{"id":23188,"date":"2013-12-04T09:31:22","date_gmt":"2013-12-04T14:31:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=23188"},"modified":"2013-12-04T09:31:22","modified_gmt":"2013-12-04T14:31:22","slug":"prescription-contraceptives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2013\/12\/04\/prescription-contraceptives\/","title":{"rendered":"Prescription contraceptives"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shikha Dalmia<\/a> argues that the fight over forcing companies to cover contraceptive prescriptions is based on a mistaken view of women’s rights:<\/p>\n

The administration argues that acquiescing to such arguments would mean allowing bosses or corporate CEOs to restrict women\u2019s choices to promote their own religious beliefs. \u201cOur policy is designed to ensure that health care decisions are made between a woman and her doctor,\u201d noted White House spokesman Jay Carney. But it\u2019s not bosses who pose the bigger barrier to birth control but doctors themselves.<\/p>\n

The only reason American women need insurance coverage for contraception is because they can\u2019t buy birth control pills without a prescription \u2014 which doctors won\u2019t hand them without an annual exam. Few dispute anymore \u2014 not even the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists \u2014 that the pills are perfectly safe requiring neither a medical diagnosis nor supervision. They have side effects like every other medicine but none so serious that can\u2019t be effectively communicated through the usual warning labels. Requiring a medical exam assumes that women can\u2019t be completely trusted with their own health. But such paternalism is counterproductive: Most women who stop taking pills don\u2019t do so because they can\u2019t afford them without insurance. (A one-month generic supply from Costco costs $25.) They do so because they can\u2019t always make the time for a doctor\u2019s visit when their prescription runs out. This problem is especially acute for working women \u2014 professional or others.<\/p>\n

The birth control issue shouldn\u2019t be cast in terms women\u2019s rights versus religious rights. That\u2019ll turn it into a lose-lose proposition. Medical paternalism is a far bigger threat to women\u2019s reproductive choices than religious zealotry. Focusing on the first will do more to give women control over their bodies \u2014 including the female employees of Hobby Lobby \u2014 than a pitched battle against the second.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shikha Dalmia argues that the fight over forcing companies to cover contraceptive prescriptions is based on a mistaken view of women’s rights: The administration argues that acquiescing to such arguments would mean allowing bosses or corporate CEOs to restrict women\u2019s choices to promote their own religious beliefs. \u201cOur policy is designed to ensure that health […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[831,9,11,13],"tags":[198,121,244,255,43],"class_list":["post-23188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-law","category-religion","category-usa","tag-equalrights","tag-insurance","tag-publichealth","tag-sexuality","tag-women"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-620","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23188"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23189,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23188\/revisions\/23189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}