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1. Common Ground with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC)
A resounding yes!!! Allow me to elaborate why I endorse this whole-heartedly and then point out barriers to this sensible proposal.
A resounding yes!!! Allow me to elaborate why I endorse this whole-heartedly and then point out barriers to this sensible proposal.
2. Jillian Kay Melchior, a senior fellow at the Independent Women's Forum, wrote about this a couple of years ago. I was quite impressed with her research and presentation, so I am directly drawing upon her work to support this policy proposal.
3. Removing the pharmacy-counter barrier between women and their birth control would give them vastly more, not less, power over their own health-care choices, also reducing health-care costs and improving access.
4. Right now, the federal government requires a prescription for birth control, even though other over-the-counter drugs (acetaminophen, for example) bear higher health risks, the directions are straightforward, and there’s no risk of overdose.
5. Practically speaking, the prescription requirement keeps women beholden to their gynecologist, forcing them to submit to intrusive and uncomfortable once-a-year doctor’s visits in exchange for a pink slip for the pill.
6. But while pelvic exams and Pap smears can help physicians detect everything from sexually transmitted diseases to cervical cancer, these procedures tell them basically nothing about whether a woman can safely take birth control.
7. Authorities as prestigious as the World Health Organization and the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have confirmed that doctors can safely prescribe the pill without a full examination.
8. In 2013, the New York Times estimated that American women undergo more than 63 million pelvic exams a year. That comes at a huge cost to our health-care system, even disregarding the time women are forced to take off work to visit the doctor.
9. The examination alone costs around $125, and a Pap test adds roughly $40 to the expense, according to reports by the American Board of Internal Medicine’s nonprofit ABIM Foundation. Planned Parenthood alone makes around $1.2 billion each year from contraceptive services.
10. With that big cash in mind, is it any wonder special-interest groups from gynecological associations to Planned Parenthood to NARAL came out swinging against Republican Senator Cory Gardner's proposal in Colorado in 2015 for over-the-counter birth control?
11. Salon’s Katie McDonough called the senator perpetually “full of s**t.” Planned Parenthood’s president claimed that the bill “is a sham and an insult to women.”
12. NARAL Pro-Choice America’s president called the idea “nothing but political pandering to trick women and families into thinking we are covered while dismantling one of the most critical gains in the Affordable Care Act.”
13. The Left’s reflexive criticism of Gardner’s plan derives from a deep public-sector and special-interest-backed paternalism that wants to control women’s health choices just as much as any other supposed patriarchy.
14. There’s also major political motivation for liberals to oppose OTC birth control. Seeking to woo women voters, the Left has forced insurers to offer “free” birth control, as enshrined in the Affordable Care Act.
15. That’s a handy trick; instead of engaging in a debate on the economics of the health law with opponents, they can simply shout misogyny, dusting off the war-on-women rhetoric.
16. The case for offering the pill without a prescription is strong, as is public support for the measure. Making birth control over-the-counter would also vastly expand access, resulting in fewer unplanned pregnancies and abortions.
17. In fact, unwanted pregnancies could decline as much as 25 percent, according to a study by the University of California–San Francisco, and nonprofit Ibis Reproductive Health.
18. “Women who are currently using methods that are less effective than the pill — mainly condoms or nothing — would use it,” the study’s author concluded. “Particularly low-income women.”
19. The case for offering the pill without a prescription is strong, as is public support for the measure. A Reason-Rupe poll found that 70 percent of Americans support making birth control available over the counter.
20. Women’s health-care choices shouldn’t be limited by the greed of special-interest groups or the political calculations of jaded members of Congress. I hope @AOC sticks to her guns on this. She has my support on this issue!
The End
The End
