Thread: Can anyone explain how contraceptives are health care?

It'd help if you explained what you were referring to...

Originally Posted by cedward1

Ignoring the whole thing about forcing the Catholic church to pay for things that they believe to be morally wrong, can anyone tell me how condoms count as health care? I mean, isn't it more or less a choice if you have sex or not? Why should anyone be forced to pay for something like that whether it is against their conscience or not? I can see where they are coming from if they are talking about providing birth control pills to someone who has just been sexually assaulted, but if someone wants to have sex for the fun without having a baby, why should I or anyone else have to pay for their recreation? What's next - covering the price of diet soft drinks so that diabetics can drink pop without worrying about the consequences?

It just seems like this is a part of the discussion that has been overlooked with the whole Church rights issue. If you say that churches don't have the right to avoid violating their faith, that's one thing. But how does it become a "right" to be provided with free contraceptives?

This already mostly takes place, it is a state requirement in every state I've lived in not only to provide condoms for people who ask for them but also clean needles. Does it mean you are supporting someone's drug addiction simply because you supply clean needles?

It is called preventive care. Same reason dental insurance covers cleanings. You can get a life time supply of condoms for less than the cost of one months supply of AIDs medication.

You're thinking as if people are completely rational and will do everything (or won't do certain things) for the good of everyone else. That's not how humans think.

This goes for both "sides" in this situation.

People who get drunk and fuck without condoms because they're too expensive or whatever are not thinking that they may get pregnant or an STD and that will cost everybody else a lot of money for treatment.

Similarly, people who don't want to pay for the condoms aren't thinking about the fact that people are gonna fuck no matter what and it will end up costing all of society a LOT more in the long run.

As Omnis (basically) said, condoms and needle exchange programs are the most cost saving facets of health care. I know for needles in particular it's something like 10 cents per needle and that saves over a thousand dollars that would need to be paid for treatment for AIDS, Hepatitis etc.
I imagine it is the same for condoms.

And don't say those THOSE people should bare the cost of their own treatment. Coz it's the same problem.
They can't afford it most of the time (in the case of underage kids having sex or intravenous drug takers), they will get it somehow (stealing), or die due to not being able to afford treatment. Or the kid having a baby will be raising it in to a horrible environment and therefore it just most likely will lead to more crime.

I would argue that recreational sex is not merely recreational. Sex is a component to psychological well-being and the minimal requirements for procreation are not enough to keep people sane.

The damaging effects of abstinence have been kept hidden for too long. The belief that sex is bad causes dissonance and stress in everyone who holds it. When the pressure leaks out in a public way the results are shame, disgrace, stigma, lives ruined for no reason. So while the church can defend their right to maintain a position, here maintaining that sex is immoral outside a narrowly defined context, causes demonstrable pain and suffering.

Everything we are as biological entities is predicated by survival and reproduction. All of our psychological mechanisms exist to ensure these two things. I can't really understate the implications of this. If we consider ourselves rational beings and want to take rational control of reproduction, we have to understand this thoroughly.

I don't think I'm arguing this very well, it deserves better. Here's some food for thought:
Is Sexual Addiction Real? | World of Psychology

So let me see if I have the points correct. If I'm wrong on the following points, please correct me.

(1) Providing condoms is better than providing care for STD's.
(2) People need sex to stay mentally healthy. We should provide a way for them to do the activity without worrying about STD's or pregnancy.
(3) People can't help having sex. For some people it's like a drug addiction, and it is similar to providing needles for addicts.

My question at this point is this: why can't people buy their own condoms? I would agree that sex is a healthy thing (in the right situation, though I don't think that promiscuity is mentally healthy). But I would say it is emotionally healthy to indulge in junk food now and then (also in moderation). I don't expect my employer to buy me Tums or Rolaids so that I don't have to deal with the consequences of my actions though. How is sex different?

My argument is simple. If someone wants to have sex without consequences, they should pay for it. If they can't pay for it, they should not have sex. It may be unpleasant to abstain, but there are people out there who, for example, are ugly and can't find a partner. Should they be provided with plastic surgery or a free dating service to attract a partner? Likewise, there are people such as myself who abstain from sex because we believe that that level of intimacy should be saved for one's lifelong soulmate. Contrary to popular belief, I am not sexually frustrated all of the time. The sex drive is one of those things that needs to be used in order for it to stay strong. I am saving mine for my future wife, and I would appreciate it if my future wife did the same for me.

I'm sorry if that's TMI, but I wanted to present the kind of life us morally conservative people live. Many so-called necessities are in reality addictions. If I ate fast food every day, I would feel like I needed fast food. I am already addicted to the internet, and would really miss it if I didn't have it. 10 years ago I never thought about it.

Anyway, that's off topic. To sum up my counter replies to the above points in consecutive order:

(1) I find this to be the strongest point. Part of me agrees with the idea. But, should employers be forced to support a program that may or may not be effective in promoting healthier lifestyles? What if that means a violation of their faith and conscience? I think eating meat is healthy. Should I force vegans to pay for someone else's steak, or PETA to use some of their money to fund industrial cattle farms (aka CAFOs)? Shoud Jews or Muslims be forced to buy pork for their employers?

Also, shouldn't a health program such as this be a government thing? Currently, employers are not required to buy clean needles for people so that they can abuse drugs. Nor should they. If the government thinks that promotes health, that's their thing. Not mine.

(2) I addressed this above. I think that people have a need for intimacy. But the drive exists for the purpose of species survival. It is similar to eating. It is healthy to eat, but not to binge eat. We operate at peak performance if we eat what we need and don't eat purely for the sake of eating. I won't say that eating junk food or having sex for fun is unhealthy, but if it requires medication to be made healthy then that medication is a luxury. Many of us (religious and/or conservative) are quite happy saving sex for marriage. If we don't feed the drive, it doesn't bother us. Those of us that are married see sex as a way to share a loving relationship with our spouse, not merely as a way to get physical pleasure for ourselves. And if we don't wish to have children, we pay for our own contraceptives and leave our employers outside of our bedrooms.

(3) To say that people can't help having sex, and will get pregnant or get STD's if not provided with free contraceptives is answered above, I think. Yes, there are sex addicts, but I think their problem is a little more than needing a way to eliminate the consequences. Hopefully, most people have sex by choice. And they should pay for their choice.

One more quick question. I hear these people in the media all the time saying that if the Catholic church doesn't buy contraceptives for their employees, then they are infringing on women's rights. Could someone explain this to me, or am I not hearing this right? That point makes no sense right now to me, and it drives me crazy when I hear these sanctimonious left-wingers saying that we conservatives hate women because we are against this contraceptive thing. If I understood where they were coming from, it wouldn't bother me so much.

Let me just try to qualify my position a bit with some evolutionary theory. I think you argue your side well and make some good points. Remember though, that you originally framed the problem in a pure sense of questioning how contraception could be considered healthcare, and the practicalities of how healthcare should be paid for is a separate debate. I think the real theoretical hang-up here comes down to the discrepancy between what I posted and this statement:

Originally Posted by cedward1

...though I don't think that promiscuity is mentally healthy

My argument is that both promiscuity and monogamy are legitimate and natural for humans. This does represent a conflict of interest, and they both have strengths and weaknesses, but some mix of both will always be present in every human population. There are two fields of evolutionary theory that I'll borrow from to make my case. The first being primate behavior, and the second being game theory.

Primate socioecology shows that humans are not an obligatory monogamous species. The most telling sign of whether a primate species is monogamous or polygamous is sexual dimorphism (the physical difference between males and females), particularly body size. The presence of sexual dimorphism indicates that a species evolved under conditions of sexual competition. So, in truly biologically monogamous primates, you can't tell the male and the female apart at all because they didn't evolve under sexual competition... one male for one female. In polygamous mandrills, males are something like 3 times the size of females. Another sign of a monogamous species is that they don't socialize outside their family unit (mother, father, and juvenile offspring).

Humans have moderate sexual dimorphism, and prefer large social groups. Both of these indicate that we evolved under conditions of [at least] limited polygamy and therefore, sexual competition. One reason that societies often incline towards monogamy is because our offspring are born very altricial (long developmental time) compared to other apes which means it takes lots of effort to raise them. This means that it takes more than just the mother. Primatologists interpret this as suggesting we are cooperative breeders, similar to tamarins. However, alloparents can be any relative, there's no reason why it necessarily has to be the father.

The bottom line of the primate evidence is that humans as being biologically monogamous is a myth, and game theory can explain why we have this myth.

John Maynard Smith came up with the theory of evolutionary stable strategies (ESS). In a nutshell, this shows how two different strategies will exist in some equilibrium. If everyone in a population follows one strategy, they are wide open to invaders following the opposing strategy, and if one happens to come along, he will be very successful.

So, promiscuity and monogamy are simply two strategies that exist in equilibrium. In The Selfish Gene, Dawkins says that the stable balance for human reproductive success has been calculated to be 5:1 for females and 5:3 for males of faithful to promiscuous individuals.

Societies have a tendency to construct moral systems that subsidize their chosen strategy, to add weight to one side and skew this natural balance in one direction. Of course this is for good reason, because it reduces the conflict of interest. But it doesn't really work, some people will still have a drive to exploit the fertile ground vacated by societal bias and stigma.

So, my argument isn't that promiscuity is better or worse than monogamy, but simply that it is a reasonable and natural thing that people may choose to do, and does not necessarily come with negative psychological consequences as you said.

Here's another lovely food-for-thought article:
When Monogamy Is a Cop-Out: Why Follow Society's Rules About Sex? | | AlterNet

Originally Posted by cedward1

(1) I find this to be the strongest point. Part of me agrees with the idea. But, should employers be forced to support a program that may or may not be effective in promoting healthier lifestyles? What if that means a violation of their faith and conscience? I think eating meat is healthy. Should I force vegans to pay for someone else's steak, or PETA to use some of their money to fund industrial cattle farms (aka CAFOs)? Shoud Jews or Muslims be forced to buy pork for their employers?

Also, shouldn't a health program such as this be a government thing? Currently, employers are not required to buy clean needles for people so that they can abuse drugs. Nor should they. If the government thinks that promotes health, that's their thing. Not mine.

Actually any institution which disagrees with the law can require the employer to foot the entire bill. But more to the point, requiring someone to eat meat is an entirely different ball-game because you are requiring the individual to consume something in particular. Requiring an employer to provide clean needles is also a different ball-game than requiring a hospital to do so, with or without insurance, because drug addiction is one of those things that could jeopardize your job and just because someone is addicted to drugs, that doesn't mean they should have any reason to opt for a dirty needle. Requiring them to use dirty needles or face some other consequence is not beneficial to society.

And as far as meat consumption goes, prisons and schools, vegan or not, are required by state law to include a daily regiment of protein in their meals. These are state, and therefore secular institutions meaning they must follow some sort of rational conduct, rather than make rules based on senseless faith.

(2) I addressed this above. I think that people have a need for intimacy. But the drive exists for the purpose of species survival. It is similar to eating. It is healthy to eat, but not to binge eat. We operate at peak performance if we eat what we need and don't eat purely for the sake of eating. I won't say that eating junk food or having sex for fun is unhealthy, but if it requires medication to be made healthy then that medication is a luxury. Many of us (religious and/or conservative) are quite happy saving sex for marriage. If we don't feed the drive, it doesn't bother us. Those of us that are married see sex as a way to share a loving relationship with our spouse, not merely as a way to get physical pleasure for ourselves. And if we don't wish to have children, we pay for our own contraceptives and leave our employers outside of our bedrooms.

This is a pretty arbitrary argument. Some people don't mind buying their own contraceptives, therefore everyone should just buy their own. Firstly, we're not just talking about condoms but other contraceptives that require doctor visits and prescriptions. Secondly, preventative options prove effective. If there was no statistically proven difference between the STD spread and unwanted pregnancies between areas with state/insurance funded contraceptives and areas without, there would be no reason to include this. It is not my concern what you and your wife do in your bedroom, and what you choose to use to do it, but by your logic, people shouldn't ask their employers to pay for an annual physical either because people can just pay for it themselves and its not their employers business what's going on in their bodies.

(3) To say that people can't help having sex, and will get pregnant or get STD's if not provided with free contraceptives is answered above, I think. Yes, there are sex addicts, but I think their problem is a little more than needing a way to eliminate the consequences. Hopefully, most people have sex by choice. And they should pay for their choice.

Most people don't need drugs, either, but providing clean needles for the ones that do has a proven effect on disease prevention. The drug addict can just buy the clean needle, right? But statistically speaking there is a difference between places where free, clean needles are provided and where they are not.

One more quick question. I hear these people in the media all the time saying that if the Catholic church doesn't buy contraceptives for their employees, then they are infringing on women's rights. Could someone explain this to me, or am I not hearing this right? That point makes no sense right now to me, and it drives me crazy when I hear these sanctimonious left-wingers saying that we conservatives hate women because we are against this contraceptive thing. If I understood where they were coming from, it wouldn't bother me so much.

You'll have to be more specific. You can't lob every left-minded individual into one generalization like that, especially if you can't even cite a specific example where it is claimed that this encroaches on women's rights.

Originally Posted by cedward1

But, should employers be forced to support a program that may or may not be effective in promoting healthier lifestyles? What if that means a violation of their faith and conscience? I think eating meat is healthy. Should I force vegans to pay for someone else's steak, or PETA to use some of their money to fund industrial cattle farms (aka CAFOs)? Shoud Jews or Muslims be forced to buy pork for their employers?

Welcome to the world of taxes and government bureaucracy. People are morally opposed to torture but the government forces us to pay taxes to support it. People are morally opposed to war but the government forces us to pay taxes to support it. People are against the assassination of US citizens by the government, but the government forces us to pay taxes to support it.

Our entire system of government is based on taking peoples money and spending it on stuff they may or may not like.

Originally Posted by cedward1

Ignoring the whole thing about forcing the Catholic church to pay for things that they believe to be morally wrong, can anyone tell me how condoms count as health care? I mean, isn't it more or less a choice if you have sex or not? Why should anyone be forced to pay for something like that whether it is against their conscience or not? I can see where they are coming from if they are talking about providing birth control pills to someone who has just been sexually assaulted, but if someone wants to have sex for the fun without having a baby, why should I or anyone else have to pay for their recreation? What's next - covering the price of diet soft drinks so that diabetics can drink pop without worrying about the consequences?

It just seems like this is a part of the discussion that has been overlooked with the whole Church rights issue. If you say that churches don't have the right to avoid violating their faith, that's one thing. But how does it become a "right" to be provided with free contraceptives?

So let me get this right, your comparing an aid that prevents transmission of sexual disease, and pregnancies for un-prepared naive girls.... to soda?

Let me ask you a question, are you female? You know I recall hearing how we are ranked between 80-90th on the scale of amount of men to women in our government, pretty much saying that there are at least 80 countries that are more open than our own when it comes to allowing women fair ground.

Why is this relevant, think about it, specially since were on religion, if you watch who was crying about this media wise, whos the majority? A bunch of men, and to go further, with a more personal analysis, a bunch of old prude men.

Just the other day over a 100 civilians in the city of Homs were killed by the shelling from their own governement..... and were stuck on fucking rubbers?!?!

I do not hail from any particular religion, as everyone in this world seems to find it fit to be lazy and judge many of those they do not know for the actions of others, thus why i keep from identifying with all these sheepish groups. Religion is war and prosecution, don't believe me? Then i guess you must of missed the crusades.... oh and wwII, among the majority of other wars, and coming wars. If anything it is the weakness/fear of those who cling to religion who will goosestep us into their own predicted Armageddons.

Why you hold your beliefs so close to all these media-heads idk, obviously you are new in the ways of how things work, but that isn't exactly uncommon.

Go figure though, the people whose faith have some of the most rediculous rules regarding sex/relationships, would bear some of the most sexually immature people. I shed those traits, as I do not hail from the whole "ignorance is bliss" lifestyle that many of my fellow americans are comfortable with.

You try to be a girl going through the effects of puberty and love and see how health comes into play when she gets knockedup because her or her lovers fear of buying condoms or whatever fucking reason they didn't have a preventative. You go ahead and go through the puking, the back ache, child birth, and oh yeah almost forgot, supporting/raising a child.... yeah non of that has nothing to do with health.

Not sure what you're talking about. Contraception, healthcare ===> Church. Cmon, help me out here.

Unwanted pregnancies/STDs cost a lot more than handing out condoms. I don't think it's a moral issue to begin with.