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New Apps Let Women Obtain Birth Control Without Visiting a Doctor
HughPickens.com writes: With nearly 40 percent of all pregnancies in the United States unintended, birth control is a critical public health issue. For short-term methods, visiting the doctor for a prescription can be time-consuming and sometimes costly and for some, like teenagers, it can be intimidating or embarrassing. Now Pam Belluck reports at the NYT that a growing assortment of new apps and websites now make it possible to get prescription contraceptives without going to the doctor as public health experts hope the new apps will encourage more women to start, or restart, using contraception and help reduce the country's stubbornly high rate of unintended pregnancies, as well as the rate of abortions. At least six digital ventures, by private companies and nonprofits, including Planned Parenthood, now provide prescriptions written by clinicians after women answer questions about their health online or by video. All prescribe birth control pills, and some prescribe patches, rings and morning-after pills and some ship contraceptives directly to women's doors. "At first I didn't believe it," said Susan Hashem, who wanted to restart birth control pills without missing work for a doctor's appointment. Hashem used an app called Lemonaid and paid $15 for a doctor to review her medical information and send a pill prescription to a local pharmacy. "I thought it was just a setup to get money," Hashem said. But after she answered the health questions one evening, "a doctor actually contacted me after office hours," and the next morning, she picked up three months' worth of pills.
I'm strongly in favor of overall greater access to birth control. But I have to say that when it comes to starting any kind of hormonal birth control, I'm uneasy about the idea of doing so without the supervision of a doctor or other medical professional.
In my case I had to go through three different types of pills before I found a pill that worked well for me. The first two left me, well, hormonal and while it wasn't terrible, it also wasn't a pleasant experience. Especially compared to how much better things were once I finally found a pill that worked. There are a number of different pills on the market for a reason; not everyone responds to a given formulation the same way. And this is where the doctor was a great help, as she was able to tell me what was and wasn't normal, use my experiences to suggest other options. I suppose from a technical perspective any pill will do - they all seem to pause fertility - but the side effects can be a real pain.
This is why I'm uneasy about anyone starting a new birth control regimen without supervision. Certainly once you're established and happy, you should be able to get new packs as you please (including ordering extra for trips and such). And this is definitely something that needs to be fixed as it's harder than it should be. But starting without a physician seems like a poor idea to me. I feel like it's doing a disservice to others who will be lead to think the processes is easier than it actually is.
They want to fuck in the same way that you want to serve fries and mop floors.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
There is exactly one reference to abortion in the bible. It's in Numbers 5, and it details the process for performing an abortion if you believe your wife has been unfaithful.
Yeah, the U.S. was at complete peace during the previous administration then as soon as Obama came into office it was 8 years of solid war. The Republicans tried to stop it every step of the way but boy Obama is just a warmonger.
Meanwhile back on planet Earth, the US has been tangled up in the middle east (this time) since well before Obama was elected - I suppose you conveniently forgot which party was in power then, no?