Archive for the ‘Birth control’ tag
The battle over birth control liberties
Photo credit: t-star
I have a confession: I am one of the 95 percent of Americans who has had pre-marital sex. And, like any responsible sexually active person, I use contraception.
Pregnancy is not an option for me, so I take steps to prevent it. Access to birth control determines the course of my life, my career and my future - as it does for all sexually active people, which is most of us.
It’s disturbing to discover that President George W. Bush’s latest appointment as chief of family planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services, Susan Orr, has gone on record at the Washington Post as anti-contraception - and she’s in charge of dictating the terms of $283 million in annual family planning grants. Contraception costs are going up on college campuses, because of Bush’s Deficit Reduction Act, which discourages drug companies from offering birth control at a discount to university students’ health services departments, as they have in the past. Such strange moves for someone so committed to decreasing the number of abortions, as contraception prevents unintended pregnancies and thus reduces the need for abortion.
It would make sense as a political move if the act resulted from public opinion polls, except that eight out of 10 self-identified “pro-lifers” say women should have access to contraception and a significant majority support Title X, which funds contraceptive programs. Public funding for contraception makes sense, and it’s what people - even pro-life Republicans - want.
So why isn’t President Bush listening?
