From a reader:<\/p>\n
\n\nI thought you’d be interested in a fairly recent development regarding the drug Accutane (and its generics). I was treated with Accutane when I was seventeen, but genetics has blessed me with the opportunity for another go-round at 23. During my first course of treatment with Accutane, which causes severe birth defects, I was treated to a stern lecture from my dermatologist, who told me that I shouldn’t be having sex at my age, and that he sincerely hoped that this would not be an issue, but if I was sexually active, I needed to tell him so I could begin taking birth control pills. <\/p>\n
Now, thanks to a government program called iPledge, I am required to submit to two pregnancy tests and to begin taking some form of contraceptive medication (in addition to a second method of birth control, which I am on the honor system to use). I find it somewhat ridiculous that I can have an abortion in the ninth month of pregnancy, but must jump through all of these hoops (despite my assurances to my doctor that pregnancy will NOT be an issue!) to avoid conceiving a child who might have a birth defect! Apparently my right to choose what goes on in my uterus doesn’t apply in this matter…<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From a reader: I thought you’d be interested in a fairly recent development regarding the drug Accutane (and its generics). I was treated with Accutane when I was seventeen, but genetics has blessed me with the opportunity for another go-round at 23. During my first course of treatment with Accutane, which causes severe birth defects,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n
Choice? - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/choice-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Choice? - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"From a reader: I thought you’d be interested in a fairly recent development regarding the drug Accutane (and its generics). I was treated with Accutane when I was seventeen, but genetics has blessed me with the opportunity for another go-round at 23. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5278\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}