My friend K over at The Gracious Gaze is newly obsessed with this woman's blog about having a zero waste home. And now so am I!
Better Homes and Bloggers
Hysterical tumblr (and a lighthearted critique of style blogs, perhaps?). Courtesy of A Cup of Jo.
This new pro-Santorum song is both amusing and incredibly educational. Did you know God gave us the bill of rights?!
Rush Limbaugh is a misogynistic pig who calls women who use birth control "sluts." The good news is that eight companies, including AOL, have now pulled their advertising from his show. Here's to hoping he gets canceled!
In fairness, I think Rush's comment was crass and uncivil.
ReplyDeleteHowever, in the context of his rant, his rationale was that Sandra Fluke wants other people to pay for her birth control. Deductively, she wants other people to pay for her to have sex. Women who are paid to have sex are prostitutes.
Can you comment on whether you agree with that reasoning? I think we both agree that the name-calling was uncalled for, but I'm curious to your interpretation of that line of thought.
Also, the irony of the e-card is pretty striking. A woman who wants/needs the rest of society to pay for her birth control is the opposite of "independent."
ReplyDeletePatriarchy bad, paternalistic government good.
Anonymous: Congratulations! You have just officially declared that millions of your fellow American women are prostitutes. How does it feel? Maybe you should share this sentiment with them to their faces when you meet them on the street or in a restaurant, rather than publishing anonymously on some blog.
ReplyDeleteBirth control is a basic medical requirement that improves the health of millions of women. (Unlike Viagra, which our tax dollars also fund as part of health coverage, and which nobody seems to mention in this discussion. Can conservatives at least show some consistency?). And besides, as part of being members of this society, we all inevitably have to watch some amount of our tax dollars go toward causes we don't agree with, such as military spending on the Iraq war.
From an ethical perspective, making birth control affordable and accessible for women is a no-brainer for anyone who honestly cares about human well-being. If you don't see the difference between providing women with birth control and prostitution, then you're moral judgment has been seriously clouded by illogical reasoning and religious nonsense.
@ Brett Maiden - The first part of your comment might just be the best comment in the history of commenting.
ReplyDelete@ Anonymous: I think your deductive reasoning skills need some work.
ReplyDeleteSandra Fluke does not want other people to pay for her birth control. She wants her insurance to cover contraception. She attends Georgetown Law School and even though she pays for insurance coverage there, they refuse to cover it based on religious reasons. She is arguing for the right to have her insurance cover contraception the same way it covers a plethora of other drugs. This has nothing to do with other people paying for her birth control. This has to do with an insurance policy provided by a private employer and financed by students, employees, and their families. As Sandra Fluke herself stated in a recent op-ed, "I am talking about women who, despite paying their own premiums, cannot obtain coverage of contraception on their private insurance, even when their employer or university contributes nothing to that insurance."
By providing access to contraception for Sandra, and for millions of other women, we are not "paying for them to have sex." We are providing them with access to health care and preventative medicine, a form of contraception that the United Nations and many other countries consider a fundamental and basic right. By providing access to contraception, we give women of all income levels control over their fertility and the ability to avoid unintended pregnancies and plan for their families. We give them treatment for a wide-range of medical conditions. We give sexual assault survivors the option to not have a child conceived through rape. Why do you think these things are less important than insurance coverage of antibiotics?
As to what you call the "irony" of the e-card, I've already addressed your false assumption that Sandra Fluke wants other people to pay for her birth control. She wants her insurance, which she pays for, to include contraception despite the school's misogynistic and harmful religious ideology.
Also, according to your deductive reasoning, any woman whose partner shares the cost of birth control with them or any woman who is, for example, a stay-at-home mom and thus needs her husband to cover the cost of her birth control, is a prostitute! So too is anyone whose parents pay for their insurance or their birth control. Or any man who picked up a free condom from sex-ed class and then used it. I'd love to know if that means your mother, your significant other, your sister, or your friends are prostitutes. As Brett Maiden said, you should probably let them know that you think they're prostitutes!
To Brett,
ReplyDeleteOf course not all women are prostitutes. Rush's analogy is just a crass form of reductio ad absurdum.
I oppose the government paying for Viagra and the wars in the Middle East as well. It is indeed inevitable that some of my tax dollars go towards programs I oppose (the Wall Street bailouts come to mind - UGH!), but that doesn't mean I shouldn't be vocal in my opposition.
Shannon,
You say Sandra Fluke wants her insurance provider to cover contraception, and not "other people." But an insurance company doesn't have its own money - it collects premiums from its customers and uses that money to purchase care. If a law mandates that care has to be expanded to include contraception, that adds to total expenses. To cover that extra expense, the insurance company has to raise the premiums it charges its customers. Those customers are the "other people" who bear the actual cost; the insurance company is just the channel through which their money travels.
Nothing is free. It's naive to think otherwise.
@ Anonymous - If the insurance company had to raise its premiums to cover the cost of contraception, Sandra Fluke would be paying the higher premium. So she is also bearing the actual cost of her contraception coverage, and the coverage of other women at Georgetown. Thus, she isn't simply asking for other people to pay for her birth control, but the right to buy an insurance plan with a slightly higher premium that would cover her contraception and the contraception of other women at Georgetown.
ReplyDeleteSince most women use birth control, contraception coverage - even if it means slightly higher premiums - save the vast majority of women and households money. It also saves the insurance companies money in the long run, since pregnancies result in substantial excess medical claims costs and health complications that could arise from a lack of access to contraception also result in excess medical claims costs. It also saves employers money because pregnancies and/or health issues that arise when women don't have access to contraception result in employee replacement costs and lost productivity.
In a recent Slate Moneybox article titled the Economics of Birth Control Subsidies, the author puts it quite clearly:
"The point here is simple. While birth control costs more than nothing, it costs less than an abortion and much less than having a baby. From a social point of view, unless we're not going to subsidize consumption of health care services at all (which would be a really drastic change from the status quo) then it makes a ton of sense to heavily subsidize contraceptives."
Even if birth control results in a higher premium and isn't, as you say, free, it will in effect save not only the majority of women and households money, but also save insurance companies and employers money.