One corrects a legitimate medical condition while the other does not.
Marc
Amen to this. My firm gets many applicants for each position it makes available. What it doesn’t get are many qualified applicants. Our competitors have the same problem. The firm competes to build the best workforce it can.
This is not to belittle the difficulties some have finding jobs. Jobs leave areas and migrate to new areas. Skills grow outdated. When a factory or processing center or even corporate office moves to a new locale, it can have a great negative effect on its current locale.
Despite localized difficulties, by geography and/or skill set, the job market as a whole is not a one-way equation, employer > employee. Good employees with marketable skills often have more influence than the employer.
So largely as to be false.
Exactly! Birth control is for use on legitimate medical conditions, such as irregular periods, prevent pregnancy in high risk women, etc. Viagra doesn’t correct any medical condition, unless you think the desire to have wood is a medical condition.
duplicate post
Why do you think the only reason to have sex is the intention not to have children?
You don’t consider physiologically-caused impotence to be a medical condition?
The risk of pregnancy places an unfair burden on women when it comes to sexual activity. Impotence is a medical condition only if one is contemplating having sex. If you can’t have sex because you might get pregnant then you might as well be impotent. (And people who rely on the Church-approved rhythm method are called “parents”.)
Because the vast majority of the time it is not. People go to church with the intention of not having children. People go to baseball games with the intention of not having children. I’m talking about gender equality in pursuing a basic life activity.
Actually, I’m having trouble understanding “covering” birth control. It doesn’t cost money, it saves money. People with prescriptions for contraceptives should get a reduction in premiums. How can any organization object to that? Do they reject these savings as “dirty money”?
I would doubt that men who have sex under the influence of viagra are more likely than average to be trying to conceive. They tend to be older.
Well, the key to temporary male sterility is not to take a pill, but to take a shot in the pills.
I love how these threads always deteriorate into fits of anger. I could remark how Viagra seems to be a personal affront to some people, but the same thing could be said about Catholics and the pill.
So the safest thing seems to be to ask that Catholics be allowed to run our lives and our organizations our own way. The First Amendment would apply here, and since we all like that amendment very much, let’s apply it across the board.
Actually, I do. But I also believe that preventing pregnancy and the other things that hormonal birth control are used for are actual medical conditions that should be covered.
I know that determining the coverage that an employer is going to offer is a complicated thing. However, covering birth control is an inexpensive thing to add to the plan. I believe that the majority of employers unwilling to do so are not doing it for economic reasons but are doing it to because of their morals. Let’s be honest, the inability to get wood is not a life threatening condition. Can you tell me the off-label use for Viagra or other wood-inducing products? Because we know that birth control has medically accepted off-label uses for real health issues and an employer’s unwillingness to cover has implications for a women beyond putting just one more barrier in front of them getting contraception.
This issue doesn’t resonate as strongly with me as the dispensing of meds issue, for a number of reasons. One reason is that, fortunately, birth control is not really too expensive and there are places such as Planned Parenthood where you can get your Pill on a sliding scale. I also realize that employers have to limit coverage in some areas or health insurance costs get out of control.
But the things they chose to limit frequently show what the employer is really made of, it you get my meaning. And the decision to not cover birth control usually means, IMO, that they think their beliefs are more important than employee health.
Well, sure. But in the case of Catholic Charities, that employer is a church, and presumably has some say in how they’d like to cover things due to freedom of religion issues.
Moreover, that freedom applies even if you aren’t a church.
My doctor (not Catholic) does not prescribe birth control pills because they can cause a fertilized egg to be flushed out of a pregnant woman. He believes that life begins at conception, so bc pills are capable of killing the baby. We respect his opinion and get the pills through my wife’s GYN.
To answer the OP, your employer should not have to provide you a perk that violates their morals.
While it’s true that birth-control pills are used to treat other reproductive ailments (as well as clearing skin), let’s not kid ourselves: there are other, non-contraceptive drugs out there that do the same job. While I hear of women put on B.C. to “regulate their periods”, there’s Provera instead. Acne? There are countless acne medications which don’t cause temporary sterility.
Off-label uses of birth control pills are most often a polite fiction; they are prescribed as such by understanding doctors who get that a young woman might not be able to explain her use of them to her church or parents otherwise.
Well, I think they are prescribed by doctors who realize that they have more than one use, not just as a smokescreen to hid the fact that a girl may be having sex.
Why should a person have to take multiple meds to deal with their hormonal issues if the BCP alone would take care of the problem and assist in pregnancy prevention at the same time? The doctors in the office my family goes to are all pro-life, anti-abortion. They have moral issues with BCP due to the possibility of it being considered an abortion by some. But they still prescribe it, because they understand their morals don’t trump a patient’s needs.
So a mans desire to get wood again (which is closely linked to his subconcious/psychological identity) is waved off as non-life threatening, but a females desire to regulate periods and control acne a constitutionally protected right (by applying the first amendment to prohibit prohibitions)?
blinks in confusion
Can you show me who said that? I don’t see where anyone is talking constitutionality…at least not me.
They shouldn’t, of course, but that assumes that “assist[ing] in pregnancy prevention at the same time” is a goal. When I was a teen and “needed my periods regulated” (actually, I wanted the birth control pill, but I was hesitant to say that out loud), the doctor gave me Provera: 1 pill once a day for seven days out of the month. It’s not a contraceptive.
Provera is the standard drug used for regulating periods in infertility treatment. It has less side effects and is taken less frequently than birth control pills. (Provera is taken 1 pill a day for seven days a month.) Birth controls don’t actually regulate your periods at all, they simply stop your periods and give you regular pseudo-periods.
I’m not saying there would never, ever be a reason why the birth control pill would be preferred for non-birth control reasons - maybe there is. But I know far more people on birth control to “regulate their periods” than have even heard of Provera. I’m just saying we should be honest with ourselves here. Most women are on birth control so they can control when they give birth. AND THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT. Even if they justify it by a 'round about thought process, there are almost always other noncontraceptive drugs available for the purpose - and it’s those drugs that the Catholic church requires their women to take. A Catholic woman is only supposed to take birth control if no other medication is available for her condition, and contraception is an unhappy, lamented side effect - anything else is grounds for excommunication. Of course, this has led a lot of Catholic doctors and patients to choose birth control for other stated reasons. As a non-Catholic, I could give two hoots, except that I’d rather these women and doctors stand up and say what they believe to be right, rather than hide behind off-label uses as an excuse. It’s just dishonest and doing our sisters a disservice when we pretend that our use of it (to secretly prevent pregnancy) is okay, and theirs is immoral.
And since when is an irregular period a medical problem, unless you’re trying to conceive? Sounds like a convenience thing, not an illness.