Feminists also fume: No mandated contraception coverage in healthcare bills
Sharon Lerner at Double X wrote:
Abortion, it seems, was lost to political horse-trading. But there are also deeper forces at work....
The best example is birth control, which was also recently thrown under the health-reform train. So far, none of the 3 reform bills has required insurers to cover contraception....
Women's health advocates reported that some Democrats cited a fear of igniting controversy when asked to insert birth control and other preventive services for women into the minimum benefits package. What's the controversy, exactly? It seems birth control has become a suddenly loaded political issue, a toxic sister to abortion, somehow resonant of irresponsible sex and women's bodies....
If you ask a pro-life activist what exactly is objectionable about birth control, you're likely to launch a discussion about when life begins. That's because much of the opposition to contraception that's sprung up over the last decade or so has been hitched to the idea that specific methods are tantamount to abortion. In this mindset, the IUD, oral contraception, and the "morning-after" pill are essentially abortifacients, since they may prevent the implantation of an already-fertilized egg - a life, in their view.
Yet this tight logic hasn't survived the leap from far-right circles to mainstream politics. For one, it leaves open the glaring question of why pro-lifers have little interest in other birth-control methods that can prevent abortions. You'd expect anyone who's truly concerned about protecting life to be interested in supporting at least the forms of birth control that work before an egg is fertilized. Yet you rarely hear pro-lifers promoting condoms or diaphragms, which are among the surest bets in preventing abortions. And, indeed, there was no distinction made among birth control methods in public discussions around health reform....
A few thoughts.
1st, I don't understand why certain pro-lifers battle the idea that hormonal contraception may cause abortions when the other side freely admits it - on package labeling and in discussions, as above.
Actually, I think I do understand. These pro-lifers may be users, or they may attend a church that has no moral problem with hormonal contraception, such as mine. I'm a former user, btw. I realize the implications are enormous.
2nd, Lerner is isn't listening. Even if a certain segment of the pro-life population doesn't want to make an issue of the abortifacient component of hormonal contraception and IUDs, most of us agree pushing contraception is to push illicit sexual behavior.
Which leads to my 3rd thought, that liberal feminists promoting wide availability of contraception, particularly, the Pill, demonstrate the epitome of sexism against women by promoting their exploitation as well as savaging their health.
"Hormonal contraception" is merely code for artificial female sex steroids. Men aren't stupid. Most men would never agree to tamper with their virility and health by ingesting small amounts of male sex steroids daily for decades.
Stupid feminists. Stupid women. One of the 2 primary reasons for the sudden spike in breast cancer over the past few decades is the ingestion of poisonous, carcinogenic estrogen every day via hormonal contraception.
(The other reason being abortion, of course. As if more evidence were needed, read about this recent study in China linking a 17% increased incidence of breast cancer in mothers who have aborted.)
As birth control manufacturers continue to experiment on women, new problems are found, such as in Yaz recently, currently being accused of "fraudulent concealment of safety information" by covering up its potential to cause blood clots, "gallbladder damage, kidney stones, heart attacks, pulmonary embolisms and strokes."
And where are the feminists? Promoting Yaz et al.
Contact: Jill Stanek
Source: jillstanek.com
Publish Date: November 17, 2009
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