Monday, February 13, 2012

Obama and contraception part 2

Today I'm going to speak personally about Obama's decision.
I do not agree with Obama that preventive care should include coverage of contraceptive services such as birth control. I found this statistic unbelievable in his speech.
"Nearly 99 percent of all women have relied on contraception at some point in their lives." Ram told me that statistic is probably right. I'm one of the only 1 percent that never took contraception. Wow.
I do agree that "no woman's health should depend on who she is or where she works or how much money she makes". That is why I disagree that preventive care should include contraception. A few years ago I found out I had Factor II. I was so thankful when I found out this diagnosis that I had never taken birth control. My chances of a blood clot, even a life threatening one, would have been much higher than the average woman if I would have taken birth control. I had no idea that I had Factor II until I was 36 years old. Perhaps if contraception was free, contraception would have been more tempting when I was younger. I know that you are going to say that I'm an unusual case. But the fact is that women don't know if they are high risk for birth control side effects until it is too late sometimes. I also know many women that took birth control and had terrible side effects.
I know many people that thought their family was complete and they ended up pregnant and had another child (or more than one more). Some of these were even told by doctors not to have any more and they still carried the pregnancy to term. All of them have said again and again how blessed they were to have that unplanned child. I also have friends that had several children close in age and then later on they couldn't have any more and they were so glad they had children when they could.
I know that I'm unusual because I didn't have my first child until I was 30. Then the babies came every two years. After 3 boys I've had nothing but miscarriages. The last OB/GYN visit the doctor was blunt with me and said that if I don't take birth control that I can expect many more miscarriages before menopause. Am I going to do contraception? No.
Ram and I did try Natural Family Planning when we were first married. I was teaching and I thought kids just didn't fit into the plan until Ram graduated from Seminary. But we weren't very strict about NFP and if I would have gotten pregnant we would have kept the baby even though it wasn't in the plans. In fact we were so loose with NFP that I'm not even sure we were keeping ourselves from getting pregnant. (But because of my NFP training, I got pregnant immediately when we stopped saying we were doing NFP!) If I were to do it over again I would not have done NFP then. I know now that God would have provided for us if I would have had a baby then. I was not trusting God then.
I have many friends that are experiencing infertility or secondary infertility. It is my fear that free contraception will make it too easy for women to take birth control and then later down the road they will regret that decision.
I do know that there are circumstances that don't fit my reasons for personally not taking birth control. Each woman should have a choice to make with her doctor and her husband if she is going to take birth control for those kind of circumstances. I say this even with my pro-life opinions. But by making it free to all women, woman will have it too easy to take birth control, and most of those women in my opinion should have to pay for and work for the birth control, not just have it free. Perhaps paying for birth control it will help more unwed couples to abstain. Perhaps by paying for birth control it will help married couples have more than then the expected 2 children.
I have much more to say about this issue. I don't think insurance companies should have to provide this free because in the end we are paying more for it. Contraception is way too broad because it includes birth control that cause abortions, especially the morning after pill. But I am ending my posts on this issue and planning a good Valentine's Day with my family tomorrow.



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