Birth Control Blog Carnival!

The fact that birth control isn’t often affordable is just very counterproductive.

Birth control is a preventative health care measure. Preventative health care measures really make everything easier in the long run. For example, a cancer screening, detecting cancer months or years in advance, is preventative in various ways. Not only will, in terms of practicality, immense quantities of money saved, but a woman or man’s health will much more likely remain intact. Birth control prevents, an enormous percentage of the time, against unwanted pregnancy.

There are so many reasons why birth control should have no co-pay. Many people with more socially conservative views believe that affordable birth control is unnecessary, especially for teens and younger adults; the belief that one should wait until marriage to have sex remains. Unshockingly, it’s been statistically proven that more than nine of out ten people have sex before marriage, often at a very young age; According to Public Health Reports, in 2002, the median age of first premarital sex for those then aged 15 to 24 was 17.6 years old.

The statistics prove that teens are having sex. The majority of people, politics aside, think that teen pregnancy should be avoided. Even if people think that teens having sex is bad, it’s undeniably occurring. This creates quite a conundrum, until we remember that there is a solution: birth control. It seems, although not idealistic for some, the most safe and practical resolution.

The only problem left, then, is its affordability. Again, teenagers can have a debacle when faced with the finances associated with birth control, with minimal incomes especially if still in school, and sometimes if their parents don’t know that they’re using it (or even, in some cases, if they do.) Yes, money will be spent by the government if birth control has no co-pay- but so much more money will be spent if another child is born.

Everyone- adults and teens of both sexes- benefits from no-cost birth control. I elected to focus on its benefits for teenagers, but it can also prevent a family, already struggling to afford the cost of living, from having another child to raise, and oral contraceptives can often alleviate the pain and discomfort of different hormonal imbalances.

Making birth control affordable would be incredibly, wonderfully productive.