I'm reblogging this from PixelFish's original Utter which you can check out here: http://www.utterz.com/…Nw/utt.php
OK, so why am I blogging about "back up birth control"? Because life is not a simple place and women are (still) treated like second-class citizens in a lot of ways.
Guys: if there was a chance someone could grab you, stick something in you and make you carry around A LIVING THING in your abdomen for NINE months, you'd want some protection against it, right?
I can think of very little that would freak me out more than something ALIVE inside of me. And then to have to carry it around, announcing to the world "I HAVE THIS GROWING THING INSIDE OF ME"--so much for having any conversation start with anything but questions ABOUT the growth. If that weren't enough, the damn growth would be sucking nutrients from me so fast I have to eat almost twice as much as I normally do. Then, when I finally get rid of the thing, I am on the hook to care for it for the rest of my life--even if I give it to someone else, I still know it's still out there somewhere.
Or, I could just take a pill and remove the chance of such a thing happening to me all together. The catch is, sometimes the pill isn't enough because you forget or other drugs mess with it (or vice versa), so it's good to have back up. Here's what PixelFish says about it in her Utter:
"For those who don't know, EC (Emergency Contraception) works like an extra strong dosage of the Pill. You receive an extra dose of the hormones that control ovulation, and if you haven't ovulated yet, your body will put it off for a further five days, by which point all sperm SHOULD have died off. EC is NOT an abortofacient. If you have an egg that has been fertilized, EC does not prevent it from attaching to the uterus wall.
It's a good idea for any woman of childbearing age to have access to this important medication. It's just better not to go to the pharmacy and hear that they are temporarily out of it, or worse, to have a pharmacist refuse to fill your prescription. (Although in the US, women over the age of 18 can ask for it WITHOUT a prescription.)
...
And for those that use condoms, you are undoubtedly aware of the possibility of breakage or leakage. Finally, our society is less than ideal and one in four women will suffer from a sexual assault. Having to fight for your reproductive rights right when you are most vulnerable is tough, and having this on hand can give you one less thing to worry about."
So, that's a woman's perspective and before that was a man's.
To me birth control is an issue of self-control--as in, control of one's self. In our culture we're sold a bill of goods--some might say, brainwashed even--natural child birth is a wondrous, magical thing and a blessing from God (or your chosen deity). The reality is that such dialog is really just pro-humanity propaganda that doesn't reflect the reality of our world.
In our current world, a new child represents massive expense in time and money.
1) As mentioned above, the woman carries this organism around inside of her for nine months. If the man gives a shit, he does everything he can to help her through this ordeal--and it IS an ordeal. Your tits get huge, your hormones go crazy and you are essentially a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PERSON because everyone will treat you that way.
2) Before the creature is even born, you're ideally supposed to be spending buckets of money. Sure, insurance may cover some of the medical, but will insurance pay for the extra food the woman eats to feed the thing inside of her? Will it pay to redo the guest room? Or buy the crib, stroller, baby bottles, diapers, etc? No. Will your employer(s) give you time off? What if you're self-employed or a career temp?
3) After the child is born, the money output is incredible. Not just clothes and saving for college, but there's food and entertainment. Suddenly there are toys, vacations get more expensive, and as the kids get older they eat more and more and more.
4) When the child is born and even when the pregnancy is first discovered, to make sure things go right, you really should accept that your own life is over. You are now life support for that child. You are supporting the next generation of humanity--think it will develop fine if both you and your spouse have dayjobs? Think the kid will mentally grow by sticking him or her in daycare, expecting Disney cartoons to educate them or some babysitter?
Look at the world. The current crop of adults were raised largely by divorced and dual-income families. Virtually ignored as children, most of us now can't find Iraq on a map despite the fact that our country is occupying it. We're supposed to believe that terrorists could attack and kill us at any moment, yet, I think I've seen more pregnant women since 911 than I have in the whole of my life before 2001. Our economy has been dying for years but most of us are just starting to notice now. Our environment has been dying for decades, and only now are we talking about doing something about it. Our planet is running out of oil, water and recent food crises in India and Africa suggest that food stocks are low, too--our planet may already have too many people on it.
So, please: practice birth control and have some extra BC laying around, just in case.
Child birth isn't magical. It's biological. It's a force of nature and it WILL find a way. You shouldn't feel obligated to play along. A child doesn't make a woman (or a man) feel whole. A child doesn't give your life meaning. In both cases, the results can be found by doing things that don't require you to take responsibility for another human's life.
Sorry, I really did mean this post to be about women's rights. Damn, I'll have to write about those some other time.
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