#contraception

[on-a-lucky-tide]

PSA: never discuss private affairs in your DMs, especially contraception and abortion. Social media moguls will absolutely sell you out to the government. There are already cases of people being charged based on evidence in their DMs.

#twitter #abortion #contraception #lgbt #trans

[reasonsforhope]

"In short: Nine million Canadian women of reproductive age will have the full cost of their contraception covered as part of a major health care reform, the government says.

The reform includes the most widely used contraceptive methods, such as IUDs, contraceptive pills, hormonal implants and the day after pill.

What's next? The government must still win the approval of Canada's provinces, which administer health care."

"Canada will cover the full cost of contraception for women, the government says as it highlights the first part of a major health care reform.

The government will pay for the most widely used contraceptive methods, such as IUDs, contraceptive pills, hormonal implants or the day after pill, for the nine million Canadian women of reproductive age, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said on Sunday at a press conference in a pharmacy in Toronto.

"Women should be free to choose the contraceptives they need without cost getting in the way. So, we're making contraceptives free," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on X, formerly Twitter.

The announcement fleshes out the first part of a bill unveiled in February that, once completed, would mark the biggest expansion of Canada's publicly funded health care system in decades.

This new regime will also cover the cost of diabetes medication for some 3.7 million Canadians.

The cost of the new system and timing of the launch have not been announced...

The government must now win the approval of Canada's provinces, which actually administer health care, for this new system. Alberta and Quebec have already said they would opt out.

The pharmacare plan — as it is called locally — follows protracted negotiations between Mr Trudeau's Liberal minority government and a small leftist faction in parliament.

The New Democratic Party agreed to prop up the Liberals until the fall of 2025, on the condition that the government immediately launch the drug program."

-via ABC News Australia, March 31, 2024

#canada #canadian news #canadian politics #reproductive rights #contraception #iud #morning after pill #contraceptives #birth control #bodily autonomy #reproductive health #justin trudeau #healthcare #public health #healthcare reform #good news #hope

[odinsblog]

When the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion smugly declared that “nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.” Alito mocked the dissent’s concern that getting rid of abortion would ultimately imperil things like access to contraception, saying the dissent was “designed to stoke unfounded fear that our decision will imperil those other rights.”

But as anti-choice politicians and activists are now deploying Dobbs to try to roll back decades of law about bodily autonomy, it’s clear the dissent’s fears were quite well-founded.

Conservatives are not going to stop at unwinding the constitutional right to privacy, which underpins things like the right to obtain birth control and the right of same-sex couples to marry. After they destroy the agency of half the population by imposing so-called “fetal personhood” laws, they’re coming for the modern welfare state.

The blueprint

Over at the hard-right Washington Examiner, Conn Carroll, a former comms person for both the Heritage Foundation and Utah Sen. Mike Lee, has a lengthy list of laws he’d like to get rid of — everything from Medicaid, to Head Start, to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Those laws, he argues, “penalize marriage and encourage alternative family formation.” Carroll’s goals therefore dovetail not only with forced-birth conservatives but also with forced-marriage conservatives.

(continue reading)

#politics #scotus #republicans #project 2025 #abortion #privacy rights #contraception #fetal personhood #bodily autonomy #reproductive rights #reproductive justice #roe v wade #republicans are evil #healthcare #forced birthers #john roberts court #john roberts #heritage foundation #mike lee #conn carroll

[meret118]

145 Republican members of Congress have signed on to an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to restrict access to mifepristone, a drug used to end pregnancy, so that they do not have to do it.

Continuing to attack women's access to health care but realizing it's very unpopular, 119 congresspeople and 26 senators have signed on to an amicus brief looking to use a zombie law from the 1870s to restrict the shipment of mifepristone rather than pass their law themselves. This, and all of the other hijinks around the Supreme Court this week, should serve as a massive alarm to get out the vote if we want a democracy.

#Misogyny #Gop #Contraception #Birth control

[keithanime]

#birth control #abortion #birth control pill #family planning #reproductive rights #reproductive freedom #contraception

[justinsentertainmentcorner]

Alaina Demopoulos at The Guardian:

Madelyn Ritter expected to leave the St Louis date of Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts Tour with merch – she didn’t expect to also go home with some free emergency contraception. But that’s just what she saw upon entering the stadium. There, right by the women’s bathrooms, was a table where concertgoers could donate to abortion funds and pick up free condoms and morning-after pills, also called Plan B. “We noticed it immediately,” said Ritter, who is 25 (and, as she jokes, “too old” to love the 21-year-old pop star). “I was like: ‘What’s this about?’ They told me it was free, so my sister, her friend and I all took some. I personally don’t need it, but I’m going to save it in case something bad happens.”

Last month, in conjunction with her world tour, Rodrigo launched the Fund 4 Good campaign, which aims to protect women’s and girls’ reproductive rights. A portion of sales from the tour will go toward the fund. As part of the initiative, Rodrigo paired with the National Network of Abortion Funds, which connected her with local chapters at various stops on the tour. “There are plenty of singers making a stand about social issues, but I’ve never seen anything like this,” Ritter said. Abortion is illegal in Missouri. (It is only permitted in the case of an emergency that threatens the life of a pregnant person.) Missouri Republicans are also trying to defund Planned Parenthood, which provides reproductive healthcare like STI screenings and contraception in the state. Activists who staffed the table Ritter stopped by came from Right by You, a youth-focused text line that connects Missouri teens to abortion care out of state, birth control and information about their rights, and the Missouri Abortion Fund, which helps people cover the cost of an out-of-state abortion.

God Bless Olivia Rodrigo! Glad to see her taking a stand against Missouri's oppressive anti-abortion laws by giving out free emergency contraception items.

See Also:

PinkNews: Olivia Rodrigo hands out free Plan B tablets at Missouri tour, where abortion has a total ban

#Olivia Rodrigo #Birth Control #Reproductive Rights #Abortion #Missouri #St. Louis #GUTS Tour #Plan B #Fund 4 Good #Contraception #Reproductive Health

[mapsontheweb]

The following chart considers one aspect of sexual and reproductive autonomy, drawing data from the UNFPA platform to see how contraceptive rates vary around the world.

by StatistaCharts

#maps #contraception #2023 #StatistaCharts #twsourced

[kaleidoscope-vol2]

Fascism, baby.

#scotus #supreme court #roe v wade #dobbs #griswold #obergefell v. hodges #lawrence v. texas #griswold v connecticut #birth control #same sex marriage #lgbtq #contraception #abortion

[i-barely-tumble-her]

#polls #contraception #contraceptives #i barely tumble post

[reasonsforhope]

Teen births have fallen by more than three-quarters in the last three decades, a change of such improbable magnitude that experts struggle to fully explain it. Child poverty also plunged, raising a complex question: Does cutting teen births reduce child poverty, or does cutting child poverty reduce teen births?

While both may be true, it is not clear which dominates... Ms. Marsaw, who waited until 24 to have a child — a daughter, Zaharii — has considered the issue at length and embraces both views.

“This is a very, very, very good topic — it touches home with me in so many ways!” she said, adding that teen pregnancy and child poverty reinforce each other. “If you escape one, you have a better chance of escaping the other.”

Teen births have fallen by 77 percent since 1991, and among young teens the decline is even greater, 85 percent, according to an analysis by Child Trends, a research group that studies children’s well-being. Births have fallen at roughly equal rates among teenagers who are white, Hispanic and Black, and they have fallen by more than half in every state. [Note: They have FALLEN at similar rates, but there are unfortunately still disparities in the rates themselves due to the many profound impacts of racism.]

The decline is accelerating: Teen births fell 20 percent in the 1990s, 28 percent in the 2000s and 55 percent in the 2010s. Three decades ago, a quarter of 15-year-old girls became mothers before turning 20, according to Child Trends estimates, including nearly half of those who were Black or Hispanic. Today, just 6 percent of 15-year-old girls become teen mothers.

“These are dramatic declines — impressive, surprising, and good for both teenagers and the children they eventually have,” said Elizabeth Wildsmith, a Child Trends researcher who did the analysis with a colleague, Jennifer Manlove.

Not all teen mothers are poor, of course, and many who do experience poverty escape it.

The reasons teen births have fallen are only partly understood. Contraceptive use has grown and shifted to more reliable methods, and adolescent sex has declined. Civic campaigns, welfare restrictions and messaging from popular culture may have played roles.

But with progress so broad and sustained, many researchers argue the change reflects something more fundamental: a growing sense of possibility among disadvantaged young women, whose earnings and education have grown faster than their male counterparts.

“They’re going to school and seeing new career paths open,” said Melissa S. Kearney, an economist at the University of Maryland. “Whether they are excited about their own opportunities or feel that unreliable male partners leave them no choice, it leads them in the same direction — not becoming a young mother.”

Sex Is Down, Contraception is Up

On the surface, the decline in teen births is easy to explain: Contraception rose, and sex fell.

The share of female teens who did not use birth control the last time they had sex dropped by more than a third over the last decade, according to an analysis of government surveys by the Guttmacher Institute. The share using the most effective form, long-acting reversible contraception (delivered through an intrauterine device or arm implant), rose fivefold to 15 percent. The use of emergency contraception also rose.

Contraception use has grown in part because it is easier to get, with the 2010 Affordable Care Act requiring insurance plans, including Medicaid, to provide it for free.

At the same time, the share of high school students who say they have had sexual intercourse has fallen 29 percent since 1991, Child Trends found. Some analysts, including Brad Wilcox, a sociologist at the University of Virginia, say the postponement of sex, which has intensified since 2013, stems in part from the time teens spend in front of screens.

Abortion does not appear to have driven the decline in teen births. As a share of teenage pregnancy, it has remained steady over the past decade, although the data, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, omits medication abortions, and analysts say the recent Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, eliminating the constitutional right to abortion, could cause teen births to rise.

If adolescent girls are more cautious with sex and birth control, what explains the caution? A common answer is that more feel they have something to lose. “There is just a greater confidence among young women that they have educational and professional opportunities,” Mr. Wilcox said.

In 2013, the economists David Autor and Melanie Wasserman found that women in their mid-30s were nearly 25 percent more likely than men to have a four-year college degree, and at every educational level earnings had grown faster for women than men...

A Brighter Future

For Ms. Alvarez, [an undocumented immigrant and the child of a teen mother,] the story is simpler: Her future unfolded as planned. [She successfully avoided teen pregnancy.] Though still working on her English, she managed the transition to the University of the District of Columbia. In her second year, fortune smiled: She boarded a city bus and ran into Fredy, the man who had pursued her in high school.

Like Ms. Marsaw, she no longer feared pregnancy as she had in her teens. When a lapse in contraceptive use had a predictable effect, the news solidified her plans more than it disrupted them. She married shortly before giving birth at 23. “You’ve never ready to become a mother, but I felt like I can do this,” she said.

A baby did slow her educational progress. Working two jobs, she took six years to earn a bachelor’s degree, then started a job at Mary’s Center, the clinic that had encouraged her to seek scholarships.

She coordinates care for cancer patients and has legal protection under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program for undocumented migrants who came to the United States as youths. With a family income above the national average, she and her husband recently bought their first house.

“If I die tomorrow, I can say I achieved the American dream,” Ms. Alvarez said. “But if I had gotten pregnant as a teenager? I’m not sure, but I don’t think so.””

-via The New York Times, 12/31/22

#united states #us politics #teen pregnancy #abortion #teen mother #pregnancy #contraception #iud #emergency contraception #healthcare #child poverty #intergenerational poverty #good news #hope

[odinsblog]

God, I hate Republicans.

If you are at all able to, please stock up and take any & all necessary precautions to protect your own bodily autonomy or that of loved ones, before the John Roberts Court rubber stamps another Christofascist anti-abortion law into effect.

Terfs DNI

#politics #scotus #reproductive rights #abortion #republicans #planned parenthood #mifepristone #war on women #reproductive justice #womens rights #religious reich #terfs dni #medication abortion #contraception #plan b #morning after pill #emergency contraception #pp

[mindblowingscience]

​If women have the 'morning after' pill, could men one day have an 'hour before' pill?​

A new drug candidate renders male mice infertile within an hour and wears off in less than a day, an experimental study said Tuesday, potentially pointing towards a future 'on-demand' male contraceptive.

The potential drug, which has not been tested in humans and remains years away from possibly becoming available, joins a growing number of male contraceptives in development.

However there are currently only two options available for men: condoms and vasectomies.

Previous drugs have struggled partly because the bar for side effects is believed to be far higher for men – because they do not risk getting pregnant – as well as a lack of interest from the pharmaceutical industry.

"For women, right now all the burden of contraception is on us," Melanie Balbach, a pharmacology researcher at Weill Cornell Medicine in the US, told AFP.​

"We want new options," said Balbach, the lead author of the study published in Nature Communications.

Continue Reading.

#contraception #Birth control #science #Biology #Medicine #stem

[profeminist]

"The Food and Drug Administration got one step closer to making birth control pills available over the counter when a panel of experts voted unanimously to recommend the move last week. At a time of increasingly fraught access to reproductive health care, being able to get birth control without a prescription would make it easier for people to plan and prevent pregnancies nationwide.

But Democratic lawmakers want to make it even more accessible, ensuring that health insurers provide no-cost coverage of oral contraceptives by passing the Affordability Is Access Act.

The FDA is set to announce its decision on whether to reclassify the drug this summer."

Read the full piece here: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/democrats-unveil-plan-for-no-cost-over-the-counter-birth-control_n_646407a1e4b0ab2b97e3ecd0

U.S. readers, register to vote here

#feminism #feminist #birth control #contraceptives #contraception #bodily autonomy #stop forced childbirth

[the-sayuri-rin]

In a solo concurring opinion, Thomas says the court should reconsider rulings that protect contraception, same-sex relationships, and same-sex marriage.

Told you

#roe vs. wade #pro chocie #abortion #abortion rights #same sex marriage #LGBTQ+ #contraception

[socialistexan]

"People who have the physical power to create, nurture, and give life also have the power to decide when and if it is the right time to do so."

Abortion bans are a violation of my religious liberty as a Jewish person. Banning contraceptives is a violation of my religious liberty as a Jewish person. Adjudicating law solely through a Christian lens and standards is a violation of my religious liberty as a Jewish person.

It is exceedingly clear that when politicians and the Right-wing in this country talk about "religious liberty" they mean the liberty for the most extremist Christian fundamentalists to impose their beliefs onto this country and turn us into a theocracy. Plain and simple.

That dog whistle should start sounding like a bullhorn to y'all now.

#reproductive freedom #reproductive rights #abortion #contraception

[whatareyoureallyafraidof]

#Republican #Republicans #GOP #MAGA #Vote Blue #Democrat #Democrats #Democracy #abortion #pro-choice #right to choose #freedom #liberty #contraception #rape #same-sex marriage #equality #same-sex #gay #lesbian #transgender #asexual #bisexual #pansexual #LGBTQ+