PSA: Emergency Contraception/Plan B

[anotheranon]

On a more serious note:

After reading this story about a woman who was repeatedly denied emergency contraception because she didn't meet (several different) doctors' prudish "criteria", I feel motivated to post the following:

GetThePill.Com, online prescriptions for emergency contraception

How to use emergency contraception, including emergency dosages of ordinary birth control pills

How to use it, where to get it, search by state

Disclaimer: I'm not a medical professional, but speaking as a woman who has dealt with a scare before:

If you're a woman of childbearing age, I'd recommend getting a prescription for EC, getting it filled, and stockpiling it, just in case. Even if you're currently using some form of birth control, even if you don't have sex with men. Just because in spite of our best intentions things sometimes go awry, and no one should have to call every pharmacy in a 200 mile radius in an emergency situation.

Update, 10:15 pm: Just saw this post in which the author suggests getting a script filled even if you AREN'T fertile, in case a friend needs it. My doc did the snip, so he knows I don't need it, anyone think it's possible I could get it elsewhere?

Comments

[jlsjlsjls.livejournal.com]

I'm beyond disgust with the righteous medical types this woman had to deal with. Do they not grasp that "do no harm" includes not sentencing somebody to an accidental pregnancy (or a child to a life of misery? ... while there are exceptions, unwanted children do not, as a rule, live happy lives). And one would think that a couple who had the good sense to use birth control would fit within their narrow views of who is entitled (actually I'm surprised they considered married women to be acceptable candidates ... those archaic attitudes would lead one to expect the married to be told that they should be having kids, not preventing them).

Sounds as if it's time that all doctors be legally required to take out monthly ads fully describing their version of medical ethics so that potential patients can steer clear of the ones suffering from delusions of godliness.

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

This story has been linked widely in different feminist blogs, and more than one commenter has suggested that BB post the identifying info of the docs in question, and so expose them.

Normally I consider private personal information to be.. well.. private, but the doctors in question have shirked their professional duties. Consumers should know which doctors have no intention of taking care of them!

[jlsjlsjls.livejournal.com]

Posting the information that's in their yellow pages listing or on the list of doctors on the outside wall of a clinic (their professional name and hospital/clinic affiliation) on a list of who refuses to prescribe is not a breach of privacy ... that's public data that they have chosen to make available and is the only info that consumers need to see to know who to avoid.

Posting personal information about the docs (their home phone numbers, addresses, names of spouses, children, parents, etc.) WOULD be out of line and anybody who did so would also end up on my personal disgusted-with list ... my province was the first to pass the Privacy Act (which forbids handing out the personal information of others without written or witnessed permission) and I'm very much a supporter of that particular law (there's the odd snag to it, but it sure beats having idiot co-workers give out your home phone number to anybody who calls your office when you're away).