<p>I also, frankly, do not think the Bible has any business in public policy, particularly given that many American’s do not refer to the Bible, for any reason, including religious. And, while we may have separation of church and state in this country, people really misunderstand that the REAL point of that was to keep religion out of GOVERNMENT, though it did also guarantee freedom of worship, which is a great thing we have in the U.S., and was the natural and inevitable end results of Henry VIII leaving the Catholic church in order to get divorced.</p>
<p>poetgrl,
Women must take some responsibility for the state of things in the reproductive arena. I prefer not to play the victim and pit women against men. There are obviously a significant number of women in some states who oppose choice and/or government mandated contraception coverage; you can’t blame it all on the men.</p>
<p>Bcps must be taken out of politics, by taking government out of the business of regulating the availability of them.</p>
<p>Bay, if we had universal insurance, this whole argument would be moot. Every American would be able to follow the dictates of their own conscience without treading on anyone else’s.</p>
<p>But I think pugmadkate has it exactly right:</p>
<p>If this is true, and you follow it to its logical conclusion, then private insurance carriers are NOT mandated by the government to offer bcps for anything other than contraception, and they do not need to make them co-pay-free, unless they are specifically to be used to contraception. That would make the arguments about bcps other uses, irrelevant.</p>
<p>geeps, Not all men, not even most men, but enough men (with the occasional woman representative) do want to control/punish women. How else can one explain the onslaught of legislation aimed to do exactly that?</p>
<p>kruge - I believe that would be Voldemort. (who I believe is a not so distant cousin of Rush Limbaugh if I remember correctly. I’ll try to find that citation…)</p>
<p>LasMa: Actually, I think that’s great that a medication like that can help you :). I do have a friend who is so sensitive about his loss of hair so I can sympathize. I don’t think your issue is any less than mine because it’s important to you. I’m cool with anyone so long as they don’t try to say birth control is only about sex when it clearly is not in my case. There’s a lot of other medications that have side benefits like what you’re describing and more are being discovered all the time.</p>
<p>First, if you read my posts, you will note that I refer to “the men and women in the media” who denigrate women by using the s word, et al.</p>
<p>However, when the women in the Atlanta legislature are walking out to protest the laws being proposed, and the women in the legislature in Virginia had to resort to national media to get them to table the transvaginal ultrasound requirement before a first trimester D & C could be legally performed, I don’t know exactly who you are talking about.</p>
<p>Women ARE taking responsibility, as are plenty of men, plenty of men. However, when men like Newt Gingrich, who left not one, but two women because of extra-marital affairs want to tell ME about what to do with my body? I’ve got problems with that, and I’m not going to BE a victim just because someone tells me not to PLAY a victim. </p>
<p>Women finally got the right to unimpeded access to birth control in 1965. In these new “personhood” laws they are trying to pass all over the country, which label a two cell organism a person, IUD’s will be illegal. If you do not think your freedom of birth control options is under attack, you are just hiding your head in the sand, frankly.</p>
<p>Let me ask you this, if an impoverished woman cannot access birth control and becomes pregnant, who is responsible for the baby, then? Financially speaking?</p>
<p>"If this is true, and you follow it to its logical conclusion, then private insurance carriers are NOT mandated by the government to offer bcps for anything other than contraception, and they do not need to make them co-pay-free, unless they are specifically to be used to contraception. That would make the arguments about bcps other uses, irrelevant. "</p>
<p>That is exactly correct, I think. HHS does not mandate BCPs without a copay (again, note that is it NEVER free) except for purposes of family planning/birth prevention. In practice, the insurance companies prefer to give it out for free as they save money when they do so. But they don’t have to. (I will have to go read the U.S. Public Health Services’ recommendation.)</p>
<p>I saw that, but I also noted that you prefaced it with the word “right.”</p>
<p>Catholics appear to be the big impediment to the current government mandate. Is it accurate to characterize Catholics as right-ists? This is where labels mess things up. There are plenty of left-leaning Democrat-voting Catholics who oppose contraception and choice. Please be careful of placing blame.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The answer is obvious. But again, the woman has choices. You are starting from the assumption that the woman is the victim. I think that is insulting. The solution is to make bcps available over-the-counter, like condoms, for $9 or so per month, like at Walmart near Georgetown. When that happens, and impoverished women get pregnant, who will you blame?</p>
<p>I really resent your implication that I am “blaming” anyone, and I won’t play that game.</p>
<p>but thanks.</p>
<p>you said:
</p>
<p>My post:
</p>
<p>Nowhere in that sentence does the word “right” refer to the political right, but to rights, as in “you have the right to…” it’s kind of a mangled sentence, though.</p>
<p>“Catholics appear to be the big impediment to the current government mandate.”</p>
<p>As already noted, a very, very small number of Catholics, all of them claiming to be celibate, all of them male, and none of them using BCPs as far as we know. </p>
<p>A very, very large number of Catholics who control major Catholic institutions - and including priests, monsignors, nuns, and Catholic heavy-hitters - and quite a few Catholic churches themselves clearly endorse the use of BCP and provide them (without copays) for their employees and their families even when they don’t have to, in keeping with their Catholic values.</p>
<h1>454–Condoms are now available for $9 or so per month, on every corner at CVS and Walgreens, and women are getting pregnant, impoverished or not. I’m not so sure making bc free will change that. This is a health insurance mandate, and those impoverished women are least likely to have a job that has health insurance. If they are on Medicaid, does it cover bc?</h1>
<p>These two threads are all muddied and co-mingled in my meager brain, but I agreed with several posts which mentioned that there is a segment of the population who perhaps doesn’t care all that much if pregnancy results. If they do care, their actions are surely not showing such. BC (in various forms) is currently widely and cheaply available, and for whatever/manyvaried reasons, it isn’t used dependably/correctly/often enough.</p>
<p>The priests on the Board of the Georgetown University Health Plan endorse the use of BCPs and provide them to all their employees without any copays, in keeping with their Catholic values.</p>