re: #25 imp_62
I understand what you’re saying. And I am not attempting to accuse you of being anti-abortion or anti-contraception. I am, however, saying that those stances really aren’t that far off logically from what you’re espousing, even if you don’t want to see it. You’re well intentioned and you don’t come off as seeing yourself as anti-choice, but I feel you’re off base here. I apologize for repeating myself so much. I also apologize for being so, well, rude. Clearly, I let my emotions take over on this issue.
In a nutshell, you basically seem to feel that Plan B should be harder to get because you want to limit it as an ‘out’ for women having unprotected sex, in order to help prevent the spread of sexually transmitted infections and diseases. The end goal is fine, but I cannot agree with the manner in which you propose to do it.
First, young women under 17 can still get Plan B now, under current rules. They just need a prescription or someone over 17 to purchase it. So right there, it doesn’t really prevent it from being used in the exact way you fear.
Second, the pill and similar methods have the same problems as Plan B does, except they’re generally going to be much less expensive and more widely used. Sure, you can’t just start on the pill right before having sex and expect it to work, so limiting Plan B might discourage totally unexpected and random sexual encounters. But again, Plan B isn’t 17+. it’s just harder for people under 17 to get.
Third, you seem to agree that education is the real solution here. If that’s the case, then I think trying to make it harder to get Plan B doesn’t help so much, because it’s a nice way to excuse discussing why using it as Plan A is a bad idea. And, once again, you can still get it if you’re under 17.
Finally, by making it harder to get, you increase the risk for all those women, younger and older, that need Plan B due to something out of their control (Or even just them being dumb). These are health risks, too. I understand you want to discourage unsafe sex, but just as you say we can’t ignore the non-pregnancy risks of it, we also can’t ignore the pregnancy ones, either.
We can largely solve the “Plan B allows young women to have unsafe sex freely” issue through education. We can’t solve the problem of condoms breaking through education. And, again, since Plan B can be gotten by women over 17 without a prescription, they too can use it to practice unsafe sex.
It seems your plan only works if we actually ban or highly restrict Plan B so that it’s nearly impossible to get, as that’s the only way the threat really comes into play. Otherwise, you’re just hurting those women without easy access to a doctor or an ID.