Deleted because it's not worth it. I've already pointed out that I've learned more and changed my opinion, if that's not enough then I have no clue what is.
How exactly was I supposed to look into the program when neither article presented any of these facts? I read both, and saw nothing except a worry about follow-up appointments. Having experienced what happens when doctors don't stay on top of possible side effects from HBC (esp. when there was nothing in my medical history indicating I would have a reaction), and knowing how I was as a teenager, that worried me. Especially when you combine it with the fact that Americans have a very distinct impression of school nurses and school clinics as being underinformed and ineffective wastes of space (because that's what they largely are here).
Had the article actually been well written and expanded on ANY of this and I been able to gather it from the original postings and not from reading comments later on after making this one, it would have made sense to say I hadn't "bothered" to do anything. But I was reacting to the information given by two supposed news sources. I'm still old enough that I forget sometimes that journalistic ethics aren't what they used to be and sometimes I trust people more than I should. When I was a reporter, if you mentioned for even a second that one person said one time that there was a lack of follow-up appointments then that should be your FIRST question to the clinic and your entire following paragraph should be devoted to their response.
Yet another thing I wish the US did. I once went to my school nurse with an injury and when I walked in she said, "Let me go get some ice." She was gone for 15 minutes, and came back with a bowl of ice, grabbed some orange juice boxes, put them in the ice and then sat down to ask me what was wrong.
I got sent back to class without so much as an aspirin. She also told me to lean my head back when I got a nosebleed, which I had known was a stupid idea when I was in pre-K so she had no excuse.
So I really think that the NHS involvement should be pointed out in the original article, it would change a lot of American's perceptions of it.
(I'm still wary because the article says there's a lack of follow-up care, but it's still much better than most people are thinking).
The article says that one woman said there was a lack of follow up appointments.
Just because some, or even most, women have no reaction to birth control or it even helps them doesn't mean you can ignore the fact that some women's bodies cannot deal with the synthetic hormones. I'm one of them, and I actually can't even tell you how much damage it did to my system before we figured out that it didn't matter how low the dose was, any hormone was going to wreck me. A teenager doesn't need that stress, I could barely handle it in my early 20s. A risk is a risk and a medical professional should be helping them navigate it (even if their parents knew about it, I would advocate this).
It's not the teenagers making decisions that worries me (never has) it's providing a situation where teenagers might be making uninformed decisions and not having the support system available if they made the wrong decision that does. And that is why I hate abstinence only sex ed and all the other things people do to teens to take away their autonomy. But in the absence of proper medical care, then at least if a parent knew about this they would be able to better provide help if their daughter had an adverse reaction.
Of course, I also think it's a bad idea even for adults to be taking medications without SOMEBODY knowing what they're taking, in case of emergencies and for when you might get a new prescription that would react with it.
Personally, I'm less concerned with the pill than with an implant because last time I researched any of this, the pill carried less medical risks. Also, I imagine that you probably went back to PP on a semi-regular basis for refills and they asked you about how you were feeling/gave you a yearly exam of some sort. When I started on the pill, I went to the school's health clinic and had to get a pap smear and exam once a year, and when I got refills the nurse always asked me a few questions about how I was doing. After I graduated, PP did the same.
I'm less interested in the fact that the school is providing the implant and more worried that they're not providing follow-up care.
If these kids are receiving consistent medical care (as in not just a visit for the implant/consult and then never going back) then I'm less anxious at the idea myself.
But it's a medication being constantly administered and a child could have a bad reaction to it. A young girl who hasn't told her parents that she wants birth control also isn't likely to talk to her parents if something goes medically wrong with said birth control (if she even realizes it, it took me two years to figure out that I wasn't going crazy and that my HBC was really screwing with my entire system).
If the program is mitigating this risk, then that's something. But when there are medical risks involved then SOMEBODY needs to be helping the teenager navigate those risks/their own healthcare. And HBC does carry risks that are frequently overlooked and waved away. My own issues really screwed me up, and thankfully we figured it out when I was on the pill and could alter the medication or stop it easily. With an implant it's not so simple.
I can see it being perfect from the practical and logistic side of things, but it's the actual medical side I would be worried about. Just thinking from personal experience, I've had a lot of really bad reactions/problems with anything containing synthetic hormones. When I wanted to get off the pill, after I told my doctor my reactions they said that the shot or implant would be a terrible idea for me because it would be so hard to get it back out of my system if I had a bad reaction.
So I would be okay with this in theory, but in practice I think something like an implanted medication should only be done if the students are also being taken care of medically, seeing a doctor regularly to check for reactions, etc. If that's happening, then I don't really have a leg to stand on and I'm not a parent so my opinion matters for little. But because of my own problems with HBC I'm rather wary of it myself and I think a parent would have a right to be worried about it as well, on that front.
The idea of having birth control making somebody a slut though, that's just flippin stupid.
I do have to agree that as much as I'm on the fence about most of this stuff, there should never be an implement involved. Cords, belts, all that stuff is just never okay, I can't even begin to understand that.
That's exactly my problem with these debates. People have a tendency to forget that the people they're talking to also have parents and that they may be insulting said parents.
I once had a roommate who said that any parent who allows a gun in their house should be convicted of child abuse.
Yeah, my dad was a police officer. Which she knew.
Meanwhile, my parents were also hugely supportive people who gave up so many things so that we could have a better life. They taught me that every human being deserves respect, and a second chance. And that the greatest thing we can do in life is to work to make life better for others. My mom runs a charity giving food to underprivileged children.
And I was spanked too. Though only once that I remember, for the most part it was a threat that was never delivered.
While I won't get into if I agree or disagree, I think what they meant was that they won't understand a verbal explanation of cause and effect. But a physical cause/effect would work and you don't want the kid to actually have the bad effect of the action (getting hit by a car, burning their hand on the stove, etc) so you generate a different bad effect.
Again, feel free to agree or disagree with the idea (I'm personally not sure what I think and I'm not a parent so I don't think on it much), but I think that's what the OP meant.
A friend of mine thinks the rule should be that if it would get you in trouble with the law if you did it to a stranger, then you sure as hell shouldn't do it to your kids.
I think that sounds like a good rule to start with.
I have insomnia, and have had it for as long as I actually can remember (I learned the word insomniac before I actually learned to read). I think one of the worst things we're doing as a society is actually VALUING exhaustion. Everybody walks around wearing how tired they are as a badge of honor. You say you are tired and somebody in the room has to counter with "I only got two hours of sleep" or something like that. It becomes a contest at work to see who is the most exhausted. I'm constantly having people try to one up me on the exhaustion scale, and I usually just let it go. But I always want to look at them and say, "Yeah, and my dad can beat up your dad. It's not a competition, I'm trying to explain my memory problems to you not win a merit badge."
And then along with that there's this fanatical addiction to caffeine, but I've found almost nobody understands me on that one because they're attached to their coffee cup in ways that I can't fathom. I gave up most caffeine cold turkey six years ago and it has made my life immeasurably better. While I still will eat chocolate, I gave up all caffeinated drinks. It is so worth it, and it really did change my sleep habits. Yes, I still have at on of problems but compared to what it was six years ago I don't even know how I managed. People who have frequent issues with sleep really should consider it, because getting better sleep will change your life and the caffeine actually isn't doing you much good when it comes to keeping you awake.
I'm a Southerner, so "hon" and "sweetie" are pretty natural to my speech. And pretty natural to hear. But there are unwritten rules to their usage. They are equal opportunity for both sexes, and frequently used by women to women. Bur for some reason "babe" has always bothered me. I would never date a man that used it, and if my husband said it, even after twelve years, I would consider it an insult and lose it. He's not the pet name type anyway, and I don't hear it from strangers, which would be worse. So there is a regional aspect, but guys need to learn that they don't get to decide if women are offended. They do.
I would say that there are numerous other charities that have shown that they are better than SGK and that donations/money would be much better served with them. I think on balance, SGK has shown that they can't be trusted with donation money. They've used it to promote chemicals that are known carcinogens, to pay their executives exorbitant salaries*, to sue smaller charities that are using the phrase "for the cure," and now to promote a political agenda. They have always favored branding and "awareness" over research and treatment.
In the end, all of these things add up clearly to say that since there are other charities that provide the same services that SGK does without the problems, money is better sent to those other charities. They could have donated a trillion dollars in the last six months and I would still feel this way, because the trillion dollars they would have donated came from other people donating TO THEM and could be better dispersed by others.
*One of these executives being someone who has clearly and repeatedly made statements that show she is against a woman's rights to autonomy and control of her own body.
Yeah, I've started learning about 990s for an internship and so the first thing I did when this happened was call theirs up. I was more than a little shocked to see their salaries. I'm still new at this, but it looked to me like they spent almost as much on payroll as they did on any charitable giving in North America. I can't even begin to describe how wrong that is.
Do you happen to remember any numbers of the research vs. awareness? I've been trying to get something solid on that for a rebuttal to some annoying people, because it's my understanding they spend very little of their money (percentage wise) on research and mostly it's just "raising awareness," which I object to.
With a charity, they can tell an org "yay, you go the grant" and immediately publicize that they made the grant but not cut the check until whenever it passes through all of their hoops and legal red tape. That's actually all above board, advertising pledged money is pretty standard.
The stuff I've been seeing passed around was all percentages rather than dollars, saying that only a small percent of their total funding was spent on research funding. But nobody was citing sources and I can't find a good and honest source that has any good "this is where the money goes" pie chart.
I don't doubt they send money to research funding, but I looked up their tax forms to see how much their executives are paid and it left a very sour taste. If they're paying that much to their top people there's a LOT not going to research already.
Yeah, where I grew up (in a rural Southern community) there were literally no other options for uninsured women to get health care. I know because I was uninsured when I graduated college and went there for three years. When I got married I went to the clinic here in DC until I could get insurance at my new job. I've had nothing but good experiences with them, and I've never actually met a woman who has had anything bad to say about them either.
I don't really know of any other options around here, though being in a major metropolitan area I'm sure there are at least a couple free clinics. But every woman I know who has needed free or low cost health care for any reason has chosen Planned Parenthood and so I know nothing about other options here and their quality.
There's that and people just assume that PP is actually LYING about how they're spending their money. "Oh, sure, I can tell you that you can only spend it on cancer screenings, but I know what you'll do when my back is turned!"
Cause it's not like they have to keep detailed records and file reports with the government or anything. *sigh*
That's actually been my biggest beef with the whole thing from the start. I hate branded sales that donate a portion of the proceeds to charity. You're a multi-million dollar mega corporation. Just donate some damn money if you believe in the cause. Put pink tops on your yogurt to celebrate if you want, but don't make people jump through ridiculous (and costly) hoops to do it either.
That's why I've always supported them. My family has had to deal with skin cancer, bone cancer (can't remember exactly, it was a long time ago), testicular cancer, lung cancer, and I _think_ one other I'm not remembering right. All cancer sucks, we shouldn't spend so much time being specific about it.
Plus, I like that the ACS doesn't put a huge marketing effort into the "until there's a cure" and "let's cure cancer" crap. There's no such thing as a cure for cancer and it's physically impossible to have one, and I'm tired of organizations spinning it that way and confusing people about the medical science.
