Seewalds 33: Schroedinger’s Uterus

[just_ordinary]

Thanks for the information about Pharmacies in the US. I was about to ask who the hell wouldn’t give them a stern talking about denying prescribed birth control or the pill after. This wouldn’t happen here. Highly illegal. Not sure if you even need a prescription (which you could get from your normal doc) for the pill after anymore.

I decided that whatever birth control my children will go on, I will try to make sure they know about all the factors that could lead to a lowered effectiveness.

A lot of birth control methods are highly effective but you have to use it correctly.

Forgot the pill even once, threw up, added medication, ... - use a fucking condom till next cycle.

Using condoms- make sure you use only safe lubricants, practice how to roll it on before.

And so on. Basically: Read the fucking manual.

That said, the reality is often different and I was young, horny and irresponsible too in my teens. Luckily nothing happened. Hopefully non of my children will have to deal with an unwanted pregnancy but if that would be the case I am confident we as a family would be able to support whatever the decision would be.

[SorenaJ]

To me, "accidental" is a relatively narrow definition. If you have unprotected sex, I would say it was unplanned, but not accidental, you knew what could happen, but then again, English is not my native language, so accidental might mean something different here. 

[Ais]

About 9-10 years ago I had protected sex with a man I was seeing very casually, it was never going to become a relationship and we were both happy with that. On one occasion the condom came loose after sex and I was taking no chances so off I went to the family planning clinic the next day for the morning after pill. The clinic was in my GP practice and when I saw the nurse who I knew well (she also did the asthma clinic, the baby clinic and the smear clinic) her face fell. In a practice of 9 GPs only 1 would prescribe the morning after pill and he wasn't in the surgery. The others refused on religious grounds and that was legal and acceptable. I did get the pill as well as an anti sickness tablet to make sure I didn't throw it up again but I'm well aware that on that occasion both the nurse and Dr risked their registration to ensure I got the best care. 

We can now buy the morning after pill over the counter after speaking to a pharmacist and filling in a questionnaire. 

We really need to create an environment where a woman can make the best and safest choice for herself and her existing family based on her own circumstances and abilities/limitations without interference from outsiders.

 

[Marly]

I find it absolutely astonishing and horrible that a doctor can deny a patient medication or treatment because of their religious conviction. If your beliefs prevent you from helping people, don't become a fucking doctor or pharmacist! 
Where I live, denying patients care because that care is not in line with doctor's/pharmacist's personal beliefs is very much illegal. Doctor's and pharmacists are required to help their patients, and if a patient wants a plan B pill, a pharmacist is legally obligated to provide that plan B pill, regardless of their own personal beliefs. If they don't, they can lose their license. If a patient asks their GP for information about an abortion, GP is legally obligated to provide that information. 
 

[emscm]

Luckily in my state, emergency contraceptive is available over the counter. I believe the person purchasing needs to be over 18 years of age. I did utilize buying it at least twice before I was married. We have to buy it at the pharmacy counter, and sign for it, but it is luckily very easy to access. 

[Alicja]

Making abortion illegal would only exacerbate our problems with maternal and infant mortality

[SilverBeach]

On 6/1/2018 at 9:37 AM, ihaveanexamintwodays said:

I'm wondering, where are you from? Where I'm from, the only thing a minor can consent to is prenatal care. definitely not to an abortion, medical or surgical, and yeah any other medical care requires guardian consent. 

Please note my location. USA, Land of Lincoln (Illinois). Abortion is the exception to parental consent being required for medical treatment of minors. One of the reasons put forth for this was that the minor might be put in an unsafe position if she disclosed her pregnancy. I felt that even if I couldn't stop it, I should at least know about it. Nobody loves my child but me and I would want to be available to her. Mine likely would have told me, we were close and I was always supportive of her. It was the principle of the thing.

This was a big topic of discussion among the parents at the high school that my daughter attended. I was gobsmacked when I realized that this was the law. Note that Planned Parenthood provided BC pills without question to us when we were in high school. Hormonal birth controlis arguably medication, but no parental consent was/is required, and I'm not sure it should be. I felt that the over-the top parental permissions for aspirin to be dispensed high schoolers should have been eliminated since certainly they can accept the risk of taking aspirin if they can autonomously have an abortion. 

I'm not like Nic Nog, I don't view minors as property. But there was something about this discrepancy that bothered me, there was a logic break in there somewhere. I hope I'm explaining this clearly. 

[SilverBeach]

On 6/1/2018 at 10:56 AM, justoneoftwo said:

I think this comes down to the problem of when children are autonomous.  Obviously children should be protected, and in general we do that by letting their parents make decisions (like about medical care, my two year old would not want vaccinations, because they hurt, I know better).  We also protect them by letting them make their own decisions and by protecting them from their parents sometimes (like with abortions).  So really the question is when is that girl old enough to make the choice herself?  When is she competent?  When do we assume we need to protect a minor from their parents instead of assuming the parents should protect the minor?  

These are hard questions.  I'm not convinced we have come to any good conclusions, but they are so hard I understand why we haven't.  

I'm only talking about legality, where the law proscribes the age of adulthood and limits autonomy across the board to some degree until the age of majority is attained. The law can't know the personal status or maturity of each minor. Like I said before, abortion is medical care, politics aside. Depending on a minor's situation, disclosing pregnancy or abortion could be fraught and there should be policies in place to assist these minors. But I'm not sure that an across the board exemption, pretending like an abortion is not medical, is the answer. 

That said, in no event should a minor or anyone ever be forced to carry a child. I'm talking more about being informed as opposed to having veto power. These are indeed hard questions, and I don't know the answers, I just know that I was bothered by it all. 

It's like when I discovered that my daughter's college would not disclose her grades to me unless she authorized it. I was like HUH? When I was an undergraduate, grades were routinely mailed home. I could be paying tuition for my child who was flunking out for all I know! I thought it was ridiculous. College students may not be minors but most are not independent and there should be some accountability, in my maybe old-school opinion.

[apandaaries]

On 6/1/2018 at 5:56 AM, Captain Obvious said:

The only person I know who had an abortion had one when she was in her early-mid 20s and we were colleagues/friends. At the time, I thought it was the right move because her then partner was an abusive jerk, and she wasn't mentally in a good place herself either.

She may think about that abortion, but also, that does not sound like a healthy environment into which to bring a child. Reproductive coercion, where a partner sabotages birth control to maintain control over the other partner, is a real and terrible thing. Even if that wasn't their situation, being in an abusive relationship with a baby or child is exponentially worse than being in an abusive relationship as an individual (both situations suck, obviously). 

@SilverBeach from everything you've described, you and your daughter are close, with a supportive relationship. But for far too many teenagers, that is not the case whatsoever. Sadly and horribly, too many children and teens wind up abused by step-fathers, relatives, family friends, etc. (one notable, publicly disclosed event is Maya Angelou's rape at 8; it was her mom's boyfriend who committed the crime). For people in particularly bad situations, their family support is already lacking. It's terrible, but there are a number of mothers out there who would blame their daughter for "seducing" the mom's husband, boyfriend, whatever. Not a situation your child endured, but since those hideous cases exist, we have to make laws to protect the majority as much as possible. 

As far as "abortion as birth control," who the everloving fuck has that kind of money? Abortions are expensive! But there are a number of people who just are highly fertile. A friend worked at PP and had a woman who'd had several abortions. She also had 3 or 4 kids already, and could not afford more. But she got pregnant on the shot, she got pregnant on the pill, she got pregnant on...whatever. She had to struggle to pay for the abortions, but it was still a smaller expense than yet another child. Given how shoddily we treat impoverished mothers and children in this country, who would want to force her to bear more children that she couldn't afford?

47 minutes ago, SilverBeach said:

That said, in no event should a minor or anyone ever be forced to carry a child. I'm talking more about being informed as opposed to having veto power. These are indeed hard questions, and I don't know the answers, I just know that I was bothered by it all. 

It's like when I discovered that my daughter's college would not disclose her grades to me unless she authorized it. I was like HUH? When I was an undergraduate, grades were routinely mailed home. I could be paying tuition for my child who was flunking out for all I know! I thought it was ridiculous. College students may not be minors but most are not independent and there should be some accountability, in my maybe old-school opinion.

Just to add to the above, sometimes informing the parents means that the teen will get kicked out of the house, beaten violently, or otherwise abused. It's just not safe in all circumstances.

About FERPA and college stuff, it's interesting. I know colleges are struggling with parents who want to know a lot and be very involved, but legally, they have to respect the autonomy of the student.  Because they're not minors, the schools are obligated to respect their privacy. And again, there are also situations where these young adults are breaking away from unhealthy or abusive family lives; giving their parents continued access to their information doesn't help them and can in some cases hurt them. 

There are ideals, and then there's reality. The fact is that these regulations exist because too much abuse has been uncovered, and these safeguards have been deemed appropriate. If a parent has a good relationship with their kid, no harm, no foul. If  someone is abusing their kid, this allows the child a small measure of safety and security on a legal level.

[Rachel333]

Regarding parental consent, I read a really horrible article about how some teen moms are denied pain relief while in labor because they're minors. They will be able to make medical decisions for their baby once the baby is born but aren't allowed to make medical decisions for  themselves or their fetuses. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/12/27/573826484/why-some-teen-moms-cant-get-the-pain-relief-they-choose-in-childbirth

Quote

According to the Guttmacher Institute, 26 states allow minors 12 and older to get prescription methods of contraception without a parent's or guardian's consent, and just two allow minors to consent, on their own, to an abortion. Ohio is one of more than a dozen states with no explicit policy allowing a minor to consent to prenatal and pregnancy-related care.

Diana Thu-Thao Rhodes directs public policy for Advocates for Youth, an advocacy organization that focuses on, among other things, the rights of minors to get access to health care. She says in the last few years, minor-consent laws in some places around the country have become increasingly restrictive.

"We can legislate minors' decision-making much easier because of the fact that they are minors," says Thu-Thao Rhodes.

Dr. Michael Cackovic, an obstetrician at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, says every couple of months he sees a teenage mom who, under Ohio law, is unable to receive elective treatment, like an epidural. He says it's frustrating to see patients in unnecessary pain.

"First of all, from a labor and delivery standpoint, you don't like to see anybody uncomfortable," Cackovic says.

Both Cackovic and Sweeney report that, just as frequently, they've had cases where the mothers intentionally denied their teenage daughters an epidural – as a sort of punishment for getting pregnant.

 

[SilverBeach]

1 hour ago, apandaaries said:

rom everything you've described, you and your daughter are close, with a supportive relationship. But for far too many teenagers, that is not the case whatsoever. Sadly and horribly, too many children and teens wind up abused by step-fathers, relatives, family friends, etc. (one notable, publicly disclosed event is Maya Angelou's rape at 8; it was her mom's boyfriend who committed the crime).

I understabd all of that. That's what makes the topic fraught. BTW, I was abused by my stepfathern (Ihave posted about it previously), and raped by someone I barely knew. I realize there are no easy answers, but I resented the state coming between me and my daughter if, for whatever reason, she had an abortion and didn't want to tell me because she was ashamed or something. Who knows how a scared teen might think?  If she suffered physical or emotional after effects, I wanted to be prepared to help her. The state wouldn't have to deal with any of that, they don't live with or love her.  It would be a part of parenting as far as I was concerned. 

47 minutes ago, Rachel333 said:

Regarding parental consent, I read a really horrible article about how some teen moms are denied pain relief while in labor because they're minors. They will be able to make medical decisions for their baby once the baby is born but aren't allowed to make medical decisions for  themselves or their fetuses. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/12/27/573826484/why-some-teen-moms-cant-get-the-pain-relief-they-choose-in-childbirth

 

Well that is just stupid.

1 hour ago, apandaaries said:

Just to add to the above, sometimes informing the parents means that the teen will get kicked out of the house, beaten violently, or otherwise abused. It's just not safe in all circumstances.

I realize that too. But should a blanket law be adopted that deprives all parents of the right to know what is going on with the health of their minor daughter? I don't think so. Like I have repeatedly said, it is a complex matter that I don't think is being addressed correctly. I really hope that the majority of minor pregnancies do not happen to children of abhorrent parents. There should be protections in place for these minors that do not disregard my parental status as a non-abhorrent parent. That's all i'm saying. This is all so moot for me, DD is 33! No babies, pregnancies, or known abortions yet.

[SilverBeach]

1 hour ago, apandaaries said:

If a parent has a good relationship with their kid, no harm, no foul.

Maybe. Even a minor in a loving home can feel fear or shame, or exercise poor judgement when faced with a pregnancy and possib le abortion decision. Teens are not always known for their good judgement.

[apandaaries]

15 minutes ago, SilverBeach said:

I realize that too. But should a blanket law be adopted that deprives all parents of the right to know what is going on with the health of their minor daughter? I don't think so. Like I have repeatedly said, it is a complex matter that I don't think is being addressed correctly.

I think we have to agree to disagree.  There are just too many cases where parents or guardians absolutely lose their minds when they find out information about their teenage daughter and sex. Sexuality in the US is so fraught with judgment and control, especially where women are concerned. I'm a parent of a daughter, too, but I'd rather err on the side of protecting more teens than arguing for parents'/guardians' right to know. 

There's also the issue of parents who consider it better to marry than to burn, and marry their teens off to their rapists.  It's still an ongoing problem in the US. I'd prefer those teens be able to seek confidential abortions, rather than wind up as teens married to abusers. Those young women often wind up unable to finish school (messing with their ability to support their offspring and themselves) and also unable to leave their new husbands (can't stay at most shelters if you're under 18). It's not just the Duggars who adhere to crazy ideas about teens, religion, and sexuality: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/01/opinion/sunday/child-marriage-delaware.html

 

[SapphireSlytherin]

6 hours ago, SilverBeach said:

But should a blanket law be adopted that deprives all parents of the right to know what is going on with the health of their minor daughter? I don't think so.

If I had gotten pregnant as a teen, I would never EVER have breathed a word about it to my parents. I'd have had an abortion and would have taken that secret to my grave.

My parents weren't abhorrent, but I would not have told them under any circumstances. I would have preferred to die - literally - rather than tell them that.

So, laws preventing young women's health situations from being automatically shared with their parents (if you're having consensual sex, you're not a "minor child" anymore, no matter what the laws say) are crucial, especially in a situation where the young woman would be shunned, beaten, disowned, whatever. 

[AmericanRose]

Chiming in to add that Plan B isn't always easily accessible, either. Back in 2011, there was only one pharmacy that had it in the town I was in, and they were only open two days a week. So... you had better time your need for Plan B perfectly!

I also had to show ID, which could be a hindrance to getting it. But that was in 2011, I think things might have changed now.

[BernRul]

2 hours ago, SapphireSlytherin said:

So, laws preventing young women's health situations from being automatically shared with their parents (if you're having consensual sex, you're not a "minor child" anymore, no matter what the laws say) are crucial, especially in a situation where the young woman would be shunned, beaten, disowned, whatever

I agree. If a teen is old enough to have sex, they're old enough to make their own decisions about birth control/abortion. It should 100% be up to them to tell their parents or not. 

I went on birth control as a freshman in college, so I was already 18. But if I was a minor, I would have been mortified if I was forced to tell/get permission from my mother. And my mom was cool about that stuff--I'm just a very private person, so I wouldn't want my mom to know I was having sex at that age. 

I work with kids, and honestly, I feel like a lot of parents are too involved in their lives. Older kids can't make decisions for themselves, they have no responsibility, and they don't know what to do with themselves when their days aren't overly structured. I've read so many articles about kids going off to college and being unable to function, and some parents who actually call up their kids' professors to argue about their grades. Well, no shit. If a kid is never trusted to make their own decisions, they won't magically know how to be a functional adult when they turn 18. 

I can only talk about my own experiences, but from what I've seen, if you treat kids with mutual respect and set high standards for them, more often than not they'll rise to meet them. So a 13/14 yr old should be able to make their own decisions about their own bodies. I get that it can be hard for parents to deal with that, but I still think it's a good thing. 

[just_ordinary]

Children and young adults have the right too keep things from their parents. As does everybody. There comes a time when I need to let go and let them step into an individual self-determined life. This luckily happens gradually and the older they get, the more decisions are made by them. I can only try to give them the tools to make the right decisions (well, highly subjective isn’t it?) and hope that they know I will always be there no matter if I like their decision or not (doesn’t mean I wouldn’t try to talk about it).

If your child decides to cut you out on things that is their prerogative. Some parents feel like as long as they foot the bill they are obligated to know everything. I always wonder how they treat their partners. I would have rather paid for myself (and I did at one point for totally different reasons) than feeling blackmailed by my parents. And there comes the time when the parents don’t have to foot every bill anymore. If my child wants to change subjects more than once there might be a talk about being self-sufficient and pay for itself. It is hard but it can be done. This self-determined thing goes both ways. The more independent they get the more independent I get. I want them to not need me (as a provider) at one point so our relationship can base on love only.

[feministxtian]

29 minutes ago, just_ordinary said:

Children and young adults have the right too keep things from their parents.

Sure wish my mother thought this. Man, I was in my 30's and she still wanted details of EVERYTHING. 

Now, my kids? They OVERSHARE! My daughter is a little more private but my sons? I know shit I could have gone to my grave not knowing. But, then again, I never demanded that they tell me anything. I just wasn't that sort of mom. 

For my husband and I, we both have forms in our medical records that the other can access any and all information. There's a reason for that...with my husband's medical shit, I need to know the lab results and shit so that I can be up to speed with his shit. For me, I have a signed form that my psychiatrist can discuss meds and treatments with my husband. There may be a time where I'm not quite rational enough to make an informed decision. Hasn't happened yet, but you never know. I also have the same form signed for my pain doc too. 

[nastyhobbitses]

14 hours ago, Alicja said:

Making abortion illegal would only exacerbate our problems with maternal and infant mortality

Not to mention problems with unwanted children. Romania completely banned abortion under Caeusescu to increase the population...and thousands of children languished, starved, and withered in overcrowded, understaffed orphanages. If our foster care/child welfare system sucks now, imagine how it will be when it has an even bigger caseload. 

And then you have cases like Savita Halappanavar, who died a painful, agonizing death because some bullshit anti-abortion laws said that the festering necrotic tissue rotting her from the inside was more important than her. 

[seraaa]

On 6/1/2018 at 1:57 PM, VelociRapture said:

but abortion absolutely needs to be a viable option for any woman in any situation. Limiting abortions to only certain circumstances can be a pretty slippery slope. 

Yeah, basically my view as well.

Let grown adult women make the best decisions for themselves. 

[sansan]

On 6/1/2018 at 7:41 AM, sansan said:

I'm gonna step out on a limb here and make a comment knowing I may get slammed. There are reasons for legitimate abortions, health issues for a woman or severely ill fetus, being a couple. With all that being said, isn't there a morning after pill for rape victims? Why wait until a pregnancy develops to take care of that? What will probably get me stoned is abortions should not be a form of birth control, there is way too many other ways to take care of that. I once read an article about a woman that have 7 or 8 abortions, using them (in her own words) as a form of birth control. That is too sad. She has since come to regret her decisions about how she handled things. Not sure if she has children now or not.

Thank ya Mamas for not thinking like you.

[SilverBeach]

On 6/2/2018 at 2:35 PM, apandaaries said:

I think we have to agree to disagree.  There are just too many cases where parents or guardians absolutely lose their minds when they find out information about their teenage daughter and sex. Sexuality in the US is so fraught with judgment and control, especially where women are concerned. I'm a parent of a daughter, too, but I'd rather err on the side of protecting more teens than arguing for parents'/guardians' right to know. 

There's also the issue of parents who consider it better to marry than to burn, and marry their teens off to their rapists.  It's still an ongoing problem in the US. I'd prefer those teens be able to seek confidential abortions, rather than wind up as teens married to abusers. Those young women often wind up unable to finish school (messing with their ability to support their offspring and themselves) and also unable to leave their new husbands (can't stay at most shelters if you're under 18). It's not just the Duggars who adhere to crazy ideas about teens, religion, and sexuality: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/01/opinion/sunday/child-marriage-delaware.html

 

As usual, I don't mind having an unpopular opinion, I stand by it. I don't think you really understood my point though. I just thought that requiring me to sign a long-ass permission form for my teenage daughter to be given aspirin in school, when she could have got a secret abortion was hypocritical. Eliminate aspirin forms and the like and just let teens make all of their own health decisions. I don't really care about the aspirin, but the school was concerned about liability. Yet, there is no concern about liability for abortion on a person who cannot legally consent? Maybe I'm too damn logical.

AT NO TIME DID I SAY MAKE IT SO THAT MINORS IN SHITTY HOMES WOULD POSSIBLY BE AT RISK OF HARM FOR GETTING PREGNANT OR HAVING AN ABORTION. ABSOLUTELY NOT! I AM FOR UNFETTERED ACCESS TO ABORTION. However, I decided a lot of things regarding my minor child's body. Hell, in many states tattoos are probibited before 18, or some other arbitrary age.

It is too bad that the USA has such fucked up attitudes about sex and femle bodies. 

 

 

[bashfulpixie]

On 6/2/2018 at 1:32 PM, SilverBeach said:

It's like when I discovered that my daughter's college would not disclose her grades to me unless she authorized it. I was like HUH? When I was an undergraduate, grades were routinely mailed home. I could be paying tuition for my child who was flunking out for all I know! I thought it was ridiculous. College students may not be minors but most are not independent and there should be some accountability, in my maybe old-school opinion.

A lot of parents feel that way. It’s actually a federal guideline regarding school records once the child becomes an adult. Like HIPAA for education. I can’t tell you how often I have to tell parents they have to talk to their students for things like that. 

[apandaaries]

1 hour ago, SilverBeach said:

As usual, I don't mind having an unpopular opinion, I stand by it. I don't think you really understood my point though. I just thought that requiring me to sign a long-ass permission form for my teenage daughter to be given aspirin in school, when she could have got a secret abortion was hypocritical. Eliminate aspirin forms and the like and just let teens make all of their own health decisions. I don't really care about the aspirin, but the school was concerned about liability. Yet, there is no concern about liability for abortion on a person who cannot legally consent? Maybe I'm too damn logical.

Maybe I didn't understand your point, then.  I understood you to be writing that you would want to have knowledge of your minor teen's decision to have an abortion, without veto power, or some mandated way to inform parents about such a procedure. My point was that compelling parents/guardians to be informed of an abortion can potentially put minors at risk. That was what I was trying to address. 

When schools deal with minors, they're usually considered in loco parentis, in the place of a parent. They do shoulder much more responsibility than a person (even a teenager) making a considered decision about their own health and in our system, can be held legally liable for a number of issues, including medical options.  If a teenager is getting care from medical personnel, it is usually assumed (and rightly so) that the medical personnel are more knowledgeable about medical issues and/or potential interactions than administrators at K-12 schools. It seems like overkill, but given how few schools have a nurse even on part-time duty and the number of students (not patients) that they deal with, it becomes a necessity.  It's a different kind of risk and liability. 

[ihaveanexamintwodays]

2 hours ago, apandaaries said:

Maybe I didn't understand your point, then.  I understood you to be writing that you would want to have knowledge of your minor teen's decision to have an abortion, without veto power, or some mandated way to inform parents about such a procedure. My point was that compelling parents/guardians to be informed of an abortion can potentially put minors at risk. That was what I was trying to address. 

When schools deal with minors, they're usually considered in loco parentis, in the place of a parent. They do shoulder much more responsibility than a person (even a teenager) making a considered decision about their own health and in our system, can be held legally liable for a number of issues, including medical options.  If a teenager is getting care from medical personnel, it is usually assumed (and rightly so) that the medical personnel are more knowledgeable about medical issues and/or potential interactions than administrators at K-12 schools. It seems like overkill, but given how few schools have a nurse even on part-time duty and the number of students (not patients) that they deal with, it becomes a necessity.  It's a different kind of risk and liability. 

THESE THINGS. 

as it is, in a school setting, the legal age of adulthood is what it is. school officials (school nurse present or otherwise) can't provide medicine/"medical care" to a minor without consent. In an actual medical setting with medical professionals where HIPAA is a thing - honestly, it leans towards "nobody is ever entitled to a patient's personal health information", even if they are the parent/legal guardian of an underage patient (unless there is danger to the patient or public of course, in which the proper official routes will be reported to) (And for the most part, any patient is entitled to their own PHI unless it's psychiatric info that may cause them to harm themselves/others/etc). I'm not sure what the protocol is for a minor being able to legally prevent their information from reaching a legal guardian, but it should certainly never be mandated that all of a minor's health info MUST be reported to a legal guardian. If nothing else in the world is your own, if at all possible your personal health information should be.