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jonquil's journal.
What Happens When There Is No Plan B?
A 42-year-old married woman with health problems makes a mistake with her contraception and is left with literally no alternative but to cross state lines to go to an abortion clinic to terminate her accidental third pregnancy, because not only is Plan B still not available over-the-counter, it is not even available by prescription and no one will tell her why.
Interestingly, in my household, I remember abortion being discussed once or twice. Mom, raised Protestant, said she was unlikely to seek one, but if she had been carrying a child who was severely deformed, perhaps, and the doctors said the child could never be happy, then she'd consider it. Dad, a Catholic, would go on about how there should be retroactive abortions up to age 20 what with all these idiots walking the streets, but he was always quiet when Mom discussed it: I think his position boiled down to the fact that, well, he wouldn't have one, but then, he wouldn't be pregnant either, due to biology. I believe their birth control worked the same way-- Mom could do whatever she liked with her body without imperiling Dad's religious beliefs. (He did, however, rather touchingly, awkwardly tell my older sister that if she needed help with getting any kind of birth control or anything, he would help her, which utterly shocked her as at that point in her life she was firmly committed to abstinence, out of sheer practicality. But it does rather give Dad more guts than the traditional don't-ask-don't-tell Catholicism.)
jonquil's journal.What Happens When There Is No Plan B?
Apparently, one of the concerns is that ready availability of Plan B could lead teenage girls to have premarital sex. Yet this concern -- valid or not -- wound up penalizing an over-the-hill married woman for having sex with her husband. Talk about the law of unintended consequences.
A 42-year-old married woman with health problems makes a mistake with her contraception and is left with literally no alternative but to cross state lines to go to an abortion clinic to terminate her accidental third pregnancy, because not only is Plan B still not available over-the-counter, it is not even available by prescription and no one will tell her why.
I arrived shortly before 10 a.m. in a bleak downpour, trusting that someone had recorded my appointment. I shuffled to the front door through a phalanx of umbrellaed protesters, who chanted loudly about Jesus and chided me not to go into that house of abortion.
All the while, I was thinking that if religion hadn't been allowed to seep into American politics the way it has, I wouldn't even be there. This all could have been stopped way before this baby was conceived if they had just let me have that damn pill.
Interestingly, in my household, I remember abortion being discussed once or twice. Mom, raised Protestant, said she was unlikely to seek one, but if she had been carrying a child who was severely deformed, perhaps, and the doctors said the child could never be happy, then she'd consider it. Dad, a Catholic, would go on about how there should be retroactive abortions up to age 20 what with all these idiots walking the streets, but he was always quiet when Mom discussed it: I think his position boiled down to the fact that, well, he wouldn't have one, but then, he wouldn't be pregnant either, due to biology. I believe their birth control worked the same way-- Mom could do whatever she liked with her body without imperiling Dad's religious beliefs. (He did, however, rather touchingly, awkwardly tell my older sister that if she needed help with getting any kind of birth control or anything, he would help her, which utterly shocked her as at that point in her life she was firmly committed to abstinence, out of sheer practicality. But it does rather give Dad more guts than the traditional don't-ask-don't-tell Catholicism.)
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Date: 2006-06-04 03:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-04 04:37 pm (UTC)This country is going to hell.