On Contraception and Birth Control

Crooks and Liars:

It’s an Anti-Contraception World
And all you ladies just live in it.

In a spectacular act of complicity with the religious right, the Department of Health and Human Services Monday released a proposal that allows any federal grant recipient to obstruct a woman’s access to contraception. In order to do this, the Department is attempting to redefine many forms of contraception, the birth control 40% of Americans use, as abortion. Doing so protects extremists under the Weldon and Church amendments. Those laws prohibit federal grant recipients from requiring employees to help provide or refer for abortion services…read on

Atrios:

No matter how many times this is explained to Will Saletan he’ll fail to understand, but hopefully we can get the message out to the rest of the population that the “pro-life” movement is adamantly anti-contraception as well.

This the worry I always have in looking at the Right, particularly the Religious Right and these issues of Women's Reproductive Rights.

It seems to start with banning an aspect of abortion, then we are talking about how unfortunate it is to have any abortions occurring. Yeah. Suddenly, we are on to how contraceptives only encourages sex and pregnancy...and it feels like we are going to turn around and we'll be talking about how a woman's place is in the home. And the ball continues to roll...

Now not everyone agrees with that, but that is what the pushing seems to head towards. Abortion bad. Birth control bad. Single parents bad. Gays raising kids bad. Mom not raising the kids bad. Mom working bad. And these arguments get looped together and linked, each backed with poor evidence and reasoning, building on each other. And then the mouth pieces reiterate the feeble arguments and nod along. And that is worrisome.


It is odd to talk on this, as it feels paranoid, and it largely is. But it is also important to be wary and vigilant because there is a segment of society that wants that simple and nonexistent past back, and who see in old myths of the nuclear family the future. It is important to keep the arguments up, and honest and clear. Because the counter arguments are out there. People arguing about how horrible working moms are. How destructive single parent homes are. How women should just be thankful, period. We still live in a society that carries a veneer of shame about buying condoms (yes there are commercials about condoms, sometimes you have to be thankful for the pressures that marketing and money can bring to bear). The counter arguments need to be out there when ever the bull that tries to shame women and others to bow their heads. So a lot of thanks has to go to sites like Feministing, who don't put up with any of this crap.

Birth control is abortion? When is making eye contact with a man going to be considered consent?