Do NOT tell me there is no war on women after reading this...

[haele]

78. Birth control is a poverty issue. Most married women who are working class or poor take BC.

They do this because:

1) Non-prescription BC failure rates are extremely high – OTC Condoms and sponges have a 15% failure rate, Rhythm method has around a 25% failure rate. “Pulling out” has around a 27% failure, and amazingly enough, OTC spermicidal methods can be worse at around 30% failure. After childbirth “Lactation” method only works until a woman starts having her period again.

2) Unprotected sex with one’s husband or long-term significant other of the opposite gender has an 85% failure rate.

The problem one runs into when discussing birth control is that too many arguments are focused on the premise that the only women who pursue birth control are young or single dingbats and not in stable, long-term partnership/relationships – or - that sex only happens between committed partners when they “are ready” to procreate. Apparently, committed partners who are still “fertile” don’t otherwise have sex once they commit.
Everyone else apparently only uses when they want to either get their rocks of or as part of “courtship” play between people of loose morals - totally ignoring the emotional well-being, comfort, and bonding that sex brings to a committed relationship .
The simplistic social view currently prevalent in America that sex is either for single adult play-time, or to make babies once a partner is picked. Whore, meet Madonna.

If access to birth control as part of a healthy family, especially amongst the poorer families, is not considered an socio-economic issue as well as a community resources issue, a community ends up spending far more on policing and community services to stressed out and/or failing families due to increasingly dysfunctional domestic dynamics brought on by a marital unit’s attempts to coordinate their offspring with their efforts to maintain economic stability. Too many children and the many health expenses due to pregnancy and birth, and a struggling young family will become financially distressed and fracture within three/four years of a marriage. We just had a baby in the family - with great insurance through my employer, it cost us $3K over the entire pregnancy and birth. Without insurance, or with minimum insurance, or charity aid, it can cost the average couple up over $10K out of pocket - just because it was a holiday or "sweetheart" had a hard day at work and there was a bit of comfort sex...

So, yes – Birth Control is just as important as any other major public health concern to a community well-being.
The ability for a family to control the size it will be sustainable at should not be a matter of "can we afford the doctor's visits every year to get the prescription for reliable birth control" - or would that $20 a month be the difference between risking an unplanned, expensive pregnancy or being able to drive to work the last week of each month.
It’s not simply just a matter of “women too stupid to just say no” – which, frankly, is as much the conservative view towards birth control as “babies are God’s little gift…”

Haele