Posted on 03/28/2002 8:20:04 AM PST by Gophack
CARMICHAEL, Calif. (AP) California's health maintenance organizations must cover ``morning-after'' contraceptives for women, Gov. Gray Davis announced Wednesday.
``A woman's right to choose must never be held up by red tape,'' said Davis, who's been trumpeting his support for abortion rights and increased access to contraceptives in his re-election fight against Republican gubernatorial nominee Bill Simon.
Davis is instructing the Department of Managed Health Care, the state's HMO regulator, to inform all HMOs in the state about the new order.
Under the directive, HMOs will be required to cover the costs for emergency contraception through participating pharmacists within the HMO's network or, in emergency situations, from pharmacists who do not have a contract with her HMO. Some California HMOs already reimburse patients for emergency contraceptives.
In 1999, Davis signed a bill requiring HMOs to cover federally approved contraceptives and last year signed another bill that allows pharmacists to provide emergency contraception.
The morning-after pill can prevent ovulation or fertilization when taken within 72 hours after unprotected sex.
Simon's campaign wouldn't say if the Los Angeles businessman and abortion opponent supported the increased access to emergency contraceptives.
``There are much more important topics,'' said Bob Taylor, a Simon spokesman.
A Democrat, Davis said requiring HMOs to pay for emergency contraceptives is another indication of how his administration is forcing HMOs to help patients.
``Until we created the department (of managed health care), if your HMO denied you something you wanted, you were basically up the creek,'' Davis said. ''(Last year), 40,000 people went to the department and got the care they were originally denied.''
Nationwide, Planned Parenthood said use of the drugs by its patients rose to 310,000 prescriptions in 2000, from 48,000 two years earlier.
And about 100 Planned Parenthood clinics in California filled 24,495 prescriptions in 2000, up from 3,419 in 1998.
Jane Boggess, director of the Oakland-based Pharmacy Access Partnership, said nationwide use of emergency contraceptives could eliminate 700,000 abortions each year. Each year, she said, there are 3 million unwanted pregnancies and half result in abortion.
``Emergency contraception is your second chance,'' Boggess said.
Usually, Boggess said, women don't use the morning-after pill as birth control and use it after other contraceptives have failed.
Of the more than 15,000 pharmacists in California, Boggess said, only 700 are certified to prescribe the bill. She hopes that will increase by 500 by year's end.
Some pharmacists said they will not become certified to prescribe the pill on moral grounds.
``We sent out about 17,000 letters to licensed pharmacists and only two voiced their displeasure,'' said Michael Negrete, a doctor with the Sacramento-based California Pharmacists Association.
``Their hesitancy is because they are unsure what it is and how it works.''
In order for a pharmacist to become licensed in order to prescribe the pill, he or she must attend a daylong class and/or participate in Internet classes.
``We have them take the classes (in person) because they need to know what to do if an 11-year-old walks in and wants the pill, or a rape victim,'' Negrete said.
AP-WS-03-27-02 1806EST
:SUBJECT: CA
Copyright (c) 2002 The Associated Press
Excellent point, bears repeating.
And this comes from a pharmacist who is supposed to know these things??!! One of the many reasons pharmacists should not be prescribing medications. A rape victim belongs in the ER not getting counseling from the pharmacist; an 11 year old should be with her parents and PEDIATRICIAN (good Lord, I was still playing with Barbie); and any woman who gets any kind of prescription drug should be seen by a practitioner trained in treating people not dispensing meds.
Amen!
The morning after pill causes increased chemical changes in the uterus so as to make it difficult for a fertilized egg to implant. Sometimes it does anyway. To my knowledge, it cannot cause an implanted egg to abort, but I could be wrong on that. RU486 creates a chemical abortion of an implanted egg. It must be taken within a certain number of weeks after conception to be effective.
I'm willing to bet that there is a statute in the California Code which gives the Governor direct regulatory control over any health insurance agency which chooses to do business in the State. That's usually how crap like this gets authorized... idiotic legislation.
Here're some more interesting statutes I ran across in a preliminary glance at California's ever-disgusting Code...
The Office of Multicultural Health
And this is the nasty statute (Section 1340-1345) which establishes executive control over the "managed care" industry.
Just like most of the other statutes in the state, this is really nasty stuff. If California is the "bellweather of the nation," then I want to pick another nation.
:) ttt
You might be confusing the "morning-after pill" with RU486, which is the two-stage chemical abortion that has to be done under a doctor's supervision. Morning-after pills are just extra-strength birth-control pills and they've been around for at least twenty-five years. You had to get them through a doctor (just like birth-control pills) but they were certainly available. They do work as an abortifacient if conception occurred, but they work by preventing implantation, unlike RU486 which expels an implanted embryo.
Rehash:
Might I quote from Margaret Sanger herself?
Woman and the New Race, 1920, Chapter X. "Contraceptives or Abortion?":
To understand the more clearly the difference between birth control by contraceptives and family limitation through abortion it is necessary to know something of the processes of conception. Knowledge of these processes will also enable us to comprehend more thoroughly the dangers to which woman is exposed by our antiquated laws, and how much better it would be for her to employ such preventive measures as would keep her out of the hands of the abortionist, into which the laws now drive her.
In every woman’s ovaries are imbedded millions of ovules or eggs. They are in every female at birth, and as the girl develops into womanhood, these ovules develop also. At a certain age, varying slightly with the individual, the ripest ovule leaves the nest or ovary and comes down one of the tubes connecting with the womb and passes out of the body. When this takes place, it is said that the girl is at the age of puberty. When it reaches the womb the ovule is ready for the process of conception—that is, fertilization by the male sperm.
At the time the ovule is ripening, the womb is preparing to receive it. This preparation consists of a reinforced blood supply brought to its lining. If fertilization takes place, the fertilized ovule or ovum will cling to the lining of the womb and there gather its nourishment. If fertilization does not take place, the ovum passes out of the body and the uterus throws off its surplus blood supply. This is called the menstrual period. It occurs about once a month or every twenty-eight days.
In the male organs there are glands called testes. They secrete a fluid called the semen. In the semen is the life-giving principle called the sperm.
When intercourse takes place, if no preventive is employed, the semen is deposited in the woman’s vagina. The ovule is not in the vagina, but is in the womb, farther up, or perhaps in the tube on its way to the womb. As steel is attracted to the magnet, the sperm of the male starts on its way to seek the ovum. Several of these sperm cells start, but only one enters the ovum and is absorbed into it. This process is called fertilization, conception or impregnation.
If no children are desired, the meeting of the male sperm and the ovum must be prevented. When scientific means are employed to prevent this meeting, one is said to practice birth control. The means used is known as a contraceptive.
If, however, a contraceptive is not used and the sperm meets the ovule and development begins, any attempt at removing it or stopping its further growth is called abortion.
Agreed!
If Davis keeps playing his little games just to win votes, who knows, he just might lose.
Did anybody else hear this?
Boy, what an inspiring pro-lifer Simon is. He sends his campaign minions out to dodge on the abortion issue for him. He could at least do it himself.
The contraceptive mentality, the pro-death culture that the liberals are perpetuating, are deceiving men and women into thinking that there are easy solutions to their "problems".
I'm sorry, Gophack, but you're wrong about contraceptives. If people are going to have sex, they need to use effective birth control to avoid pregnancy. I'm sorry, but America is never going to turn into a "Leave It To Beaver" family paradise where everybody is chaste until marriage. People screw around, have screwed around, and will screw around forever more. The only question is, are they going to continue to pay for their ticket to "ride" with the blood of unborn babies. If they can't be convinced or intimidated into not aborting their babies, then they need to use birth control that works or be sterilized. Unfortunately, the reproductive systems of these people have to be treated like loaded guns in the hands of children.
Now, the problem with the contraceptive revolution thus far has been that there has been no revolution at all. The birth control pill is virtually as useless as a condom at preventing pregnancy when you factor in average usage habits. It requires a lot of discipline -- a trait that happens to be totally at odds with the current "drink & debauch" culture that fuels so many abortion clinics. This is mostly why I am not a contraceptive crusader as of yet. However, there are several extremely advanced methods of contraception currently being developed that work by "hardening" the egg against invasion by a sperm. These new methods have no abortifacient "secondary" functions, since they are not hormonal, and they can be delivered via an injection that lasts for a year or more. When these new contraceptive vaccines become available, I will wholeheartedly support them because they are tailored perfectly for the irresponsible, undisciplined people who have abortions. You can look at it as taking the gun out of their hands...
Yes, especially when they find out their daughters can just skip down to the local pharmacy and get it without them (the parents) knowing anything about it.
Using your logic, we should make drugs legal because "they're going to do them anyway." Perhaps you support legalization of drugs, I don't know.
Since the availability of contraceptives has become widespread, society has collapsed:
*There are over 4 million abortions every year.Now, there are likely a lot of reasons that the above have happened, including sex education, liberal entitlement programs, and a turning away from basic moral values. HOWEVER, contraceptives make it "easy" to think of ourselves first, do it now, do what feels good, and if they fail, fix it in the morning.
*Children are having sex at younger and younger ages.
*The divorce rate sky-rocketed.
*AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases have spread rapidly.
*Suicide rates have gone up.
*Children being raised in single-parent households have skyrocketed.
*More women are infertile, more women are developing breast cancer, and more women are suffering from the long-term emotional effects of sexual promiscuity and abortion.
Contraceptives demean women because women become a vessel for sex. While sex can be a wonderful experience between man and wife -- and sometimes downright fun -- sex can also be demeaning, demoralizing and exploited.
Just because people are going to "do it" doesn't mean we have to support that mentality. We need to change the mentality, change the attitudes of people. This isn't impossible, but it's not going to be easy. We have nearly 40 years of the sexual revolution ... and it's going to take nearly as long to reverse it.
Hispanics have twice the abortion rate of whites. When they're finished telling pollsters that they're pro-life, they hang up the phone, then call Planned Parenthood to make an appointment. They're simply repeating the teaching of their church, nothing more.
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