<p>Bay, you asked if women’s rights have been shrinking over the years. I think they have. 87% of US counties now have no abortion providers, effectively preventing some women from exercising a constitutional right. The new “personhood” bills would prevent not only abortions, but miscarriage care and most birth control. The horrendous forced-ultrasound laws are intended to intimidate and shame women who are seeking abortions. (They’re also infantilizing – we need an ultrasound because, after all, we can’t understand what’s going on in our own bodies.) Yes, our reproductive rights are eroding.</p>
<p>Someone above made the point that unless we control if and when we have children, we do not control our own lives. The people who would send us back in time, barefoot and pregnant, have never given up their fight. The very fact that we’re discussing birth control at all in the year 2012 shows us that. The flurry of new abortions laws shows us that they’re making progress. We can’t relax.</p>
As I’ve stated in other contexts, I think this is a false dichotomy. Money is never divorced from values, philosophy, and judgments about what is “right” or “fair.” Money is how we keep score. Money is how the strong manipulate and control the weak. Money is the ultimate tool by which we express and impose our beliefs on others.</p>
<p>What has been the “big news” about Limbaugh’s offensive comments? He’s lost sponsors and outlets. What is the fundamental issue in the Georgetown kerfuffel? Who pays, or doesn’t have to pay.</p>
<p>Ultimately “fiscal conservatism” is about letting people who have the most money and power keep the power (and money.) I know that’s not the conscious decision process of many fiscal conservatives, but it is the ultimate end result of the philosophy.</p>
<p>I have no moral qualms about birth control pills being available over the counter, but are they the sort of drug that is normally available without a prescription? Are birth control pills available over the counter in other countries?</p>
<p>What are you afraid of? Using the pill as a form of morning after pill without telling the woman? The morning after pill can only be used effectively used within 72 hours. 5 days if you’re REALLY stretching it. Or are you afraid of something else? It’s impossible to OD on the pill. If you’re afraid that the man would use it as a form of discrete birth control, I’m sure there are easier ways to do it…</p>
<p>CF, I know for a fact that they’re available OTC in Mexico and other Latin American countries (actually, it’s without a prescription since technically there aren’t many pharmacies like what we have- you have to ask the pharmacist). Ironic considering those countries are so Catholic. Not sure about elsewhere.</p>
<p>There are some significant risk factors associated with the use of BCP (especially among smokers), which (as I understand it) is why they aren’t approved over-the-counter. Like other preventive health services, it is hoped that they will help foster a relationship with a primary care doc.</p>
<p>Well, I’d consider Costa Rica to be a first world country so… there. </p>
<p>Otherwise, I’m 95% positive you can get them OTC in Spain. Sorry, I can only speak from personal experience so others who have traveled elsewhere will have to chip in.</p>
<p>Oh for heavens sake. Women have sex whether married, single, widowed, extra marital, etc, we are having sex. That seems to scare certain men. And using some old text written by men to decide medical decisions for women is ridiculous. </p>
<p>As for smoking and bcp, wish we went after tobacco rather than blame bcpils. Tobacco companies sell their addictive drug which kills millions but oh, women can’t have bcpills over the counter…</p>
<p>Sex. It all boils down to sex. And women having control. Scares them men folk.</p>
<p>Forget Rush and Bill Maher for the moment. In my mind and my daughters as well this whole discussion has gotten sidetracked into the hinterlands of personality. It’s a matter of how we make public policy decisions. We have legislators trying to make binding public policy regarding issues that they don’t actually understand. Be it vaginal probes, the fact that “the pill” is taken every day sex or no sex, the on label uses of hormone therapy in the form of “the pill” or other women’s health issues - representatives with no medical background and seemingly no high school health class are attempting to write law regarding specific healthcare procedures and conditions based on nothing more than their own personal opinion (or moral conviction, as they call it).</p>
<p>Earlier in the thread several posters related their D and C without anesthetic. I too had and ER D and C without anesthetic after a miscarriage. I don’t know how one can describe to people who aren’t willing to make the “condom’s don’t help endometriosis” leap what that procedure feels like and what it entails. Guys seem to get squeamish at the passing mention of a rubber glove - a veiled reference to a prostate exam. That’s just child’s play compared to what women go through. I am now getting to the age where friends are having peri-menopausal cycle changes that cause literal hemorrhaging, oblation therapy, hysterectomies, etc. These used to be all lumped under the category of “female troubles” and a woman might take to bed for periods. That’s tough to do when you have to get up every morning and be a productive wage earner.</p>
<p>I think this is great that women and men are talking about these things out in the public with real, anatomical words. I worry about a society of home schoolers who aren’t operating with real information. “You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.”</p>
<p>To introduce a twist to this topic - this is one more reason why D (rightly in my opinion) refuses to look at deep red state schools.</p>
<p>Men have bossed women around (and have taken advantage of them) for well too many centuries. Maybe we should have a special congress which consists of female congress members only. This special women-only congress decides what is good for women. Men should not pretend they know more about what women need than women do. (And who know what “secret agenda” these men may have?! Remember that less than 100 years ago, in this country, women were even not allowed to vote and of course men had all kinds of “good” reasons.)</p>
<p>LasMa, Sorry. I have just removed my reference to Rush L. as Saintfan posted “Forget Rush and Bill Maher for the moment.” (I was really itching to say something nasty about Rush, as he did to the lady at Georgetown. What may be words similar to slut and prostitute that can be used for a man like him? Rapist and pimp?)</p>
What is the question about the number of children? Are you hinting that maybe he has more in a closet somewhere that we don’t yet know about, a la the Governator or John Edward? Juicy gossip :)?</p>
<p>Oprah…hmm…I seem to remember her having some relatively unknown junior first term senator on her show. Started quite a fan club for him…he came from her home base of Chicago…pushed that person into the political arena pretty hard…whatever happened to that nice man…oh…never mind…</p>
<p>Oprah’s shows aren’t exclusively about politics and current events, though. Rush’s are. Oprah’s not a political pundit; Rush is. </p>
<p>Having said that, I’m unimpressed with the all-of-a-sudden-realization of his sponsors that Rush is a jerk. Really? That tiger showed his stripes a long time ago, and they continued to sponsor his show (which is, of course, their right to do so) … This isn’t like a “good” guy who all of a sudden turned out to be a jerk. Pulling their sponsorships isn’t really an impressive thing, for me. They knew all along what he was like; he’s been that way forever.</p>
<p>Maybe someone can refresh my memory on this, but I don’t recall Oprah using her bully pulpit (a particularly apt phrase in Limbaugh’s case) to make libelous statements about a private citizen …</p>