Avoiding pregnancy is a key component of women's health

Discussion in 'Politics' started by dbphoenix, Aug 21, 2014.

  1. Well, I've got you dangling on a hook once again, don't I? :)
     
    #201     Sep 7, 2014
  2. Tsing Tao

    Tsing Tao

    Yes, clearly on the edge of my seat as I prep my calendar for tomorrow and wait for my laptop to defrag. After this, I've got much more important things to do as it pours rain outside, like fold laundry.
     
    #202     Sep 7, 2014
  3. Tsing Tao

    Tsing Tao

    Oh, incidentally, it is good to know that what got you all engaged in this mono y mono with me was the fact that I pointed out how I ignore your long winded and often erratic posts. That's what began this fun, and it was good for 5 pages or so of Hoofy randomness.

    I guess that means I had you dangling from a hook and was trolling you :)
     
    #203     Sep 7, 2014
  4. dbphoenix

    dbphoenix

    Sounds like TT ought to look up "denial", particularly since the relevance of any of his homosexual rantings have not even tangential relevance to this topic or any other.

    This is the best that TPs have to offer? I guess liberals are secure.
     
    #204     Sep 7, 2014
  5. Tsing Tao

    Tsing Tao

    LOL...what a clown you are. :)
     
    #205     Sep 7, 2014
  6. dbphoenix

    dbphoenix

    That's it? :rolleyes:
     
    #206     Sep 7, 2014
  7. Lucrum

    Lucrum

    Classic liberal progressive.

    Get your ass handed to you then claim victory AND pretend everyone is on your side.
     
    #207     Sep 7, 2014
    Tsing Tao likes this.
  8. Tsing Tao

    Tsing Tao

    Yeah, clowns sums it up pretty well! :)
     
    #208     Sep 7, 2014

  9. The last 5 pages or so may have all been in good fun, but don't flatter yourself with the delusion that you have somehow prompted me out of hiding, when it has clearly been the other way around.

    I've given you plenty of chances to engage, mono y mono, but your usual tactic is to sidestep, and back out.

    You have created a clever way of obfuscating the truth by waiting for me to go away, then claiming you won't read through my comment because it contains too many spaces between sentences, or that it's garbled and lacks continuity of thought.

    You, lie, as usual.

    It's doubtful I could have been much clearer.

    I've stood behind my statements, taking the time to articulate. Perhaps it's you who is too dense to comprehend sentences with gaps in between them.

    You say I am still having trouble with indentations? lol! Show me one post in here where anyone uses indentations to start a paragraph?

    You say such foolish things, Tsing, not even realizing the forum's format simply doesn't allow for indentation.

    So, what is next, do we go on talking about your tendency to associate men in loincloths with gay internet porn sex while your computer defragments?

    Btw, fellas, Judy Garland is for a fact one of the top ten fantasy women for white males under the age of 90. I myself had a poster of her as a lad. So, in what queer world does having a Judy Garland dvd equate to homosexuality?

    You guys are giving off so many rampant homoerotic undertones and homophobic overtones it's damn near getting tough to keep reading it.

    But being the solid entertainers you are, I won't abandon the conversation just yet. :)
     
    #209     Sep 7, 2014
  10. dbphoenix

    dbphoenix

    You can’t say Republicans haven’t learned from their 2012 disasters: They’ve drilled their candidates not to talk about rape, legitimate or otherwise. Now a few are realizing it hurts to be seen as the party that’s against contraception, too.

    But they don’t support the Affordable Care Act, which mandated contraception without a copay. And they can’t come out against the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision, either, which vastly expanded the religious exemption letting employers duck the ACA mandate, since that’s beloved by social conservatives as well as free-marketeers. So in the closing weeks of the 2014 midterms, we’ve seen several Republican Senate candidates running tough races in purple states endorse a novel proposal: allowing pharmacies to sell birth control pills over the counter.

    Colorado’s Cory Gardner, who had to flip-flop on his support for personhood legislation that could outlaw some forms of birth control, released an ad last week saying, “I believe the pill ought to be available over the counter, round the clock, without a prescription.” Days later North Carolina’s Thom Tillis, during a debate with Sen. Kay Hagan, did the same, seeming to catch Hagan a little bit off guard. Virginia’s Ed Gillespie, Minnesota’s Mike McFadden and Louisiana’s Rob Maness have all backed a version of the same idea.

    First of all, a note to Gardner’s ad people: There’s really no such thing as “the pill,” there are dozens of forms of oral contraception. (I counted more than two dozen in this WebMD overview.) And it doesn’t much help that they’re available “round the clock”; you have to take them daily, and they take a while to become effective.

    From Gardner to Rush Limbaugh, conservative men talk about “the pill” as though it’s comparable to condoms or Cialis: something you take only when needed, so you can stop and pick up a pack at Walgreens “round the clock” and just pop one “when the time is right.” And if you need to pop them a lot, like Limbaugh thought Sandra Fluke did, you’re a slut.

    This is why it would be best if Republicans stopped talking about the pill altogether.

    Gardner also boasts that the over-the-counter birth control pill helps women by letting them skip a visit to a doctor. This is a little dim, too. When deciding which “pill” is best, women and their doctors consider her risk of breast cancer, heart disease, stroke; her weight, her plans for pregnancy, whether she is breast-feeding, and her overall health. For many women, it can take several tries to find a pill that doesn’t cause side effects like weight gain, depression and loss of libido. Some women don’t even use “the pill” for contraception, but to treat other reproductive health issues.

    Long-available forms of “the pill” are relatively inexpensive, under $10 a month; other more recent formulations can cost more than $50 a month. But Gardner, Tillis and the other GOP supporters of over-the-counter birth control have never addressed the issue of which types of pills should be available over the counter, likely because they don’t know so many types exist.

    Even if every existing form of oral contraception was suddenly available without prescription – and it’s not clear that’s feasible — many women would still be unable to afford the version of “the pill” that’s right for them. “If birth control goes over the counter without [insurance] covering it, that actually hurts access,” Dr. Nancy Stanwood, board chair of Physicians for Reproductive Health, told ThinkProgress.

    Of course, many women can’t take the pill, or don’t want to, and rely on IUDs, injections or implants for their birth control needs — and having an IUD inserted by a doctor can cost up to $1,000. (No word yet on whether Cory Gardner thinks Walgreens should sell DIY IUD packs, or self-injectable contraception, over the counter, too.)

    In the final irony, Gardner and Tillis have opposed efforts to make emergency contraceptive Plan B, the only form of oral contraception currently available over the counter, more widely accessible.

    It’s true, as Gardner argues, that a committee of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists thinks oral contraception should be available over the counter. It’s nice that he cares what ACOG thinks. The group also sided against Hobby Lobby in its challenge to the contraception mandate, and opposed the Supreme Court’s decision, which it said “inappropriately allows employers to interfere in women’s health care decisions. All health care decisions – including decisions about contraception – should be made by a woman and her doctor, based on the patient’s needs and her current health.”

    Women aren’t likely to be fooled by Gardner, Tillis and other GOP candidates, but the media might be.

    Joan Walsh
     
    #210     Sep 8, 2014