Reducing Access to Contraception

To all of you who are interested in having sex without being obliged to get pregnant,

Please be advised of the growing movement to reframe contraception as abortion, and reduce women's access to it. The current medical definition of pregnancy has it starting at the time of implantation. The religious right defines it from conception/fertilization.  Because contraceptives like the pill can, in theory, prevent implantation, these are viewed by the hard right as abortifacients. Medically, they are not (also the primary mechanism of action is to prevent ovulation). Therefore, emergency contraception (the so-called Plan B) and regular birth control pills can potentially fall under the conscience clause that the HHS wants to enact, saying that a provider, be it physician, pharmacist, surgical scrub tech, whatever, can refuse to participate in any procedure/prescription that is felt to be morally objectionable without their jobs being at risk, provided their employers with to continue recieving federal funds. I think one of the other members here can provide you a link to the public comments section regarding this HHS dictum.

Likewise the hard right would like to reduce access to all contraception, due to the religious philosophy that sex is solely for the purpose of procreation (although they endorse natural family planning- the ol rhythm method- so that seems a touch hypocritical) and that recreational sex is not to be tolerated.

For those of you whose religious leanings are not so, um, strict, and for those of you who aren't Christian, please keep an eye on the news pertaining to these people lest their views insidiously sneak into our law. NOTHING in my personal belief system precludes recreational sex, and I don't give a rat's A$$ what someone else's god has to say about it. Separation of Church and State!

I would also like to remind all of us that without reproductive freedom, we will NEVER achieve meaningful equality as women. In a world where men can have sex with relative impunity and all the burden/consequence lies on the woman, we will never move forward. It's our ability to defer childbearing that lets us go to college and start jobs. It's our ability to regulate our number of offspring that keeps us out of poverty (or, in less poverty anyway given the current economic system).

The anti-contraception movement seems to be getting a little more prominent, and they scare the living daylights out of me. You'd better believe that if McCain/Palin win, I'm getting my IUD pronto, 'cause I can guarantee those will be reframed as abortifacients and sharply regulated.

Just a heads' up.  I've noticed more and more of this and it's creeping me out.

# 16

As I understand it, this change is not to be brought about with a bill that goes through Congress. They are merely rewriting the DEFINATION of abortion to bring about the changes they desire. This method of getting around what one side doesn't want is nothing new. By writing "interpretations" of rules and regulations, an administration can gut laws passed by Congress, signed by a president, and approved by the people with MOST OF US never the wiser. This is done and with as little fanfare as possible, leaving laws often stripped of their original meaning.

Don't think "that's not going to happen here". Stop, THOROUGHLY CHECK it out, and THEN decide. Upon such action by people like you our nation's future may depend.

Jewels, if you think the gov't won't interfere with our uteri you're either far more trusting than I, or don' t know any pro-lifers. To them, abortion is the moral equivalency of infanticide. If I were to taking up flinging newborns off of the freeway bridge into the river, you'd think I was a monster and should be stopped by any means necessary, right? To prolifers abortion is nothing less than the systematic slaughter of tiny babies, the fact that they are still enwombed is irrelevant.  Now, take a step back- if you really in your heart of hearts felt that people were killing babies, wouldn't you do everything, including legislation, to stop it? The President and Congress have no power at all over Roe V Wade as a prior poster pointed out, all it takes is a shift in the Supreme Court, which is coming.

The sneaky attempt to redefine pregnancy as occurring PRIOR to implantation would therefore redefine Plan B, OCPs, and IUDs as potential abortifacients, which would then make them subject to all kinds of regulation.  Not yet criminalized, of course, but for the disadvantaged all you have to do is make them more expensive or harder to get.  Take college, for example. Colleges get federal funds. They could easily say that any student health center providing potential abortifacients would lose it's federal funding and POOF! there goes effective contraception for college women.

I believe in the right of a woman to decide what's best for her and her body. I'm married and I'm on BCP. It's a decision we BOTH took 6 yrs ago when we moved in together.

Romania had a weird history back in the 1960s, during the communist era...there was a decree which prevented the  use of ANY contraception and of course banned abortion. As a result, there were not only children born who were never loved and were abandoned but also women who died b/c they had abortion in God knows what places.

Thinking about that, I'm hoping that no other country has to go through that. Mind you, I only read and saw documentaries on the subject. I was born in 1980s and mom used BCP from abroad smuggled in the country by a friend of hers. I was a planned baby.

edited: spelling

Here's the link if you want to voice an opinion about women's healthcare providers being able to refuse the full range of women's healthcare...

http://www.regulations.gov/search/search_resu lts.jsp?css=0&&Ntk=All&Ntx=mode+m atchall&Ne=2+8+11+8053+8054+8098+8074+806 6+8084+8055&N=0&Ntt=provider%20consci ence&sid=11C38804CFF8

Original Post by cricketro05:

I believe in the right of a woman to decide what's best for her and her body. I'm married and I'm on BCP. It's a decision we BOTH took 6 yrs ago when we moved in together.

Romania had a weird history back in the 1960s, during the communist era...there was a decree which prevented the  use of ANY contraception and of course banned abortion. As a result, there were not only children born who were never loved and were abandoned but also women who died b/c they had abortion in God knows what places.

Thinking about that, I'm hoping that no other country has to go through that. Mind you, I only read and saw documentaries on the subject. I was born in 1980s and mom used BCP from abroad smuggled in the country by a friend of hers. I was a planned baby.

edited: spelling

 On the same note, whether or not abortion is criminalized or not [who's the criminal in the case? the doctors? ok, I digress..] will not make a significant difference in the number of abortions had. I'm talking wire-hanger, back-alley abortions, or simply trained doctors performing abortions illegally. I mean, the criminalization of pot for non-medical use didn't stop many pot smokers, did it?

Anyway, the whole limited-access-to-contraception thing is backed by McCain. I'm not saying that it would happen if McCain were president, since it is all up to the Supreme Court, but whoever becomes president will be able to bring in a Supreme Court justice who has similar beliefs to their own, after all. McCain originally claimed he wasn't so strictly pro-life in terms of incest, rape, or harm to the mother during labor, but when it came time to change the Republican platform on the matter.. well, he simply didn't. I share that belief as well, and in this case, am decidedly and staunchly pro-choice.

Just saying, for anyone who thinks the results of the presidential election will have nothing to do with this.

"If I were to taking up flinging newborns off of the freeway bridge into the river, you'd think I was a monster and should be stopped by any means necessary, right?"
Haha. That sounded something to me like "If your friends jumped off a cliff, would you, too?" I've heard things like this a lot from anti-abortion groups and people in the media. It's too fallacious, to me, to even be taken seriously.

I don't even USE birth control and I still think it's appalling to restrict women's access to it...

Revolution, I think it's important to know where prolife people are coming from, so we can know where there is room for compromise, and where we are just speaking totally different languages.

Until god himself comes down and tells them that it isn't a human life until X number of weeks, there can be no compromise on the abortion issue- they'll continue to fight it and I, for one, will continue to fight to support my liberties.

HOWEVER, knowing where they are coming from can give us some common grounds. For example, I may be prochoice but it's not like I'm pro-death or think that abortions are a good thing. An abortion, except in the case of severe disability or risk to a woman's health, represents a failure. A failure of education, access, women's empowerment, or ease/efficacy of methods. We should work with prolifers to get rid of abstinence only sex ed (it's time for them to realize we don't all share their value system), to provide cheap safe and effective contraception (maybe that means supporting research into new and exciting means of female AND MALE contraception), and we should work with them to empower women to say "not without a condom, bub!".  No need to ONLY focus on the fight against abortion where there is plenty of room for collaboration, you know?

The room for collaboration goes way down when They redefine the start of a pregnancy at fertilization, though, since that tosses pretty much all contraception except for condoms (not good enough!) out the window. That's why it's important for us to keep an eye on these movements, so as not to be blindsided when suddenly we can't get our prescriptions filled.

PS anyone else see Sarah Palin as Serena Joy from "the Handmaid's Tale"?

Original Post by dbackerfan:

You know I'm of the philosophy if you are anti-abortion don't have one!!!

lol!!! thanks for lightening things up, got one of those 'yuck' feelings in the pit of my stomach after reading about this.

and yes noelle, i was actually thinking of that movie/book a couple of days ago. NOW i get why it entered my head. classic story.

#27, noelle - very well thought out and written.  I think you bring up some really good points.

Revolution - "I'm talking wire-hanger, back-alley abortions, or simply trained doctors performing abortions illegally." - I could be wrong, but even if Roe vs Wade gets overturned, wouldn't the whole abortion thing go back to the State level?  If so, we all know there is no way that every state is going to outlaw it.  There aren't enough conservatives in office...and I don't think there ever will be.

I've read various articles about pharmacists and doctors refusing to issue medications or participate in procedures out of a "conscientious" decision. I'd like to ask each of them how they could take the hippocratic oath knowing they'd refuse to help a patient if they felt they didn't want to.

One of the scariest things is how many hospitals are associated with the Catholic church. They can and will refuse rape victims not on birth control the morning after pill or Plan B. I saw they were threatened with losing federal funds and then the Catholic whatever decided they could offer Plan B for rape victims because they would have no idea if a sperm had come in contact with an egg so there should be no moral objection to something that can not be known.

Before this decision was made they would turn rape victims away and would tell them they'd have to seek this medication from another source within 36-48 hours of the assualt. Can you imagine being raped and then being told you'd have to go find another provider almost immediately and tell your story all over again so you could prevent an unwanted and unplanned pregnancy? It makes me shudder to think about it.

In the same article another woman talked about going to the ER and being diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy. She was only a few weeks along and she could have been given the abortion pill (RU 186). They told her she'd have to make an appointment with her own doctor the next day or come back when she was in danger of having her tube burst because they would not prescribe the medication. She could have died because of their lack of medical care.