Conservatives Come Out Against Birth Control – Guess They’re Okay With Teen Pregnancy And Abortion
We’ve always known the Conservative stance on sex had more to do with controling women than with preventing unwanted pregnancy and abortion. And now they’ve proved it once again.
In a common sense world, there would be no controversy over including contraception in the slate of preventive services that the federal government will soon require insurance companies to offer at no cost to their customers. Fairness alone should justify it, but there’s also the fact that it’s universally agreed that the results of not using contraception—unwanted pregnancy, abortion, teenage pregnancy—are best avoided. But the Heritage Foundation and the National Abstinence Education Association are demanding that the federal government make an exception in the new rules for contraception. As usual, I’m forced to think that perhaps the anti-choice movement actually prefers a high unwanted pregnancy rate, and therefore a high abortion rate, since they work so hard to preserve it.
Thankfully, the majority of Americans are a-okay with contraception.
Eighty percent of Americans say pharmacists should be required to dispense birth control regardless of their own opinions on the morality of premarital or non-reproductive sex. Three-quarters of American Catholics disagree with their Church’s anti-contraception policy. A recent survey of evangelical leaders—the family values crowd—found that 90 percent of them consider hormonal birth control and condoms “morally acceptable.”
Even the business community is on board.
The business community, too, is enthusiastic. A new report from the National Business Group on Health found that most companies would save money in the long run by providing their employees with co-pay-free birth control.
Of course, we are still #1 in certain areas…
Reproductive-rights advocates are openly lobbying the Obama administration to enact the birth control changes quickly, citing the United States’ high rates of teenage and unintended pregnancy—the highest in the developed world.
Now there’s something to crow about! I am over halfway through the book, Red Families v. Blue Families, and have reached several conclusions; the main one being that when Conservatives lament the dying of the “traditional family” they have a point – the Red Family model is in big trouble, mainly due to the fact that these kids aren’t practicing abstinence or birth control. So, in typical Conservative fashion, they want everyone in their sinking boat.
Tags: Abortion, Birth Control
If you really want to make the majoritarian argument you make here, remember that a majority of Americans support the Arizona immigration statute and oppose gay marriage. And if you really want to argue that the First Amendment does not protect the right of conscience for religious believers, then I think you have repudiated the Bill of Rights.
The Christian sharia strikes again.
if you really want to argue that the First Amendment does not protect the right of conscience for religious believers
Excuse me, where do you see that argument? I don’t think the 1st amendment rights of religious believers trumps my rights. Those religious believers aren’t forced to take birth control, but they have no right to deny me birth control because of their religion. If they can’t give legal medication to people who are prescribed it, they should consider a different profession.
Exactly, UI. Observer, perhaps I should have been clearer. Let’s try this… This is probably a losing argument for Conservatives given the number of people who are happy as clams using contraception. But, hey, if you guys want to go down this path…
Now, now, now pandora–real conservative contraception = the other “DADT”
Oh, I’m gonna burn…..
LOL, Joanne!
UI — do you claim the right to force a pharmacist opposed to birth control to personally dispense birth control to you? Do you claim the right to force a doctor opposed to abortion to personally suck your unborn child from your womb? If so, why do YOUR rights trump THEIR rights, given that their right to freely exercise their religion is specifically enumerated in the Constitution while your right to contraception and an abortion are not?
A pharmacist does not have the right to force their religion on me. They don’t have the right to deny me a legally prescribed medication. If they’re opposed to contraception, they shouldn’t use it. They don’t have the right to tell me that.
If I walk into a doctor’s office that performs abortions, I expect them to perform one as long as it complies with the law. If I walk into a pharmacy with a legal prescription, I expect them to fill it.
Observer–I find it incredible that we in the medical profession have managed to work this out amongst ourselves, in a respectful–“I’ll take this one” working relationship more often unbeknownst to a patient, to get the task at hand as prescribed completed. Why on earth, do you have to goad a situation?
Observer is only concerned with certain rights. S/He does prove the point of this post. Pro-Lifers are pro-unwanted pregnancy – which ultimately leads to more abortions.
“UI — do you claim the right to force a pharmacist opposed to birth control to personally dispense birth control to you?”
Observer, then if the pharmacist doesn’t believe in say, pain medication for instance, does that mean he or she could get away with not filling my prescription for percocet?
Nope, Mark. Man drugs are okay with Observer. Bet he has no problem with Viagra. 🙂
Observer thinks that people should get paid even when they refuse to do the job. Typical teabagger entitlement attitude.
Exactly Joanne. I don’t care who fills it, as long as it’s filled.
I don’t think anyone ever really thought that the “pro-life” movement wasn’t really anti-sex. I congratulate them for being a little more honest about that fact.
The pro-life movement is actually a coalition of Catholics, Protestant fundamentalists, and secular pro-corporate opportunists.
The opposition to contraception stems from the Catholics. Catholic theology holds that contraception is always wrong, and that some forms of contraception are in fact equivalent to abortion. In reality most rank-and-file US Catholics support contraception and are at least ambivalent about abortion.
Ultimately the “pro-life” movement is a fundraising racket. I think we can all agree on that much.
The right wing ALWAYS promotes men in power pushing their religious views on other people. (in this case refusing to giver medication to women they dont agree with)
If the pharmacist doesn’t like his job, he lives in a free country and can get a different one.. so sayeth the all knowing Free Market.