The Greatest Story Never Told
Leslie Carol Botha: The FDA and women’s health in the same sentence makes me nervous. I think it is pretty clear that the FDA does not hold the health of women – nor anyone else for that matter- as a priority. It has become pretty clear that they are the government puppet for the pharmaceutical companies. Dr. Elizabeth Kissling wrote an excellent highlighting some of the FDA’s obvious disregard for the health of women.
Doctors regularly hold women’s birth control prescriptions hostage like this, forcing them to come in for exams that research is increasingly showing are too frequent and often unnecessary and ineffective.
Birth-control pills are known to affect women’s taste in men, at least in laboratory experiments. Now a study of real-world couples suggests that this pill-related preference change could have long-term consequences for a relationship’s quality and outcome.
Women who use oral contraceptives do not appear to have any increased risk of acquiring HIV, researchers said here. But, depending on the types of statistical analyses employed, there was a 37% increased risk of HIV acquisition with injected hormonal contraceptives, McCoy told MedPage Today during the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections.
Arizona has taken up yet another draconian law for women’s health – this time replicating but broadening the federal push to let employers deny women access to birth control. The bill stipulates that, unless a woman brings in a note proving she is not using it to avoid getting pregnant, an employer can deny birth control to any woman in the workplace.
SJW has also been shown to reduce the efficacy of some oral contraceptives. It’s even suspected to have caused unplanned pregnancies. (One woman reported having been prescribed birth control for over 9 years, and experiencing an unintended pregnancy just 6 months after starting her SJW treatment.)
On February 10th, the Washington Post published an op-ed piece by Rachel Maddow. In this she outlines how there are Republicans who don’t want birth control covered by insurance, they don’t want Planned Parenthood receiving federal funding, and they want an embryo to be considered as a person with rights. She highlights that this last issue threatens the legality of hormonal birth control. In the final paragraph she states:
“Time will tell on the political impact of this fight, but the relevant political context here is more than just a 2012 measure of Catholic bishops’ influence on moral issues. It’s also this year’s mainstream Republican embrace of an antiabortion movement that no longer just marches on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade to criminalize abortion; it now marches on the anniversary of Griswold v. Connecticut, holding signs that say “The Pill Kills.”
Back in the good old days, a kinder, gentler Republican Party, seeking to punish women who dared to have sex for the pleasure of it, targeted only those who accidentally got pregnant — by forcing them to bring their fetuses to term. Today, it seems, that scheme doesn’t punish enough women for the perceived sexual sins committed by so many. In the GOP of the 21st century, the standard bearers aim to make sure you pay for your pleasure with a pregnancy and childbirth.
Culture warrior and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum is having a good moment. Tuesday’s caucus sweep settles the question of which candidate social conservatives support AND the entire Republican party has whipped itself into a frenzy over birth control pills. Seriously.
I understand the Bishops don’t like contraception, and I understand practicing Catholics do, but I think there’s a solution here: universal single payer. Just a thought.
President Romney won’t be forcing nuns to dole out free diaphragms in violation of their religious freedom and the Constitution that guarantees it.
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