Kenton’s Corner: Protect Birth Control

Kenton Gibbs | Staff Writer

Oh look, President Trump is at it again. I know I said I’d leave it alone, but for Christ’s sake it’s really getting out of hand. His latest repeal is to allow companies to not provide free birth control if it disagrees with their religious beliefs. It’s more than likely that a few companies who are more secular than a brothel will use this to their benefit so they can shave some money off of their costs. Although there’s plenty of vitriol to go around, I just want to know why people think it’s okay to do this.

From the top down, moments like this serve as a reminder that people can, in fact, be thoughtless in their decisions and wording. For example, the people defending the new act say things like, “There’s generic birth control at Walmart for about $9,” which has been a phrase used by many from Nationalist Review contributor James Allsup to random people on the internet.

There’s a few problems with this, the main one being people who say this are demanding that people take a certain type of birth control, in spite of what works for their bodies. Some forms of birth control carry extremely heavy side effects for women. Not to mention, it has been noted by multiple sources that increasing spending to prevent unwanted pregnancies more than pays for itself. The most recent study from the nonprofit Child Trends, shows that such spending would save an estimated $12 billion in total health care costs. But like in many other circumstances, actual costs don’t compare to religious morals in the minds of many.

We have never had anything close to absolute separation of church and state, but we were moving there. The United States started to do things in the name of logic instead of rules and regulations based on religion. These rules are being used to control women’s bodies and it’s truly sad. Men are not faced with the burden of creating another body inside ourselves, and legislation like this makes it clear.

The other phrases that I hear often ring of the same dog-whistle politics that most political rhetoric comes with. The personal responsibility theme is strong with this one. Some say, “I shouldn’t be responsible for paying for your sex life,” and others use, “If you can’t afford condoms, you shouldn’t be having sex,” as their battle cry.

My rebuttal to this gang is short and sweet: So only people with money deserve orgasms now? Imagine being told that not only will you be on the underbelly of capitalism, but you also no longer have the right to orgasm while having sex. Granted, some people can still get full feeling without it, but some people really hate the feeling of condoms. Not to mention if two people have high sex drives, condoms can get expensive quickly. There are a plethora of other applications for birth control as well.

According to the Center for Disease Control’s National Survey for Family Growth, we are at a time where the numbers of unintended pregnancies and abortions were steadily dropping. That trend would not have reversed out of nowhere, so if the current administration really wanted to continue the trend of reducing abortions and single parent homes, why would they make such legislation?