Health Overhaul May Bring Free Birth Control

[3dog]

Fifty years after the pill, another birth control revolution may be on the horizon: free contraception for women in the U.S., thanks to the new health care law

Comments

[gretchystretchy]

I would fucking love free bc (even though I'm not on the pill anymore and am now trying to figure out how I'm going to pay the nearly $700 my IUD cost me).

Sorta on-topic: this LTE was printed in my uni's newspaper today. Raaaaaaage. (I actually am the first comment there at the source.)

[peefy]

Why should taxpayer money contribute to something that simply makes it convenient for individuals to engage in voluntary behavior for which they are not willing to accept the consequences?

Oh, great, women should only have sex with the intention to reproduce, I see.

[dearbrains]

i have an iud which was paid for through the Medicaid women's health program. I could have never afforded an iud otherwise, and prior to that my financial situation was not good or steady and paying for birth control was difficult. this would be a great thing, if we could get it into action.

[katiemariie]

I find it strange that the article doesn't address the use of birth control to prevent conditions besides pregnancy. That reality proves the people morally opposed to birth control don't actually give two shits about women, or they would support greater access to medicine that treats a variety of painful conditions.

[scriptophile]

Yes, this exactly. I was on, and still need to be on, the pill to help regulate and control my periods, so there are definitely more benefits than 'just' birth control, though I'm certainly not trivializing that aspect of the pill either, that just wasn't at all why I was/am taking birth control. xD

[sugar_fey]

Exactly. I went on birth control when I was 14 because I have severe endometriosis and once had my period for TWELVE WEEKS IN A ROW. One of my friends freaked out at the time, saying "You can't tell anyone you're on the Pill, they'll think you're a slut!" *eyeroll*

I didn't have sex until I was 21. Clearly, the Pill made me do it.

[zeborahnz]

Lots of "mah tax dollars!!"

Which is short-sighted because I bet free contraception now will save a lot of tax dollars in the long run.

[mybluesunset]

Yup.

[livyatan]

The Guttmacher Institute has estimated that my home state would save $4.14 on pregnancy support for every dollar they spend on birth control pills.
It really is a great investment.

[lotus82]

"We don't consider it to be health care, but a lifestyle choice," said John Haas, president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, a Philadelphia think tank whose work reflects church teachings. "We think there are other ways to avoid having children than by ingesting chemicals paid for by health insurance."There is so much prejudice conflated into Haas's words [and the bold part is particularly infuriating], it's maddening

[lotus82]

Actually, Israeli researchers are working on a pill for men these days. I don't have a link saved in my favorites, but there was some very excited talk about it in the news earlier this year.

[zoram]

There were pills being mad, IIRC, but men didn't want to risk the same side effects as women have, and they stopped because there wasn't a market for it.