Is sex only for rich people?

[n2doc]

By Catherine Rampell

America has decided: Sex is for rich people. Non-procreative sex in particular.

How else would you explain the trap we’re laying for poor people who deign to get it on?

Our country apparently doesn’t want low-income Americans to have free access to birth control, either by compelling all insurance plans to offer it or by adequately funding public reproductive health programs. In many schools — predominantly located in low-income, high-teen-pregnancy areas — we don’t even teach kids how contraception works. We also don’t want them to have easy access to abortions when they inevitably get pregnant because they’re not using birth control, with states such as Texas and Mississippi trying to shutter their few remaining abortion clinics.

Then we don’t help them very much after they birth those unplanned kids, instead publicly chastising irresponsible single mothers for having babies they can’t afford and offering little assistance in the form of child care, education or cash. Dumping unwanted children onto the child welfare system isn’t exactly celebrated, either.

By process of elimination, the solution for low-income people is to never, ever have sex. So seems the logic behind many of these policies: If only we make it harder for people to have access to family planning services, and financially painful to raise children who predictably result from sex in the absence of those services, people who cannot afford to raise children will choose celibacy.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/catherine-rampell-family-planning-shouldnt-be-limited-to-the-well-to-do/2014/10/16/862f0e0e-5570-11e4-892e-602188e70e9c_story.html

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. If the only kind of sex you can imagine will automatically result

in procreation, you need to widen your horizons

But the reality on the ground is that rich or poor, people DO continue to have sex, and have kids, whether they can afford them or not.

[NightWatcher]

6. I like where your head is at, er I mean, I like what you're thinking

but to be fair, whips, chains, lube, and edible undies can put a dent in your budget too.

[LadyHawkAZ]

2. Large pools of cheap labor require a consistent high birthrate among the

poor and middle classes.

[localroger]

3. Well, my pharmacist just told me that legal prescription viagra is $42 a pill.

So I guess that yes, fun of any kind is reserved for the rich in this country.

[BrotherIvan]

4. And it's a conversation we need to be having re: climate change

Birth control is a great investment for society as a whole. If unplanned pregnancies in the US are 49%, think about how high they are in other countries. We need cheap, safe, pleasant 100% effective birth control NOW.

[liberal_at_heart]

5. It is definitely all about control. Come on. Even Christians slip up and have affairs sometimes.

Are they really having all this marital and extra marital sex without birth control. I kind of doubt it. If they were then there would be more families like the Duggars, not to mention a few love children born of extra marital affairs. You know when you look at all the policies that are coming out that try to intentionally hurt low income people it makes you wonder. Is there a true hatred for low income people? I think there probably is.

[FLPanhandle]

7. unplanned kids are far more expensive than any birth control

However, birth control and abortions should be free for all. It's less expensive than having children that can't be cared for or are unwanted.

[IronLionZion]

8. Wealthy conservatives will still complain that the poor are breeding like rabbits

conservatives are completely detached from the consequences of their policies.

And yes, they do openly state that people should not have sex. Some people like to think they know what's best for other people.

[maced666]

9. In this scenario, 'poor people' come off looking like idiots.

Too poor to afford a condom - that nearly all health clinics will give away for free? Then, once you get it - you don't know how to properly use?

Sad that the poor have to be painted flat stupid to prove a point.