I signed this petition to restore affordable prices for birth control pills. Please sign and share with others!
If you haven't heard, a loophole in a new federal law caused the price of birth control pills to double or even triple at college and university pharmacies, which is a real problem for college age women, many of whom don't exactly want to explain to their parents that they need help paying for their birth control.
The price has also skyrocketed at over 400 community health centers that primarily serve low income women. One of the most common criticisms of low income families is that they are poor due to their own poor choices, such as having more children than they can afford. Well, if they can't afford birth control, can we blame them?
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I do agree that birth control shouldn't be overpriced because of political opinion.
But... all this talk we hear of women needing to be empowered and take control of their lives and bodies, I think that if more women did this, that would do more to solve the overpopulation. You don't HAVE to have sex, but you do need to eat and take responsibility for yourself and those you bring into the world.
Can't afford birth control, don't have sex, plain and simple.
Well, but it's not that simple. There are married grad students, and over 400 community clinics in low income areas that were also affected. For married couples, not having sex is not a realistic long term solution. And it's not fair. These are people who are doing the responsible thing to prevent unwanted pregnancies, and now it's a lot more expensive.
And unfortunately, there are situations where husbands (and boyfriends) feel like it's okay for them to demand sex, and coerce women. My mom has seen a lot of this where she works, at the Board of Health.
And what about people who are laid off and lose their health insurance? Shouldn't they have access to affordable reproductive care as well? Nobody wants abortion used as birth control, but then people keep passing laws that limit women's access to birth control, which is going to bring about more unwanted pregnancies, which keep women feeling trapped in abusive marriages, and are one of the most common reasons for women not completing college.
Sure, maybe in a perfect world someone who couldn't afford BC wouldn't have sex, but not everyone lives in a perfect world, or can act perfectly all the time.
Logically: I don't want a baby yet, so I will use birth control. Birth control gets more and more expensive for no apparent reason except that certain groups don't like the idea that I have a choice not to have a baby, and my anger over that somehow means I'm not empowered, or that I'm slacking in responsibility? The old "If you're feminist, then you would do this..." saw is getting really old. My feminism means I defend my rights to choose, not to have my options manipulatively priced away.
Post a Comment