QWANZ

There is this new article on the New York Times that talks about the disturbingly common practice of men sabotaging the birth control methods of their partners. I can't believe that these things are actually common (how sad!!!) :( Anyway, here is an excerpt from the NYT online article:...   >>>

There is this new article on the New York Times that talks about the disturbingly common practice of men sabotaging the birth control methods of their partners. I can't believe that these things are actually common (how sad!!!) :( Anyway, here is an excerpt from the NYT online article:



"Men who abuse women physically and emotionally may also sabotage their partners’ birth control, pressuring them to become pregnant against their will, new reports suggest.



Several small studies have described this kind of coercion among low-income teenagers and young adults with a history of violence by intimate partners. Now, a report being released Tuesday by the federally financed National Domestic Violence Hotline says 1 in 4 women who agreed to answer questions after calling the hot line said a partner had pressured them to become pregnant, told them not to use contraceptives, or forced them to have unprotected sex.



The report was based on answers from more than 3,000 women, but it was not a research study, those involved said.



“It was very eye-opening,” said Lisa James, director of health at the Family Violence Prevention Fund in San Francisco, which worked with the hot line on the report. “There were stories about men refusing to wear a condom, forcing sex without a condom, poking holes in condoms, flushing birth control pills down the toilet.



“There were lots of stories about hiding the birth control pills — that she kept ‘losing’ her birth control pills, until she realized that he was hiding them,” Ms. James added.



One respondent described having to hide in the bathroom to take her pill. Another said that when she got her period recently, her partner was “furious.”



The hot line’s report did not include a comparison group and did not gather information about the participants, who were questioned anonymously; nor was it published in a peer-reviewed journal. It was based on answers to four questions posed to 3,169 women around the country who contacted the domestic violence hot line between Aug. 16 and Sept. 26, 2010, who were not in immediate danger and who agreed to participate. About 6,800 callers refused to answer the questions.



Of those who did respond, about a quarter said yes to one or more of these three questions: “Has your partner or ex ever told you not to use any birth control?” “Has your partner or ex-partner ever tried to force or pressure you to become pregnant?” “Has your partner or ex ever made you have sex without a condom so that you would get pregnant?”



One in six answered yes to the question “Has your partner or ex-partner ever taken off the condom during sex so that you would get pregnant?” "



Please read the complete article by clicking on the URL below. Also, please don't forget to share this with your friends on Facebook, Twitter or wherever you can! I think that a real poll with real answers (which can be anonymous too, I might add) would really help get this issue out more, for the benefit of helpless women around the country (or world even), being abused by men who force them to get pregnant.