Government Funded Birth Control

[Cochrane]

Originally Posted by Ward Dragon

This is what I don't understand -- a lot of these idiots are mocking that she must be having lots of sex because she can't afford "all the birth control pills that she needs." But whether a woman is a virgin or a prostitute it's still one pill a day, so it's the same price. Am I missing something obvious or do they really not know how birth control pills work?

My guess is that they ignore the facts on purpose to create more outrage.

[Dennis's Mom]

Always blame the woman, Jenni. That's why the government started raping women in Texas, you know. Women who have sex are bad and must be humiliated and punished.

[Ward Dragon]

Originally Posted by Cochrane

My guess is that they ignore the facts on purpose to create more outrage.

Yeah, probably. I just wanted to double-check that I'm not totally misunderstanding what this debate is about Whether it's intentional distortion of facts or plain ignorance, I'm just going to avoid the vitriol from now on instead of trying to find some semblance of reason in it.

Originally Posted by Dennis's Mom

Always blame the woman, Jenni. That's why the government started raping women in Texas, you know. Women who have sex are bad and must be humiliated and punished.

Wait, what? Was this recently? I know it's difficult to prosecute rapists in cases where there isn't solid evidence, but I still can't imagine that the government would officially sanction rape

[TombRaiderFan.]

Originally Posted by Catracoth

When I said fund their sexual habits, I mean, I'm not happy about my money being used to buy birth control and use it to avoid pregnancy so they can have sex left and right.

We already fund Viagra, you want them to stop doing that too?

Originally Posted by Ward Dragon

This is what I don't understand -- a lot of these idiots are mocking that she must be having lots of sex because she can't afford "all the birth control pills that she needs." But whether a woman is a virgin or a prostitute it's still one pill a day, so it's the same price. Am I missing something obvious or do they really not know how birth control pills work?

I think there's a lot of ignorance surrounding the issue, mainly by men. Men don't have to take the pill, so they usually don't know how it works. Heck, even I'm guilty of it, I didn't know birth control pills were used for medical reasons. It wasn't until I did my own searches in Google that I learned. Then you have men making these policy decisions for women's health. I think that if you're going to be trying to implement these kind of policies then you have to at least have a balanced point of view from men and women.

[Dennis's Mom]

Originally Posted by Ward Dragon

Wait, what? Was this recently? I know it's difficult to prosecute rapists in cases where there isn't solid evidence, but I still can't imagine that the government would officially sanction rape

We talked about it in PM. The forced vaginal ultrasound for a woman seeking abortion. It's interesting that the VA law made nationally news and wasn't even passed, but Texas starting telling women to spread 'em with no notice whatsoever.

[Ward Dragon]

Originally Posted by TombRaiderFan.

I think there's a lot of ignorance surrounding the issue, mainly by men. Men don't have to take the pill, so they usually don't know how it works. Heck, even I'm guilty of it, I didn't know birth control pills were used for medical reasons. It wasn't until I did my own searches in Google that I learned. Then you have men making these policy decisions for women's health. I think that if you're going to be trying to implement these kind of policies then you have to at least have a balanced point of view from men and women.

Right, and since it's a medical issue I think they should have input from doctors as well.

Originally Posted by Dennis's Mom

We talked about it in PM. The forced vaginal ultrasound for a woman seeking abortion. It's interesting that the VA law made nationally news and wasn't even passed, but Texas starting telling women to spread 'em with no notice whatsoever.

Oh, right. I take things literally and I completely forgot about our previous conversation so I was thinking something else entirely

[Dennis's Mom]

Someone else thinks like me about OTC birth control.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0...a-postrel.html

[Ward Dragon]

Originally Posted by Dennis's Mom

Someone else thinks like me about OTC birth control.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0...a-postrel.html

It says that 68% of women would start the pill if only they didn't need to go to the doctor for it. That can't be right I can't believe so many women would rather knowingly use a much less effective form of birth control just to avoid going to the doctor.

In any case, Obama's secretary of health overruled the FDA and chose to keep the Plan B emergency contraception prescription-only for teenagers (it's already OTC for 17+). It makes no sense to me to make it require a prescription on the one hand and then try to require all insurance companies to cover it on the other hand. That seems like a completely backwards way to do it.

If they really cared about availability and affordability then they would have just made it OTC (and made regular once-a-day birth control pills OTC as well), which would have also had the added benefit of avoiding the freedom of religion issue that the current approach stirred up.

I still think a lot of young teenagers aren't responsible enough to make these decisions without a doctor, but the really irresponsible ones are probably going to hurt themselves one way or another anyway, so I guess it doesn't really matter how they do it. There's not really much point in making everybody suffer just to try to keep irresponsible people from harming themselves.

[Dennis's Mom]

When you consider how invasive pelvic exams seem to some women, I can buy that statistic. Some people can't afford it. Some people just don't like doctors. Some people (like me) simply can't get their acts together to make an appointment.

People suffer all the time because they don't want/can't afford to see a doctor. They walk around in pain, suffer with a cough, cover up skin conditions, all because they aren't outright dying. Throw in wonky work schedules, other small children and no one to watch them during a sensitive visit, and settling for second best (condoms) is perfectly plausible.

Throw in the cost factor that no one really knows how much a doctor visit is going to cost. Oh, I know the $20 co-pay, but then I'll get billed for labs,etc., and I have no idea how much those tests cost, much less what "my portion" might be. Imagine if I had no insurance.

Call up a doctor's office and try to discover how much something costs and YOU CAN'T DO IT. Even they'll tell you that "it depends."

[Ward Dragon]

Originally Posted by Dennis's Mom

When you consider how invasive pelvic exams seem to some women, I can buy that statistic. Some people can't afford it. Some people just don't like doctors. Some people (like me) simply can't get their acts together to make an appointment.

People suffer all the time because they don't want/can't afford to see a doctor. They walk around in pain, suffer with a cough, cover up skin conditions, all because they aren't outright dying. Throw in wonky work schedules, other small children and no one to watch them during a sensitive visit, and settling for second best (condoms) is perfectly plausible.

I'm over-analyzing things of course, but earlier you were saying that it was insulting to women's intelligence to imply that they wouldn't take care of their health and visit a doctor if it wasn't required. Now that statistic says that most women don't do it even when it is required, so I think that puts women in an even worse light

Originally Posted by Dennis's Mom

Throw in the cost factor that no one really knows how much a doctor visit is going to cost. Oh, I know the $20 co-pay, but then I'll get billed for labs,etc., and I have no idea how much those tests cost, much less what "my portion" might be. Imagine if I had no insurance.

Call up a doctor's office and try to discover how much something costs and YOU CAN'T DO IT. Even they'll tell you that "it depends."

I see. With my insurance, it's a $20 copay for the visit itself, and then if extra tests are run it's another $20 copay no matter how expensive the tests are. If I have to get blood tests done separately, then there's some kind of percentage thing going on so sometimes it's cheaper, but the max they can charge me is $20 for that visit as well.

But then again considering how much I'm paying per month for this damned insurance it had better be good XD I might take the co-pays into account more frequently once I get hired full-time and switch insurance companies (right now I'm paying New York State directly and getting their young adult health insurance plan which is ridiculously expensive but at least the coverage is good).