A lot of people have had bad experiences with doctors, and in particular sometimes bad experiences around discussing sex and sexuality with doctors. Teenage girls trying to get birth control are told they are irresponsible or are sluts; parents get involved and send mixed messages regarding relationships with health care providers; and docs can cause a lot of trouble when they're not well-educated about things like endometriosis or aren't good at certain procedures.

A few years back I went to a doc to get a birth control prescription because I couldn't get it without seeing a doc. By various evidence-based(-ish) guidelines I knew I did not need a Pap test, and I also knew the guidelines had recently changed to every five years. I'm healthy and at that time I was still young enough to have no restrictions on birth control prescriptions, and it was just a renewal of the same thing I'd had for years. The doc would not prescribe the pills to me without getting a Pap smear, despite the unnecessary nature of the test. In the process of opening things up with the speculum and shoving that toothbrush up to my cervix, the doc cut me with the metal speculum, thereby turning a stupid unnecessary appointment for a maintenance med into a traumatic bleeding-all-over fiasco. I'm still much more nervous about Pap smears than I used to be.

I know a lot of doctors -- they avoid seeing doctors. I avoid seeing doctors when I'm not sick as much as possible as well. The only reason the health insurance industry in this country ever gets my money is because I have so far had to see a doc for the birth control, while having no health problems. Nurx et al sound like a great solution for healthy people in need of birth control.