A Word on Birth Control

Unless you’ve been living in a cave that hasn’t WI-FI, you’re aware of the current, birth control controversy. In case you are such a cave dweller (which raises the question of how, exactly, you’re reading this), the deal is as follows. Insurance companies love saving money, so their CEOs cling to any excuse to deny their clients the coverage for which they pay. Recently, they have decided that they no longer wish to cover the cost of birth control. Their excuse: paying for it would upset their (convenient) religious beliefs.

These same people claimed that paying for abortions upset their religious beliefs. They’re against aborting unwanted pregnancies. They’re against preventing unwanted pregnancies. They’re not leaving women with many options for acting responsibly or taking control of their own bodies.

Presidential hopeful, Rick Santorum stated that insurance companies shouldn’t have to pay for the examinations of unborn children because their mothers might learn something that may encourage them to have an abortion. Santorum has proven a loud advocate for the Prolife Movement. When asked if exceptions should exist for women who have become pregnant through rape, Santorum said that all pregnancies, regardless of how they occurred, were miracle performed by God. Nice.

Saying that you don’t want to pay for an employee’s health insurance because she might use it for an abortion is a lot like a Hindu refusing to pay taxes because some of that money will go to food stamps, and some of those food stamps will pay for the eating of beef.

You could drive this sort of logic to an even greater extreme. Let’s say that your employer is a Christian Scientist. As such, he or she would have a religious opposition to all medical procedures. I suppose such an employer would have an excuse not to provide his or her employees with any insurance. What would happen if your employer is a Muslim or an orthodox Jew? Could such an employer deny his or her employee’s request to receive a lifesaving transplant of a heart valve from a pig? Such a transplant would surely offend their religious beliefs.

Nobody is forcing anyone to get an abortion, eat pork, or wait until she’s married to have sex. That’s called religious freedom, and it’s guaranteed by our country’s Constitution. But many people mistake religious freedom for religious oppression. Such people, when they see their ability to cram their religious beliefs down other peoples’ throats, feel that this means that the government has trampled upon their own religious freedoms.

If the Republicans have their way, women will lose the ability to purchase birth control, the ability to monitor the development of the fetuses inside their bodies, and the ability to abort unwanted pregnancies.

I can already hear a lot of you shouting, “But why should I have to pay for someone else’s birth control?” Because it’ll save future taxpayer dollars. Because it allows women to follow a calling higher than that of a baby-making machine. Because if you don’t defend their rights, why should they defend yours? Because we don’t need to fill our country with poor, unwanted children.

Much of our taxes go to waste, but birth control is not such a waste. Neither is standing up for a woman’s right to control her body.