Ever Used Plan B?
Y'all might or might not remember that my first post for this site was about Plan B. Plan B is birth control, not an abortifacient (if you have any doubts, go read that post), it's a fucking lifesaver if you've ever had a condom break, gotten lazy with the birth control, or (god forbid) been raped, and basically it belongs in your medicine cabinet.
Light Rail Coyote is an admirable grad student who somehow also works for the Academy for Educational Development and is therefore a better model for engaged academia than yours truly ever has been. In any case, she wrote me to ask if I'd ask you all to please take a brief survey about your use of Plan B if you've used it in the last year and are between the ages of 18-44.
Needless to say, the survey is entirely confidential. You can skip questions you don't want to answer, or if none of the available options is correct. (And there's a comments section towards the end.)
A little more about the AED and the survey itself:
AED, a nonprofit organization, is conducting an anonymous, on-line
survey of women in the U.S., ages 18-44 years, who took Plan B after
January 2007. This consumer survey will help us learn more about
women's experiences getting and taking Plan B. The results will be
used to help make the medication more accessible to women who need it.
Plus when you're done you can enter a drawing to win a $150 Target gift certificate.
(By the way, if you have a Target card and haven't signed up to have them give X% of your purchases to some local school, please do. If you don't have a kid, just pick a random school, preferably the poorest one in town.)
You're welcome, of course, to also post the survey link on your own blog, along with a handy-dandy little button, which is available here. The survey runs through March 31, 2008.
Bitch_PhD reminds everyone to keep Plan B in their medicine cabinet--just in case.
Noticed Your Birth Control Costing More? Tell Congress
Remember this piece about birth control costs for college students going up because the Bush administration cut the funding that helps subsidize it?
Well, college students around the country, with the help of NARAL, organized petition drives on campus, and as a result of their work, there's a bill wending its way through Congress now--HR 4054, the Prevention Through Affordable Access Act--that does just what its title suggests: restores college and university access to low-cost birth control.
this fall, college women returned to campus to discover that the birth control that previously cost them $510 for a monthly supply now cost $4050 per pack, making it far more difficult to afford. Due to a provision included in the Deficit Reduction Act (DRA), as of January 1, 2007, every college and university health center and hundreds of safety-net providers were unintentionally cut off from accessing low-cost birth control and passing on the low price to college women and low-income women. The result has been an increase in the average price of birth control on college campuses, often to 10 times the previous cost.
Rep. Crowleys legislation, The Prevention Through Affordable Access Act, would bring down the soaring cost of birth control at college health clinics and safety-net providers and increase access to affordable birth control. This legislation will not cost the taxpayers a single dime, and would restore the voluntary benefit to college health clinics and safety-net providers. (My emphasis.)
Should be a no-brainer, but you can't count on that in a world where plenty of legislators think Plan B causes abortion (it doesn't) or that it's a-okay for pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions to women.
So take half a minute to click through and send a letter to your representative urging them to support HR 4054.
Bitch_PhD can't wait for a decent national health program that'll cover birth control for everyone.
Birth Control News
Three stories about what's going on in the world of SCIENCE!!!
1. They're redesigning the female condom.
The redesigned female condom is made of softer, thinner polyurethane to better transmit warmth. It is easier to insert; one end is bunched up as small as a tampon, an improvement on the old design, which resembled the stiff rubber ring of a diaphragm and had to be folded into a figure 8 for insertion.
During sex, the new female condom also moves more like a vagina than the old design did, according to couples in Seattle, Thailand, Mexico and South Africa who tested a series of prototypes, said Joanie Robertson, project manager for the condom at PATH. The old design hung passively from the rubber ring, which could shift around and sometimes hurt; the new design has dots of adhesive foam that adhere to the vaginal walls, expanding with them during arousal.
According to PATH, more than 90 percent of the couples were satisfied with the ease of use and comfort of the new condom, and 98 percent found the sensation of sex to be O.K. to very satisfactory.
Probably, though, like a lot of birth control methods, it's going to end up being beloved by a few smart, self-determining women, but not changing much for a lot of women who really need it. First, because
it cannot be used secretly. For that reason, married women, now one of the highest risk groups for AIDS in poor countries, rarely use it.
I dont want my husband to know that I am wearing a condom, said Lois B. Chingandu, the director of SAfaids, an anti-AIDS organization in Zimbabwe.
This woman is the director of an anti-AIDS organization. Chances of the female condom catching on with the women she's trying to help? Let's be generous and put them at zero.
And then of course, there's the gubment:
While the F.D.A. designates male condoms as Class 2 medical devices meaning that a new maker has to pass tests only for leakage and bursting it puts female condoms in Class 3, the same category as pacemakers, heart valves and silicone breast implants.
. . . the Class 3 listing means that any new design must pass clinical trials, which would cost $3 million to $6 million.
And of course it's more expensive than regular (read: men's) condoms. Of course.
2. On the other hand, college students hit with rising birth control prices thanks to Bush's Deficit Reduction Act (motto: More War + Less Birth Control = More Cannon Fodder) might be able to fill their prescriptions at their local Wal-Mart, if they have one.
Last year, Wal-Mart began selling prescription drugs for $4. This year, they've announced an expansion of that program to cover medication for, among other things, glaucoma, attention deficit disorder, and, yes, contraception.
RH Reality Check makes a good point by asking
The Democratic presidential candidates are unveiling their health care plans that attempt to cover millions of Americans with slightly lower premiums and affordable prescription co-pays but it's Wal-Mart that announces it will sell birth control and fertility drugs for $9 a pop. Why is it that in this country, only a giant corporation, able to pressure its suppliers to lower prices, can make health care more affordable to Americans, while our political system isn't strong enough to bring about systematic health care change?
and I wonder if there's some lobbyist/health insurance/drug provider thing going on behind the scenes as the election approaches (Don't be naive, Bitch--you mean "what kind of lobbyist/health insurance/rug provider thing *is* going on behind the scenes.) But it's good news regardless, though I still think Wal-Mart is basically evil.
3. Best of all, a recent conference at my alma mater on The Future of Male Birth Control showcased some really promising new developments:
a "testosterone-like" oral pill and a Depo-Provera shot (a once/every three month injection of progestin). And a vasectomy alternative, the Intra Vas Device (IVD), was presented, fresh from tests in its first U.S. study. A set of plugs inserted into the vas deferens that block sperm from traveling through the tube, the Intra Vas Device was successful at the end of six months in ensuring that 92% of the men studied had no sperm (or very little sperm) in their ejaculate.
Elaine Lissner, the director of The Male Contraception Information Project, says that
"We could have something like the IVD on the market in four to five years, if we make an all-out effort with funding and focus. But if we continue with just a study here and a study there, it could be an eternity."
So there's something you can do, guys, if you want to take charge of your own fertility: follow these links (and the links inside them), do some reading, and write to your representatives pointing out what an important issue this is. Again, RH Reality Check is dubious--
Male contraception as a remedy for men needing to take on unplanned parental responsibilities seems like a stretch; when a man chooses to have sex with a woman, he is also choosing to take the risk that she may get pregnant and decide to keep the baby. Male contraception may make it less likely that a woman is purposefully able to get pregnant without her partner's knowledge, but "forced" fatherhood is a reality with which men who choose to have sex with women must contend.
As for the idea that women will no longer have to experience side effects from birth control, if women don't want to tangle with hormonal side effects, why should we expect or encourage men to?
--but I'm sorry, in this case the arguments are poor ones: if a man is using good contraception, sure he has to deal with the possibility that it might fail, but that's the same reality women using contraception have to accept. No contraception is perfect, but 90+% reliable is pretty damn good odds. And as to hormonal side effects, we should expect and encourage men to "deal" with them because, just like women, every man is different. You might have side effects from the pill, but your partner might not. Surely responsible guys deserve the same ability to make decisions about the tradeoffs between (say) weight gain and unwanted pregnancy that we have.
As one man put it,
"I do think this could be a shared responsibility between men and women, and really should always be a shared responsibility. I know that wouldn't work in every situation, but I also think that the situation where a shared responsibility will not work points to other large problems in the relationship." Another man I spoke with said, "Women have been bearing the burden for a long time now. It's about time that men started taking responsibility for where they do or don't put their sperm."
Amen, brother.
Bitch_PhD has been waiting for the science folks to come out with a good male pill for a long, long time.
Just the Facts, Ma'am
The two main posts linked below in all caps are not only worth reading, they're worth bookmarking, printing up on transfer paper, and ironing on t-shirts. Seriously.
CHECK IT:
A comprehensive global study of abortion has concluded that abortion rates are similar in countries where it is legal and those where it is not, suggesting that outlawing the procedure does little to deter women seeking it.
Duh.
Moreover, the researchers found that abortion was safe in countries where it was legal, but dangerous in countries where it was outlawed and performed clandestinely.
Honest to god, that right there should be the end of the fucking argument, people. Women abort pregnancies whether or not the Man "allows" them to, because women are in charge of pregnancies and we know if we can deal with another kid or not. Period. Either you believe that women who abort deserve to die, in which case you're "anti-abortion" (or "pro-life"
, or you don't, in which case you're "pro-choice".
Let's rename those groups to reflect the facts. The antis can be the "pro dead women" camp and the pros can be the "pro adequate medical care" camp.
Extra bonus kicker:
The data also suggested that the best way to reduce abortion rates was not to make abortion illegal but to make contraception more widely available.
Again, duh. How does the "pro dead women" camp stack up on the question of contraception? Catholic Church--anti-contraception (hence, pro dead women). George Bush--anti-contraception = pro dead women. The National Right to Life--officially has no position on contraception but is anti-Planned Parenthood, anti-health-care reform and pro-criminalizing abortion = pro dead women. Feminists for Life--pro-criminalization, "no opinion" on birth control = pro dead women. Concerned Women for America--anti-birth control = pro dead women.
Try it. Google any so-called pro-life organization you want + "birth control" and find out if they support birth control or not. Is their anti-abortion prosition "prevent abortions" or is it "make abortions dangerous"?
And for extra bonus points, see what they have to say about Planned Parenthood, which does more to prevent abortion in this country than any other organnization.
Part two
As ONE MEDICAL STUDENT EXPLAINS, to his surprise.
fully ignorant of Planned Parenthood beforehand, I thought Id be doing abortion evaluations. Planned Parenthood equals abortions. That was the extent of my knowledge.
I was so far, far off base its not even funny.* In fact, it may sound ironic, but Im pretty confident when I say this: No matter what your feelings are about the subject, there would be more abortions performed in this country if Planned Parenthood didnt exist.The patients Ive seen have been, in general, young, healthy women, ages 12 to 26. . . .
They come in primarily for three things:
1. annual exams (pap smears, breast exams, etc.),
2. sexually-transmitted infection (STIs) diagnosis and treatment,
3. and birth control.
Read the whole thing--he puts to rest a lot of the cliches about who uses Planned Parenthood ("They are sexually active, almost always with one, monogamous partner, and they do not want to get pregnant."), whether or not women who use Planned Parenthood are "responsible" ("my patients are more informed about their health and medicines than me"), and whether they're the exception or the norm ("Over 90% of women of childbearing age use some sort of contraception method").
And yes, they also provide safe abortions. Because doing so is a necessary part of women's reproductive health care, one that saves lives.
Like I said, this shit deserves to be printed on t-shirts. Hell, shouted from the rooftops.
Bitch_PhD dismisses anyone who doesn't support Planned Parenthood as a woman-hating asshole, even if they're a woman themselves.
More statistics (including image source) here.
Birth Control is Good for You
Rock the fuck on: a new study says that the pill cuts the risk of any kind of cancer by 12%.
the real benefits kick in 15 years or more after she has stopped. Most women go on the pill in their late teens or early twenties and have given up by their late twenties, before the age when cancer becomes most common.
The researchers, who analyzed 36 years of data from the Royal College of General Practitioners' oral contraception study, show that women who were once on the pill . . . .are significantly less likely to suffer from certain other cancers, in particular ovarian cancer and endometrial cancer, which affects the lining of the womb. They are also better protected from bowel cancer.
The one down side is that women who took the pill for over eight years are apparently more likely to get cervical cancer. But as the linked article points out, that's possibly the effect not of the pill, but of condomless sexual activity; most sexually active adults have contacted HPV at some point, and as we all know, some strains of HPV are known to cause cervical cancer.
And hey, there's a vaccine against that these days. Hurrah for science!
Bitch_PhD thinks the pill is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Just Say No?
If only politicians would practice what they preach:
The House Appropriations Committee subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education shocked many progressives in early June when it approved a $32 million increase for the discredited Community-Based Abstinence Education (CBAE) program.
....
This apparent change of heart from the Democrats on abstinence-only education is an attempt to build a veto-proof majority for Labor-H. According to the June 7 Congressional Quarterly Today, President Bush has vowed to veto any Labor-H (Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education) bill that exceeds the amount that he set aside in his budget. Bush put forward a $698 billion budget. The Labor-H markup exceeds that figure by more than $10 billion. So Democrats must attract enough votes to pass the bill with a veto-proof majority if they are to prevail.
The Dems want to pass the bill because, as the second largest discretionary spending bill (behind defense), it contains money for things like Medicare, the National Institutes of Health and Center for Disease Control, job training programs, unemployment benefits, Head Start, Global HIV/AIDS funding, k-12 school counselors, Pell Grants, Public Broadcasting, and Social Security. (You can download a .pdf of the subcommittee's proposed spending markups here.)
There are two problems with this approach (assuming it works). First, absintence "education" requires that kids be taught
the social, psychological, and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity
--whether or not such gains actually exist. So abstinence programs "teach" stuff like, absintence until marriage makes marriages last longer (not true) and improves self-esteem (not true). Stuff like birth control's only addressed in terms of failure rates, and
presented only as it supports the abstinence message being presented.
Moreover, studies have found that abstinence education
- Doesn't work: kids who get absintence training are as likely as anyone else to fuck around before marriage.
Contain "significant errors or distortions" of fact.
Blur the line between science and religion.
Promote gender stereotypes as fact.
Effectively deny sex education to gay and lesbian students, since gay marriage is illegal.
What's worse, though, is that the people who have the most to gain from that extra $32 million are . . . the political/religious right, who are just going to funnel that money right back into the pockets of politicians who, if the intended compromise here succeeds, care more about lying to kids about sex than they do about things like properly funding proven education, health, and human services programs.
And round and round it goes.
Of course, the truth is that just like teenagers, telling politicians to just say no won't work, because that's not how the world works. People are going to have sex, and politicians are going to make unsavory compromises. Still, you can't help but wish that the shitheads of the world would fuck over someone other than kids.
Bitch_PhD really could have gone her whole life without doing that Google Image search, thereby learning that chastity belts are a kind of modern fetish gear.
Cross-posted, more or less, over at Bitch PhD.
ABC for Plan B
It's about time. On Wednesday, Republican representative from Connecticut, Christopher Shays and Democratic senator Frank Lautenberg from New Jersey introduced the Access to Birth Control Act, legislation to require pharmacists to stock Plan B if they supply any form of contraception.
The bill, authored by Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., would make it illegal for a pharmacy to refuse to fill birth control prescriptions and require pharmacies to help, not hinder, a woman's ability to access contraception.
You can get a .pdf of the proposed legislation at the bottom of this page. For facts about pharmacy refusals and state laws, see Planned Parenthood's site. For arguments against Plan B, see here. Here's where you can contact your senator or representative and tell them to support the bill.
Bitch_PhD happens to know where you can get Plan B t-shirts, if you're so inclined.
Cross-posted at Bitch PhD.
Stuart E. Anderson of Great Falls, Montana: Asshole
On Mother's Day, this ad appeared in the Great Falls Tribune.
The ad reads:
The sanctity of human life has always been one of our most cherished heritages. The family unit is the foundation of our society. The devotion and sacrifice of mothers over the years and the continual care and concern for their unborn has been the cornerstone of the family. On this Mothers Day 2007, we wish to express our gratitude to all mothers for their unselfishness in our behalf. As health-care professionals, we call upon the American people to once again reaffirm the right to life for future generations of the unborn and join with us in our efforts to restore respect, dignity and value to each human lifeborn or unborn.
You'll be unsurprised to find out that a week and a half later, when a woman went in to Snyder Drugs, which is owned by the Anderson family (one of the signatories to the ad), she was handed this note instead of her prescription:
The note says
Snyder Drug has decided to no longer carry oral contraceptives. Although we no longer will carry this particular medication, we will continue to serve your prescription needs with utmost care and trust. We will be happy to transfer your oral contraceptive prescription to another pharmacy of your choice in a timely manner. If you have any questions regarding this matter, please direct them to the pharmacy owners, Stuart Anderson or Kurt and Kori Depner. By the end of May, we will no longer stock this class of medication. Sincerely, Stuart E. Anderson, R.Ph/owner
Interestingly, the story doesn't appear to have been covered in the Great Falls Tribune, the paper that carried the ad; the only place I've found mention of it is on the Montana Netroots blog. Being as the author of the Montana Netroots post is a guy,* he gets distracted by the issue of property rights--
I support an owners right to run their business in the way they see fit
--but hey, credit for noticing.
The real issue here is that Stuart E. Anderson, R.Ph, is a registered pharmacist and Snyder Drugs is a pharmacy. Which is to say, Mr. Anderson and his business are licensed by the state to dispense prescribed medications.
Which they are refusing to do.
Now, why are they refusing to dispense medications that are prescribed only to women? It isn't because oral contraceptives cause abortion--they don't. It isn't because they can prevent implantation of a fertilized egg, either, because while that may be theoretically possible, there's no evidence that oral contraceptives actually work that way--as a registered pharmacist surely knows.
I can only assume, then, that it's because Stuart E. Anderson and the co-owners of Snyder Drugs, Kurt and Kori Depner, are sexist jackasses who think that their license to dispense drugs is less important than their god-given right to pass judgment on women.
I hope that the State of Montana respects their choice by taking away Mr. Anderson's pharmacist's license and his and the Depner's right to own a pharmacy.
*This is what is known as "hyperbole." Also "black humor."
Bitch_PhD doesn't think that the reasons the woman with the prescription needed the scrip were relevant, so she's not mentioning them.
Cross-posted at Bitch PhD
Latest News from the War on Women
If you're in college, you may have noticed that the cost of your birth control's gone way up.
Last year when Pres. George W. Bush slashed funding for domestic spending programs to free up more money for his war on terror, analysts didn't foresee how steeply some prices would increase as a result of fewer federal dollars. This year millions of college students are seeing steep price increases that have doubled or tripled the price of birth control pills.
. . . .
Skyrocketing price increases are fallout from the 2005 deficit-reduction bill that focused on Medicaid. Because Medicaid is the federal health insurance program for the poor college health officials had not realized the bill would affect them in any way.
This is annoying, of course; but it also contributes to systemic discrimination. College students are often kinda broke--having to pay for birth control is an expense women have, and men don't. So women are a little bit broker having to buy birth control; and now they're a little bit broker still, since it costs two or three times more than it did last year.
Same with health insurance not covering birth control: there's an out-of-pocket expense that women have, and men don't.
It seems petty, but it adds up. If you have to scrimp at the beginning of the semester by, say, postponing buying a book or two, then you might be a little behind; if you have to work an extra hour or two a week in order to afford birth control, you have a little less time to study. And if you run out of pills and are too broke to afford to replace 'em for a week or two, and you take a gamble, well then, you're up shit creek.
Does this kind of thing constitute systematic sexism? You tell me.
Bitch PhD remembers having to budget for things like tooth brushes and birth control pills, and is glad those days are behind her now.
Easy is Good
No, I don't mean "easy" in that way. I'm talking ease-of-use here: according to Feministing, the folks who make the Nuva Ring birth control (btw, that link includes a free trial offer) are working on a yearlong version.
Right now, the Nuva Ring lasts a month, you have to remove it to have your period, and it costs about the same as a month's worth of pills--so aside from the not-having-to-take-a-pill-every-day, there's not a lot of benefit, and there's the added concern about what if it shifts position. A year-long version wouldn't solve the latter position (though obviously it's not all that hard to check the position), but it would save the hassle of prescription refills every month, which is nothing to sneeze at.
That, plus any new and reliable method of birth control is a damn good thing.
Bitch_PhD loved Norplant best of all, and it pisses her off that her insurance company won't cover it.
How Does This Plan Work?
Anybody who follows reproductive rights news (and if you ever have sex, or plan to, you should) knows that Plan B, the much-discussed morning after pill, is the first non-barrier method of birth control that you can get over the counter. 'Course, you still need an ID to prove you're over 18or you can get a legal adult friend to come with youand the price varies ridiculously, from $10 at, say the Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis to $54 at my local CVS. It doesn't prevent STDs, it's slightly less reliable than the regular pill, it's not a substitute for other forms of birth control, yadda yadda. But. It's a good thing regardless, now that we know we can get it.
What most people do not know, however, is how it actually works. The great Christian War on Sex (I'm copyrighting that, by the way) propagandists have successfully convinced most people that Plan B is an abortifacient, because the manufacturer's drug information says that it "may" prevent a fertilized ovum from attaching to the uterine wall.
So let me explain a few things. First, how the drug actually works. Plan B consists of two pills that contain a synthetic form of progesterone, one of the two main female hormones (the other is estrogen) that occur naturally and are used in birth control pills. Men, by the way, have progesterone too, though in lower doses. When you take Plan Btwo pills twelve hours apartyou get a very large dose of progesterone that lasts for a day or two.
When a woman is pregnant, her body produces a lot of progesterone, which keeps her from ovulatingthereby preventing her from getting pregnant a second time and trying to carry them both, which would be a disaster. So progesterone prevents ovulation. Which, if you're a woman who doesn't want to get pregnant, is a pretty useful thing for it to do.
So let's say for some reason a woman who isn't on birth control finds herself with sperm floating around inside her: a condom broke, she was raped, she and her partner were sloppy and overly enthusiastic, whatever. If she's already ovulated within the last 24 hours, all she can do is cross her fingers: you can't stop something that's already happened. But if she hasn't, and is unlucky enough that she's just about to, she can take a big dose of progesterone that will stop her from popping an egg long enough for the sperm to die, and no pregnancy. Hurrah!
But, you ask, what if she's already ovulated, and the sperm luck out, and there's a zygote floating around but it hasn't yet stuck itself to the wall of the uterus? Would Plan B work then? And if it does, isn't that technically a kind of abortion?
Nope, and nope. If you've ovulated, the zygote either is or isn't going to be lucky enough to find a resting place. A lot of them don't, which is why pregnancy starts once the zygote takes root in the uterine lining. If you're not pregnant, you can't abort.
Okay, but. What if there's a zygote, and you personally see fertilization as the beginning point of life, even if it happens before pregnancy actually starts? If Plan B prevents implantationand their own literature says they "may" do thatthen that feels iffy to me.
This is the second thing that needs explaining. There is no evidence that Plan B prevents implantation. That's not a known effect of progesterone. But because science can't prove a negativeyou can't prove that something doesn't happen, because if it doesn't happen, there is, by definition, no evidencethe drug company puts that little "may" in there. All "may" means is "even though we've never seen it happen, we can't prove that it doesn't." It's kind of like saying, "well, it might cause your skin to turn blue," or "it might cause you to grow a third arm," although they don't bother to say *that*, because it's not a possibility that would occur to anyone. But there is no evidencenone, zilch, nadathat Plan B prevents implantation. All it does is help you control the timing of ovulation; sort of the women's equivalent of guys thinking about baseball or their mother in order to keep from coming. For a guy, orgasm and ejaculation are the same event: for a woman, orgasm and ovulation aren't. If you're a guy, you can usually prevent the latter by controlling the former; if you're a woman, all you have to do is take a pill.
I got a lot of the details about this stuff from PZ Myers at Pharyngula: see Why the Wingnuts Hate Plan B and Plan B, Again.
Bitch_PhD writes the Bitch, Ph.D blog, may or may not still be a professor, and paid $45 for Plan B last month, but is happy to say she finally renewed her regular birth control prescription yesterday.