"Hey Doug. Welcome to The Great Debate. Great to have you with us."
Men need to step up-
Gents,
a crisis has erupted recently in American politics. It distracts the nation from the serious business of electioneering with comparatively frivolous questions at the same time it addresses a fundamental weakness in higher education, which should not be abandoned to vulgar titillation. It would be a boon to politics & sex both if it could be addressed & those involved most in this matter would surely reap the benefits that accrue to benefactors of mankind. All this started with something to small, comparatively speaking, & so curious, that you would be excused from not taking it seriously. However, this kind of fever is best treated early, when it has not shown its dangers, rather than be faced years down the road, when, untreated, festering, it can become violent. So the young woman could no longer pay for her contraception deserves at the least the erection of a statue to give satisfaction to herself as well as those for which she so innocently & selflessly spoke out. This is one of the most serious problems created by the irresponsibility of the American male in his latest incarnation. At the same time, it is a new problem for new times & it requires the new manliness to address it.
It would be unmanly to go looking for causes on such matters, laying blame, as it were, at someone else's doorstep, & I will not encourage such attempts. Especially in our circumstances, which happily present a simple solution that would urgently set wrongs right. We would not fall limp, but give stiff assurance of our vitality & our enthusiasm to solve such a serious problem. It would give the young males of the species an added sense of responsibility & even of being providers. & at the same time it would assure young women that they have are not abandoned in-between sexual encounters. Only good can come of this & it will be more pleasant than any good heretofore advertised to the attention of student activism & activism more broadly...
The more mature among my audience have already guessed that I mean to suggest that the males pick up the tab for sex. I know this is not beyond the reach of the minds, hands, & wallets of many of you. I do not mean to insult you by suggesting I am being original. I merely want to say what many must have thought, but have not yet said.
In college, I knew not a few young males who had shown the unusual gallantry of paying for the abortions of women. The most generous among them did not even do it because they loved the woman or because they had received compelling evidence that they had impregnated the woman. It was just a show of their liberality, helping a young woman in a difficult situation, thus earning a reputation & encouraging the connection between familiarity & support. They showed they cared, to be brief.
Sympathy, however needs institutional help, especially on large campuses, so it would be important to use the various outreach efforts & diversity centers on campus to raise awareness of the needs for - & the advantages that redound to - young males who show this commitment to sexual diversity &, of course, feminism. Young males should be encouraged to discuss these matters among themselves & to try to find out how best to arrange their matters in order to solve this problem in the particular cases which arouse their interest.
The culture, above all, has to change, so as to remove the stigma from young males whose character really cannot be impeached, being protected by the shield of the most famous education America & the world can offer, & who would support & indeed lead in a manly fashion the efforts to install the kind of rules that would provide contraception for women's needs, taking into account fully the local situation & delegating decision-making to the parties most intimately concerned with & aware of the situation. Such young males would of course deserve the praise of their colleges & of important national associations for their assiduous efforts on behalf of young women's health issues & they would immeasurably benefit the prestige of their alma maters, no doubt. They would make every effort to come to know in an accurate & a deep sense the contraception needs of as many young women as practicable & would therefore never be open to the accusation that they do not know the problem or are not interested in solving it or are not competent.
A safety net, finally, has to be provided for young women in-between partners & for those sexual encounters which by their fleeting nature cannot easily lead to the knowledge & responsibility required to meet head-on the need, although of course even in such cases, as has been done sometimes in the past, the scientific study & the search for first-hand accounts could lead to the compilation of a kind of database which would be of the greatest utility, detailing the needs & the circumstance which arouse them, & thus this would provide full knowledge of these matters to the public & especially to those most interesting in solving this problem. Those who feel the thrust of the future, I am sure, understand there is a need for hands-on leadership to bring this matter urgently to satisfaction, lest it explode & put to shame or ridicule more people than would be affected by the more subtle solution I am proposing here.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Eric Robinson on -
How can a college man be a wastrel? Perhaps it was all of that premarital sex that caused him to make some unwise life decisions?
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Permalink Reply by Jack Bauer on -
Heh. I've met quite a few "college men" that were completely useless.
JB
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Permalink Reply by Paul_of_TX on -
I love how saying someone should pay for their own stuff turns into banning, trampling on peoples rights and other nonsense spouted on here. No one has said birth control should be banned or not sold just that under some circumstances you might have to pay for it on your own. Planned Parenthood website says $15-$50 per month and Will posted earlier Wal-Mart sells it for $4 per month.
How about the government pay for gun owners monthly ammunition needs? Society is better off if the people who own guns are more proficient with those guns. The 2nd Amendment says guns are necessary to the security of a free State. Of course if you think that you paying for my ammunition is wrong then you are trampling on my rights and trying to ban guns.
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Permalink Reply by Titus Techera on -
That's where they get you. On your side of the political divide, people are desperate to cut deficits, debts, & therefore spending & taxes. -- So you cannot force them into a chicken run, because they are the partisans of spending. -- For that reason, they never need to make sense. Try to talk to them, they will accuse of trying to take people's benefits.
Throughout cosmic aeons, through the geological periods, throughout the brief history of mankind & the much briefer political history of America, there was no right for free contraception & abortifacients. The second, however, the mandate was proposed, it became a right conservatives are trying to take away. -- You are trying to turn back the clock to the Middle Ages, a disgusting little Dem. Senator said. Another equally disgusting Dem. Senator said you want to take away women's contraception.
Again, being a liberal is never having to say you're sorry. Especially not if you say insane things.
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Permalink Reply by Rick Shelton on -
Try to talk to them, they will accuse "you" of trying to take people's benefits.
I agree, my understanding of the Bill of Rights was there are the basic human rights that are supported by the Constitution: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. I don't see, anywhere in the Bill, any mention of birth control. Maybe it falls under Pursuit of Happiness because now I can have sex any time I want with any one I want and not have to worry about un-intended consequences. It won't cost me a dime so now I can go out and find another girl and have more sex, even more Happiness!!!!! I don't even need to wear a condom, even MORE HAPPINESS!!!!!!
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Permalink Reply by Titus Techera on
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Nick, this is primarily addressed to you, because you seem to have devoted the most time to articulating the argument that contraceptives are medicine & you also seem to have done it best. I hope, therefore, that in addressing your point, I address all others, whose argument you have inherited, as it were, rightfully, in my opinion. We will see whether that it a good thing.
First, the argument for contraception was not made because it helps in any of the medical cases you have studiously cited. The further mention of abortifacients should have cleared this from the beginning. It is the utmost of deception to say that contraception was required for the sake of medicine needed for such & such a disease, either by Ms. Fluke or in the mandate that started the controversy.
Secondly, the argument you have made about conservatives trying to get Catholics to side with them is at best partly true. In reality, Catholics lean Democrat, Democrats usually win that vote, & inasmuch as Mr. Santorum was associated most of all Republican candidates with the issue, it is instructive that he has not won Catholics in the recent states in question. If it is a strategy, it is a bad strategy. You would have to prove that Mr. Santorum's views on this matter were different before recently, & that all the liberals who argue that people like him wage against women are insane, confusing an opportunist with fanatic. For if you say that he is in earnest, then his attempt to persuade Catholics, a failure though it is, was as honorable as politics can be, & you are very petty to accuse him of anything untoward, or to insinuate he was anything but principled.
Thridly, your argument about the various uses & dangers of various drugs will only convince those who already believe contraception should be gov't-guaranteed insurance. It might make them think their clever. It may give them a good hiding place, should they need it. Everyone else can see that you are hiding the main point about contraception for sex behind the ridiculous details of it helping in other situations. The fact of the matter is that some people here define insurance as insurance against some risks, as the word is used among sane people; the rest use it to mean gov't control, which has nothing to do with insurance - take for example, previous conditions, to insure against which would be the equivalent of insuring a burnt house against fire! - & is merely a phrase used to dupe the electorate. Of course, you will may tell me you only use such words for convenience & are glad never to do it again, given the obvious facts I've stated. You will not call insurance that which is not. You will not call a right that which has never existed. & then you will accept common sense on this matter. & then I will become a famous man in public affairs, whose opinion is respectfully required by many respectable or concerned people of many different opinions...
I'll close with an interesting point one of the more insane liberals has raised. A conservative, he said, needs to establish that he has respect for women against initial suspicion that things are otherwise. He must prove also that he knows of contraception, against initial suspicion that things are otherwise. Another liberal has suggested something similarly insane, that the man who supports bans on abortion but does not support subsidies for contraception must be thinking in a way that leads to him wanting to kill everyone having sex out of wedlock. Yeah, that's the level of liberal discourse. This is the thinking for which you provide cover by pointing out that contraception has also other uses & really it had nothing to do with incensing women that conservatives are the goddamned devil.
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Permalink Reply by Nick H on -
My point was to point out that the birth control pill is a medication. Some wanted to argue that it wasn't. I was not deliberately trying to hide the fact that its primary purpose is for birth control. My point was that some were using that to call the pill NOT a drug.
Likewise with the argument about what and why certain things are covered by insurance plans (the pill is covered, aspirin is not). Some used this as an argument, I disagreed. I also think I have more experience in this matter. I may be clueless to health insurance for hospitals and such as a Canadian but we do not have free drugs in Canada. Prescriptions are not a part of the Canadian Health plan. We need private insurance for that. And in the years I worked as a pharmacist I have spent many of those fighting with insurance companies for customers so yes, I feel I do have a good understanding on that matter.
Next I don't see Santorum's actions as a move against women or dishonourable (well, no more dishonourable than any political tactic). I just see it as a invite to Conservative Catholics to come on over.
I'm not sure what you are getting at in the third point. I've read it three times now and I'm still unsure of your point or argument. So I can't reply on that.
Finally. As for liberal/conservative stuff you mentioned in the end. I am more convinced than ever that American left/right conflicts is something beyond my understanding and completely foreign to me so I'm gonna have to start ignore it when I see it. In Canada, we have "liberals" who oppose abortion and 'conservatives' who are atheists. Mind you, our current leader fits more into the American model of conservatism but I think his days may be numbered. Especially recently.
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Permalink Reply by Titus Techera on
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1. I take it political tactics strike you as inherently dishonorable?
2. Do you understand that from the point of view of conservatives in America, Obamacare has to be repealed? (The GOP passed the repeal in the House of course...) This is part of that.
Now, let's get on to the medical stuff. Some have said such & such a thing is medicine because the FDA says so. That view is mere convention & laughable. You seem to argue that something that can be used to cure or palliate any illness of the body, or what is generally speaking conducive to the well-being of the body, is medicine. Or what do you say is a medicine?
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Permalink Reply by Nick H on
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1. Canada is going through some nasty stuff from our last federal election at the moment so maybe I'm less into political tactics.
2. Don't know much about it.
I just gave the FDA approved ones as an example. There are plenty more. FDA (or HPB in Canada) approved indications are just the indications the drug companies bothered to go after. You definition of medicine is fine.
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Permalink Reply by Rick Shelton on
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My point was to point out that the birth control pill is a medication.
My and several other poster's points are that although the birth control pill is a medicine it is not a MEDICALLY NECESSARY medicine if used solely to prevent pregnancies in otherwise healthy individuals. Aspirin is a medicine and, most, headaches are not emergent situations so it is not medically necessary to take an aspirin for a headache that will eventually go away on its own. Having sex is, usually, a choice so why should insurance companies, and the other insurees pay for you to be able to make that choice without consequences? If you don't have the money to pay for birth control then there is a free solution that will guarantee no negative outcomes, it is called abstinence.
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Permalink Reply by Titus Techera on
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http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/292872/mandatory-contracepti...
Marc Siegel on the likely effects of gov't take over of health insurance on health care.
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Permalink Reply by ARK on -
This article and the paper it discusses and links to suggests a Georgetown law student was probably not the best poster child for the need for affordable contraception. Ms. Fluke is an educated woman and could hardly be considered poor. It's not her access to contraception that I'm worried about so much as the women who really cannot afford contraceptives and rely on less effective methods.
If you can subsidize birth control pills and cut down the pregnancy rate among financially insecure women, you are saving public money that would have been used to support the resulting children, and you are saving private money that would have been used to fund abortions so that it can be used for other community health issues. It's cheaper to pay "upstream" when the problem is a minor nuisance than it is to pay "downstream" when the problem is bigger and more expensive.
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