Back to Real Threats to Individual Choice

This incubator is overused because you`ve kept it filled
The feeling good comes easy now since I`ve got the pill
It`s getting dark it`s roosting time tonight`s too good to be real
Aw but Daddy don`t you worry none `cause Mama`s got the pill
Oh Daddy don`t you worry none `cause Mama`s got the pill

-- Loretta Lynn

This was controversial thirty years ago, but seems like it still is, huh? In The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power: the Future of the World, Michelle Goldberg explains the history of federal funded women health efforts here and abroad. This included birth control and reproductive health in general, the bipartisan nature of the affair shown by the efforts of the Ford Foundation and support of Rep. George Bush (B41) to overturn the 19th Century federal law against birth control.  At least back then, during the Nixon years, he was for an individual woman's right to choose whether or not to have a child. 

The basic idea is rejected by many people. As a whole, the nation accepts the basic idea that a woman has the right to choose in some sense. Many are not comfortable with the idea, particularly when it is done "wrong," but only a few wish to take the power away ala Rick Santorum. A large segment still is uncomfortable with the idea all the same, or the whole Sandra Fluke as slut idea (kidding on the square) would have been so ludicrous that it wouldn't have been raised. This segment helps to vote for legislators to in effect establish as the official understanding that an individual's right to choose is not really their own. And, to some extent, the Supreme Court has allowed this, even when it de facto seriously burdens women's health.

The federal government has refused to continue the funding because Medicaid clients have, under federal law, the legal right to seek care wherever they choose

Texas wants in effect to establish certain religious beliefs and hurt women in the process; again individual moral choice is NOT the point.  This is what "conservative" means these days and one of the biggest spin jobs is when those who promote these policies pretend to be libertarians concerned about the government on your backs.  Their success, like with the use of "Obamacare," is shown by the very need to waste time and effort to refute them.  The success is shown by acceptance, as realistically the best we can do, the denial of health care when "abortion" is involved.  The line drawn in the sand by the federal government on contraceptives and other health funding, however, provides some good news. 

These types of efforts are the other side of the coin. As shockingly a majority of the states go out there in some form (a few with Democratic attorney generals went around them, the governors acting on their own) to argue against that big threat to liberty, the PPACA, remember several of them support diminishing personal choice locally.  Legislation that uses free market principles to help more people have a real individual shot at health care should -- like Ford and Bush in the days of yore -- be something with bipartisan support.  This is why the right of privacy and personal liberty obtained support from REPUBLICAN appointees.

When those using the pill are "sluts" and jokes are made about putting aspirin between your legs and all, apparently we have a long way to go. Until otherwise shown, only one party, at least nationally, is seriously credible on this issue.  Push them as much as you want, but for those who go the "two peas in a pod" route, what is wrong with you?