[ericmay]

Let's get big government nanny state out of the way here. People can make their own decisions. It's not like you can't consult with a physician when taking contraceptives over the counter anyway.

Everything you said here you can apply to other behaviors, ranging from alcohol/marijuana consumption, to eating fast food, to skydiving.

OTC here is a result of politics specifically because access is being restricted or in the midst of being restricted. The reason this wasn't OTC was because there just wasn't a need to bother with it. Now there is.

> I wouldn't be surprised if there was a, smallish, correlated increase in STDs, as well.

This is really unsubstantiated and it would be nice if you didn't say things like this in the context of this conversation here unless you're going to provide a legitimate source. Even then if this were true I'm going to guess that an infinitesimal and unsubstantiated risk of higher STD rates is nothing compared to unwanted pregnancies from a public health standpoint.

[Levitz]

>This is really unsubstantiated and it would be nice if you didn't say things like this in the context of this conversation here unless you're going to provide a legitimate source.

Condoms and the pill are the most used contraceptive methods in the US, by far. Given that condoms prevent STDs, it would actually be a surprise if, everything else equal, those who use the pill didn't have slightly more STDs.

[ericmay]

Sure, and being poor is probably linked to higher rates of STDs too. Oh and alcohol use... and... and...

The problem with the unsubstantiated claim (besides the fact) is that it ignores the broad public health picture (what's worse, 5 more people/year get herpes or 5 unwanted babies in trash cans?) and injects, frankly, useless information and FUD into the conversation.

It's done so intentionally to attach negative externalities that are truth-y to a topic when their relevance and impact are quite trivial.

What I mean here is that this may cause an increase (again on the OP to substantiate this claim) of .0001% in general STD contraction, but in a given paragraph the "fact" is given much more weight than it otherwise deserves precisely because the numbers aren't provided - each piece of the claim has equal grammatical weight.

Cognitively, without the numbers (and probably with them even), you associate birth control negative externalities with "INCREASE IN STDS11!!" and now all of a sudden you find that since you are opposed to increases in STD contraction now you are sort of on the fence and maybe opposed to birth control.

"Just use a condom" (until we find some problem with those) and then it becomes "just don't have sex unless you want a baby".

This may seem conspiratorial but these are very specific debate and discussion tactics used by others to slowly chip away at rights and freedoms that we enjoy which is why it's important to call out items like this and require that if someone is going to make a claim they should provide factual evidence supporting that claim.

Until that's done, I'm going to claim that birth control decreases STD rates.

[Levitz]

So you would rather make unsubstantiated claims yourself, taking part in precisely the thing you took a few paragraphs to denounce, because you consider yourself to be right?

[ericmay]

Well I know I’m right about the general topic and requiring sources for the unsubstantiated claims.

It’s confusing that you’d focus on that specific point versus everything else I wrote though. It should be obvious that the point was to show that I can make equally valid unsubstantiated claims, not that I was making one - the claim which would be irrelevant here anyway.