{"id":18927,"date":"2011-08-02T21:22:33","date_gmt":"2011-08-03T03:22:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/?p=18927"},"modified":"2011-08-02T21:46:33","modified_gmt":"2011-08-03T03:46:33","slug":"make-congress-speak-frankly-birth-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/2011\/08\/02\/make-congress-speak-frankly-birth-control\/","title":{"rendered":"Make every member of Congress speak frankly about birth control"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I see articles like this one at Huffpo,<\/a> I am reminded that there are members of Congress who would like to keep women and men from deciding whether and when they will have babies. \u00a0 This impulse is often the result of \u00a0a religious belief that it is their duty to discourage people from having sex unless they are trying to have babies. \u00a0 And sometimes, as indicated in the Huffpo article, it’s motivated by a belief that other people should be compelled to have babies they would rather not have. \u00a0Maybe my memory is foggy, but I don’t remember this power of Congress being spelled out in the Commerce Clause or in any of the enumerated powers.<\/p>\n

I realize that the Huffpo article concerns health insurance coverage, but reading it reminded me of my recurring suspicion that many members of Congress are incurably meddlesome when it comes to\u00a0other people’s sexuality<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Image - Creative Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It is my belief that people who feel these compulsions are engaging in warped sexual fantasies of their own. \u00a0They are getting off on keeping others from getting off. \u00a0I suspect that there are many of these pleasure police and it’s time to OUT them. \u00a0Let’s force them to make their repressive sexual agendas explicit<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0Here’s how I would do it, if I had my way: Make every member of Congress stand up at a podium, one by one, and answer a single simple question, but first they would be read the following explanatory prelude:<\/p>\n

“The following question concerns only those pills and devices that are used prior to or during sex to prevent pregnancy. \u00a0This question does not concern abortion.”<\/p>\n

Now, here’s the question:<\/p>\n

Every American adult should be entirely free to purchase any <\/strong><\/h3>\n

currently available <\/strong>pill or product\u00a0 to prevent pregnancy. <\/strong><\/h3>\n

Yes or No?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

This imaginary spectacle would allow Americans see who is for personal \u00a0liberty and who is for meddling. \u00a0 \u00a0Let’s make it all public. Let’s allow The People to see who “represents” them:<\/a><\/p>\n

An estimated 98 percent of sexually active women in America have used some form of birth control at some point in their lives. According to a recent Thomson Reuters\/NPR poll, 77 percent of American voters believe that insurers should cover the cost of birth control with no co-pays.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Alas, my proposed thought experiment will never occur. \u00a0 For the foreseeable future, the meddlesome members of Congress will continue to express their aversions to other people’s sexual\u00a0 pleasure only indirectly<\/em>, for instance, by voting in wacky ways on insurance issues.<\/p>\n

I wonder whether Rep Steve King<\/a> is against requiring people who have health insurance pay medical premiums that cover appendectomies because there are many people who won’t need to have appendectomies. <\/em>He’s a real piece of work. \u00a0 \u00a0At least he’s already stepped up and declared his position: \u00a0I like to meddle with other people’s lives. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I see articles like this one at Huffpo,<\/a> I am reminded that there are members of Congress who would like to keep women and men from deciding whether and when they will have babies. This impulse is often the result of a religious belief that it is their duty to discourage people from having sex unless they are trying to have babies. And sometimes, as indicated in the Huffpo article, it’s motivated by a belief that other people should be compelled to have babies they would rather not have. Maybe my memory is foggy, but I don’t remember this power of Congress being spelled out in the Commerce Clause or in any of the enumerated powers.<\/p>\n

I realize that the Huffpo article concerns health insurance coverage, but reading it reminded me of my recurring suspicion that many members of Congress are incurably meddlesome when it comes to other people’s sexuality<\/em>.<\/p>\n[caption id=\"attachment_18928\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"180\" caption=\"Image - Creative Commons\"]\"\"<\/a>[\/caption]\n

It is my belief that people who feel these compulsions are engaging in warped sexual fantasies of their own. They are getting off on keeping others from getting off. I suspect that there are many of these pleasure police and it’s time to OUT them. Let’s force them to make their repressive sexual agendas explicit<\/em>. Here’s how I would do it, if I had my way: Make every member of Congress stand up at a podium, one by one, and answer a single simple question, but first they would be read the following explanatory prelude:<\/p>\n

“The following question concerns only those pills and devices that are used prior to or during sex to prevent pregnancy. This question does not concern abortion.”<\/p>\n

Now, here’s the question:<\/p>\n

Every American adult should be entirely free to purchase any <\/strong><\/h3>\n

currently available <\/strong>pill or product to prevent pregnancy. <\/strong><\/h3>\n

Yes or No?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

This imaginary spectacle would allow Americans see who is for personal liberty and who is for meddling. Let’s make it all public. Let’s allow The People to see who “represents” them:<\/a><\/p>\n

An estimated 98 percent of sexually active women in America have used some form of birth control at some point in their lives. According to a recent Thomson Reuters\/NPR poll, 77 percent of American voters believe that insurers should cover the cost of birth control with no co-pays.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Alas, my proposed thought experiment will never occur. For the foreseeable future, the meddlesome members of Congress will continue to express their aversions to other people’s sexual pleasure only indirectly<\/em>, for instance, by voting in wacky ways on insurance issues.<\/p>\n

I wonder whether Rep Steve King<\/a> is against requiring people who have health insurance pay medical premiums that cover appendectomies because there are many people who won’t need to have appendectomies. <\/em>He’s a real piece of work. At least he’s already stepped up and declared his position: I like to meddle with other people’s lives. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,22],"tags":[6152],"class_list":["post-18927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reproductive-rights","category-sex","tag-featured","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18927\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dangerousintersection.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}