The manipulative strategies used in the contraception war are the same ones that are trying to divide all people in society.
This article originally appeared at “Promiscuity Keepers“.
Today, I want to talk about the war that’s being waged in some parts of US society against contraception, sexual determinism, and women’s agency.
Before I get started, though, let me say this: I am a white, cisgendered heterosexual man. That puts me in a uniquely privileged position; since I will never be pregnant, the assault on women’s right to choose doesn’t affect me directly. Since I am straight, the assault on the rights of gays and lesbians doesn’t affect me directly. Since I am a man, I am almost never the target of slut-shaming. I am, in other words, not the target of the campaign against women and gays that’s playing out on the airwaves and in the ballot boxes all over the United States right now.
But in a way, that’s kind of the point, because even though I am not the target of the attacks on women and gays, they still very much affect me. The thing is, these are not assaults on women’s rights or gay and lesbian rights; they are assaults on human rights. I am not gay and I am not a woman, but I am a human being. It would be a mistake for me to think that these things don’t affect me directly.
Let’s look at contraception. The debate over whether or not women should have easy access to contraception has turned into one of the defining issues in the current political discussion. Last October, presidential candidate Rick Santorum said “One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country. Many of the Christian faith have said, well, that’s OK; contraception is OK. It’s not OK. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.” More recently, radio commentator Rush Limbaugh referred to Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke as a “slut” and a “whore” and said that she should be made to post sex tapes of herself online for his viewing pleasure when she said that the insurance policy covering fellow students were wrong to deny coverage for drugs to treat ovarian cysts on the grounds that they could also be used for contraception.
Now, a lot of folks are rightly horrified that a presidential candidate who supposedly favors “small government” would advocate government control over contraception in order to make sure that citizens only do what he thinks they should do in the bedroom, and were rightly appalled at Limbaugh’s slut-shaming tirade against Ms. Fluke. But a lot of folks have cast these as being women’s issues, and described them as attacks on women’s rights, and I think that misses the point.
If a woman wants access to contraception as contraception, presumably it’s because somewhere along the line there’s a man involved. Parthenogenesis is rare in the extreme in human beings. When a woman chooses to use contraception, she’s not the only one affected; her partner is affected too. Restricting access to contraception is not a woman’s issue; it’s a human issue. It affects all of us.
I was married for eighteen years. For twelve of them, my wife used hormonal birth control. This wasn’t just about her; it was about both of us. Neither of us wanted children. Had Santorum been in the White House, and had he been successful in his crusade to prevent her from obtaining birth control because he wanted the government to have the final say in how our lives were “supposed to be,” it would not have affected her; it would have affected both of us. Attacks on contraception are not attacks on women, they are attacks on people.
The issue of gay rights is similar. The language being used today against gay marriage—that it violates the “sanctity” of marriage, that it goes against the “natural order”—are the same arguments, almost word for word, that were used against interracial marriage in the 60s. Many of the opponents of gay marriage, like the National Organization for Marriage, actively seek to use racial division to achieve their goals. Other opponents of equal rights for the LGBT community also oppose divorce even in cases of abuse; Republican state legislator Don Pridemore told a news station that abused women should not get a divorce, but should “get back to why they got married in the first place.”
Again, these are not LGBT issues or women’s issues, but human issues. The moment a person says that it’s acceptable to use manipulative, divisive strategies to achieve a political end, or that victims should not be permitted to leave abusive situations in order to satisfy some kind of abstract idea about the way people “should” be, that affects all of us. Domestic violence doesn’t just affect women; it affects everyone.
Even if these things did only affect women or gays and lesbians, I would still support them against the systematic attacks of the political right, because it’s simply the right thing to do. But by casting these things as women’s issues” or “gay and lesbian issues,” those who seek to control our sexual choices hope to divide us. This strategy only works until we see past the artificial divisions and realize that an attack on women or on gays and lesbians is an attack on all of us.
Photo credit: Flickr / Sreejith K
Asking women to pay for their BC option is not the same thing as waging a war against BC.
Why not talk about the war on men instead?
Obamacare pays for female birth control, but not for mail birth control.
Obamacare pays for female tubal ligation, but not for male vasectomy.
Obamacare pays for female smoking cessation, but not for male smoking cessation.
Obamacare pays for cancer prevention for girls, but not for cancer prevention for boys.
Obamacare pays for breast health, but not for prostate health.
The list goes on and on and on. And on. And on and on.
There are 134 occurences of the word “women” in Obamcare.
There are 2 occurences of the word “men” in Obamacare.
Decide for yourselves who is facing health care discrimination.
“Obamacare pays for female birth control, but not for mail birth control.”
Part of the whole point is that there is no such thing as “female birth control” or “male birth control” There is birth control. If someone is using it, it’s because there’s both a man and a woman involved in having sex, and neither one of them wants to have a child. It’s not “his” or “hers” birth control, it’s their birth control. Traditionally, birth control benefits both men AND women, but women are expected to pay the bulk of the cost for it.
Since it benefits men too, I see nothing wrong with expecting men to help shoulder the cost.
It’s not surprising to me that a health care reform act would mention women more often than it mentions men, since women generally face much higher health insurance costs than men, receive discrimination in medical coverage and health insurance availability, and bear the burden of more out-of-pocket expenses than men do. It’s interesting, but I suppose not surprising, that men want women to be responsible for birth control and feel entitled to benefit from it without paying for it.
Your other claims are common among right-wing blogs, but I can’t find substantive support for them. I’ve found reports that the FDA is changing its recommendations for mammograms and PSA tests as part of routine screening, which is getting hyped up into “Obama wants you to die of prostate cancer and breast cancer!” in the blogosphere, but that’s not quite the same thing.
Per bc, yes in my opinion bc should. E shared etween the couple, and be layered (barrier methods and hormonal) ESP in the case of new partners. Some people can’t take hormonal pills and some people react to latex. More options are needed, like risug bc for men, and condoms are increasingly sensitive. It takes two to tango, no bc is perfect, and if we are being responsible ethical part era we’d share the cost risk and conversation.
I don’t have a problem with men being expected to help their partners pay for birth control. But since I don’t have a girlfriend atm, and am not currently sexually active, why should I be expected to help pay for everybody else’s birth control?
Also: “since women generally face much higher health insurance costs than men, receive discrimination in medical coverage and health insurance availability, and bear the burden of more out-of-pocket expenses than men do.”
Since women use the healthcare system more, I don’t see why the fact that their healthcare costs more should be all that surprising. You use a service more, you will end up paying more. Seems fairly simple. One does wonder why men pay more for car insurance though.
Why should you be expected to pay for everyone else’s birth control? Well, why should everyone else be expected to pay for your glasses, or your high blood pressure medication, or your pancreatic cancer?
That’s what insurance is. It’s a system whereby people pay into a common pot that is used to cover expenses of the folks who pay in. Some folks will face large expenses, some folks won’t; the purpose of the system is that we can’t necessarily anticipate when we might be faced with a crippling medical bill, so we all pay into the pot against the possibilirty that the next person who’s faced with one of those expenses might be one of us.
Now, insurance also pays for ongoing expenses that nearly all of us will have to face at some point or another–for things like glasses or routine annula checkups or Viagra or blood pressure pills.
If you don’t like the system of insurance, that’s fine. But if you do, as soon as you start complaining about other folks’ expenses (“why should I have to pay for his lung cancer? He’s the one who decided to smoke! Why should I have to pay for her surgery? She’s the one who drove her car without wearing her seatbelt!”) you miss the whole point of insurance, and you start sounding like what you’re saying is “I want other people to pay for the things I may need, but I sure don’t want to pay for the things other people may need.”
And, of course, birth control is a whole lot less expensive than the alternative. Form a strictly pragmatic point of view, you end up with a lot more money in your pocket if your insurance premiums pay for other people’s birth control than if your insurance premiums pay for other people’s childbirth. Or are you suggesting that that shouldn’t be covered either?
To answer your question, though: If you disregard what Rush Limbaugh said and you actually do some fact-checking yourself by reading or watching Ms. Fluke’s testimony, you’ll see that she makes no mention of having you or the taxpayers or insurance or anyone else pay for birth control. What she actually talks about is something else–people being denied medical treatment for serious medical conditions, on the grounds that the treatments can *also* be used for birth control.
Which is a very different matter altogether.
Amen, Mr. Veaux.
Yeah…the difference betwen my glasses (which i paid for fully, btw) and everything else is that they, for the most part, requir a co pay. meaning that I have to payat least a portion of them.
Obamacare will make it so that women will enjoy all the reproductive (and sometimes not-reproductive) healthcare sans any kind of copay whatsoever. This is, as others have pointed out on various articles, empatically not true for men.
Nice try at distraction though.
Oh and btw- you never answered why women shouldn’t pay more for a healthcare system that they use more.
“Obamacare will make it so that women will enjoy all the reproductive (and sometimes not-reproductive) healthcare sans any kind of copay whatsoever. This is, as others have pointed out on various articles, empatically not true for men.”
Do you have a citation for that? Preferably one that isn’t a Rush Limbaugh broadcast.
“Oh and btw- you never answered why women shouldn’t pay more for a healthcare system that they use more.”
If you get pancreatic cancer and I don’t, your premiums might raise after the fact, but why should I pay the same amount that you used to be paying since you’re unquestionably using a lot more health-care services than I am? If you have a genetic condition that increases your likelihood of heart attack, why should you get your health insurance for the same amount that I do, since you’ll probably use more services?
Again, you’re missing the point of what health insurance is *for*.
You’re completely missing MY point: Women AS A GROUP use more healthcare then men do. Why shouldn’t they pay more? Because they’re women?
And i don’t think YOU understand what health insurance is for. you pay health insurance against the need for it, that’s why most insurance companies won’t let you get insurance after you’ve already become sick. Do you think insurance companies just go around paying people’s expenses because they’re just swell people?
So yes, if I developed pancreatic cancer I would expect my premiums to rise because I am now costing the company more money. I would expect them to still cover a good portion of my expenses because that’s what I’ve been paying for all these years that I’ve been healthy.
and Good lord! Will you get over Rush Limbaugh already? I’ve never even listened to one of his broadcasts. If you can’t refute my points without these snide asides, then please by all means dont bother.
I could cite a source, but since you’re acting like an ass I don’t think I’ll bother. why don’t you actually go read the bill you’re advocating for? Here’s a tip: ctrl+f “male” and “men”
I love how “like the right wing” has become the new “remeniscent of the nazis.” Godwin’s law needs an update.
But to address your assumption: no, women having access to BC is not the same as men having access to BC. While BC is a joint responsibility it is also important for individuals to have control over their own reproduction, rather than trusting someone else not to make a selfish decision.
But even by this argument risug should be a prime target for medical research, not a sidelined “blue skies” project.