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August 2, 2012 - I could comment on this comic, but I have a bunch of links to get through.
First off provisions of Obama's health care plan kinda went into effect yesterday that are intended to benefit women making birth control free as well as some related services. I have a LOT of reservations about Obamacare (which is why I say these changes are "intended" to benefit women), and largely believe the short-term effect of his plan on employment rates and the long-term issues of how his policies would affect cultural differences were completely overlooked. For the most part the good outweighs the bad as we at least ended up with something, but I'm hardly the biggest supporter of his health care reform as it is currently implemented.
Still the concept of "free" birth control is worth celebrating, the "free" aspect is where everything blurs as I fear "free" actually means a bump to the unemployment rate and worse gender relations (because that money's coming from somewhere and if its your employer paying extra that ultimately means layoffs, and if it's men paying extra, there's a good chance it's adding fuel to any feelings of misogyny certain men may feel towards women).
Meanwhile, with all this increased access to birth control, teen pregnancy is down and with it abortion rates. Notice that the article points out that neither access to abortion or sexual education seemed to have much affect on abortion rates, just access to contraception. I find the lack of impact sexual education makes surprising. But for anyone looking at birth control options, it's interesting to note how effective IUDs are because the probability of screwing up their use is significantly less (only 4 in 10 people on the pill use it correctly apparently, and only 25% of teen condom users know what they're doing. That. Is. Awful.).
Lastly an article from Ms. Magazine detailing a specific and personal example of the lack of medical training on abortion adding unneeded aggravation to a woman who didn't have a choice. Clearly, even if they only intend to perform it rarely such as the one described, more doctors should be trained in how to perform an abortion to prevent what this woman had to go through.
So that's what I got today. Comic tomorrow might be either a few hours earlier or later than my usual midnight update schedule (but it will go up).
-D
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