I'm on the patch and depending on how I feel each month, I decide if I want to re-patch immediately after my 3rd week or if I want to bleed for a week. Typically I re-patch because I find my faux-period inconvenient, painful, and expensive (maybe those panty theives are on to something). The only annoying thing is dealing with my insurance because they don't want to cover the extra packs needed per year. Failure rates are very low on the patch and I'm very careful about not missing any days and using condoms if I'm on any medication that can interfere with the efficacy...although my husband's not typically interested in having sex with me when I have strep throat! And truthfully, not having a week off makes it a lot easier to keep on schedule. So I'm not really worried about becoming pregnant and not knowing if I don't have a period.

I really think birth control selection should be a decision made by each woman with input from her doctor. Lifestyles are so different between women, especially when you take into a women's entire reproductive years. And then individual risk factors vary widely, plus they change over time.

My personal experience is that I found the pill very easy to mess up with and experienced very bad side effects with it. You really need to keep to a regular schedule, taking your pill at the same time each day, and making sure that you don't miss any days or start your new packet late. Drug interactions or medical conditions that impact gut absorption need to be taken into account. If you had the side effect that I did, which was faux "morning sickness" and vomitting for the 1st week on a new packet each month, you'd find out in a very bad way how much that gut absorption factor weighs into efficacy.

Plus, I agree that it is much easier to convince a guy to wear a condom if you say you aren't on the pill! I guess men are more comfortable worrying about unplanned pregnancy than catching a potentially life threatening disease. Weird.

I completely agreed with the opt out legislation that Robert Franklin posted about. I wrote about my version of it earlier today, but probably incoherently (pre-coffee). Plus I'm no lawyer, so I'm sure there are better minds ahead of me on the legalities of this. I would add that if a man chooses to terminate his parental rights and the woman then chooses to terminate the pregnancy, the man has to pay for half the costs of the abortion. If you are pro-life man and you get a woman pregnant you either live by your principles and support your child or you become involved in the abortion.

I think things become stickier when the two people are married to each other. When you take those vows and sign your marriage certification you have consented to more shared responsibilities. So if the parents to-be are married, I don't think a husband should be able to terminate his parental rights, unless there was an pre-nup stating that children were deal breakers. And no I don't think a wife should have to get her husband's permission to have an abortion, sorry but that fetus is still hooked up to her body and until we get artificial wombs, I don't think you can force someone to biologically support (vs financially) another person. Personally I can't imagine that in any well functioning marriage a woman could do that to her husband against his wishes and not expect to be served with divorce papers.

I don't understand why more feminists don't support shared custody arrangements. As long as the father is fit to be a parent, then support should be shared as equally as possible. Someone complained about scheduling issues, but that is not an inherent reason to not support shared custody. (It sounds like your parents weren't very practical.) I don't see any "feminist benefit" in keeping women as the primary caregiver, especially in situations where they can least afford it. There certainly isn't any benefit to the children or fathers that kept from each other. I rather have more fathers involved in their children's lives, especially in cases of divorce. I find it so sad that there are some post-divorce parents that walk out on their kids...the kids that they were raising until their divorce. I've had friends where this happened to them and it was a horrible blow to them. In one case the mom dumped the kids with their dad and left never to return. Luckily in the dad found a good woman the second time around and they had a great step-mom. In another case my childhood's friends Dad took off along with most of the family finances and set himself up with his ex-mistress/new wife. They had to move from their nice house in the 'burbs into an apartment, leave our very good school system and their mom had to take on another job just to cover food and rent. The eldest daughter had been accepted to college, but her Dad refused to pay post-divorce so she had to take 2 years off to work to save up the cash to go to college. The Dad lived very well, lots of vacation, nice new house and new sportscar and refused visitation and custody of his kids that he had raised for 17 & 14 years. Nothing like telling your 14 year old that you don't want to see them anymore.