Category: News and Views
I find it interesting that in 2016 Americans are still fighting, or debating over women’s reproductive rights.
We are in an election year, and one of the things on the table is birth control.
Even for married couples, birth control is something the republican party wishes to control, or ban altogether.
The IUD is getting notice, because so far it is the best method with lowest risk, reliability, and hassle.
Once a woman has one, she can forget about becoming pregnant for years.
This according to some, will make her a more sinful person.
She can now give herself fully to the sex act as often as she likes, with as many people as she likes, because she doesn’t need to worry if she’s missed a pill, or if the condoms going to break.
She is free to enjoy sex without repercussions at all if she’s selective about her partners.
In Colorado, we got a grant to provide teen girls with IUD’s. We spent 25 million on the project, but in healthcare expenses, it saved something like 78 million in the first year.
The IUD need not be replaced so in the second year, the savings was gravy. No money needed to be spent technically provided the complete grant was spent in the first year.
I don’t think it was, but that would be an interesting factor to look at.
No matter how I turn the issue around, think about it, I can’t fathom why others are concerned about her sex life.
We had another topic on abortion on these boards, and I understand all the religious issues.
If religion is a personal journey and everyone has a personal relationship with God, shouldn’t it be that person and God’s problem?
Some wish to restrict insurance from paying, when in fact buying a woman an IUD could save that same company lots of money during her pregnancy alone.
Not to add the medical cost even a healthy child will rack up over his or her childhood due to doctors’ visits.
Just thinking.
If you really study this stuff, it goes back to the collusion between the Evangelical leaders of the 70s and the Catholic church, an alliance unheard of beforehand.
In the 1968 Southern Baptist convention, they concluded that the choice to abort was up to the mother, and cited the old testament law where the baby was only considered a baby postnatal. Personally, I think it's a continuum.
Anyhow, few on either the Left or Right understand what's going on, they just each parrot their talking points.
I encourage anyone to google Frank Schaeffer -- the son of Francis Schaeffer a household name for evangelical Christians.
Why 2016? That's a fair question, IMHO. The Republican party is eating its own tail, just as the regressive anti-free-speech Left has been doing. Trump, the frontrunner, supports women's health concerns in this area. While he has increasing support among evangelicals, it's generally those who are opposing Clinton. I understand, though, why many Christians oppose him, even though as an atheist I am leaning more and more towards supporting him. Most of the anti-abortion sentiment right now comes from the Cruz campaign and their supporters and super PACs.
What nobody told the evangelicals of the 70s when they were courted for votes? Once you've been bought, you can be sold. It's clear they're on the auction block right now, and I think that explains the death-throes thrashing around at rights reductions and big government invasion of private affairs.
Now that being said, there is a gigantic distinction between anti-abortionists who would change laws and increase tax-and-spend regulation against abortion rights, and the Libertarian contingent who simply opposes taxpayer funding of it.
If you think this is about controlling women's bodies, or saving unborn babies, I think you're sadly mistaken. And eople who think so tend towards the same bullet point clichés we've heard since the 70s.
For the curious, here's a basic summary of what's going on.
Not perfect, not complete, but one former insider's perspective.
Putting my anti-statist spin on things: corporations are not people, governments are not people.
I have to disagree with you slightly Leo. This argument goes back much
farther than the sixties. Margaret sanger was jailed for handing out condoms in
the 1920s, and women before then were seen as literally diseased if they
enjoyed sex. Orgasms for women were cliassified as medical processes. Teh
vibrator was even evented so that doctors, male doctors, didn't have to get
women off with their fingers anymore. And that was in the 1800s. The laws
against prostitution, which I see as directly connected, go back even farther
than that. So this is an issue with some deep roots. The main shoot of which, I
argue, is religion. But I doubt that shocked anybody. There is an easily seen
direct connection between religion, at least western religion, and sexual control.
Leo, I both agree, but disagree.
While big corperations fight, many real babies die. I know how people fight for trying to have kids. So, the killing of the baby is still an issue.
I do think others are using the platform for their own agenda. However, it doesn't stop the problem.
I just read a book that was fiction, but put a "realistic" spin on the topic. While I feel that killing those performing the abortion is wrong, I think we are forgetting that some of us feel people are being killed. Precious babies.
I'm not trying to disrespect. I know that only leads to bad words between folks. Just thinking of those that can't speak up.
Hope this helps.
God Bless,
Sarah
Saying that people are killing babies is disingenuous. The vast, vast,
incredibly vast majority of abortions are done when the fetus is nothing but a
collection of cells, often a microscopic clump of cells. saying that life begins at
conception is just stupid, and illogical.
20 weeks and under, fuck it. There's no chance at survival for anything, so that's where I will leave this. Also, lawmakers keep targeting planned parenthood because they don't have anything else better to do.
That, or it's a major cover up for something. Because you know, corporations.
Yes, this argument goes way back.
We are not talking abortion, because the women have used birth control.
If she’s fitted with an IUD, she never conceives, so she never technically kills anything.
If you are running a business, and a country is a major business, wouldn’t you want things that cut cost so the budget gets balanced?
All the money saved can go to better use, possibly improving women’s health and more successful pregnancies.
After that, children’s health could gain from the access dollars.
But no, this seems to be an issue of libido control.
It also seems to be control of women’s libido, not men.
Religion, bans, scare tactics, and you name it having stopped teen pregnancy, nor married couples from enjoying each other, so why are we still here debating this?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but even the women politicians want to force other women to conform to their standards.
I’ve never seen one of them with 6 7 or 14 children preaching the joys of unbirth controlled sex, have you?
How can that be? I assume they are all Goode wives, so submit themselves to their husbands regularly?
It is an odd thing, Wayne. Many would say it's all the men in control of the
women. Yet, inside the churches it is largely women who oppose abortions, and
ironically perhaps, if you are a man who supports a woman terminating an
embryo -- not even a fetus yet -- you are called lascivious and all sorts of other
things. It's quite a conundrum, indeed. I sometimes feel with some of these
issues that we ought to give both sides what they want: no man decides or
plays a part, just let women handle it, and I do understand the holes in such
thinking. But you're left feeling like you can't win for losing on this one.
Some people can't tolerate Birth Control. If you want to control it, just take us to a clinic like animals, and get us spade. I'm not being sarcastic. Every pill, shot, IUD and all that gave me nothing but problems. I don't want kids, because I don't want to lose them. I'm good with kids, but my medical issues would get in the way. After several trips to ER doctors, and specialists who inserted IUD things, and more exams than you would ever want, I told them just to spade me like a cat. I promoted my solution by the fact that I was always in the ER with heavy bleading. So, there's your answer. My beef with control methods, is the doctors don't always mention the side effects. My family is cursed with overweight problems. Taking a shot that made me fatter sure didn't help.
If I knew it would make me big as a cow, I'd not have taken it. I do not have a problem if someone chooses no kids. But, the pills and IUD stuff, and the implants just hurt the rest of the woman. And, pardon the sexist comment. But, I bet a man invented nine out of ten Birth Control methods, not giving a thought to the side effects the female must suffer. And, when a pill triggers seizures, sorry, that's a bit of suffering.
God Bless,
Sarah
I agree sterilizations should be made easier. A man getting the snip has few to no side effects. Hopefully they can make it so for women. Lol no need for the full hysterectomy, Sarah, not unless you're prepared for menopause. Just the female snip.
The female snip as you call it is harder on many women then a birth control method.
The IUD is down to 1% of women that have problems with it, and that could be due to the doctors skill.
If we are looking at numbers, more women die of child birth then have problems, not death from using an IUD.
I'm speaking of the new variety.
But no matter, the main deal, is it is her choice, not mine or the governments.
I agree with that.
And I'm aware that the female sterilization has way more side effects than the one for us. Hence as a guy it's the better thing to go get that done.
Absolutely, and for all these people against abortions, just don't get one if you get pregnant, simple as that. I found an excellent article on this the other day while doing research on this type of thing.
I'm sick of the bickering, on this subject! (Not on these boards, just generally, I mean.)
To add to Sarah's post above, There's the diaphragm and condims, as non-invasive, non-hormonal birth control methods. They don't cost much, and IMO should be offered to patients who don't tolerate well the other options. Sadly, it's hard to find a dr who knows how to fit a diaphragm, anymore, sometimes you have to push for them to do it when they try to talk you into something else (yeah, I speak from personal experience with this, though not recent experience), although if you know what size you need, you can order one online from the UK, or elsewhere. they are effective, if used properly, have far fewer side effects than pills and such, and it's a shame it's all but obsolete.
K, back to the topic at hand. Leo, men are called Lascivious for having the decency to think a woman should decide this for herself? I don't understand that, at all. Can you explain?
Ask a fundagelical, one of the anti-abortionists. They claim men not only support abortions, but are the cause of why women get them.
If you haven't heard, you've a right to: They trot out young women who will say story after story about how if it hadn't been for their boyfriend, they would not have had an abortion. Unlike the 70s, they're not yelling sinner and whore anymore, well probably some still are. But they rope you in by saying, "Look at these poor women made to have abortions by those terrible men!" and even if you support their right to have one, well, thes people are as good as any liberal when it comes to tweaking with one's empathy meter. There's a ton of ways they go about this. You don't want to be that guy who supports the young woman getting a zygote or embryo removed. If it was the patriarchs coming after you for it, you could just punch them and be done with it. That's just not how it goes.
Anyhow, the pro-choice still trots out the notion it's all a bunch of big fat, usually white, patriarchs keeping the womens down. Maybe in 1972? It's a whole different ball game now. Oh sure, you have a few alphas, or rather would-be alphas, ladder-climbers in the churches, who will still act like it's the 70s that way. But most the push-back to average people isn't coming from men, unless these are simply men who have not come out as men yet. Just saying, the same old clichés from the 70s don't work.
Hell, in the 70s they weren't charging women with exposing an embryo to noxious gases, as some kooks are doing out of the Carolinas. It's some crazy shit out there. I'm not saying it's less kooky, just differently kooked.
The diaphragm is stil an offered option.
For a single or tenaged girl these might not be the best option, because they require some adjustments, and preparing, but they are still available at this time.
It is a birth control method, so comes under this argument as well.
The female snip is actually more seriously life threatening than the male snip. women can still get pregnant with it for a start, and since the fetus matures in the tube, it can be very dangerous.
Sarah, I have in my right hand, a newborn baby. In my left, a 12 week old fetus. Which would you prefer I toss onto the floor?