I know you know better than that, WhyNot, so I’m just going to bow out now.
I’m made very uncomfortable by the notion that people should not be allowed to make moral decisions regarding how they run their company, unless their company has some special relationship to those morals.
I have to back WhyNot up on this one…I would not consider irregular periods to be a medical issue, necessarily. If it were me, and trying to conceive was not an issue, I might mention it to my doctor during a checkup, just to see if he thinks there’s anything I should do about it. Based on my sister’s experience with it, my money is on the doc telling me not to worry about it, unless it bothers me for some reason. I can’t think of a reason it would bother me, so I doubt highly I would want to mess around with taking hormones to fix what is essentially a non-problem.
On the other hand, if I was a guy, and I couldn’t get an erection, I would be at the doctor’s pronto to try to figure out why, and fix it if possible.
Yeah, like if your bank decided it was OK to just appropriate its customers funds when the mood hit them, you wouldn’t want to impose your morals on how they run their company.
One could easily argue that lack of erection is largely an inconvenience as well. And not being able to predict my periods sounds like a considerable inconvenience to me. It would make trying to determine whether I’m pregnant a nightmare (whether I want to be, or want NOT to be), and frankly, my period is an inconvenience in and of itself that I prefer to be able to plan around, within reason.
Besides, most women I know who went on the pill for menstruation-related reasons didn’t do it because of irregular periods, they did it because of regularly excruciatingly painful periods. The pill can fix that. Provera doesn’t.
That said, I don’t think that the Catholic Church should be compelled to provide birth control. Privately owned businesses are a slightly fuzzier issue. On the one hand, it’s not as though anyone is ever absolutely forced to take any given job, but on the other, I’d hate to see not covering birth control become a widely accepted practice.
Sorry. I misread Mr. Moto’s post. :smack:
I don’t see why you should be uncomfortable.
The owner of a company might be extremely against birth control. This is a religious objection…it has nothing to do with running the company (or nothing to do with business). People, in general, should have an expectation that if something is legal then they shouldn’t be at the whims of another persons moral scuples. The owner of the company should be concerned with things that have an effect on business. Dress code…sure. Whether or not I’m on birth control…irrelevant.
I should have the freedom to enjoy perfectly legal activities that have no bearing on the company I work for…I should not be subjected to the whim of another person on these activities just because I work for him/her.
So, I don’t get your ‘discomfort’.
But the employer is not preventing anyone from going on birth control, or even trying to find out whether or not its employees are on birth control. It’s just refusing to help them pay for it.
It is not his concern.
When I work for an employer and that employer offers medical insurance than it is entirely proper for me to expect birth control to be covered.
If the employer feels so strongly about this that he doesn’t offer medical insurance, fine. However, I will be wanting more money in terms of salary to cover this deficit or I won’t be working for him.
To allow the employer to willy-nilly exclude legal activities not affecting the business…that is a freedom restriction. I voluntarily give up my right to wear perfectly legal ragged jeans to work because the employer has every right to worry that it affects business. Whether I’m on birth control doesn’t have this problem.
Therefore, he wants to restrict my freedom from a perfectly legal activity that has no affect on his business just because of how he feels. I find this inappropriate and find it uncomfortable.
Again, nothing stopping the employer from not offering health insurance. However, if he offers it…
If he offers it, he has the freedom to choose any policy he likes that the insurance company will give him. Some policies include coverage of birth control, and other don’t. An employer can’t (so far as I know), purchase a “cover everything” policy and then instruct the insurance company not to cover birth control. That’s not how it works. The insurance company offers several plans, and the employer chooses the one he wants to buy.
An analogy: there’s a fruit tray in the lunch room. It has no pineapples in it. This isn’t because the employer bought a pineapple/watermelon/cantaloupe/grape tray at the market and took out all the pineapples. It’s because the market offered a pineapple/watermelon/cantaloupe/grape tray, a pineapple/watermelon/grape tray and a watermelon/cantaloupe/grape tray, and the employer decided (swayed by his morals or his religion, perhaps), to purchase the watermelon/cantaloupe/grape tray. Not only do you not have a “right” to pineapple, but he’s not prohibiting pineapple, just saying that you have to go to the market and buy your own.
I’m not claiming what I am saying is true. Just debating the topic and a previous poster’s ‘discomfort’. Sorry if I gave that impression.
Super-heavy bleeding that leads to anemia or iron-deficiency, debilitating pain, cramps, migraines, nausea,… these seem medically-addressable.
Yep, I agree. And also not best treated with birth control pills. Sorry, not EXCLUSIVELY treatable with birth control pills.
You mean like having a special relationship to the morals? You wouldn’t happen to be talking about the qualifier I put into the statement would you?
Providing birth control isn’t an essential function of a business. Keeping your money safe is an essential function of a bank’s business.
I think people like yourself haven’t thought this through very well. Making the business environment antagonistic to Catholic values in a country that is nearly 25% Catholic isn’t a good method of maintaining social cohesion, which is the government’s main function.
Is there something else that reduces the blood flow? I’m genuinely curious, not being snarky!
[hijack] Generally, too much blood flow would lead one to look for the underlying root cause, often endometriosis, cancer, polyps, cysts or adenomyosis. To treat it effectively, you have to treat the underlying cause, not just go on the pill to stop the periods and forget about it.
“Too much” in a medical sense is a whole bloody lot (pun intended) of menstrual fluid, though. Menorrhagia is only diagnosed when over 250 mL of menstrual fluid is lost each month. That’s over a cup. “Average” is anywhere from 60-250mL in a month. I know, we all think our flow is heavy, but if you pour 2 Tablespoons of red food coloring on a maxi pad, you’ll be surprised how much it spreads out. Over 1 cup of fluid is a whole, whole, lot. Most women who choose to stop their periods because of heavy bleeding are bleeding within the medically normal range, they would just prefer not to. And that’s great, and I’m so glad we have the technology to (mostly) safely achieve that. But I don’t consider it a medical need. The body is working just fine (unlike with erectile dysfunction), it’s just working outside the convenient parameters.
Drug treatments for actual menorrhagia (besides the birth control pill) include progestin (Provera), Prostaglandin inhibitors, including NSAIDS like ibuprofen, and iron supplements. Surgical treatments include D&C, removal of polyps or cysts, endometrial ablation or resection, or, generally as a last resort, hysterectomy.
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