Women's Reproductive Rights: The Confusion Over Contraceptives
Happy International Women’s Day!
This year’s UN theme for International Women’s Day is Empower Women – End Hunger and Poverty, but really, it should be Empower Women…to Talk About Our Reproductive Health & Policy here in the U.S.
Yesterday, Virginia’s Gov. Bob McDonnell signed a law requiring abdominal ultrasounds for women seeking abortions, which will become mandatory starting on July 1.
Last week, conservative talk radio personality Rush Limbaugh attacked a Georgetown law student for her opinions on women’s reproductive rights expressed at a congressional hearing. Limbaugh singled out another “overeducated” woman on his show yesterday (seriously, he called her overeducated).
What’s going on???
And today, Huffington Post contributor Doug Bandow had this to add:
Law school is typically a time of financial stringency. I know, since I also attended law school (though many years ago). I drove a 1966 Corvair, rented a room in a private home, and worked part-time. I don’t remember the cost of contraception being a major issue then, but if it had been I wouldn’t have expected “society” to pay for it.
Obviously Sandra Fluke lives in a different world. As, unfortunately, does President Barack Obama.
It should be obvious that, as Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman was fond of observing, “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” Whether the pill, IUDs, condoms, or other, contraceptives must be developed, manufactured, and distributed. Someone has to cover that cost. Since contraceptives make sex easier for those who don’t want babies, one normally would expect that those who want to have sex to pay for them. After all, you get the personal pleasure of the act. Your wallet — and that of your partner — should get stuck with the corresponding financial pain.
Nor does calling contraception “preventive care” make it so. Sex is a great thing. But even 20- and 30-somethings, like Ms. Fluke, can survive without it. (Shock, horror, disbelief, I know, but still true!) What is more “essential” — getting a mammogram, colonoscopy, or chemotherapy, having bypass surgery or trauma care, or … making sure you can have a good time essentially without risk (at least of an unwanted pregnancy)? If you answered the latter on my final exam, you would earn an “F.”
Contraception also isn’t what is normally thought of as an insurable “event.” The purpose of insurance is to guard against the small chance of a big loss. You get insurance to cover the cost of treating a deadly disease or responding to a life-threatening accident, not to pay for bandages to cover a small cut or aspirin to ameliorate a headache. It especially makes no sense to insure against an event which you control — like how often you have sex, and therefore how often you use contraception. Imagine auto “insurance” which covered the cost of every gas fill-up. . . .
Sandra Fluke apparently wants to have sex freely and without risk. That’s hardly a surprise, and she’s certainly not alone in that desire. But it is still no reason to conscript the rest of us to pay.
You can read the rest of his diatribe here.
…..andddd discuss.