WUI (Writing under the influence)

When I read this I thought that the author lived in a parallel universe. This is the first paragraph.

At a time when the medical community has been heartened by a decline in risky sexual behavior by teenagers, a different problem has crept up: More adult women are forgoing birth control, a trend that has experts puzzled -- and alarmed about a potential rise in unintended pregnancies.

Well, maybe more women want to have more children. Or maybe those teenagers learned not to have sex until marriage. So far, no reason for alarm.

Even as he cheered the news that a growing number of teenagers are using contraception, Santelli wondered whether doctors are neglecting women.
"Maybe we're failing with women over 21," Santelli said.

This is so arrogant. Maybe these women have minds of their own and opt not to use contraception. This is similar to the argument that people voting for Republicans vote against their own interest. You can only think that if you wrongly assume you know what's in their best interest.

And then there is this:

Physicians, statisticians and advocates who specialize in reproductive health had several theories for the rise in unprotected sex. They pointed to possible factors such as gaps in sex education, the cost of birth control, declining insurance coverage, fears of possible side effects of contraceptives and personal attitudes about childbearing.

How about religion? Do they know how many Catholics actually don't use contraceptives because of the high success of natural family-planning methods?

Finally, a paragraph that started making some sense until its conclusion.

It is possible, said Paul Blumenthal, that many more women are trying to conceive and thus have stopped using contraception. But the Johns Hopkins University professor said it is more likely that more women have found the cost of birth control burdensome.

Those people can afford cable TV and cell phones and can't afford a pill or a condom?

Then, there is this gem (why am I not surprised that is has something to do with Oregon?):

Jeffrey Jensen, director of the Women's Health Research Unit at Oregon Health and Science University, said he regularly encounters patients who have trouble affording birth control, even if their private insurance covers it.
"It is absolutely unconscionable that women have a co-pay of $20 or $25 [a month] for contraceptives and men are getting off scot-free," Jensen said. Drug companies "have cut way back" on free samples and many women turn to less effective types of birth control because of cost, he said, "running a greater risk of pregnancy as a result."

So a $20 co-pay a month, less than $1 a day is too much? Well, I have a solution: stop screwing if you don't want to have children. I'm not sure what he wants men to do.

And this I resent. I don't want my money to be spent on contraceptives or abortion (at least national defense is in the Constitution.)

Of the 34 million women in need of contraceptive services -- those who are not sterilized, pregnant or trying to conceive -- about 17 million qualified for publicly funded care, according to a 2002 report by the nonprofit Alan Guttmacher Institute. Of that number, 6.7 million received government-funded services, most through Medicaid or the Title X family-planning program.

This I can pay for:

Many physicians put partial blame on federally funded abstinence-only education programs that by law prohibit discussion of contraceptives, except to detail their failure rates.

This is free.

There is only one paragraph quoting somebody from my universe:

Proponents of abstinence education played down concerns about unintended pregnancies.
"Pregnancy is not a disease. . . . The women making these choices are making a conscious choice. They are not stupid," said Leslee J. Unruh, president of the Abstinence Clearinghouse. "Women don't want to use birth control because of the side effects. And a lot of men refuse to use a condom."

And how about this one?

Several recent studies found that as the abstinence-until-marriage movement surged, there was a "considerable drop" in comprehensive sex education from 1988 to 2000, Santelli said. "Women in their twenties have probably gotten less effective information about contraception," he said.

Why would somebody who adopted the "abstinence-until-marriage" life-style need contraceptives?

And the last paragraph tells me I was right about that universe thing.

"It's clear that contraception is a service people use and want to use, judging by the almost universal use in America," Blumenthal said. "We're offering a service people find useful."

But why would it be also called America?