The Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking (DISB) has not made any changes in its position regarding contraceptive coverage in individual health insurance under Commissioner Gennet Purcell or prior to Commissioner Purcell’s appointment.

In fact, mandated coverages for insurance are not at the discretion of the insurance commissioner, but rather mandated coverages are those that are required by D.C. law. Contraceptive coverage is not now, nor has it ever been, a mandated coverage in D.C. DISB has researched its recent consumer complaint history and found no complaints about individual health insurance not covering contraception. It is surveying insurance companies writing individual health insurance in the District of Columbia and, while responses are still coming in, has found that there are individual plans available in D.C. that provide contraceptive coverage.

I called the DISB earlier today, and never heard back. But Commissioner Gennet Purcell weighed in on the comments: “District Residents/Sexist Bloggers: Please check your facts. I have not made any policy decisions or other DISB determinations regarding mandated contraception coverage in the District of Columbia. This is simply untrue.”

D.C. ladies on the pill: You may not know the name of Gennet Purcell, the woman that Mayor Adrian Fenty appointed to head up the D.C. Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking last August. You should. Purcell may be responsible for sending your birth control costs through the roof. Yesterday, Amie Newman of R.H. Reality Check reported that Purcell recently gave insurance companies the go-ahead to opt out of contraception coverage. [UPDATE: Purcell's office roundly denies Newman's story. Statement after the jump].

Under Purcell’s watch, private insurance companies operating in Washington DC are now allowed to opt out of covering contraception in individual plans. This coverage is considered “non-mandatory” by the insurance commissioner and some women are finding their birth control coverage suddenly dropped.

UPDATE: A call I made to DISB this afternoon was not returned, but a DISB rep issued the following statement to DCist:

The Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking (DISB) has not made any changes in its position regarding contraceptive coverage in individual health insurance under Commissioner Gennet Purcell or prior to Commissioner Purcell’s appointment.

In fact, mandated coverages for insurance are not at the discretion of the insurance commissioner, but rather mandated coverages are those that are required by D.C. law. Contraceptive coverage is not now, nor has it ever been, a mandated coverage in D.C. DISB has researched its recent consumer complaint history and found no complaints about individual health insurance not covering contraception. It is surveying insurance companies writing individual health insurance in the District of Columbia and, while responses are still coming in, has found that there are individual plans available in D.C. that provide contraceptive coverage.

Photo by nateOne, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

An Egyptian scholar has called for the death penalty for people caught importing a new “female virginity-faking device” into the country. The product, a condom which simulates vaginal bleeding, is seen as a “cheap and simple alternative to hymen repair surgery” for a woman who must “feign virginity on her wedding night” in order to avoid the social repercussions of premarital sex. The condom, produced in China, is currently being sold in Syria for $15 a pop. So, how does it work?

Ten years ago, the design (or a very similar one) was patented in the United States by Shahram Shawn Omrani of Passaje, N.J. The product, called the “Condom Simulating Virginity,” consists of a flexible, open-ended sheath (like your regular Trojan), but is outfitted with an additional burstable pouch “containing a red colored fluid simulating blood.” The pouch is constructed from a weaker material than the condom itself so that the blood compartment “ruptures during sexual intercourse, while the sheath remains intact.” Unlike your standard translucent condom, this prophylactic is meant to be made from a dark material to help conceal the red liquid stored inside. If all goes according to plan, the man straps on the condom before sex, the woman appears to bleed during intercourse, and nobody is the wiser.

According to the patent application, the condom was designed to serve cultures where “virginity is demanded of a bride.” Writes Omrani, “it is possible that a prospective bride is no longer a virgin, and hence risks being undesirable or subject to scorn and disapproval should her status become known after a marriage. In extreme cases, some cultures even sanction killing of a non-virgin bride. The applicant is unaware of apparatus which will simulate discharge of blood which ordinarily accompanies first sexual intercourse undertaken by a virgin woman, this being the effect of the present invention.”

I’m troubled that a product like the “Condom Simulating Virginity,” which should never even exist, appears to be in high demand in some corners of the world. I’m saddened that female virginity is still considered a requirement for marriage in some cultures. I’m frustrated that the presence of an intact hymen (which can break under a variety of conditions, including rape) is considered proof of that virginity, and bleeding (not everybody bleeds) is considered proof of an intact hymen. Mostly, though, I’m concerned that the condom is not going to work.

The virginity condom theory has a few serious holes in it. Though condoms are said to have originated in Egypt, the use of any condom—much less a blood-filled virginity condom—is still stigmatized in the country. What if the man does not want to use a condom on his wedding night? What if he doesn’t want to use a strange, dark-colored condom on his wedding night? What if the condom breaks too early, or doesn’t break? What if he realizes that the condom he is rolling on his penis is outfitted with a pouch of liquid? What if he realizes that the condom, which is designed to rupture, has strangely broken?

It’s already clear that for some Egyptian women, the consequences of premarital sex are high. Now that the virginity-simulating device has been relatively popularized in the country, I’m afraid we’ll hear more about the consequences reserved for women forced to fake it.

So … ejaculation. It turns out that where you do it can greatly affect a woman’s chances of becoming pregnant. Like: If you ejaculate straight up into her vagina, she’s more likely to become pregnant; if you ejaculate into a condom or anywhere else in the world, she’s less likely to conceive. Every 16-year-old boy knows this to be true, and now those 16-year-old boys have grown up to become the Guttmacher Institute’s Lead Pulling-Out Researcher, Rachel K. Jones. Jones published her findings in the June issue of Contraception magazine [via NYT]:

“If the male partner withdraws before ejaculation every time a couple has vaginal intercourse, about 4 percent of couples will become pregnant over the course of a year,” the authors write.

For condoms, used optimally, the rate is about 2 percent. But more significant, the authors say, are the rates for “typical use,” because people can’t be expected to use any contraception method perfectly every time. Typical use of withdrawal leads to pregnancy 18 percent of the time, they write; for typical use of condoms 17 percent of the time.

Hey, that’s information that helps us become better informed about our sex lives. Great, right? No. IT’S BAD, says the Daily Beast’s Tracy Quan, who calls the study’s results “folk wisdom” with a lack of “supporting evidence” and infers that the Guttmacher Institute is no longer “sane” for publishing this no good very bad information. Why? Because withdrawal is “caddish,” “insulting,” and it’s FOR BOYS, NOT GIRLS. And we all know we can’t trust boys to do anything. What else can’t we trust? Science, for one! And while we’re at it: We can’t trust grown women in mutually monogamous relationships to make this choice for themselves, either, even though it’s free, accessible, and feels better than a condom. THERE I SAID IT.

But enough about ejaculating outside of vaginas. Oh, wait, no: It’s time for Sady of Tiger Beatdown and I to discuss ejaculating outside of vaginas some more! Join us!

AMANDA: 9:23 a.m. is a great time to talk about the ups and downs of not ejaculating into vaginas.

SADY: yes. personally, when i heard that not ejaculating into vaginas was a “reliable” form of birth control, i had my suspicions! i was like: apparently all of the dudes i have argued with about birth control have become scientists! who knew?

AMANDA: published in the renowned peer-reviewed journal of medicine, Maxim.

SADY: right. it strikes me as some flawed science, is what i am saying! for, even if withdrawal is a semi-effective method of “birth control,” it strikes me as a highly ineffective method of Not Getting Various Diseases Such As The Herp Control. which i think is what Tracy Quan is saying, which is good common sense.

AMANDA: of course, but at the same time, real scientists who are not your ex-boyfriends have worked very hard to come up with dozens of methods of birth control that also don’t prevent STDs

SADY: fair enough! the scientists, they do these things! i suppose i am a person who likes a certain modicum of control over these situations. and withdrawal as birth control, TO ME, relies on your partner having (a) really good timing, and (b) a solid commitment to not getting distracted or losing track of whatever he is supposed to be doing, during a moment that (AS I UNDERSTAND IT) can be kind of distracting! (I AM REFERRING TO THE MALE ORGASM. In case my incredible tastefulness and subtlety are working against me.)

AMANDA: this is a point that Quan made as well, and I agree that for a lot of people withdraw would not be a good option for this reason. But all forms of birth control come with a degree of human error, or in some cases, shit ripping inside your vagina error. say you’re a couple who doesn’t want to use condoms. and the woman takes her birth control pills, but the man, like you, can’t trust her—for whatever reason—to take them at the same time every day. maybe she forgets sometimes!

SADY: fair enough!

AMANDA: he might not want to rely on her, either. and so if you forget a birth control pill, or a condom breaks, or you ejaculate into a vagina, you know, you can take emergency contraception as well. one of the interesting things to me about this study—and i’m just going to assume the study is accurate for argument, because i don’t know anything about methodology with these things. is that it placed withdrawl slightly below condoms, right? and still, most of the response has been, ‘there’s no way this could ever work, this is some frat dude conspiracy.’ and so perhaps what this study reveals isn’t that withdrawl is a very good option, but rather that we have a bit too much faith in condoms

SADY: a fascinating point! and i agree, some of this may have to do with the fact that, as long as i’ve been alive, anyway, Birth Control has been less important to the discussion than Safe Sex. and most of the sex ed i have ever received has been like, “USE CONDOMS, also there are other methods but seriously just USE CONDOMS.” and i’m still a fan of the condom, because it is cheap and does not require a prescription and has a lower failure rate and higher disease protection rate than other things! the withdrawal method, to me, requires what is (in many or most circumstances) a perhaps unrealistically high level of trust for one’s makeout partner. but maybe this just has to do with the fact that i have been culturally conditioned to trust other people less than i trust the Trojan corporation.

AMANDA: of course. and the method is really counter-intuitive, because pulling out is something that irresponsible 15 year old boys are supposed to do, when really it’s something that would be more appropriate for, say, mutually monogamous STD-free old people.

SADY: right. it is odd for me that something which is the centerpiece of much heterosexual porn is now a meaningful expression of committed monogamous trust. NEXT UP: how having sex on a bus can keep you from getting cancer!

AMANDA: hhahaha. yeah. i heard if you put a donut on it and then seductively bite it off it lowers the risk of kidney failure, or something

SADY: WOW. a doughnut, you say! i guess i’ve been doing it all wrong with the bagels.

AMANDA: i’m with the critics of Quan with this one, though – something that PEOPLE DO turning out to be less sexually risky than we thought is probably a good thing. she says a bit of anxiety is good, but i actually have a lot of that! and so reducing that is probably a good thing for a lot of people. maybe not for Quan, but it’s not like we’re getting rid of condoms! The Trojan lobby (sponsored by Tiger Beatdown) would never allow that.

SADY: true enough. i guess i am just concerned with the fact that there is already pressure on girls to be the “cool” ones who don’t “make” the dude use condoms. i do not know why i think that the sort of dudes who apply that pressure are all going to show up with scientific studies and go through a careful risk-benefit analysis! yet i do. in conclusion: withdrawal is totally fine, if you want to do that and are reasonable about it, and not fine if you do not. CONTROVERSY!

AMANDA: agreed. DON’T LET HIM NOT EJACULATE IN YOUR VAGINA IF YOU DON’T WANT HIM TO NOT DO THAT, KIDS.

SADY: there, problem solved. everybody does what they want to do. the real winner? the paper towel industry. hurrah!

Photo by amorphity

Tomorrow, Cure CVS Now and a coalition of public health advocates will gather outside the Dupont Circle CVS store in an attempt to pressure the pharmacy chain to rethink its locked condom policies. The ultimate goal of the “rally and press conference” is to convince “CVS to adopt a corporate policy to keep all condoms unlocked at all times.” A letter to CVS CEO Tom Ryan will be unveiled!

Gina Bowers of Cure CVS Now admits that the CVS store at 6 Dupont Circle does not lock up its condoms—and that D.C. CVS stores are freer than in many other cities with high HIV rates across the country. “We wanted to do this in D.C. to focus on the national nature of our campaign, but we also want to acknowledge that we are doing this on the backs of the activists who have had success in unlocking the condoms there,” she says. Though the District of Columbia has been somewhat of a success story for public health groups like Cure CVS Now and Save Lives, Free the Condoms, Bowers says that the condom-freeing work—in D.C. and elsewhere—isn’t done until a national policy is in place. “One thing our researchers have found is that many stores only unlock the condoms for a while, and then lock them back up again,” she says.

More details about the rally:

WHAT: Rally and press conference

WHO: National Organization of Women (NOW); Advocates for Youth; ACT UP; Latino Commission on AIDS; Black Women for Wellness; Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project (CHAMP); more.

WHEN: 12:30 PM EST Thursday, June 11, 2009

WHERE:

CVS/pharmacy
6 Dupont Circle
Washington, D.C.

Photo by NCinDC

Via Feministe: Advocates for Youth, in conjunction with Cure CVS Now, has created a petition to tell CVS to unlock the condom cases in its stores:

Call on CVS to unlock condom cases in all its stores. Locked condoms create a barrier to condom access, and could be a threat to public health. CVS’s practice of locking condom cases in minority neighborhoods is unacceptable, and we urge CVS to change its store policy. Walgreens and Rite-Aid prohibit condom lock-up: it’s time CVS did the same.

CVS claims to have unlocked all of the condoms in its Washington, D.C. stores. Last month, I wrote a story about how, despite the lip service, condom access in our CVS stores remains a pain in the ass. Unlocking the condoms and then placing them into click-boxes which are often broken—and sometimes actually locked!—isn’t good enough. Perhaps the petition should read: Unlock the condoms. For real this time, guys.

Sign the petition here.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Last week, Adrian Fenty unveiled the new “I Am A Healthy D.C. Mom” campaign, targeted at encouraging moms to keep their children healthy and safe inside and outside of the womb. The campaign’s launch was accompanied by the release of the administration’s 2007 Infant Mortality Report [PDF].

According to a press release, the campaign asks pregnant women to “commit to forty weeks of prenatal care, staying fit and eating right, and keeping their baby safe and healthy.”

How reasonable is to to expect a full forty weeks of prenatal care from a woman? It means she’ll have to act like a good pregnant lady—like folic acid in place of booze, or whatever—from the moment of conception. That’s before she even suspects she’s pregnant. Before she misses her period. Before she takes a pregnancy test.

Usually, it’s also before she wants to be pregnant.

Half of all pregnancies in the United States are unplanned. There’s no current data available for how many D.C. pregnancies are unplanned, but there’s reason to believe the number is much higher than the national rate. We do know that 62 percent of children in D.C. live in single-parent homes, compared to 32 percent nationally. Forty-six percent of children in D.C. have an unemployed parent, compared to 33 percent nationally. D.C. also has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation.

Here’s what the campaign will consist of:

* “resource materials “for doctors and moms

* a “pregnancy assistance toolkit” which covers prenatal care through the first year of motherhood

* transit posters

* PSAs in radio, Web and print

Healthy moms and healthy kids are great. Providing women with more information about prenatal care is great, too. How about committing to some other options, too—increased funding for birth control and abortion could go a long way in decreasing infant mortality rates, too.

Photo by freeparking

Last week, I wrote about how CVS Pharmacies in Washington, D.C. are continuing to limit access to condoms by locking up some stores and declining to work with public health activist groups. The main problem with condom lock-up is that it forces customers to interact with several employees, wait around in front of the condom box, and verbally request the product. In short, it’s embarrassing.

Sometimes, the employees make it more so. I stopped by a CVS in Los Angeles last week to pick up some personal items—not condoms, though. I approached the cashier with a box of tampons, some Midol, and a pack of gum. I was with a boy.

The cashier rung up my merchandise, requested my CVS card, and delivered my change. Then, she said this to us:

“You kids have fun this weekend, whatever you do or don’t do!”

Whatever we “do” or “don’t do”? You got us good, CVS. I thought your employees could only make me uncomfortable about doing it when I bought something actually related to sex. Now I know you can make me uncomfortable about doing it (or not doing it!) when I buy anything at all!

Photo by Editor B

Last month, I wrote a story on why the government won’t fund local youth AIDS prevention group WAIT (or Washington AIDS International Teens). WAIT’s problem was this:

a. Their goal was stopping the spread of HIV.

b. Their methodology was abstinence.

c. The government only funds one or the other.

Last week, President Obama proposed to add another roadblock to their fight for funding by cutting abstinence-only cash from the budget altogether.

Now, groups like WAIT, which represent the most practical side of abstinence eduction—delaying sex only to prevent an uncurable deadly disease—will remain, well, pretty much unaffected. As I detailed in my piece, federally-funded abstinence-only education was always itself too much of a “comprehensive” strategy. In order to receive federal funding, abstinence groups couldn’t just work against AIDS—they also had to teach prevention of “out-of-wedlock pregnancy”; that “a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity”; and that “sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects.”

So while proponents of comprehensive sex education rejoice at the White House rule, some abstinence advocates, at least, aren’t lamenting the move: abstinence’s realists have always been left behind.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery.

This week, I wrote a cover story for the paper on the sex life at the Catholic University of America, the official U.S. university of the Catholic Church. The Washington, D.C. school bans all behavior that is “inconsistent with the teaching and moral values of the Catholic Church”—including premarital sex, condom use, masturbation, and sexual assault.

Every year, Catholic’s coeds manage to successfully compromise the university policies—and their own chastity—within the school’s residence halls (and, according to one student, in the student center). The difficulty, for students and administrators, is acknowledging that sex happens. Consistent with Catholic tradition, sex isn’t sex at the Catholic University of America if nobody knows about it.

You can pick up the story on newsstands tomorrow.

Illustration by Doug Boehm

I’ve always said that the best way to prevent teen pregnancy is to turn 20, am I right? But for those still stuck in their 13-to-19s, the campaign’s Web site offers a quick quiz to help you determine how likely you are to get teen pregnant.

If, like me, your teen years are mercifully behind you, take the quiz anyway. I used it to determine whether or not I can boast more emotional maturity than a 16-year-old.

And . . . I cannot! I took the quiz and scored as “Sort of a Sexpert.” (Sort of a Sexpert? Do you people have any idea who I am?) According to the campaign, that score means that “Most of the time [I] know what the right choice is, but [I] don’t always make it when it comes to sex.” Yeah, that actually sounds about right.

But hey, maybe I’m just too fucking old to know how to prevent teen pregnancy. There is, after all, a “sexting” question:

Laura and Amy are bored* one Saturday afternoon so they start taking goofy pictures of each other with Laura’s camera phone. At first its just funny faces and model poses, but then Amy lifts up her shirt and Laura snaps a picture of her. “I’m so sending this to Mike,” says Laura.

A. “Ha! Do it! He’s so hot. Maybe he’ll return the favor and send me a picture of his naked butt.”

B. “No, don’t! I don’t want him to get the wrong idea. I like him, but I’m not ready to hook up yet.”

C. “You have to delete that picture immediately. That was really dumb of me. I don’t want that pic to get
forwarded to everyone at school. Don’t you watch Gossip Girl?”

D. “Go ahead. Now he’ll see what he’s missing.”

I actually got that one right. But only because I watch Gossip Girl.

* oh, boredom.

For thirty months, the men were injected with 500mg of testosterone undecanoate in tea seed oil once a month. The treatment was 99 percent effective at preventing pregnancy, and after the study ended all but two of the men had their fertility levels return to normal.

According to Jezebel, “Scientists have been trying to develop a male Pill for almost two decades, but progress has been slow. . . . large pharmaceutical companies have been reluctant to perform large trials and many people believe that women wouldn’t trust men to take the pill.”

Oh noes, shifting of responsibilities? Yeah, you know what, I think I could handle it.

To the Employees of Several Washington-Area CVS Stores:

I understand that your CEO, Thomas Ryan, has stated that the CVS name stands for “Convenience, Value, and Service.” This letter takes issue with the third.

It has recently come to my attention, upon purchasing Sensitive Lady Products at several Washington-area CVS stores, that the employees tasked with accepting my payment for these products have not received proper training in How to Not Act Like A Jerk to the Ladies Who Purchase Sensitive Lady Products.

I understand it may be difficult to know how to handle the sale of a Sensitive Lady Product. Perhaps you’re afraid of offending a lady who may be sensitive about purchasing a Sensitive Lady Product; perhaps you have personal religious or political beliefs that require you to be sort of a jerk about doing your job. But you guys are Sensitive Lady Product sales professionals, and you should know how to properly conduct yourselves. Here are some tips.

How to Not Act Like A Jerk to Ladies Purchasing Sensitive Lady Products:

1. When your supervisor asks you to open the locked glass case that holds the Sensitive Lady Product I require, do not make small-talk speculating as to why I require it.

2. Don’t suggest which one I should get, either. You’re a dude.

3. On second thought, just don’t lock up your Sensitive Lady Products.

4. Instead, try to consider why you might have needed to lock them up in the first place. Hmm, maybe it’s because you’re total jerks to the people who buy them?

5. When it comes time for me to exchange money for the Sensitive Lady Product, look me in the eye.

6. Respond when I say “thank you.”

7. If you really cannot acknowledge that I am a human, at least ask if I have a CVS card! I can use some savings on these Sensitive Lady Products!

Sincerely,

A purchaser of Sensitive Lady Products.

Devon Hunter, a “a career exotic dancer with formal, professional training in dance and theatre,” set out on the streets hit the clubs of D.C. last weekend in the hopes of launching a new safe-sex campaign. All the guys he approached thought Devon Hunter—who should call me, by the way—was totally lame.

“I’d asked three people if they’d like to be part of an advertising campaign to promote safe sex. All three rejected me,” he writes. “Two said, ‘Condoms are so 1985,’ and the third said, ‘Condoms are so 1980’s.’ It had never occurred to me that safe sex was trendy, much less that condoms were connected in some way to fashion.”

I agree with Hunter that this does not bode well for the future of the HIV epidemic in D.C. Still, I’m impressed that the condoms-are-lame trend is so specific! One respondent narrowed condom use down to the decade that it became uncool; two pinned the exact year.

Hunter posits that we should mix things up and reestablish condoms as “so 2009.” I say that fashion is cyclical. Now that AIDS is back, condoms can’t be too far behind.

Photo by Jeb Ro

When a Fairfax County mother got an urgent call from school last month reporting that her teenage daughter was caught popping a pill at lunchtime, she did not panic. “It was probably her birth-control pill,” she thought. She was right.

Her heart dropped that afternoon in the assistant principal’s office at Oakton High School when she and her daughter heard the mandatory punishment: A two-week suspension and recommendation for expulsion.

This story has less to do with reproductive rights than it does the thorough fucked-up-edness of the high school’s zero-tolerance drug policy.

Because the student chose to took the pill herself instead of handing the pack over to the school nurse to distribute every lunch period, she’ll face penalties on par with “bringing a gun to school” and harsher than “if she had been caught high on LSD, heroin or another illegal drug.” This is in a place where “county policy permits cough drops to be carried on campus, for instance, but not shared.”

What’s most fucked about this situation*?

(a) The student had been prescribed the drug by a doctor
(b) Nobody has ever gotten high off of birth control, ever
(c) The Fairfax school system could better spend its resources like, teaching shit
(d) The cough drop-sharing menace has declined in recent years
(d) fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck

Let’s parse the levels of fuck in the following statement from a Fairfax schools administrator:

“Most people would not know the difference between birth control or some Ritalin or Tylenol or codeine,” said Clarence Jones, coordinator for the Fairfax school system’s safe and drug-free youth program. “If they are just pulling something out of their pockets and sticking it in their mouths, we don’t know what they are taking.”

Ah yes, the intuitive juxtaposition of “birth control” versus “some Ritalin or Tylenol or codeine.” One drug can only be used to prevent babies; the others are explicitly prescribed so that kids with ADD can learn, are sold over-the-counter for headaches, or are highly addictive pain medications that cause symptoms of withdrawl.

But if administrators could not, in fact, tell if a teen was popping a birth control pill, or a self-purchased cough drop, or crack or whatever, here’s a solution: Why don’t you just ask that teenage human that’s sitting right in front of you? If they have a prescription for the medication, or if the medication does not require a prescription, leave them alone and move on to more important issues, like prosecuting sexters or alerting the media to clandestine rainbow parties.

* Answer: D.

Cristina Page for Reproductive Health Reality Check wrote yesterday on one sector of the economy that hasn’t hurt from the economic downturn: Birth control sales. Page’s evidence of a contraceptive spike:

- Vasectomy.com has fielded a 30 percent increase in appointment requests since January

- Over-the-counter contraceptives (like condoms and emergency contraception) have “jumped a dazzling 10.2 percent in the first two months of the year.”

- Nielson reports that “condom sales jumped up 5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008 and 6 percent in January compared with the same time periods last year.”

- and “sales of Essure, a non-invasive, irreversible birth control method for women were up also, 28 percent over last year’s sales.”

The numbers aren’t simply evidence of couples putting off pregnancies during the recession—they’re also a big fuck-you to Congressional Republicans who objected to the family planning provisions in Obama’s stimulus. Vasectomies, condoms, and Plan B are great options for men and women with health insurance and cash. But those Americans who can’t afford to step-up their birth control with their current bank balances will be having recession-era babies—and they’re the ones who will be hit hardest by another mouth to feed.

Or, as Page puts it: “So much for contraception being a non-sequitur in discussions about the economy.”

Photo by Marshall Astor

Zack Rosen over at The New Gay wrote an excellent column the other day about the importance of condom use within the gay community. The post covers a lot of ground—personal responsibility, modes of transmission, casual anal bleeding:

A couple years ago when one of the cutest boys I’d ever seen begged me to fuck him without a condom. Actually, beg is the wrong word. He pleaded. He whined. He implored me not to use one as if it was simply some seasoning our our sexual entree that he found disagreeable.

Condoms, however, are not cilantro and I refused to eat without one. And the next morning I found his blood on my sheets, meaning that if he had listened to me, and I was HIV+, he would’ve been too. What a dumbass.

Zack answers a lot of questions about cultural attitudes toward condoms in same-sex relationships, but he also posed a question for me: Do straight people feel the same urgency to use protection?

I am but one woman, and I do not speak for The Straights. But D.C.’s newest AIDS numbers included two statistics that may have something do do with each other: The leading mode of transmission for new HIV cases is heterosexual sex, and 7 out of 10 D.C. citizens reported to not use condoms.

One reason I think condom concern may be lower among heterosexuals is that the HIV threat hasn’t been pounded into our brains for decades, like it has in the gay community. Also, “protection” means something different than STD prevention for us—it also means preventing babies. In a lot of heterosexual relationships, sex partners are often so worried about pregnancy that the fear of conception overshadows concern over STDs.

I have to think that the real question, in the straight world, must be this: Are condoms as important to men as they are to women? In both cases—pregnancy and STD prevention—the responsibility to use protection often falls on her. She has to go to the doctor regularly and get her birth control prescription and make sure she takes it correctly every day. Often, she also has to make sure the man is wearing a condom. If she doesn’t, she’s more at risk than he is: In a female-to-male HIV contact scenario, women are more likely to contract the virus than men are, because of the way our bodies are made. This is true all the time—it doesn’t depend on whether or not anybody is bleeding or whether the sex is anal.

So, that leads me to my question for Zack: Are condoms as important to guys on top as they are to guys on bottom?

Photo by victoriapeckham.

The U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, helps fight AIDS by distributing tens of millions of condoms worldwide. The initiative hasn’t just helped to save lives—it’s also supported the jobs of hundreds of U.S. condom-makers. But the AIDS-fighting, job-creating super match-up couldn’t last: The U.S. government is now switching its condom source to lower-cost rubbers produced China and other countries. Some say the change is “expected to cost 300 American jobs.” The change, however, will save three cents on each condom: American condoms run a pricey five-cents-a-pop, whereas Chinese prophelactics go for a cool two cents.

Photo by ~chichun~

Yesterday was “Back Up Your Birth Control Day.” In case you missed it, you still have 72 hours after your non-backed-up-birth-controlled sexual intercourse to participate in the day’s events. “Back Up Your Birth Control Day” was created to “raise awareness about increased access to emergency contraception,” which will soon be available over-the-counter to women 17 and up. For me, Back Up Your Birth Control Day is actually the day after a condom breaks or you miss your daily pill, not March 25 of every year. But it doesn’t hurt to have a Plan B pack on hand just in case—so you don’t have to schlep off to a condescending pharmacist at the exact moment his shaming will be most unbearably offensive.

Photo by nateOne

U.S. District Judge Edward Korman had some harsh words for the Bush-run FDA in laying down his judgment, the Associated Press reports:

n a thorough denunciation of the Bush administration, U.S. District Judge Edward Korman blasted the FDA’s handling of the issue, saying it had “repeatedly and unreasonably” delayed issuing a decision on the medication.

The morning-after pill is a source of tension for social conservatives who held great sway in the Bush administration and who believe the pill is tantamount to abortion.

The ruling said the FDA in several instances had delayed issuing a ruling for suspect reasons and on two occasions only took action to facilitate the confirmation of acting FDA commissioners whose confirmations had been held up by the repeated delays.

“These political considerations, delays, and implausible justifications for decision-making are not the only evidence of a lack of good faith and reasoned decision-making,” Korman said. “Indeed, the record is clear that the FDA’s course of conduct regarding Plan B departed in significant ways from the agency’s normal procedures regarding similar applications to switch a drug product from prescription to non-prescription use.”

According to the AP, “the FDA’s Advisory Committee voted 23 to 4 in 2003 to approve Plan B for over-the-counter status without age restrictions. However, out of nearly two dozen applications to move a prescription drug to over-the-counter status, the Plan B request was the only one not approved after the committee recommended it.” In 2006, the medication was made available over the counter, but only to adults.

Korman’s ruling, which must go into effect within 30 days, is a big step forward. But if the FDA approved the sale of the drug without age restrictions six years ago, and Judge Korman offered a scathing critique of the Bush administration’s handling of the medication, why is it now only approved for women aged 17-and-up? What about 16, 15, and 14-year-old girls? Why restrict the age at all?

The Washington Post’s editorial board published a piece today arguing that “Pope Benedict XVI Is Wrong on Condoms.” An understatement, sure, but I was still glad to see our newspaper of record take God’s gift to Africa down a notch. Until I got, oh, four sentences in:

In a perfect world, people would abstain from having sex until they were married or would be monogamous in committed relationships.

Now, at long last, we know what a perfect world would look like!

Nobody would have sex until they were married, except for the gays, who would never have sex ever (except while in Massachusetts and Connecticut). We would all be virgins until we caved and got married too young so we could have sex finally, only to figure out that we didn’t really like our spouses enough to spend all eternity with them (and also that the sex was bad). We wouldn’t get divorced, because divorce is also un-perfect. Our children would suffer, because even while married we wouldn’t be allowed to use contraception.

Take heart, sinners: Everyone who is currently having premarital sex is doing his or her part to make our world a little less perfect. Those of you who are unmarried but are “monogamous in committed relationships” are less unperfect, as long as that committed relationship is your first and it ends in a marriage which ends in death.

Thanks for showing us the way, Washington Post editorial board, secret agents of the Papacy!

Photo by roblisameehan

The FDA has approved a new version of the female condom, known awesomely as “FC2.” The new female condom will sell for about 30 percent less than its predecessor, the “FC1.” But is cost really the deciding factor in female condom use?

The new FC2 is cheaper to manufacture than the FC1 because it’s made out of “a different material—a synthetic rubber called nitrile.” Still, the main roadblock to female condom use is cultural, not economic.

The female condom is the only barrier method that is proven effective in preventing sexually transmitted diseases—and is completely controlled by the female. Despite the empowerment factor, the device is unpopular in the United States, where “it is more expensive than the male condom, makes noise during sex, and sometimes causes discomfort,” HIV/AIDS resource The Body reports. I’ve never heard of a woman using one, much less seen one in the nitrile flesh.

But the female condom has been hailed as a prophylactic savior for women living in countries where HIV rates are high and male condom use is low. In cultures where refusing a rubber is a matter of course, it’s a lot easier for a woman to place a barrier in her own body than to force a man to apply one as a condition of sex.

But female condom use abroad also depends on attitudes at home. Despite the reluctance to male condom use in many countries, the U.S. shipped 486 million condoms abroad in 2006. According to the India Post, “only 1.6 percent of U.S. international condom shipments” are female condoms, and the devices “account for only 0.2 percent of the world’s total condom supply.”

A worldwide acceptance of the female condom will involve more than a price-slash. First, U.S. leaders (listen up, Barack Obama) will have to make female condom shipments a priority. Then, men with aversions to condoms of all kinds will have to learn to accept the method, too. AIDS activist <strong>Noerine Kaleeba</strong> told <em>The Body</em> in 1998 that “this  gadget is difficult to use without the cooperation of men,” as it’s easily removed with a bit of force, or thwarted by “misrouting” the penis to go “under the pouch instead of in it.”

I’ve written pretty extensively on how pharmacists can exert power over their customer’s contraceptive use. I’ve reported on pharmacists who restrict birth control by hewing to Catholic tradition; by refusing to talk; by extolling the virtues of “natural family planning”; and by writing absurd run-arounds into their policies.

Now, Shark-Fu of Angry Black Bitch and Shakesville details a more nontraditional method employed by some pharamcists in her hometown of St. Louis, Missouri: the “stank eye.”

“A bitch is concerned about the impact of stank eye,” writes Shark-Fu. “Specifically, I’m concerned by the stank eye many people are subjected to when they buy condoms at their local pharmacy.”

Shark-Fu was in line at Walgreens on Valentine’s Day when she noticed a young man preparing to purchase “two packs of condoms.” When he placed the condoms on the counter, “the woman behind the counter leveled the most intense stank eye on him that I’ve seen in a long time. . . . I’m talking the same level of stank coming from the eyes that this bitch gets from those wooden cross dragging protesters outside of Pridefest each year…mmmhmm, STANK!”

The man completed his purchase, but who can say whether the stank eye will discourage him and countless other victims from buying condoms in the future? And how might a concerned citizen combat the pharmacist’s stank eye?

Shark-Fu says: Fight stank eye with stank eye. “[W]hen I came up to purchase my juice I gave Ms. Thang some stank eye right back. . . I stared hard…hard as hell…so hard and so filled with angry disgust that when she lifted her eyes to me she physically jerked. And then she flushed and looked away.”

The Bush administration today issued a sweeping new regulation that protects a broad range of health-care workers—from doctors to janitors—who refuse to participate in providing services that they believe violate their personal, moral or religious beliefs.

The controversial rule empowers federal health officials to cut off federal funding for any state or local government, hospital, clinic, health plan, doctor’s office or other entity if it does not accommodate employees who exercise their “right of conscience.”

Hey, I wonder who will make the most inane comment on this inane rule? Will it be President George W. Bush? Family Research Council President Tony Perkins? Does Sarah Palin have anything to say about this?

No, okay, let’s settle on Assistant Secretary of Health Joxel Garcia! “Many health-care providers routinely face pressure to change their medical practice—often in direct opposition to their personal convictions,” Garcia said.

Don’t you just hate it when the government comes a-knockin’ at your federally funded business which has been operating PERFECTLY WELL THANK YOU and says you change like EVERYTHING AROUND just to accommodate the constitutional rights of other people? Next they’ll be saying that bus drivers “have” to let black people ride in the front, or that poll workers “have” to let women vote. Thank you President Bush for protecting MY right to use American taxpayer’s money to deny those American taxpayers their own rights.

Wait a minute . . . based on this ruling, could a federal employee—say, I don’t know, Barack Obama—refuse to grant federal funding to one of these anti-contraception, anti-abortion medical providers based on his “right to conscience”? Something to look into!

[Also of interest: For this week's paper, I wrote a story about how pharmacists are denying birth control based on "conscience"---or, you know, whatever].

Rite Aid, 1306 U St. NW (and various). (202) 328-8761.

With over 4,900 drugstores in 31 states and the District of Columbia, Rite Aid’s chain of pharmacies stands to dispense a lot of birth control. It’s also prepared for contraception hang-ups. Rite Aid spokesperson Cheryl Slavinsky says that the chain has policies in place to comply with all state and federal regulations for dispensing medication—and deal with those employees who hold moral or religious beliefs against providing contraception.

“Rite Aid pharmacists or any associates are prohibited from imposing their moral or religious beliefs on the customer, and it is his/her responsibility to fulfill their professional duty to the customer,” Slavinsky says. But if an associate chooses not to personally fill a birth control prescription—-or any other medication, for that matter—they have options.

If a Rite Aid associate doesn’t want to provide an over-the-counter item to a customer—like Emergency Contraception or condoms—they’re required to find another associate who is willing to sell the item. But since some Rite Aids only employ one pharmacist, honoring an employee’s objection to filling doctor-prescribed medication is a little trickier. In that case, the pharmacist is required to contact the closest Rite Aid to dispense the medication. In either case, the associate must offer to order the item or pick it up at another Rite Aid location and deliver it back to the customer’s preferred Rite Aid location. In the case that no other local Rite Aid pharmacist will dispense it—a last-resort scenario that Slavinsky calls “unlikely”—the employee is required to find the nearest competitor that will fill the customer’s need, and to follow through until that need is met.

The prescription policy is not unlike that of similar sprawling drugstore chains. But over the counter, Rite Aid’s contraception access differs from Washington’s other major chain, CVS, in one subtle way. CVS places its condoms (and other sexual helpers) behind a case and in front of its pharmacy counter. Rite Aid’s selection is more discrete—tucked into an aisle and outside the range of a pharmacist’s stare. Customers still must alert an employee to remove the packs of condoms from the shelf—they’re secured there with small, plastic locks—but at least one may peruse his options privately before informing a staffer that he intends to become ribbed for her pleasure.

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Mt. Pleasant Pharmacy, 3169 Mount Pleasant St. NW.

Mount Pleasant Pharmacy offers up copies, keys, passports, faxes, and a wheel of sunglasses in addition to its standard arsenal of prescription drugs. The contraceptive options here are similarly comprehensive. Though this 25-year-old independent outfit can double as a local dude hang-out, pharmacist Tony Majeed has got women’s health covered. Majeed says he’d “love to see the D.C. government subsidize women’s health products,” from birth control to over-the-counter anti-fungals. Until then, he’s got all forms of female contraception in stock—pill, patch, ring, and Plan B—behind his counter.

In the past quarter-century, Majeed has seen gentrification force out a number of local independent pharmacies, so he’s quick to note the upsides of fulfilling your women’s health needs at a non-chain outfit. Though the head pharmacist himself doesn’t speak Spanish, his seven employees are bilingual, and prescriptions can be translated on demand. But no matter the language on the pill bottle, prescriptions remain private. “We don’t sell our information to anybody,” says the pharmacist, who suggests that with the chains, you never know if your Valtrex prescription will end up falling into “that deep black hole of medical information” shared on national databases. Over-the-counter contraception options at this neighborhood pharmacy are more private, too. No locksmith necessary here—customers can peruse the shop’s condom choices freely without asking a sales rep to come fumble with a glass case or plastic lock.

Majeed says his shop also seeks to free up the financial burden of women’s healthcare. Customers without health insurance can still find oral contraception on Mount Pleasant Street for 20 to 60 dollars, prices the pharmacist says he doesn’t mark up more than a couple bucks. But Majeed admits that low-profit birth control prices are pretty standard across the industry, which is why some pharmacies can refuse to sell it without suffering economic harm. “They can do that B.S. because they’re not taking a big loss,” says Majeed, who adds that pro-life pharmacies can lose out in the long run. “Women are good customers,” says Majeed.

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Wellington Pharmacy, 1160 Varnum St. NE

Wellington Pharmacy is affiliated with Providence Hospital, which is affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church, which is affiliated with a God who isn’t too hot on contraception. Wellington acknowledges that birth control pills are sometimes prescribed to treat conditions other than the condition of wanting to have baby-less sex, Wellington declines to fill those prescriptions, too. “At the pharmacy, we cannot determine the purpose for why a person has a prescription for birth control. Because we follow the Catholic ethical and religious directions, we don’t offer it,” says Stephanie Hertzog, director of public relations for Providence Hospital. Providence does, however, stock Viagra. “Viagra is actually prescribed for both erectile dysfunction and pulmonary hypertension,” says Hertzog. In this case, that double use benefits a double standard. “It’s a relationship between a person and their physician,” she says about the Viagra prescription. “There are a few uses for it, and they don’t ask which one.”

KNOCK-UP RISK: “Immaculate conception” imminent.

I am the only customer inside Chantilly’s Divine Mercy Care Pharmacy on Halloween morning, and I’m not buying. A week earlier, the pro-life outfit was blessed by a bishop, sprinkled with holy water, and courted by the national press in preparation for its Oct. 21 grand opening. Right now, it’s hard up for any man off the street.

Robert Semler, pharmacist and manager, sits behind a partition separating his pharmacy from the rest of the small shop. Up front, the pharmacy’s face is Pam Semler’s, a nurse and pharmacist’s wife whose soft features are framed by a thick blond fringe and a pair of round glasses. She is the pharmacy’s sole staff member and, as a condition of employment, must “accept the moral teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.” Divine Mercy Care executive director Bob Laird explains later, over the phone, that means “treating every person who comes in as if they are Christ sitting across from you.” It also means that all employees must be pro-life.

As Pam bids me good morning, I break it to her that I’m not a customer. Pam hedges my first question—”business has been fine”—before deferring all other inquiries to a glossy DMC Pharmacy brochure, which provides corporate contact info along with a brief biography of Robert Semler, who does not emerge during my visit. Semler is a “long standing member of Pharmacists for Life International” whose “pro-life beliefs were solidified after hearing Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life stating for Christ, ‘Either you are with Me or against Me,’” the brochure reads.

I sense that Pam already knows which side of the divide I’m on as she gives me the OK to peruse the products that sit in her immaculate shop. She shuffles quietly behind me as Semler announces housekeeping tasks and indulges Pam’s small talk.

“Metamucil comes in a pink lemonade flavor now,” says Pam. “Imagine that.”

“No, I can’t,” her husband replies from behind the partition.

“Sounds pretty unappetizing.”

“Yes.”

At an upcoming Divine Mercy Care fundraising gala, “Platinum Sponsors” who donate more than $10,000 may elect to sit at a table with Semler and his spouse. Fundraising is a significant component of the income of the DMC, which also administers a pro-life OB-GYN clinic, Fairfax’s Tepeyac Family Center.

Laird says the low foot traffic is to be expected of any startup. “We’re expecting the pharmacy to start slow, but we believe it will be a financial success,” he says. “If we didn’t expect it to be a success, we wouldn’t have done it.”

I spend my own audience with the Semlers in silence as I take stock of the Catholic-prepped shelves, carefully arranged with medical accoutrements (no candy, batteries, or magazines here). Many are targeted toward women—Dr. Scholl’s For Her Comfort Insoles, Midol Teen Formula, Vagisil Talc-Free Deodorant Powder. A small waiting area is stocked with two white wicker chairs and a pile of Taste of Home magazines, along with a basket of blank index cards “for recipes.” The female-oriented atmosphere glosses over one glaring omission: The pharmacy will not stock birth control pills or emergency contraception.

Instead, Divine Mercy Care provides its own brand of medical choice. Atop a stack of leaflets about herbal supplements sits a fact-sheet for the Doctor’s Natural Therapy brand of Natural Hormone Balancing Creams. The creams, made of “Natural USP Progesterone from wild yam,” offer up a natural alternative to the therapeutic effects of oral contraception and hormone replacement therapy. “Have you experienced any of these symptoms?” the fact sheet asks before listing 21 problems the ointment resolves: PMS, Hot Flashes, Irregular Menstruation, Cramping, Mood Swings, Hormone-Related Headaches, Fatigue, Irritability, Anxiety, Weight Gain, Water Retention, Confusion, Breast Tenderness, Miscarriages, Infertility, Decreased Libido, Dryness, Bone Loss, Hair Loss, Insomnia, Premature Aging.

I pause briefly at “Confusion” and wonder how the wild yam came to hold the key to curing all symptoms that ail my gender.

But Divine Mercy Care stocks a stronger alternative to birth control: information. Near the exit sits a stack of “Art of Natural Family Planning” student guides distributed by pro-life group Couple to Couple League International. I leaf through a copy as I sit on a wicker chair, waiting for another customer to arrive to provide sound bites explaining the pro-life pharmacy phenomenon. “How does contraception availability compromise your trust in a pharmacist?” I want to ask. “What role does holy water play in your choice of pharmacy?”

But the book provides more insight into the space where anti-contraceptive morality meets reality: The tutorial describes, in minute detail, the “natural” processes by which couples may have sex while avoiding pregnancy-and still adhering to the teachings of the Catholic Church. Natural Family Planning involves eschewing condoms, oral contraceptives, and the withdrawal method in favor of close watch of the woman’s fertility cycle, achieved by monitoring her shifts in temperature and cataloging monthly changes to her vagina, from mucus elasticity to cervix hardness. Laird says that natural family planning helps couples continue “the marital act,” “something that takes place between a man and a woman vaginally, naturally.” A typical requirement for the “marital act” reads like the positioning of troops for battle: “Three normal post-peak temperatures in a rising pattern above the LTL AND the third temperature at or above the HTL OR the cervix closed and hard for three days.”

The guide’s moral justification for this process is more difficult to parse, with reasoning ranging from “providence” to “aesthetics.” “It is God who in His providence has allowed us to learn in the late 20th century about woman’s alternating fertility and infertility-and about Natural Family Planning-at the same time that other medical advances greatly increased the population survival rate,” Couple to Couple explains before detailing a more compelling argument-the sex is better, too. “Contraceptive condoms (male or female), sponges, diaphragms and foams have definite problems in the area of ‘aesthetics’-many couples find them downright unpleasant, and they interfere with spontaneity.”

I weigh the difference between wild yam extract and estrogen, barrier methods and calculated infertile sex, “sex for pleasure” and “family planning,” and wish I could find a customer to help explain her preferences. I consider the fact that on Halloween, even the staunchest pro-life customer might be moved to skip across the street to the CVS, where Kit Kats are stocked alongside condoms. Before I leave, I wonder if I can justify expensing the $24.95 book for further study. Instead, I settle on a companion piece, the “Art of Natural Family Planning Chart Booklet” ($2). I approach Pam for the sale.

“Are you going to use it?” she asks, hesitating to go back behind the counter to ring up my purchase.
Of course I’m not going to use it, I think. I’m going to skim over it, extract its detail, and use it to color my essay on your place of business.

“They’re paired with the books, and we only have a limited number,” Pam explains, still not making the move behind the counter. Her husband sits silent behind the partition. I eye the large stack of charts by the door, which has not opened since my arrival. “So you’re not going to sell it to me?”

Pam doesn’t answer me, just sighs, moves behind the counter, and punches in the data. I stand in silence for several minutes as Pam moves through the arduous sale; the item’s ID number, 123-456, doesn’t register correctly in the pharmacy’s system. Pam follows a dozen curt orders from her husband before dialing a number on the telephone for outside help. I offer to pay for the booklet without a receipt.

At last I leave with booklet in hand. Within it are hundreds of tidy checkable boxes for tracking one’s “coitus record” and “mucus sensations.”

Photo by Gnarles Monkey.

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Tschiffely Pharmacy, 1330 Connecticut Ave. NW.

A call to quaint Dupont Circle outfit Tschiffely Pharmacy, provider of prescription drugs and curios, produces mixed results. The pharmacist on hand says Tschiffely fills birth control pills and provides Plan B over the counter. When asked if he has emergency contraception in stock, though, he wavers. “No, I don’t know if—I’m not going to answer that,” he says, before telling me to call back as a customer to get a clearer answer. When I visit the store a few days later, on a Friday morning, Plan B is in-stock and ready to go. Abortion pills, though, go unstocked on purpose. “I can definitely tell you I don’t have that,” the pharmacist says. So far, no customer with a prescription has tested Tschiffely. “That we haven’t discussed between our stores yet,” he says.

KNOCK-UP RISK: No comment.

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Planned Parenthood’s Schumacher Health Center, 1108 16th St. NW.

This 16th St. clinic, a stone’s throw from the White House, is the area’s leading source for affordable women’s health care, birth control, and abortion services. For the same reasons, the center falls victim to the largest unofficial barrier to contraception access: The “sidewalk helper.”

Roshan Anthonypillai, who fills a weekday 8 to 9 a.m. shift at the clinic, is dedicated to helping women who come to Planned Parenthood seeking to terminate their pregnancies. But Anthonypillai works as a different sort of abortion counselor; he is a representative of “40 Days For for Life,” a national anti-abortion campaign that has organized activists in 170 cities to hold vigil outside abortion clinics from Sept. 24 through Nov. 2 this year. Every day before work, Anthonypillai stands on the sidewalk outside the clinic, holding rosary beads and guarding a few trinkets arranged at the trunk of a tree: a small makeshift crucifix and a paper bag luminary adorned with a red cross.

“By standing here, I think I’ve convinced two to three women not to have an abortion,” says Anthonypillai, a 35-year-old Ashburn resident and a Catholic. Volunteers report those numbers back to 40 Days, which keeps a tally of saved lives; the campaign claims to have stopped as many as 268 abortions nationwide this year. Many more women, Anthonypillai says, have made the wrong choice. “Every young woman that I’ve seen, personally, coming in here, is coming to get an abortion,” he says of the clinic, which also offers gynecological exams, STD testing, and birth control. The clinic, meanwhile, keeps tabs on people like Anthonypillai: It staffs escorts to shield patients from protesters and sends visitors through a metal detector before letting them into the waiting room, where no cell phone use is permitted.

A little after 9 a.m. brings the changing of the abortion clinic guard; Anthonypillai hands off duties to Sarah Smith Bartel, a Hyattsville graduate student who arrives with her two daughters, Clare, 4, and Kate, 2. The girls take turns sipping from a thermos of hot chocolate as their mother explains her position. I’m trying to offer these women the right choice, one that recognizes the true femininity and essence of womanhood,” says Smith Bartel. “And, of course, preserves the life of the unborn child.” But though Anthonypillai is happy to head off to work, he says he has no plans to suspend the vigil come Election Day. “I’ll still be here, praying,” he says.

KNOCK-UP RISK: Depends on the shift.

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Grubbs Care Pharmacy, 326 E. Capitol St. NE

This neighborhood Capitol Hill pharmacy, run by owner-pharmacist Michael Kim, stocks the whole shebang—birth control, emergency contraception, and the abortion pill. Plan B even comes a bit cheaper here than at your corner CVS, at $41 to CVS’ $50. Abortion-inducing medication is available with a prescription and in-stock; a call to the pharmacy last week found that it will order the pill, and carries Misoprostol, a drug that is approved by the FDA for gastric ulcer treatment, but which can be prescribed off-label for use as an abortifacient.

KNOCK-UP RISK: Capitol Hill trysts that begin loudly at Tunnicliffís may end, discretely, at Grubbs.

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Foer’s Pharmacy, 818 18th S. NW.

Just blocks away from the sexually promiscuous real estate of the George Washington University, Foer’s Pharmacy is in the position to make bank off baby prevention. And though Foer’s displays strange bra-and-stocking-clad mannequins in its front window, its contraception options are less exciting. A Foer’s rep says the pharmacy fills birth control prescriptions and stocks Plan B over the counter. But if preventive measures fail, coeds looking to abort should look elsewhere: Prescriptions for abortion pills will not be filled, said the staffer.

KNOCK-UP RISK: Better start saving for their 529’s, just in case.

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CVS, 1702 Columbia Rd. NW (and various).

This D.C.-dominating chain addresses the birth control question as it does all things: with impatient efficiency. “Yes, yes, yes,” said the pharmacist on call at CVS’ Adams Morgan location when asked about birth control, emergency contraception, and abortion pills. Plan B will run you up to $50; abortion pills such as Mifeprex, which induces contractions to terminate pregnancy, are available with a prescription but could take a few days to stock if not currently on shelves. Condoms, 48 varieties of them, are offered up like vending machine candy bars: Push button, pull lever, remove product.

Mike DeAngelis, public relations director for CVS, explains the chain has a “policy to fill prescriptions for all legally prescribed medications,” including birth control and emergency contraception. (Though the FDA approved over-the-counter sale of emergency contraception in 2006, a prescription is still needed for patients under 18 years old). However, Joe Pharmacist can opt out of filling your pill prescription. “Under federal law and some state laws, we must also accommodate a religious conviction that may prevent a pharmacist from dispensing a medication,” DeAngelis says. Under that circumstance, however, “other arrangements can be made in advance to ensure the customer’s prescription needs can be satisfied.”

KNOCK-UP RISK: Low, low, low. Next.

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Cathedral Pharmacy, 3000 Connecticut Ave. NW.

If the name weren’t enough to tip you off, lead pharmacist Paul Beringer is happy to let you in on Cathedral Pharmacy’s contraception policy: “Depends.” Beringer says he fills birth control prescriptions “sometimes,” according to “the pharmacist’s discretion.” In Beringer’s 46 years at Cathedral Pharmacy, he’s had to use a lot of discretion. “You know, if a 14-year-old kid comes in, I don’t think I would fill the prescription,” he says. “If it was a legitimate prescription, yes. But if it looked in any way shady, no.” But emergency contraception—a pregnancy prevention pill taken after sex that is also known as “Plan B”—isn’t left to circumstance. “I consider it abortion, and I’m pro-life,” explains Beringer, who says his emergency contraception discretion extends to all pharmacists at Cathedral. “They follow my instructions,” Beringer says. “We don’t even stock it.”

KNOCK-UP RISK: Sex will lead to pregnancy, sometimes.

Tomorrow, a new Sexist project debuts: “Capitol Pill.” Capitol Pill surveys local pharmacies about their availability of birth control, emergency contraception, and the abortion pill, then charts them on a map of the District. In each installment, I’ll highlight a new pharmacy and rate it based on its friendliness toward providing contraception.

The project was inspired by last week’s grand opening of the the Divine Mercy Care Pharmacy, a Catholic-run outfit in Chantilly, Va. that offers natural family planning primers in place of condoms, birth control, and pornography. With the opening of the new pharmacy, Chantilly joined six other cities recommended by Pharmacists for Life International, including the yokel meccas of Hialeah, Fla., Richmond, Ind., and Superior, Neb. But I’ve found that drug-seekers looking to support a culture of life needn’t travel to Chantilly to be denied their one-a-day pills. Even though godless, liberal Washington, D.C., is a center of pro-choice activity, its local pharmacy offerings don’t always jibe with legislation.

Stay tuned to find if your local pharmacy will dispense moral posturing in place of the patch, neglect to stock emergency contraception in time to stave off conception, or shudder at the sight of your abortion pill prescription.

If you have any suggestions for additional pharmacies to look into, please drop me a line in the comments.

The wonderful Emily Bazelon of Slate speaks out against Oklahoma’s (and Alabama’s and Louisiana’s and Mississippi’s) “paternalistic” ultrasound law, which forces women to receive ultrasounds in order to see their fetus before having an abortion. Bazelon writes:

For many pregnant women, ultrasounds are like candy—there can’t be too many of those grainy black-and-white images of the fetus napping or kicking in the womb. But if you’re pregnant and don’t want to be and are considering an abortion, an ultrasound image could be an object of dread. It might force you to think about the fetus as having a separate identity or as the baby it could become.

Dread is the emotion pro-life groups look to instill when they push states to pass laws that make an ultrasound part of the abortion procedure.

Importantly, Bazelon’s story points to the “undue burden” states can pile upon pro-choice legislation, making the procedure less than accessible. In Oklahoma, where “doctors are prevailed upon to show and tell about the fetus whether or not women want to see and hear,” the burden of “dread” is both a real and a particularly disturbing one. Stay tuned later this week when I look at the pharmacist’s roll in administering contraception in the District of Columbia.

Photo by Jason DeRusha.