Rant: New Zealand gave women the vote, and then did nothing else (part 3)

Not only is birth control expensive in NZ, you have to see a doctor twice a year to get it (for anything other than condoms), and they are expensive too. Tubal ligations are fully funded, but there is a waiting list and they are more dangerous, more invasive, and more permanent than vasectomies (which are not funded, unless there are exceptional circumstances).

On the flip side of the coin, fertility treatment is easier to get if you smoke, if you or your partner has been voluntarily sterilised and changed your mind, or if you prefer not to have sex with a man. A couple that has no specific, diagnosed infertility has to wait five years before they can get help, making pregnancy and birth riskier, and the parents five years older.

So, in New Zealand, abortion is actually cheaper to acquire than any other form of birth control. There is no safe, reliable birth control for any woman who eventually wants children, but has anything wrong with her intestines at all (or indeed for teenagers who routinely drink too much, shag someone random, and throw up their pill). On the other hand if you want to get pregnant, you should make some poor choices there, too.

Frankly, I agree with the handwringing politicians, that New Zealand does need a unified approach to reproduction, including a review of the old laws, but since these things cost money (and NZ doesn't like to spend money on women's health), and they might get the government voted out, I'm not holding my breath.

Rant: New Zealand gave women the vote, and then did nothing else (part 2)

My rant on reproductive choice in New Zealand was spawned by an article I read on the state of NZ's abortion laws. Under the law, New Zealand women are not supposed to have abortion-on-demand, even in the very early stages of pregnancy, and so most women who get an abortion in New Zealand most women who have an abortion do so because to have the baby would 'severely adversely affect their mental health', which is patently bollocks. This law also means women have to jump through a number of hoops to get an abortion. The article quotes male experts acknowledging that the law doesn't work, but notes that the government doesn't want to touch abortion law because it pisses people off. This is a law that has not been reviewed since 1977.

New Zealand has a high abortion rate, and a high teen pregnancy rate, and the lawmakers in that article are wringing their hands and claiming that to really solve the abortion problem, we need a unified reproductive strategy. Having been a victim of NZ's present reproductive strategy (I was offered an IUD as my "best option" despite never having had children, wanting them, having a bleeding tendency and having an autoimmune disorder), this made me fume: In New Zealand, birth control options are the pill, the mini-pill, depo-provera (which is seen as being unsafe in many countries) condoms, copper IUD, hormonal IUD (if you pay yourself), and sterilisation. Even if you pay yourself, you cannot get the patch, the implant, the nuvaring, or any of the lower-estrogen pills, and if the pill that works best for you is not one of the ones the government thinks is okay you are going to pay a fortune for it.

continued in the next post

Rant: New Zealand gave women the vote, and then did nothing else

New Zealand, despite being the first country in the world to give women the vote, has a really crap record when it comes to womens issues. Some of the lowlights include:

• Well after the Helsinki convention was signed, doctors were performing cervical cancer experiments on women and girls without their knowledge or consent.
  
• In a completely separate incident, readings of screenings were botched for years in one region of NZ -- as a result of this NZ women now do not have adequate privacy protection for their smears or their medical records, as they are all part of a research programme to improve cervical screening.
• Despite NZ's purported interest in preventing cervical cancer, anyone who wants the vaccine there has to pay for it themselves.
• Herceptin, a breast cancer drug, inadequately funded in NZ
• Haemophilia patients (mostly male) have access to a wide range of treatments and uncapped funding, while rheumatoid arthritis (mostly female) patients have only recently gained access to world class care under strict funding guidelines.
  

This list has focused on health issues because this discussion is going to be about one of the biggest health issues for women: reproductive choice.

continued in next post

Reflections: Male birth control (part 3)

So why hasn't there been a push for male birth control sooner? I am going to be cynical and say I think it is because unintended pregnancy hasn't hurt men enough to be bothered until now, and that society doesn't care about the side effects birth control have in women, because they should count themselves lucky to have a choice. This has changed, though, and the push is on.

Currently, men have two birth control options: Vasectomy, and condoms. One of these is a little too reliable, and one of them isn't reliable enough. There are no really good options for men who do want children, but not right now (and men who want vasectomies so they never have children are struggling to get them). Drug companies claim they are close to having a birth control pill for men, but realistically this is probably still a good five years off by the time FDA testing and all that crap has been done. Even then, I think men are probably less likely to remember to take a pill, and men are already bitching about side effects they might get having seen what happens to women. What I can't understand is why hormones are the option being most closely investigated. It seems to me that the best option would be a reversible method of blocking the vas deferens, but then I guess no-one can make enough money off that.

Whatever the end result is, now that men actually want reversible, reliable birth control, I think we can expect to see it, and has got to be a good thing for everyone.

Reflections: Male birth control (part 2)

Increasingly, men are complaining that they are made to pay child support for their offspring when they did not choose the pregnancy, and suggesting alternatives ways of making the situation right. Many of these ways involve men opting out of parenthood in some legal manner, but like the Violent Acres' post, many are also talking about birth control.

Finally, after years of women having not just the control but also the responsibility for reproductive choices the financial impact of unplanned children is starting to make men (and mens' advocates) push for male birth control. In my opinion, a legal opt-out is a cop-out to maintain mens' privileged position of being able to have sex without consequences. Male birth control, though, is a step forward; it means men finally sharing the responsibility for family planning, including the cost, the side effects, the stress, and the bullshit with doctors and pharmacists.

to be continued in the next post

Reflections: Male birth control

Not too long ago I read an interesting blog post about male birth control, saying that since they were financially responsible for any issue of theirs, they needed their own methods of birth control so that if the woman had an 'oops', either deliberately or accidentally, they were still covered. The tone of the post makes it read like it is written by a bitter man who got stung, but if the writer is not a dog, then in fact she is a she, and a stepparent to two children.

Her post really made me think. I don't think it is just that women get all the choices about the outcome of an accidental pregnancy, but (before I get jumped on) I do think it is fair, because the woman's body and the woman's life are much more affected by their choices than men's are. There can be no just solution to this while women do the childbearing, or while men can force women to have sex with them, both of which will be the case for the forseeable future. Having said that, it is entirely appropriate that men bear half the financial responsibility for a pregnancy, because by choosing to have sex, you accept the risk that pregnancy may result, whether you are male or female (and hell, if you really object, just be a deadbeat dad--it's very popular, though to be fair some weird shit happens with child support in the US).

to be continued in the next post