Reassessing Sexual Politics

[mwb970]

(by Eleanor Clift, Newsweek web edition, August 17, 2007)

Family planning is an issue Republicans generally like to avoid because it threatens the coalition between economic conservatives and the religious right. Business types tend to be live-and-let-live, while a segment of social conservatives oppose birth control with almost the same fervor they oppose abortion. Family planning is such an under-the-radar issue for Republicans that Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, says the Right to Life organization doesn’t advertise a birth-control position. “But you find in that movement—and they’ve become much more assertive about it—if you use birth control, you are stopping a life and that’s not acceptable,” she says. Listen to right-wing talk radio and you’ll hear how making birth control available or teaching sex-ed in public schools leads to sex. That's an argument equivalent to believing that putting air bags in cars causes accidents, says Keenan.

Instead of hammering away at the candidates about abortion, Keenan suggests a set of questions far more revealing: do you think it’s OK for a pharmacy to refuse to fill a woman’s prescription for birth-control pills based on the personal views of the pharmacist? Should hospital emergency rooms be allowed to withhold information from a rape victim about the morning-after pill, which can prevent a pregnancy if it’s taken soon enough after the assault? Do you support age-appropriate sex education (with “age-appropriate” the key phrase as to when it’s time to shelve the stork)?

More at...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20322033/site/newsweek/

Another good question to ask "pro-life" people is "If abortion is made illegal, what should be the penalty for women who get one anyway?" You can watch anti-abortion protesters in Libertyville, Illinois, fail to answer this question here.

[rodeodance]

1. I would like to see a survey about Repugs using birth control.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. Isn't interesting that during the Clinton years,

the abortion rate went DOWN, and has gone UP since Bush and his no-realistic-sex-education came to the fore? I think that birth control can be a wedge issue to split the right to life groups.

[shimmergal]

3. We need to go on the offensive

about this issue. Why are we afraid to say it: NOT using birth control is immoral, when a pregnancy would be disastrous.