A Facepalm Moment
Yesterday, IWF’s Anna Rittgers explained how the Left is conflating “birth control paid for by somebody else” with “access to birth control.” While I think the actual feminist organizations involved (NARAL and others) are legitimately concerned with women’s reproductive rights, I agree with Anna and Lee Doren that this is an issue about insurance claims, wealth transfers, and whether the government can compel private companies to sell certain products, not reproductive rights.*
Of course, leave it to the internet to ruin my mood. A facebook user left this comment on the story:
You don’t need “birth control” if you don’t have sex with everyone you go out on a date, then move in together and pretend to be married without real commitment.
Fun Fact: The staggering amount of woman-disparaging, sexist tripe frequently espoused by folks on the Right is another reason why this fight over insurance premiums and birth control is seen as a women’s rights issue. Another thing the birth control fight isn’t, is an appropriate place to vent your uninformed reckons about how the way women dress or date results in more unwanted pregnancies. I mean, for f**k’s sake.
See, this is why I don’t vote (or more accurately, why I can’t be bothered to vote for either of the two duopolist political parties). Romanticize democracy and the duty to vote all you want, I see the act as a symbolic endorsement of the 2-party – or really, 1-party – status quo. Just because there are two options shoved in front of your face doesn’t automatically mean that one is right and the other is wrong. Hell, it doesn’t even mean that one is less wrong than the other.
Screw it. Where’s my lifejacket? I’m starting my own seastead.
*of course, the never-ending political battle over whether or not abortions should be illegal, birth control should be provided by the state, etc. makes it difficult to frame this issue in any other way. Of COURSE progressive feminists are going to see this as an encroachment into the fight for reproductive rights, while social conservatives see it as a step toward state-sanctioned and state-financed abortions. I really try to embrace the idea that people can be surprisingly smart when you give them a chance; politics and the media slap this hope down every freaking day.
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I’m looking forward to his shaming my husband for getting a vasectomy that was paid for by our health insurance (after we had a 3rd kid due to pill issues). Also looking forward to see how many marriages fail when no one can have sex unless they don’t mind a shitload of babies.
I’ve actually said to multiple people – this is one issue where I hope the side I think is right (the GOP) loses because they are such smug assholes. I’d totally be willing to see society take another baby step away from libertarianism if it meant they’d lose. (I’d prefer if that baby step came with, say, a big ol’ anti-war step, but as it is I’ll just settle for seeing the smugness lose)
I hear you loud and clear!
I predict that libertarianism will never become a mainstream political movement, but might* be useful a sort of ‘backlash’ movement. “You screw us over and we’re going to Nader your ass out of office!”
*this assumes that you could actually coordinate libertarians and motivate them to vote in the first place.