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E-PrinceAs University students deal with turbulent economic conditions, women on campuses across the country may find it harder than ever to afford birth control pills as part of their sexual health practices.
The Affordable Birth Control Act, which was signed ...
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Not too hard to believe the Anscombers on this one. People respond to incentives, even dumb people doing things for largely emotional reasons.
Sometimes people are on birth control for pretty much medical reasons, especially related to problems with menstruation. It's false to assume that just because someone's on birth control means they're jumping from orgy to orgy (though frankly I could care less about the 'moral hazard' here too), and I applaud President Obama for correcting this issue in that spending bill.
"might further perpetuate the culture of contraception"? Not sure what alternate reality McGinley inhabits, but here in the real world, contraceptive use is nearly universal:
• Virtually all women (98%) aged 15–44 who have ever had intercourse have used at least one contraceptive method.
• Overall, 62% of the 62 million women aged 15–44 are currently using one.
• Thus, only 7% of women aged 15–44 are at risk of unwanted pregnancy but are not using contraceptives.
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_contr_use.html
Then again, McGinley seems to have defined the term "culture of contraception" as a particularly weak straw man for him and his buddies to bat around.
If the policy change perpetuates the culture of contraception, how exactly is that a bad thing? I like contraception. I would tell my kids about it and I would hope they would use it whenever they decide they're ready to have sex. What we should really fear is a lack of contraceptive use.
I mean Brandon might have a point. The Pope did say condoms lead to the spread of aids....
@090909, you completely missed Brandon's point. He's not commenting on the number of people that use contraception, he's commenting on how the measure in question might contribute to a negative cultural phenomenon that contraception arguably creates. Try reading more carefully/open-mindedly next time.
Speaking of reading carefully, if you bothered to look at my last sentence you would see that I explicitly noted that point. McGinley knows he can't get away with saying contraception is bad, so he contends that availability of contraception will contribute to some supposedly negative outcome. First of all, there is little to no evidence to support the claim that more sex is a bad thing. Even granting him that, however, his point is meaningless because of the near-universal adoption of contraception among sexually active Princeton students and the culture at large as a way of preventing pregnancy. Unless you can present examples of people who have decided not to have sex because of the cost of birth control, it's safe to assume that reducing its price at Princeton will not increase the amount of sex people have or the rate of contraceptive use. It will simply decrease the monetary cost of the safe sex that people are already having. Only in McGinley's warped worldview is that a negative outcome.
McGinley says, "Birth control is both a symptom and a cause of the problematic “culture of contraception,” which he described as “the perpetuation of the misconception of sex as something that can be had without consequences.” This is kind of a ridiculous statement as the very REASON most people use contraception is because they ACKNOWLEDGE and attempt to prevent the bad consequences of sex. Realizing that an act has potential dangers does not compel a person to completely abstain from that act. Rather, a reasonable person decides whether or not they want to accept certain risks and then take whatever reasonable steps they can to reduce those risks. Just because you could die by driving home doesn't mean you shouldn't drive home... it just means you should buckle up and have some air bags in your car.