' [Birth Mother] First Mother Forum: Unless invited, please stay out of my vagina

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Unless invited, please stay out of my vagina

Which of these statements are true?

A. The sun revolves around Earth.
B. Masturbating gives you warts and makes you blind.
C. Abortions may cause breast cancer.
D. The Pill may cause prostate cancer.
E. Recreational sex is bad. 

Of course, since you are smart and well educated and better informed than certain male legislators in this country, you have correctly decided that all the above statements are false! Yet A. and B. were once believed, D. is ridiculous but you can find a study that links The Pill usage with increased prostate cancer, however the connection is spurious. And E ? Well, certainly the man above would tell us "recreational" sex is bad. C. That abortions raise the probability of breast cancer has long been found to be false but the Republicans like to keep it in circulation, just as the medieval mind had trouble accepting the idea that the Earth is not the center of the universe, evidence to the contrary.

Lorraine Dusky
Despite this, last week the New Hampshire state house passed a bill that requires women who want to terminate their pregnancies to be informed that abortions have been linked to "an increased risk of breast cancer." As one Democrat woman, minority leader Terie Norellie observed, the legislature was making it a felony for a doctor "to not give a patient inaccurate information about abortion." Absurd, yes.

GOP WADES INTO DEEP ... PELVIC POLITICS
Yet New Hampshire is far from alone with a pack of patriarchal politicians pursuing pelvic policies:
In Colorado, the Republican majority in the House is attempting to make both termination of pregnancy in some circumstances and the use of the morning after pill a first-degree homicide. The bill would confer "personhood" on a newly fertilized egg. This is weird because the morning-after pill does not prevent implantation of a fertilized embryo; the most recent study indicates it works much like birth control pills, preventing the embryo from being fertilized.

In Arizona, pending legislation passed by Republicans would require employees (that is, women) whose employers object to birth control on "religious or moral" grounds to explain exactly why they need to take the pill for reasons other than contraception, such as monthly acne or to dissolve a cyst. That means the employee (that is, a woman) would have to explain to her boss why she needed to take the pill. I can see that everybody would be comfortable with that. Perhaps the women could come with pictures or other supporting materials.

A state legislator in Georgia wants to change the legal term for victims of rape, stalking, and domestic violence to "accuser." But victims of other less gendered crimes, like burglary, would remain "victims." Obviously no one in this guy's family (that he is aware of) has ever been an "accuser" in a rape.

In South Dakota, Republicans proposed a bill that could make it legal to murder a doctor who provides abortion care. (Yep, that's for real.)

Republicans want to cut nearly a billion dollars of food and other aid to low-income pregnant women, mothers, babies, and kids. Let's hear it for The Adoption Option.

Republicans in Congress have a bill that would let hospitals allow a woman to die rather than perform an abortion necessary to save her life. (Also real.)

Maryland Republicans ended all county funding for a low-income kids' preschool program. Why? No need, they said. Women should really be home with the kids, not out working. At the federal level, Republicans want to cut that same program, Head Start, by $1 billion. That means over 200,000 kids could lose their spots in preschool. Let's hear it again for The Adoption Option.

Republicans are pushing to eliminate all funds for the only federal family planning program. However, Republican Dan Burton (IN) has a bill to provide contraception for wild horses. You can't make this stuff up; no one would believe you.

Idaho’s state senate voted today to force women to undergo an invasive trans-vaginal ultrasound (as well as a regular non-invasive ultrasound) in order to terminate a pregnancy, the eighth state to do so. More than 110 state House members were co-sponsors of the “Women’s Right to Know” bill, as it was called, which was modeled on the law already in effect in Texas. Virginia's similar requirement for a medically unnecessary and invasive procedure will go into effect in July. The current hubbub over these procedures led to some of the legislatures backing down: a similar bill in Pennsylvania has been tabled. The guv doesn't see any problem, however. Any woman who objects to the procedure, well, "you just have to close your eyes," advises Gov. Tom Corbett. He didn't say anything about bringing ear plugs, because the bill does require women listen to the fetal heartbeat.

Talk about government intervention...this, ladies, it is, right up your vagina.
The Republican senator who proposed the Idaho bill, Chuck Winder, is now explaining why he believes abortion shouldn't be allowed for rape or incest, and wants the doctor to quiz the woman seeking to terminate a pregnancy to make sure she is not saying it was the result of a "rape" when it wasn't.
REMEMBER THE LADIES....
Other than adoptee rights, First Mother Forum generally tries to stay away from political issues, but the recent attacks on a woman's right to control her own body remind me of how I landed, er, here as a first mother dating from the Sixties. Birth control then was iffy, and not even legal for all until a Supreme Court case, Griswold v Connecticut, made it so in 1965. These spiritual savants of today--Republicans and male--who are dictating public policy would have us return to this antediluvian mindset regarding women and their bodies. And I am plenty ticked off!

abc all male panel congressmen nt 120216 wblog Birth Control Hearing Was Like Stepping Into a Time Machine
Are they using birth control?  Image: ABC News
These warriors against what some call "recreational sex" got all hot and bothered when the Obama administration mandated that all employers (except churches, parishes, synagogues, mosques, etc.) offer contraception under their health insurance plans. We are talking universities, schools, hospitals--big employers, that is, and often the only employer in town for, say, the women in food service or on the cleaning staff.  Though most of these institutions have been offering contraception for years as a health-care benefit, the Catholic Conference of Bishops decreed that was no longer acceptable, not even if their insurers took on the cost of the contraception. They claimed "religious discrimination" as their religion forbids any artificial contraception, despite the practices of 98 percent of all women, regardless of their beliefs or membership. (Despite Rome's best efforts, Catholics use contraception at the same rate as the rest of the female population.) Once the Catholic bishops got involved, evangelicals and their Republican legislators on the state and federal level jumped on the let's-lord-it-over-the-ladies band wagon.

GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum is among the bunch, despite a recent avowal from his wife that he will not outlaw contraception. He might not send women to prison for using the pill, but he would make it damn hard for poor women to get. Romney? As governor of Massachusetts, he supported Planned Parenthood; now he wants to eliminate all funding. Women who want "free stuff" like contraception, he has said, should vote "for the other guy." The women who go to Planned Parenthood for services like breast cancer screenings and vaccines?  Romney tells them they can go elsewhere--although he doesn't say how they're going to get these services if they're poor. Gingrich? When George Stephanopolous asked him in a debate about contraception, the recent Catholic convert got all huffy, said the question was out of order, and refused to answer. We would have liked to hear his response, not just a lot of bluster and brimstone. 

ANTEDILUVIAN ANTICS OF THE FAR RIGHT
Once the current contraception commotion erupted, it brought into relief the anti-abortion statutes that some 31 states have put in place making it extremely difficult, prohibitively expensive and entirely unpleasant for women to get an abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute. South Dakota, for instance, has one abortion provider for the entire state (and it's a big state). Nonetheless, it also requires a 72-hour (three day) waiting period after you see the doctor, plus you have to listen to a doctor tell you that you may be more susceptible to breast cancer if you go through with this procedure. 

This law is currently tied up in litigation. But while they're waiting, doctors are still required to question a woman about her religious background and how she thinks her family would react to the decision to end the pregnancy. This is after she's already heard the required cant against abortion at a counseling center. How are those questions any of the state's business? Oh, you're just a woman so the state can invade anywhere it likes. Your personal beliefs. Your Aunt Ida's opinion. Your vagina.

What about men's "right to know" about the counter-indications of say, Viagra? Some women in a few states have proposed such bills, with one in Ohio requiring a stress test every 90 days, and a long talk with a sex counselor about why you need the little blue pill. Oh yes, the bill would require that a man seeking medical assistance for his erectile dysfunction also needs a note from at least one of his sex partners about why he needs help in that department, but that's another story. 

As for the breast cancer/abortion link mentioned in the beginning? We thought that was debunked ages ago. Well, once upon a time, some half-assed study did connect the two; however, later, larger and better-designed studies proved that NO SUCH LINK EXISTED. Yet the doctors in New Hampshire could be mandated to read medically incorrect information to their patients. Talk about government interference! Talk about idiocy. As for the connection between The Pill and prostate cancer? Same kind of study as above; yes someone found that nations with a high use of birth control pills among women also have a rate of prostate cancer in men--but nobody is claiming that one causes the other. Going out on a limb here, it's probably that in sophisticated and wealthier countries where birth control pills are in greater use, more men are tested for prostate cancer and bingo! a connection.

GOP, GET OUT OF MY BED
Faced with a choice between science and religion, science is losing, at least with the Grand Old Party that has become home to evangelicals, the Catholic hierarchy, all sorts of religious zealots who wish to invade women's bodies and control them. These are the very same folks who talk about too much big government intervention in our lives, but they mandate an unnecessary probe into our bodies. We must remember that this is the same country that legalized Prohibition (1919-1933), making drinking alcohol of all kinds illegal. This is the granddaughter of a small town bootlegger writing here. Grandma made gin in the bathtub, and I will go on opposing this current invasion of women's sexual privacy until I breathe my last breath.

One can hope that this ridiculous step backwards into a time-machine circa 1900 is but a momentary blip on the horizon that will fade soon. Let the Catholic bishops and evangelical preachers and all other religious leaders who espouse control over women's bodies practice birth control themselves. In fact, that just might lead to fewer adoptions, which we are all for. But let my sisters go. Let women be free to control their own bodies, their own lives. Let government stay out of our bedrooms, our thoughts, our vaginas.--lorraine
--------------------------
I am recovering from rotator cuff surgery last Tuesday but typing is still a trial and very tiring. The tear was larger than the doctor expected--five centimeters. There is not much pain but it is exasperating as my arm is immobilized, and in a huge sling that looks like a commando operation. I am learning how to write with my left hand, which I supposed is a good thing. But I need a shower and I want a trip to the beauty salon! But my blood has been riled by what has been going on all over the country, and in DC. The coming election is very important for women, more so than since...er, 1973.

From FMF:

An aspirin for birth control? We are not laughing
Bishops bally-hoo over birth control is a blow against my freedoms
To understand ourselves, we must know where we came from

30 comments :

  1. Her you go ladies, send your congressman his very own snatch! You might want to send one to your Bishop as well, it might take his mind off altar boys!

    http://www.governmentfreevjj.com/

    Sadly, I never learned how to knit no matter how much my Auntie tried to teach me, but for those of you who are crafty, this is a great project and a good cause.

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  2. It's really terrifying when you look at all of these laws at once. I have also heard about a law they are attempting to pass in Arizona that would make it legal for a doctor to withhold information about the life-threatening nature of her pregnancy if the doctor thinks that giving her that information will lead to her having an abortion. I guess they'll have to think of a catchy name for that one. "A Woman's Right to Die For My Beliefs" doesn't just roll off the tongue.

    I'm sure that I'm not the only mother who is seething at the irony of these legislators using informed consent as the basis for these laws. How many of us signed surrender documents without even having legal representation much less information on how adoption could affect our children?

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  3. If you want to get medical insurance through your employer, and you want that insurance to cover contraception, don't work for a Catholic organization. I like ham sandwiches, but I wouldn't take a job at an Orthodox Jewish institution and expect to be served ham sandwiches in the work cafeteria.

    Women should stop whining and make rational choices. I read Lorraine's book and she got pregnant because she didn't even bother to go to the doctor for birth control. Yet in 2012, Lorraine claims the Catholic Church is impinging on her freedom? It was her own laziness that kept her from getting pregnant, not the Catholic Church -- then or now.

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  4. Excellent and timely article.  The move towards these abolishing decades of work in reproductive choice, accurate medical information and reliable and affordable contraception is terrifying.  Female legislators are fighting back in some of these state, but the media is picking the stories up as "satire legislation".  As if any attempt to block a man's access to Viagra or to control his ability to waste sperm by masterbating is so absurd that it can only be a joke.  

    Senator Constance Johnston of Oklahoma introduced a "spilled semen" amendment which would give little swimmers the protection of personhood, making it a crime to deposit semen anywhere but a woman's vagina. Ridiculous?  Perhaps, but no more than the legislation you've cited above in my opinion.  

    Women in several states have introduced versions of the "Viagra bill" which puts all sorts of educational and psychological mandates on doctors prescribing ED medication and the men who seek them.  I don't think any of these measures have received a hearing, but I hope the trend to fight back continues.

     

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  5. Anonymous, It was a bit more complicated than just not getting birth control, which was not that easy to come by then, in 1966. The pill was new, I was suffused with Catholic guilt, I was embarrassed and freaked out-- and asked the father not to have sex when we did. I got caught; I hope my granddaughters/nieces/anyone never do. But if the Republicans have their way with limiting access, there will be more unwanted pregnancies and children and pain.

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  6. "But if the Republicans have their way with limiting access, there will be more unwanted pregnancies and children and pain."

    Nonsense, Lorraine. Republicans want to protect the Catholic Church's right not to have to pay -- directly or indirectly -- for birth control, in which it doesn't believe. Any woman who wants her insuracne to cover birth control should not go to a Catholic school or work for a Catholic institution. It's that simple.

    (By the way, I wasn't trying to pick on you by bringing up your own story. I was trying to make the point that the biggest obstacle to women's using birth control is women themselves not using it.)

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  7. "We are talking universities, schools, hospitals--big employers, that is, and often the only employer in town for, say, the women in food service or on the cleaning staff. Though most of these institutions have been offering contraception for years as a health-care benefit, the Catholic Conference of Bishops decreed that was no longer acceptable, not even if their insurers took on the cost of the contraception."---FROM THE BLOG.

    And sure you wanted to pick on Lorraine.

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  8. Oh brave Anonymous one, if religious organizations want to play in politics, they should lose their tax exemptions.  

    I suppose you would also agree that Jehovah's Witness organizations could also refuse to cover blood transfusions for their non JW employees...Or is this just about sex and controlling women?

    The cheep shot you took? Pretty cowardly. Since we don't really know your story I'll just assume that your God made you infertile to keep your genes out of the pool as a blessing on society.

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  9. "Any woman who wants her insuracne to cover birth control should not go to a Catholic school or work for a Catholic institution. It's that simple."

    Any Catholic institution that refuses to offer access to all forms of contraception should stop sucking on the government Medicare teat. It's that simple.

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  10. I think states ought to pass laws requiring men who wish to be prescribed Viagra to obtain a certificate from their local sheriff that they are not registered sex offenders.

    We need to protect our maidens from those may try to de-flower them.

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  11. I'm sure Viagra is the cause of countless acts of recreational sex. Time to outlaw this abomination!

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  12. Good point Jane.  Of course men seeking ED meds should also have to produce a certificate of marriage, a notarized statement that the meds will only be used in the confines of their marriage bed with their wife (no doing it on the washing machine during the spin cycle...it's unseemly) and after submitting to a prostate exam.  Alls fair in love and sex after all.

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  13. All of these laws are geared to turn back the clock but the genie is already out of the bottle. The sexual revolution has occurred and the social mores for secular society at least have changed and there is no going back. All these laws will do is make life that much harder for women. I am surprised that there don't seem to be as many young women clamoring against them as there were in previous generations.

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  14. Old men seeking ED meds should have to stand naked before a panel of women to determine whether restoring sexual activity would be a boon or bane to womankind. Sean Connery might still pass, most geezers, not likely. It is only fair:-)

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  15. What I see with young college age women is they don't comprehend what it was like for women in past. If we as women go backwards with these laws they will be fighting for something they had given to them.
    Too busy to worry about. It, aren't having sex, no birth control for anyone, no abortion. Come on smart ladies
    you need to before aware!!
    Even my son mentioned something about paying for someone's b control and he got his girlfriend pregnant forced to marry then divorced, even men from past don't think. What in the world are they thinking?

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  16. "C. That abortions raise the probability of breast cancer has long been found to be false but the Republicans like to keep it in circulation, just as the medieval mind had trouble accepting the idea that the Earth is not the center of the universe, evidence to the contrary.""

    Actually, abortions (whether natural or artificial) do seem to raise the probability of breast cancer, as pregnancy (and to a lesser degree so has lactation, do they tell that to potential birth mothers, surrendering your baby instead of breastfeeding increases your breast cancer risk? I think they should) has a somewhat protective effect, and abortion decreases the time pregnant (and lactating), so, though your explanation is not entirely correct, the claim is indeed false, but it contains a grain of truth.

    So if we would have Kitty, Laura, Mandy, Nicole and Olive, all with the same genotype as far as breastcancer is concerned, and Kitty has a baby she raises herself breastfeeding, Laura has a baby and surrenders, Mandy has an abortion, Nicole just doesn't get pregnant and Olive is abstinent, Mandy would indeed have a greater breast cancer risk than Kitty and Laura, the same risk as Nicole and Olive.
    Keeping the breast cancer risk at the virgin level is not causing breast cancer, but there seems to be a grain of truth in that claim, the same truth as in abstinence causes breast cancer or teen pregnancy prevention causes breast cancer and to a lesser degree adoption causes breast cancer.

    I am afraid the GOP does not like the anti-breast-cancer life style science suggests: Be a multi gravida before you're twenty years old. Promoting teen pregnancy against breast cancer, the idea is somewhat attractive...

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  17. Theodore, I don't know where you get your "facts" but I know too many women in my age group (60s) with breast cancer who had all kinds of life styles, had kids young, had kids old, breast fed, did not, had no kids, had many kids, surrendered a child, had one or more abortion,never had an abortion etc etc. Perhaps we should be looking more at environmental factors rather than blaming individual women for their disease?

    Scare tactics are not helpful to women or women's health in order to promote one agenda or another, which is what you are doing with your anti-adoption agenda just as much as those who are against abortion and birth control are trying to promote theirs by scaring women into doing what they want.

    It seems to me from anecdotal evidence that the statistical benefits in preventing breast cancer by having multiple pregnancies as a teenager are far outweighed by the detrimental health effects of poverty, at least in the USA where mostly only the very poor and hopeless do that, and then suffer the rest of their often short lives from inadequate health care and other cancers and fatal illnesses that are treated too late, badly, or not at all due to financial issues.
    We are badly in need of health care reform here; until that happens, having a slew of kids as a teen is a form of suicide for most young women.

    I am very in favor of breastfeeding and breastfed the three kids I raised for at least 2 years, had my last child at 34, and realize the hazards to fertility of waiting too long to have children, but also realize I was fortunate in my economic circumstances, husband with a good job, to be able to do this. Times have changed, younger women no longer have the luxuries some of us had in the last generation.

    We do not need men making choices for us or scolding us for the hard choices some young women now have to make.

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  18. I was aware of the following when I wrote the current blog, but the statistical difference is very slight, and to use them as a guidepost to not have an abortion is absurd. Marrying also increases your chance of getting divorced. And we do know that giving up a child does ensure the likelihood of lifetime grief. This does not mean you will be prostrate (ah! correct spelling here, dusky) all your life, but that such an act will have an deleterious effect on you and possibly, your health, as we know psychological factors effect one's physical well being as well as mental.

    So, Theodore is right, to a degree, but...anyway, here is what he is talking about:

    Breastfeeding Reduces Risk Of Breast Cancer For Women Who Delay Childbirth

    ScienceDaily (Apr. 16, 2007) — Breastfeeding can offset the increased risk of invasive breast cancer for women who had their first full-term pregnancy after the age of 25, a study led by researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) suggests.


    From the National Cancer Institute:
    Pregnancy and breastfeeding both reduce a woman’s lifetime number of menstrual cycles, and thus her cumulative exposure to endogenous hormones (1). In addition, pregnancy and breastfeeding have direct effects on breast cells, causing them to differentiate, or mature, so they can produce milk. Some researchers hypothesize that these differentiated cells are more resistant to becoming transformed into cancer cells than cells that have not undergone differentiation (2, 3).

    So theoretically, as well as actually, having children does cut down statistically on the likelihood of developing breast cancer at some point in one's life.

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  19. Maryanne, it is quite simple: Probability of breastcancer seems to correlates strongly with the time spent experiencing menstrual cycling, the low-risk-for-breast-cancer-profile is late menarche, early menopause and mainly pregnant/breastfeeding in between.

    This is not something I suggest from a moral or medical point of view, but raising the child with breastfeeding is the best course of action taken with an unplanned pregnancy, if we consider it from the point of breast cancer prevention.

    I was just pointing out that the abortions-breast cancer link is not complete nonsense, just used nonsensically. By the way did you get the scandal about the coverup of castration of boys in institutions run by the Dutch branch of the Roman Catholic church? To me that is equally sick and showinfg that all religion should stay out of all our bedrooms, underwear and bodies.

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  20. If the GOP gave a damn about breast cancer, they wouldn't be in favor of cutting Planned Parenthood's funding. Where else are the thousands of their low income clients going to find breast cancer screenings they can afford?

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  21. Theodore: Yes I did see the Dutch scandal and was horrified.

    The pregnancy/breastfeeding effect works for those over 25, so that would not affect me or Maryanne or Jane. Or a great many of the women asking for abortions.

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  22. Lord help me, but I'm about to say something about Russia again (ready your ammunition): in Russia abortions are provided at no cost, but birth control is not. Their abortion rate is 70% greater than the US. They also have a teen suicide rate 3 times that of the US and the third highest in the world. There's also an enormous Russian Orthodox Church influence. A great study for someone with the funding: provide birth control at no cost, and follow the other indicators. I'd love to see whether there's any effect on teen suicide rate. I'm guessing if you decrease unplanned pregnancy, you decrease poverty and its inherent depression, and decrease suicide. But I'm a woman, so that can't possibly make sense.....

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  23. Lorraine, I know, the breastfeeding effect, certainly with just one child, is weak. I was really not seriously suggesting using that, just pointing out that without telling actual lies, the most absurd things could be justified with the breast cancer arguement.
    That's the problem with satire (of a sort), good, smart people may fail to see that the text is largely tongue-in-cheek.

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  24. Yes, I saw the Dutch castration scandal, as I am a member of a group, Voice of the Faithful, that is fighting the pedophile Catholic coverup worldwide. One more horrible thing that the Church has done and covered up finally come to light.

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  25. off topic here, but too rich not to share. This was left this afternoon at the blog about celebrity adoptions: Hollywood celebs beget babies any way they can

    Anonymous said...

    The real problem in society is women who can't control their impulses, aren' t responsible enough to use birth control, and give birth to children they cannot support. By and large, they cause the worst problems in society. Its a shame they are passing on their genetics.
    March 22, 2012 12:22 PM

    Satire or not?

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  26. All of the hogwash about not covering birth control infuriates me! This whole line of "I don't want to pay for other people's sex lives..yada yada yada." You know what, YOU ALL READY DO! Local health clinics for those getting welfare offer sliding scale & often times FREE contraceptives, depending on the state one lives in. I know the county clinic in the town and state I live in is state funded. They actually RECRUIT & strongly encourage young women to come in, get an annual exam and get on birth control. I politely declined as my insurance already covers my bc and yearly exam. But maybe if others were made aware of this they would utilize these services more. Because honestly, birth control is rather affordable: $9 for generic label birth control pills. It doesn't get much simpler than that! My insurance won't cover my pills if I buy them at Walmart, but WILL if I use mail in service..(ODD, yes but cheaper even yet.. $20 for a 3 month supply)

    It really makes no sense what so ever to bitch about birth control. It is a health issue period. Even if a woman isn't sexually active, she still needs to have a yearly exam. (I don't care what the recent guideline changes are suggesting!) HPV alone being reason enough. Most people don't realize that HPV is a VERY common virus that you DON'T JUST GET FROM HAVING SEX! I have known women who had no idea what it was, how they got it, or how to treat it. It is classified a sexually transmitted disease ONLY because the most common way it is contracted is through sex and sexual contact. I should know as I have worked in a doctors office for years.

    Another issue I have is this whole scare tactic in linking breast cancer to abortions. It is honestly ridiculous as there is no significant pattern linked to breast cancer. There are SOOOO many variants that need to happen in order for you to get breast cancer. Even then, you aren't guaranteed to GET breast cancer simply by going off of those variants. Genetics play a huge role as does what ones eats. It is simply a crap shoot. In addition, the whole breastfeeding issue is another tactic to shame women who don't breastfeed as well. Breastfeeding use to be the panacea for women who had just given birth. "They" use to say that breastfeeding also helped a woman lose her baby weight. That has since been debunked as well.

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  27. Good points Ectropic: and HPV is a pre-cursor to cervical cancer.

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  28. Barbara~
    Yes, HPV can be a pre-cursor to cervical cancer but not always. Just because you get HPV doesn't mean you will inevitably GET cervical cancer. Furthermore, the Gardisil injection that is now being given to many of today's prepubescent girls isn't going to help much either. Yes, it does help in the prevention of SOME of the strains of HPV but not enough to really protect and prevent imo. There are over a hundred different strains of HPV, yet the most common one is the strain that can and often does the most damage; it often lays dormant in a person's body for years. Yet now the medical community wants to vaccinate today's young men against HPV as well? Men RARELY exhibit symptoms or endure any medical issues when contracting HPV, unlike women. (No big surprise there!) So why do we want to go out and vaccinate against something that is already contained in men?

    Anyhow..another issue I wanted to point out in regards to the pill is that is was ORIGINALLY developed for women who were suffering from infertility. Preventing one from ovulating was the sole purpose so that more eggs and often higher quality eggs would build up in a woman's ovaries, thus allowing for increased success in procreation. This is the first thing any GOOD infertility doctor will do still today, if test results show no medical reason for not conceiving. So for those people who don't see this campaign against women and their right to choose to use birth control as a MEDICAL issue, please take a step back and look at ALL the issues that tie into birth control.

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  29. Just curious, how else would one get HPV except though sexual contact? Toilet seats? I had always heard that sex was the only way it was spread. Daughter of a friend is going through infertility hell (failed in vitro) because she contracted HPV as a teen. To me the vaccine sounds like a very good thing even if it does not protect against all strains.

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  30. To me the vaccine also sounds like a good thing. As to your question, I do not know the answer. I thought sex was the way HPV was contacted, but I'm no doctor.

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