I was fifteen and seated in my dentist's examination chair the first time I realized I might face disapproval if I made known the fact that I take oral contraceptives.
"What medicines do you take?" asked the pretty Russian hygienist, busily making notes in my chart. Let's call her Martina. "Um," I said, trying to remember the name of the oral contraceptive I was taking. "Ortho Tri-Cyclen," I said.
Martina swiveled around in her office chair and looked at me appraisingly for a moment. "Well, good girl," she said finally, continuing to look at me, then glancing at the top right corner of my chart. The place where my birthdate was noted.
Good girl? Innocently puzzled, I frowned at Martina until she seemed to sense that I wasn't catching her drift. "It's good to be responsible," she said, touching my shoulder and mustering a supportive expression that did not reach her eyes.
Then, it clicked. Martina had made the assumption that my use of the pill meant that I was sexually active, and was judging me. And though I was taking the pill for medical reasons, I felt ashamed. I felt impelled to correct her, defend myself against her judgment.
Rationally, I knew that it did not matter what Martina thought. That she was wrong. That even if she was correct, she did not have the right to judge me. But the embarrassment and shame her look evoked were powerful. I grappled with my discomfort for the next half hour, as Martina poked around my mouth, imagining her lips pursed disapprovingly as she measured the person me against her moral standards and found me lacking.
This, my friends assured me in the coming days, was not an uncommon reaction by any means. That for a teenaged girl, disclosing your use of oral contraceptives is akin to giving license for others to judge and criticize you, often based on false, narrow-minded assumptions like the one Martina made about me. I set aside my indignation and forgot the encounter.
Today, years after Martina showed me that not even established, common practices like taking the pill are beyond controversy, I was surprised to turn on the news to see an all-male panel discussing an issue I'd expect most women to have an opinion about: their access to the pill. This troubled me.
Before I share my perspective on this issue (and I'll leave commentary about the flawed debates to Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, who did it best and funniest), and though they have oft been mentioned over the last few days, some important facts about birth control bear repeating. Regardless of one's moral convictions, the facts are these:
Oral contraceptives, including Plan B, are not "abortive pills." To say otherwise would be scientifically incorrect, as the pills we are discussing simply do not terminate existing pregnancies. We are simply not talking about abortion.
There are many reasons to take the pill. Some of these reasons are not related to avoiding pregnancy. According to the University of Florida, the Guttmacher Institute found that 30% of women on the pill take it to alleviate menstrual symptoms.
The pill can be really expensive. I have paid about $100/month out of pocket with insurance to cover my prescription-an amount that is prohibitively expensive for many young women. Over the approximately 30 years during which a woman can become pregnant, that would add up to a cost of $36,000.
Condoms are not as expensive as the pill, not even close. The average 20-year-old man has sex about 7.7 times per month. Rounding that up to 100 times per year, a man would be able to afford to buy a year's supply of condoms for about $25, which is far less than many women pay in a single month for the pill, and the added cost of obtaining a prescription for it.
Giving out contraception saves insurance companies money. As with many types of preventative care, providing the pill free of charge is actually cheaper.
But the reason these arguments are not working isn't because nobody has heard them. They aren't working because the money isn't really the issue. The issue is simply that there are still people out there -- people like Martina -- who see access to the pill as a license to have sex, which, to them, is unacceptable. It you don't want to get pregnant, they say, don't have sex.
For all the progress we as a society have made toward equality for women, there remains a double standard on the issue of sex. It is still far less acceptable for women to be sexually active, if their intent is not to bear children, than it is for men. And while this is changing, and one day may no longer be true, the immutable fact that women are the ones who get pregnant means that we will never truly be on a level playing field when it comes to the issue of contraception.
Somehow, I feel certain that if men could get pregnant, birth control would be readily available, probably dispensed from containers mounted by every public water fountain. But the fact is, though it takes two to tango, only the woman may become pregnant. Only the woman may be asked to surrender her body to host a baby she doesn't want. Only the woman may be forced to make a difficult choice. Only the woman is guaranteed no escape from the physical and mental marks any decision will leave.
A man and a woman both step onto the dance floor to tango. When the music ends, the man may walk away, certain that his body is free of the risk of becoming host to a baby. Sometimes, the woman can walk away, too. Every so often, the woman looks down to find she is tethered to that dance floor.
But maybe that's just a woman's burden to bear. And, hey, women: even if you become pregnant without wanting to be, you can always just make the best of it.
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Also, it is 100% fine with the church to use birth control pills for a reason other than contraception, be it for health or cosmetic reasons (acne).
Conversely, even among my male friends whom I would consider to be more progressive or feminist, I doubt any would offer to pay for their girlfriend's birth control.
Many popular axiety, high cholesterol and acne medications are in the FDA Categories D & X denoting significat demonstrated fetal risk yet every insurance plan I have been able to look up covers them, in cluding commonly used plans by catholic institutions.
She brought up the fact about condoms being far less expensive than contraceptives to show that that the issue is not about sex; it is not simply about preventing pregnancy. If the only thing women wanted to do was not have kids then they could (like you suggested) buy condoms and not have sex without them because they are so much cheaper than birth control pills! This issue is about women's health, and unfortunately there are many people like you out there who miss the point completely.
On the other hand, the author also makes a reference to the judgment on women who take pills. I take that, and agree in fact, but that wasn't the point I was referring to. And I never suggested that the only reason women take contraceptives is not having children, I only pointed out that the same happens with condoms, there are many other reasons to use them.
Women are not asked to "fight" for birth control, they are asked to pay for it. While it is true that "free" contraception may save insurance companies money, that decision should be up to insurance companies, not the nanny state. I may also add that if insurance companies where not forced to cover normal pregnancy there would be no savings. Pregnancy is not a disease. Nor can it be regarded as an "unexpected" expense, wich it is the purpose of insurance to cover.
Your comment "if insurance companies were not forced to cover normal pregnancy" pretty much sums you up. More than 52% of the human population is female, and rather than support us, our choices and need for access to health care, you stand up for the poor little insurance companies, poor guys, who should not be expected to actually dole out coverage for all the various needs in the women's health realm, in spite of us paying premiums throughout our working careers. That is the dangest thing I've read in a long while.
To recap, you think that this fight is about a woman trying to get something for free, and that we feel unjustly entitled to access, and that insurance should not be covering pregnancies, let alone birth control. Man. Haven't gotten any in a long-long-LONG time, huh?
I am not standing up for insurance companies. I am standing up for the right to negotiate and/or purchase whatever policy I choose, without government interference.
I don't think, I know this argument is absolutely about free contraception, whether purchased by man or woman.
I see why you need free contraception, apparently you often think about how often someone has sex.
To recap, you don't think you can function without government assistance.
A woman cannot just choose which contraceptive she wants to take based on price-- sometimes women are prescribed a specific contraceptive based on a medical condition or other health issues, which a lot of the time are the more expensive types of contraceptives.
As for your comments about pregnancy and insurance companies- insurance companies cover the tens of thousands of dollars that it takes to have a so-called "normal" pregnancy as a preventative measure, much like how they cover normal doctor visits and check-ups to PREVENT more expensive health issues in the future. Paying for contraceptives will absolutely save them money because the yearly cots for pregnancy, infertility treatments and surgeries is MUCH less expensive than the yearly cost of providing contraceptives. The fact that you would even suggest that insurance companies not cover pregnancy just shows how completely ignorant you are to the entire issue.