"Why are we suddenly having an explosion in guys asking for vasectomies?" This is a question Dr. Steven Jones' staff asks him a lot lately, the Cleveland Urologist told CNN. Dr. Marc Goldstein, a New York-based urologist in practice for over thirty years, told the network, "I have never seen anything like this. When things started to go south in the stock market, then the vasectomy consults went north." The folks over at vasectomy.com no doubt were pleased for snagging that most awesome domain name. Little did they know a bad economy would provide their payday; the number of appointment requests through their site spiked 30 percent in January.
It's not just men who are suddenly concerned about their family's future. Consumers are spending more money on all types of contraceptives, according to the Nielson Company. Indeed, the embrace of family planning appears to be a critical step in financial planning. Nielson said sales of over-the-counter contraceptives jumped a dazzling 10.2 percent in the first two months of the year. The company reports that, while other retail sales slip, condom sales jumped up 5% in the fourth quarter of 2008 and 6% in January, compared with the same time periods last year. Sales of Essure, a non-invasive, irreversible birth control method for women were up also, 28% over last year's sales.
Planned Parenthood clinics, the leading provider of contraception in the country, also report increased traffic over the past several months, according to Tait Sye, spokesperson for Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "There's no question we're seeing increased traffic at most clinics, and many clinics report an increase in new patients as well," Sye said. A spokesperson for Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa told the local TV news the number of women in the state asking for access to birth control is up nearly 40 percent.
So much for contraception being a non-sequitur in discussions about the economy. Just a couple of months ago, Congressional Republicans, fresh from their first meeting with Obama, stood snickering before the press about the inclusion of a family planning provision in the president's emergency economic plan. What does birth control have to do with the economy? they chided, suggesting Obama might be trying to sneak a liberal social program by them. Minority Leader Representative John Boehner protested, "Regardless of where anyone stands on taxpayer funding for contraceptives and the abortion industry, there is no doubt that this once little-known provision in the congressional Democrats' spending plan has NOTHING (emphasis his) to do with fixing the economy and creating more American jobs. " It was lost on the Republicans, many of whom oppose contraception for 'moral' reasons, that rational people facing hazardous economic times need to control the number of children they have to support. And, by the way, that kind of responsible behavior is good for the economy which can hardly afford the social programs to support families who can't make it on their own. (Republicans are supposedly for responsibility except...when they're not.)
Boehner might want to check in with that Joe the Plumber demographic who, if recent trends are any indicator, not only considers contraception a great form of protection against uncertain times but is opting for the permanent form at that. (And for any Joe without insurance that vasectomy will cost between $500-$1000, probably twice as much as his tax cut. The contraception provision in the stimulus package would have extended coverage for this kind of contraceptive and others to those earning above 200% of the federal poverty level. So Joe, when you lay out that stack of cash don't forget to thank Boehner who thinks your decision to prevent an unaffordable pregnancy is too silly to cover.)
The Salt Lake Tribune recently interviewed a local couple in their twenties who see pregnancy prevention as key to their family's survival. They have two kids, 2 years old and 3 months, and were attending a state insurance fair to sign up for health insurance. He works two part-time jobs and she stays at home caring for the kids. Money is a constant worry-- he foregoes medications to pay for diapers and the electric bill. She explained that they are being "way more careful" about preventing pregnancy. The couple is hoping to qualify for government insurance in order to get birth control. "I just worry if the economy is going to get worse. I would starve myself before my kids [go hungry]. What if it gets so bad I don't have food for them?" Cut to eye-rolling Congressional Republicans.
Family planning is nothing less than a foundation on which many Americans build sturdy, responsible lives. Regardless of political affiliation, that's exactly what many are struggling to do right now. Those who have lost their jobs and health insurance are in great need of family planning. They're also, alarmingly, the ones with the least access to it. Meanwhile Republicans openly mock attempts to include family planning as a part of the economic recovery, actively work to defund Planned Parenthood, promote policies that encourage health care workers to deny patients access to contraception, and defend programs that withhold basic information about contraception to sexually active teens. (Then they're baffled to find the number of teen parents spiked during the Bush years.)
Family planning is an American family value and, as national data indicate, something we rely on in our greatest times of need. Attacks on our right to plan our families shred the social safety net. The Republicans are welcome to titter and heckle the next time a proposal to support family planning crosses their desks. Doing so will only reveal how astoundingly out of touch they are from American's real lives and needs.
Inside Bush’s War on Birth Control
Truthdig :Posted on Mar 26, 2009
By Marie Cocco
For those whose nostalgia for the Bush administration is unfulfilled by former Vice President Dick Cheney’s snarling television appearance, there is a new window into the soul of the old regime. It is the brutally frank account of how political operatives and ideological helpmates of George W. Bush violated the law in their efforts to keep birth control away from American women—particularly teenagers at the greatest risk of an unplanned and life-altering pregnancy.
The broad outlines of the case against Bush’s Food and Drug Administration for trying to block the approval of over-the-counter sales of the morning-after pill, or Plan B, are widely known. For more than five years, the loyal Bushies at the agency blocked action by subverting science, overruling medical professionals and abandoning FDA standards that have long governed how drugs are switched from prescription-only to over-the-counter availability.
It was done, of course, at the behest of anti-abortion zealots who consider many commonly used birth control methods as equivalent to terminating a pregnancy. When the FDA finally approved over-the-counter sales in 2006, it restricted them to women 18 and older and tried to impede the pill’s use by insisting that pharmacies keep the drug out of plain view.
If in doubt always follow the money trail.
Who benefits from a runaway puppy mill population ?
The short answer is WALL STREET. Consumption without income yields maxed
out credit cards currently near 1 $trillion and considered the next economic time bomb.
Usury is the express lane to enslaving a population.
Until 1980 Usury Laws in the US regulated the amount of interest banks
could charge. Jimmy Carter was installed to give away
the PANAMA CANAL and deregulate interest rates.
The interest on the ever increasing humongous debt that
the FED / WALL STREET is collecting from MAIN STREET
with our jobs and manufacturing globalized / outsourced,
makes it impossible for AMERICA to climb out of this economic abyss.
It's no wonder that Europe is terrified by the U.S. meltdown and
WALL STREET's "solution": MORE DEBT.
Yeah, and the number of abortions dropped, too. In fact, W. Bush presided over the lowest rate since abortion was legalized in the U.S. If we're going to link a spike in teen pregnancy to Bush, should we link the drop in abortion rates to him as well?
Now,as to someone else paying for the sterilization.Don't really care.
Like how that sounds boys???
~wink~ YOU BETCHA
Every sperm is great
If a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate"
Monty Python
would i get a laugh like this...
no
I asked my doctor to tie my tubes. He said that I was "Too young to know how I really felt about having children". Mind you he was talking to a grown married woman! He added that surely my husband would never approve of such a decision. After talking to my husband himself, MY doctor suggested a vasectomy for my husband. Maybe he thought no man would ever really do such a thing and gave us the name of a doctor for my husband.
We went to this "vasectomy doctor". He told us both that again, I was simply too young to know my own mind and that my husband would be wise to keep his options open. He pointed out to them that he already had a son and that was all that he wanted. He basically had to push the issue and finally the doctor performed the procedure.
I hope it is much easier now than it was.
She gave me the IUD.
In certain areas of the country it has gotten easier. However, I think if I was near the Gulf Coast or in Utah it would have been much more difficult.