Barack Obama is asking women what it would mean to them if they didn’t have to cover the basic health care of birth control. Here was my answer:
This policy will impact my life because I’ll know that every month, I’ll be able to be safe.
I’ll be able to control my painful cramps enough to go to my job every day.
I’ll be able to know that if I choose to be intimate, I’ll be responsible about it.
I’ll know that every month, I’ll have that extra $50 to spend on food, necessities, and my asthma medication.
I’ll be able to know that even if I have to take a lower paying job some day, I won’t have to choose between birth control and dinner.
I’ll be able to control when or if I have children, and how many.
I’ll be able to work in a career and know there’s minimal chance of me getting pregnant and having to cost the company money with maternity leave.
These benefits are numerous and I know I am not alone in them.
This benefits everyone – women, men, children, companies, families. Everyone is effected by birth control access in some way – being able to control not only your own health, but your own family planning is what allows 50% of the population to move forward and, in that, progress America.
To put yet another hurdle to birth control in the way of women is to say, “I do not want America to move forward. I do not want our workforce strong, our population under control, or our people happy.”
20-something sex, feminism, and adventure blogger living in Arizona. Puppy enthusiast. Corporate worker. Crafty little she-devil. 
I’m sorry, but this is a problem that needs to be solved with more freedom, not less. I am against government intervention on issues like this. Companies have a right to provide their products and services as they see fit. Just like you have a right to choose what to do with your body, and with which company or organization to acquire those services and products from. This needs to be about personal responsibility, not force.
I am for government mandated health care because clearly the past 20 years of letting the companies decide for themselves hasn’t worked out. My BC is $50 which is fucking ridiculous, and I’m privileged enough to be able to afford it. No one should have to sacrifice their body, comfort, and freedom because someone is boo-hooing over birth control. The company doesn’t want to cover it? Fine, but the insurer better cover it then. It’s a very basic medicine that millions of women use every day for so many reasons other than family planning.
Let’s not pretend this is about “company freedom”. This was never an issue with viagra, or with vasectomies, or with any other sex care. It’s about women’s birth control. It’s about people being morally against it so they think they can impose their morals on every one else. The Catholic institutions didn’t want to cover it – fine, a compromise was made to have insurers cover it. They still don’t like it. They won’t be satisfied until women cannot get birth control.
I agree, but you are just trading one moral imposition for another. Just because you have the moral high-ground, doesn’t give you any more right to force it than they do.
I just want for the consideration to be made, that we need to look at where else government is involved in the health industry, and see how we can solve this problem by getting them less involved, not more. When you free the market from government interventionalism, you allow public demand will move the market; public demand creates the imposition, not policy. When people with the wish to use moral impositions on companies, are only be able to use their purchasing power of those products to drive the market, they will be a lot more impotent*.
I believe that you will benefit, because I doubt that you are in the minority when it comes to women’s views on birth control. When a small group of people choose to use politics to control a larger group, you see emergent behavior just like this one.
Imagine that we were talking about cell phones, why is it that cell phones are reasonably accessible to lower-income bracket individuals? I assert it is because the industry isn’t managed by political pull. Cell phone companies are free to provide different products at different costs that fulfill the same fundamental service for every person out there. The public’s ability to purchase how they wish, drives the market availability.
That all goes out the window when insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies are invited into political bedrooms. Free-market economics has a proven track record of solving problems like this. And government intervention has a proven track record of ruining everything it tries to fix.
*pun intended.
You think this issue is about morals? Because I disagree. Yes – on the religious side it is – but basic medical health care that millions of women need (not just want) is not about morals, it’s about health.
I would love for the government to be involved less, but clearly that hasn’t been working. Costs of BC are ridiculously high and the women who need them the most – those who know they can support a child – are the ones being hurt by it. I see no reason why the morals of the Catholic institutions can’t be both respected and these women taken care of via insurance companies providing the BC. Yes with this compromise they are still not happy which just shows me they won’t be satisfied until no one can have BC.
BC and Cell phones aren’t comparable. Not having a cell phone doesn’t mean you’ll have a higher chance of ovarian cysts. Not having a cell phone doesn’t mean you can’t regulate your cramps. People buy cell phones because it improves their quality of life – not because they’ll have a baby if they don’t.
Oh c’mon Tegan, the cell phone point was a market analogy. Not a comparison of their benefits to humanity. You know that. Weak. And to further the statement, the idea that birth control is a more important advancement than the cell pone, only emphasizes my point.
And I’m sorry, but when you make a claim about what should happen, or how something should be. You are in fact making a moral or ethical claim. A claim about health would be just stating the fact that ‘birth control prevents pregnancy.’
I don’t mean to marginalize what you are advocating, because I do think you deserve what you want out of this. We aren’t arguing the goal, but I don’t believe your path to getting there will work out in the way you hope that it will. And you may think, why should he even care, he doesn’t have a dog in this race. And the truth is, I’ll apply this same reasoning to any market; from agriculture, to healthcare, to the internet and the oil industry.
Not weak. I see birth control as a huge advancement much bigger than the cell phone. Allowing 50% of humanity to be able to control their child bearing? Do you not see what that did for the world? It’s a weak analogy because even from a marketing standpoint, one is a necessity and one is a luxury. These are things that are to be handled differently no matter the industry.
I’ll give in to that believing that necessary health care being accessible and affordable is a moral standing – but if we’re doing that then really, what isn’t a moral standing?
I do think we have the same end goal – but I haven’t seen your alternative presented. Letting the market govern itself on this clearly has not been successful.
Exactly, but if the healthcare industry was run in the same way that the cell phone industry is, then more people would actually have access to that all important medicine. See?! By saying that medicine is too important to be left in the hands of the free market, we have actually done worse at fulfilling that need.
“Letting the market govern itself on this clearly has not been successful.” That’s because it has not been allowed to govern itself within the free market. Not since the American Medical Association began attempting to increase physicians’ wages and fees by influencing licencing and limitations on the supply of physicians and non-physician competition. And driving up costs across the whole industry.
This started as a policy problem a long time ago.
I don’t have an alternative to present, That’s the trap of a central planner. And anyone that thinks they can solve these huge social issues with a one-size-fits-all policy, and campaigns on that idea, is either a megalomaniac OR a liar OR simply mislead.
More freedom, not less.
And so, it’s naturally progressing that I am going to kind of hijack the thread from here on out. I apologize in advance for that, and my inevitable long windedness.
There are a lot of moral points to be made, there’s no avoiding that. But where people go wrong is they start with a consequentialist strategy for solving problems. Where the end justifies the means. What you need to do is clearly define your first principles the basic moral ideas that everything can be extrapolated from and work up. If you run into something you don’t like after following those principles, you need to adjust your principles and try again.
Here’s my basic principle. And it works well for this kind of stuff. I will only support the using aggressive force to stop things that I personally would be willing to use force to stop; assault, murder, rape, coercion. Things like that.
I am not willing to support the use of force to provide healthcare, to provide education, firetrucks, roads, or any of the other million things people seem to think government is the only way to providing them.
I don’t think anyone has the right to tell other people how to live their lives or operate their business, where they can live, or take away their property, or results of their labor. UNLESS of course any of those also happen to require the initiation of force, or coercive force.
I also think that all interactions between peaceful people should be completely voluntary.
Now maybe your question here would be “Where is the force?” Just because you don’t see a gun, doesn’t mean there isn’t the implication that someone with a gun will show up and force you to cooperate. If there is legislation telling you how to run your business, or that says you need to pay a property tax to go towards a service. Sure they will be patient with you for a little while, fine you, and send letters asking you to comply, but on a long enough timeline, eventually, men with guns will show up, and forcibly remove you from your home or business. Sell your home or business, and lock you into another building where guards will be unable to protect you from assault or rape. And if you resist being removed and locked away. They are completely authorized to just shoot you. That is where the force is. And I don’t think that is acceptable behavior in the name of ANY common good.
How do you get from here to there? how do you get cheaper birth control? That is something that an entrepreneur is able to accomplish with a market uncorrupted by government policy. That means that even you, Tegan, could start a company to provide the service or product that you wish the world had, and if there is a market for that service, if you think that millions of women across the world would benefit and choose to use your product, you will be successful. That is how you solve these problems. And no one could stop you.
So according to you, if healthcare was run like a cell phone business, poor people could opt for sub par treatment and preventative care because it would be more affordable. They’d get the Cricket pre-paid plan while those who can afford get the Verizon 4G LTE plan with unlimited data? WELL HOT DAMN. PROBLEM SOLVED.
I sure hope the witch doctor can cure my cancer, since I’m too poor for chemo.
You cannot compare basic human rights and health to market trends unless you’re world view has been completely corrupted by white, male privilege. Congrats, another male who doesn’t understand the female experience telling us that our arguments are wrong. You are so progressive.
Plus, the argument that business needs to be free to operate is flawed. True laissez-faire market practices are impossible in a complicated, intersectional society where virtually no part can function without the other. Look what happens when business get to make up the rules: corporations are somehow granted the rights of individuals and we’re robo-signed into a recession. Clearly that has worked out really well. Until ethics overcome greed and the bottom line, regulation needs to be in place.
When it comes to rights you need to be able to apply them consistently.
You also do not have a right to force other people’s behavior in the same way you don’t want to be forced. This issue needs to be solved with more freedom, not less. What you are advocating is unequal rights, you are saying you have more of a right to self-ownership than someone else does. It has nothing to do with men not understanding the whole of female experience. It is simply an extrapolation of self-ownership and property rights. If you are willing to use the state monopoly on force to solve your problems, you have no recourse to complain when someone else is trying to do the same thing to you.
A person is free to choose sub-par medical treatment, that is a totally voluntary decision and I’m not going to use violence to stop them. What is going to happen if you legislate it, is that people will actually be FORCED into sub par medical treatment. That’s what happens when you get government involved in these things. Do you actually believe that if companies are forced to provide a certain service, that they will not lobby to provide you the lowest form of that service? Give the choice of both peoples lives, and business decisions back to themselves, and keep the state as far separated from both. You remove force from the equation and everyone wins.
President Obama’s request is well answered in this post. Birth control isn’t about having sex without consequence… It’s about being responsible for one’s own body and within a committed relationship, responsibility for family planning. And yes, birth control is also a medication, one that treats severe menstrual cramping and regulates cycles. That any executive in a company could believe he or she has the right to control an employee’s medical treatment is inexcusable. Birth control, like any other medical treatment or prescription, is a private matter between patient and physician. If that employee pays his or her health insurance premiums, the health insurance company is obligated to cover the cost.
Right? Isn’t it such a weird concept that we are expected to pay $100+ a month to our health insurance every month, but it is perfectly fine and normal for them to be selective about what they cover? “Here is some money.” “Okay thanks.” “will you use that money to cover my medicine costs?” “Nope!”
In the same way that an individual has the right to choose what they want to purchase. A company should be free to choose what they want to sell.
Yes you have a higher right than anyone else to your own body or your property.
But under that right, you do not have the right to obligate anyone else to do anything.
Equality is applying rights and principles consistently.
You have no more of a right to obligate a company to provide a product or service, than anyone else has to deny you access or control over your own body.
In the same way that an individual has the right to choose what they want to purchase. A company should be free to choose what they want to sell. Insurance benefits is a product that companies offer their own employees. The insurance company is essentially the manufacturer of that coverage. They are free to create a benefit package that does not include contraception, and offer it to employees. And just so, they have no right to lobby the state to prevent other companies from building a package that does include contraception.
Yes you have a higher right than anyone else to your own body or your property.
But under that right, you do not have the right to obligate anyone else to do anything.
Equality is applying rights and principles consistently.
You have no more of a right to obligate a company to provide a product or service, than anyone else has to deny you access or control over your own body.