Bioethics, healthcare policy, and related issues.
The AP is carrying a story on the increasing popularity of hormonal birth-control regimens that provide round-the-cycle protection and do away with monthly menstruation. Women love them, and nobody understands why The Pill hasn’t always been this way.
In particular, the AP article makes no mention whatsoever, and the author is apparently completely unaware of, the reason a monthly period is built into birth control pills. The answer has nothing to do with women’s health or with increased contraceptive effectiveness. The answer, as with so many forms of interference in women’s sexual health, is the Catholic church.
I just came across an old post on Feministe, responding to a conservative woman who explained why she supports Bush (guns, public funding for private schools, the “war on terror”, and because America just gives wa-a-a-a-y too much back for what it receives from the rest of the world). The comment thread, as such things do, quickly turned to a general libera-vs.-conservative slagfest, particularly on the subject of abortion.
One of the commenters came up with a strong statement of the autonomy-based defense of abortion that I thought was as good a job of putting it in a nutshell as I had seen, and which makes an interesting and useful analogy between autonomy over pregnancy and the unquestioned autonomy rights even conservatives recognize over other bodily invasions. It’s worth noting.
