Over-the-Counter Birth Control Pills? Not In America.

Http://reason.com/archives/2014/03/26/over-the-counter-birth-control-pills-us

They should definitely be OTC

Agreed.

Not while our nanny overlords are in control

Over the counter means that insurance will not reimburse the cost.

There are three economic effects for this change. One, it may increase use of birth control by minors without supportive parents; two, it will reduce the number of adults on birth control either long term or temporary basis (had to pay bills or fix the car so I gave up my birth control this month) and three; will increase the use of more expensive types of birth control that still require physician monitoring and are covered by insurance, i.e. IUD, Norplant, etc.

Hard to tell exactly which of these combined effects will have the larger effect.

Over the counter means that insurance will not reimburse the cost.

There are three economic effects for this change. One, it may increase use of birth control by minors without supportive parents; two, it will reduce the number of adults on birth control either long term or temporary basis (had to pay bills or fix the car so I gave up my birth control this month) and three; will increase the use of more expensive types of birth control that still require physician monitoring and are covered by insurance, i.e. IUD, Norplant, etc.

Hard to tell exactly which of these combined effects will have the larger effect.

Not necessarily. There is also behind the counter. By doing this, the pharmacist can make sure appropriate age restrictions are meet. Insurance will usually pick up the cost of medicine, even OTC, if it's prescribed by a doctor.

... Insurance will usually pick up the cost of medicine, even OTC, if it's prescribed by a doctor.

However, the point of making birth control OTC is to avoid the doctor visit. That you need a doctor's script for insurance coverage erases the OTC cost benefit and you're back to square one. Unless of course you have no health insurance at all and then you have more serious problems than just getting birth control.

No age restriction is the only benefit of OTC and that benefits minors with unsupportive parents. And even that is a dubious benefit when appropriate health professional oversight for this young cohort gets circumvented.

The fact is, for children having sex, birth control pills only serve to prevent pregnancy.

They still need condoms to prevent STD's.

Just wondering.... A conversation I had with friend this past weekend reminded me. Does anyone realize that prior to 1968 birth control was illegal for married women in many states and that prior to 1972, 26 states made it illegal for an unmarried woman to obtain birth control. Prior to World War I male condoms were also prohibited, but an outbreak among the troops in Europe caused the men to acquire condoms, which they continued to use after returning home.

We may not be all the way there yet, but we have come a long way....

^^^^ You can thank the church and religious right for all that.

I vote for making them readily available.

I might qualify it to only to those who can read the caveats on the label, but I'm not even sure about that what with adult illiteracy and all.

As for religion and the church, well there's a sociology PhD thesis in disproving that assertion.

The way our, (US), government is going I would not be surprised to have all forms of birth control banned by the end of the decade.