.

This contribution will also discuss evolving discourses of surveillance, control, and resistance around fertility management, focusing particularly on how fertility practices, historically regulated by religious authorities and later by biomedical institutions, are now influenced by technocratic forces such as “BigPharma” and “BigData,” amidst valid concerns about data privacy. Some practitioners resist this control by reclaiming low-tech methods, like pen-and-paper cycle charting, as acts of empowerment and autonomy. This aligns with broader feminist critiques of technocratic control over women’s bodies (Davis-Floyd 2021) and resonates with teachers promoting self-knowledge and empowerment. Notably, some teachers turned to FA after experiencing abortion due to unplanned pregnancies resulting from hormonal contraceptive failures or their earlier, insufficient knowledge of scientific FA principles. Most hold a pro-choice stance. 

The complex interplay between religious and spiritual discourses, bodies, and economic constraints in the FA and CT market will be examined. While some teachers maintain personal spiritual practices (e.g., Christian, Wiccan, or Buddhist-inspired), they uphold strict neutrality in teaching to ensure inclusivity. Even those with strong spiritual or religious beliefs emphasized that these were not their primary motivations for becoming teachers; instead, FA and CT ideals—freedom (especially in medical decisions), sovereignty, helpfulness, and women’s empowerment through self-knowledge—resonated deeply with their values.

This papers aims at contributing to ongoing discussions on reproductive economies and the ethics of freedom, offering insights into how some discourses about fertility and the menstrual cycle navigate tensions between embodiment (particularly around reproduction), religion, science, and capitalism. The findings invite broader reflections on the systems of exchange shaping reproductive practices and bodily autonomy, especially in post-Christian and post-secular contexts (Nynäs et al. 2012). The conclusion will outline future research phases, including exploring these dynamics in a European context and interrogating other key actors (e.g., new and experienced students/users, their male partners, physicians, women’s health activists, etc.).

Balfour, Lindsay Anne (ed). 2023. FemTech: Intersectional Interventions in Women’s Digital Health. Singapore: Springer.
Davis-Floyd, Robbie (ed). 2021. Birthing Techno-Sapiens: Human-Technology Co-Evolution and the Future of Reproduction. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Klassen, Pamela E. 2019. “Contraception and the Coming of Secularism: Reconsidering Reproductive Freedom as Religious Freedom.” In Secular Bodies, Affects and Emotions: European Configurations, Monique Scheer, Nadia Fadil, and Johansen Schepelern Birgitte (eds), p. 17–30. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Nynäs, Peter et al. (eds). 2012. Post-Secular Society. London: Routledge.
Thomé, Cécile. 2024. Des corps disponibles: Comment la contraception façonne la sexualité hétérosexuelle. Paris: La Découverte.
Tripaldi, Laura. 2024. Gender Tech. Ce que la technologie fait au corps des femmes. Québec: Lux éditeur.