[link] birth control

[wispfox]

I feel like I've seen this on LJ already, but I can't remember where. So...

growing numbers of doctors and pharmacists across the US are refusing to prescribe or dispense birth control pills

Having intensely strong reminders of "The Handmaiden's Tale", here...

Comments

[hawkegirl.livejournal.com]

I think the comment about this virtually being unheard of 10 years ago is complete BS. As long as there have been catholic doctors there have people who have said this. It's possible the number is on the rise, but I'd like to see a good study to believe it. There are definatley doctors who feel that way, and definatley doctors who feel otherwise. I see no changing trend in my line of work, though I work in a suburban area, it's possilbe places down south have a bigger changing of attitude.

[regyt.livejournal.com]

My Bush/Handmaid's Tale rant (http://www.livejournal.com/users/regyt/178053.html), originally inspired by something ladytabitha posted around that time.

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

the comment about this virtually being unheard of 10 years ago is complete BS

Noted. I don't have enough interaction with such things to know, although certainly I'd imagine that (as you said) Catholic doctors would refuse to prescribe it.

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

"I'd write to Bush-folk, but why would they listen? I'm just a girl."

Indeed...

[silenceleigh.livejournal.com]

*headdesk*

People. Are. Insane.

Imagine if all that energy was directed towards protecting and preserving human life that was out of the womb and walking around....

[chronicfreetime.livejournal.com]

Wow. I was totally expecting to read about some legitimate but heretofore unknown health concern. My inner cynic is now sneering at my inner optimist.

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

Imagine if all that energy was directed towards protecting and preserving human life that was out of the womb and walking around....

*That's* a thought I've had many, many times... Indeed.

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

Indeed. Kinda wish there _had_ been a legitimate health concern!

[sharp-blue.livejournal.com]

I think the sf book we're living in is most likely to be Baxter's 1997 novel Titan (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0061057134/) (which I do not especially recommend in case anyone is tempted to run out and buy it), which is set in 2004 and the years immediately following. It starts with the Space Shuttle Columbia being destroyed on landing, has the Chinese launching cosmonauts, and features a right-wing, religious-fundamentalist, militaristic US president. But the rest of the book is so bleak I'd almost rather live in the Atwood novel, which at least confines the madness to the US.

[ratatosk.livejournal.com]

You know, I'm not sure which offends me more -- my disagreement with their values, or the fact that they are applying their values to unproven facts and then glossing over the fact that they are unproven. Willful disregard of factual proof, or application of faith to sets of facts is an annoying habit of the right. Whether it turns out to be true or not, the fact that it gets to be regarded as true _now_ based on one or two theoretical papers is exactly the sort of thinking that leads to not teaching evolution in schools, declaring homosexuality to be a lifestyle choice, and all sorts of other offensive paternalism. Grr.

[rosefox]

What's offensive about declaring homosexuality to be a lifestyle choice?

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

Assuming that wasn't a typo, perhaps because it implies that if it's a choice, one can choose to love someone of the opposite gender instead?

*guessing*

[rosefox]

Why is that offensive, though?

[ratatosk.livejournal.com]

Good point -- nothing! That was not what I meant to write. What I should have said was "making a decision about the biological bases for homosexuality based solely on faith and then using that as the justification for oppressive public policy decisions you were going to make anyway." That's wordy, though. :)

[bridgetester.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of the reasons why Margaret Sanger fought to have birth control pills... I wrote a paper on her once...