Nor was “abortion illegal in most post Roman societies”.[For most of history it has been tolerated, allowed or disliked, punished slightly ,but many legal traditions permitted or only mildly punished abortion up to quickening.
Birth control pills are not free from deleterious and occasionally dangerous side effects. They are safer then most, and certainly safer then previous methods, but modern medicine is safer than pretty much anything in history, so thats not saying much.
My sister was prescribed birth control pills when she was 13 (she had some seriously bad cramps). I am pretty sure she was not sexually active then. You don’t get the pill just for birth control.
And why not? Drugs which are used regularly will be cheaper and easier to provide then ones used rarely. And especially for a drug that many people might have social, cultural or emotional issues about.
I watched their first video, and I didn’t get the impression that its editing of the conversations was what was the culprit. If you just listened to the conversations, and didn’t watch the video’s interspersed graphics and comments, the conversations were fine. But those graphics and comments were intended to mislead: “Look, she’s about to say that they sell fetal parts!” Then when the lady mentions the handling fees that are perfectly OK, a non-careful viewer gets the impression that she was talking about that being a profit center.
And it possible quote the relevant part of a 54 page document, rather than just linking to it. You didn’t do that, but it’s possible. Of course, it’s also possible to quote complete sentences, and not edit them to make them appear to say something they don’t say; you didn’t do that, either, but it’s possible.
I’ll tell you why Planned Parenthood has my support. About 10 years ago, my life changed forever.
I was a recent college graduate, living in Oakland and struggling to survive on part-time jobs and temp work. The dot com bust was in full swing, and I had no idea how to break out of my rut. I was broke, going nowhere, frustrated and just plain stuck.
Then I received something incredible- an invitation to serve with the Peace Corps in West Africa. A ticket to another life. I knew, with absolute certainty, that this was the right place for me to be.
I had one little hoop to jump through-- about ten pages of health forms I was required to complete in order to be accepted. I needed a full physical and a dozen tests that would take at least three visits to complete. I was uninsured, and I didn’t have a lot of money.
I called doctors. Some hung up on me. I woke up at 5 AM to wait in line for the free clinic for the homeless in Berkeley. I called county social workers to see if there was any- any- program that would help me get a physical. I tried everything I could.
Then I called Planned Parenthood. They made me an appointment. No questions asked. Over the course of the next few weekends, I took the bus three hours to San Mateo and walked through the crowds of protestors with their bloody fetus signs, yelling at me, and I got medical care. I paid a reasonable fee based on my income.
A month later, I was in a Cameroonian classroom. Ten years later, I have a successful international career.
Like you said, there are “rules” Republicans believe in. You got most of it, but there’s one you forgot: they want to punish women for sex. It would be a nightmare for them if all women could have sex without fear of pregnancy as controlling women through their biology is probably historically the most effective weapon men have against women
The study you linked to shows how use of birth control has grown considerably since the early 1980s. Are you aware that the rate of abortions has nearly halved over that same period of time?
I had one little hoop to jump through-- about ten pages of health forms I was required to complete in order to be accepted. I needed a full physical and a dozen tests that would take at least three visits to complete. I was uninsured, and I didn’t have a lot of money.
I called doctors. Some hung up on me. I woke up at 5 AM to wait in line for the free clinic for the homeless in Berkeley. I called county social workers to see if there was any- any- program that would help me get a physical. I tried everything I could.
Then I called Planned Parenthood. They made me an appointment. No questions asked. Over the course of the next few weekends, I took the bus three hours to San Mateo and walked through the crowds of protestors with their bloody fetus signs, yelling at me, and I got medical care. I paid a reasonable fee based on my income.
A month later, I was in a Cameroonian classroom. Ten years later, I have a successful international career.
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For a foreigner, please explain what exactly Planned Parenthood does (is it private, state, municipal, Federal, publicly funded, public-private partnership?) and the range of services it offers. Your post seems to suggest that it does beyond mere reproductive issues.
And here I thought this thread was going to be from the other side of the issue: Contraception is, at the grassroots level, completely uncontroversial. The proportion if Americans who don’t use contraception is so small that not using it will get you a reality TV show. And the proportion who actually have moral objections to it must be even smaller yet. So why is there any political fuss at all? Who are all of these pharmacists who refuse to sell it, and where are they coming from?
There are some forms of BC that can be viewed, by some people, as causing abortions. Plan B, for instance. I don’t think you find a lot of people saying they won’t sell condoms or The Pill.
The Hobby Lobby case was about 4 forms of BC (out of about 20) that they did not want to finance.
The scientific basis for that belief is, of course, is extremely well established. Once one of those little swimming sperm cell bastards comes within sight of a naked egg, it’s all over! The science says that you wear the rubber or you clobber the female egg first, or live with the consequences. God says so, too.
This is solid science. Not at all like the evidence for something like, say, climate change, which most of these exact same lunatics don’t believe in because the science is so danged complicated. Kind of like how synthetic progestin actually works in some forms of birth control pills, after the fact. God isn’t interested.
I really enjoy watching right-wing politics. It’s kind of like Alice in Wonderland, but with much less actual reality.
I realize the comments are made in jest, but for observers who may not get it, the science is overwhelming that birth control and emergency contraception (the morning-after pill) work by preventing ovulation, meaning that nothing gets fertilized at all.
