I liked this article, which makes many of the same points I’ve been making.
The Sex-Friendly Case Against Free Birth Control
By Conor FriedersdorfMar 13 2012, 10:30 AM ET 44
Its free provision privileges the pleasure-seeking of a cultural majority — but does nothing for cultural minorities, including gays and lesbians.
[snip]
We’re now in the last stages of a transition to a health care system where what’s covered by health insurance isn’t a matter of what policy an individual chooses to buy, or the deal he or she strikes at work, or even what health care costs are most suited to being covered through risk pools. Nowadays, what’s included in health “insurance” is a matter of what our polity, through its elected representatives, bureaucrats accountable to them, and judges who aren’t, decide that we ought to provide to all citizens. We’ve moved from coverage dictated by what markets will bear to coverage dictated by the sorts of inevitably redistributionist policies that a legislative majority regards as just. It’s gotten increasingly contentious because our values are increasingly implicated, something progressives sometimes try to elide by saying that something is “just part of health care,” [mr-lynne-“That’s life”] a phrase that now effectively means “part of a system in which everyone is forced to participate, and that makes contestable judgments about what ought to be included.” We’ve blurred what is an insurance benefit and what is a subsidy or entitlement, for participating in a risk pool with our fellow citizens will no longer be a voluntary decision, thanks to Obama’s reforms.
[snip]
Once birth control for the poor is covered, I wonder why so many on the left either don’t recognize or don’t object to the redistributive consequences of pooling contraceptive costs among everyone else, even people who could afford them on their own. Compared to a system that just took care of the poor (or even to a system that included only the cheapest kind of birth control), here is a more detailed but by no means complete look at the winners and losers:
– Those who are sexually active, especially over long periods, benefit at the expense of those who aren’t, whether by choice or for lack of opportunity. This sure seems non-materially regressive.
– A wealthy man who holds assets in common with his wife benefits as the cost of their household birth control prescription is reduced, even as an unmarried, working class woman who wants to wait until marriage to have sex belongs to the risk pool that is defraying their costs.
– The fertile, who benefit at the expense of the infertile.
– Folks in their child-bearing years, who benefit at the expense of younger and older people.
– Those engaged in recreational sex, or who are trying to avoid pregnancy, who benefit at the expense of those trying to have kids.
– Folks who use expensive forms of contraceptive, who benefit at the expense of folks who rely on condoms or natural family planning.
– Straight people, who benefit at the expense of gays and lesbians, who have no use for birth control.
When it comes to marriage or gender-neutral bathrooms or transsexual rights, progressives are careful to insist that cultural majorities shouldn’t impose their heteronormative standards on society, but when it comes to the birth control debate, they’ve been quick to exploit the ways in which their preferences are shared by a cultural majority. They understand that frequently engaging in non-procreative, heterosexual sex while using prescription birth control is widespread.
As they see it, the existence of that cultural norm is an argument in favor of a subsidy for the cultural majority. Never mind that there are Americans who don’t value non-procreative sex, or who don’t value it as highly as some other fulfilling pursuit, whether surfing or Gregorian chants or yoga or hunting. As Amanda Marcotte argued, the straight, secular relationship to sex is “normal.” But why should the sexually “abnormal” (minority groups like gays and lesbians, asexuals, people who never manage to attract very many sexual partners, people who just care about sex relatively less than the average person, or care about other goods much more) have less with which to pursue what they value due to public policy that disadvantages their preferences?
Surely we can conceive of a woman assessing a year’s income, whether at age 18 or 24 or 35 or 44, and deciding that among her $27,000 or $35,000 or $64,000 or $102,000, the fraction that she could spend on birth control in the coming year would be better applied to a Hawaiian vacation, or a charitable donation, or a new dog, or a retirement investment, or a meditation class, or higher status as a Scientologist. Once you decide that society is going to mandate that something is universally available, even those who partake in the benefit lose the ability to opt out and spend their own share of resources in a way that suits them better, if only temporarily.
They can forgo the benefit, but will still need to pay the cost.
Those are excellent points about the “cultural majority” having their way over the rest of us. People who think the poor should have access to free contraceptives ought to be able to contribute to a charity that pays for poor people, without forcing everyone else to support it too. It seems like the point is forcing us to capitulate and lose to them, like it’s a punitive fine for being opposed to progressive feminism.
sophist crap. His argument is there are winners and losers in terms of free birth-control coverage? Welcome to society, pal. We all pay the costs for things we don’t use. It’s part of what’s been called the social contract.
I might accept your argument, DGC, but this guy talks too much. I’m not a big fan of The Atlantic, which spends too much time on articles which say white is black, but I looked at this guy’s stuff. I can’t tell if he’s a conservative, a libertarian, or just one of those jerks who thinks he’s above the political spectrum. But color me unimpressed.
“Some people get something for free when they could pay for it, and others who don’t want it pay for that, so the whole system sucks”. By that logic, ambulances are pointless because I’ve never ridden in one.
I think the Atlantic’s better than you state (though their attempts to provocatively look at sexual politics have resulted in some of the most tedious writing to ever have stained a piece of paper), but this stuff is ridiculous.
You have it in quotes, but that’s a quote from a straw man, isn’t it? The logic is that contraception should not be free for everyone and paid for by everyone, it is not that the whole system sucks. No one is saying that we should get rid of the whole system of health insurance. And keeping the system of health insurance doesn’t mean we have to cover any and every cost that the cultural majority thinks should be covered, we can leave some things out, right? Do we have to cover everything?
… didn’t set birth control coverage as a minimum standard for insurance. Moreover, it’s not controversial for there to be legal minimum standards. Sometimes, legal requirements offend, but that’s life. So this is a red herring.
This is a normal herring like all the other herrings about which we decide, should it be provided for the people for free or should people have to pay for it with their own money. You illustrate the article’s “progressives sometimes try to elide by saying it’s just part of health care” as though that is supposed to neutralize the people who don’t want it part of health care. Surely you don’t think that everything should just be provided free as part of health care, do you? Don’t you think some things should be purchased by people with their own money, depending on if they want it or not?
I don’t want you to drop out of the discussion again, but being paid in cash to spend how we want is an essential component of freedom, so some things should cost us our own money. The question is, what things? Is it just going to be some consumer goods?
ideal with the practical. In the ideal world, we’d have reasoned discussions about what our country provides for free. In the practical world, what we get is what one side can manage to get through. A strong research base that says birth control save money and improves health. It makes sense to us on the Left.
Freiderdorflander is trying to defeat the practical argument for offering free birth control by elevating it to an argument on the ideal level and implying that we shouldn’t offer free birth-control until we can decide where we draw the line limiting what we offer for free. It’s basically a rhetorical delay tactic, like tabling indefinitely a bill or article. That’s why Freelandorker is full of sophist crap. He shifts the level of abstraction without saying so.
From an honest (as opposed to small government) libertarian point of view, there is a question of where we draw the line. But that’s a philosophical question, not contraception question.
People have to pay for stuff they don’t want. Nothing is provided for free. The world is tough all over. Your more than entitled to try and change it, but you’ll look like someone pushing a cultural agenda if you want fight impartial doctors and technocrats about a technical and medical interpretation of the facts.
that implies that the government has always provided birth control for free and mandated everyone subsidize it. The change is free birth control, the cultural agenda being pushed is to get everyone on birth control so that no one is fertile unless they are choosing to have a baby, hopefully with carefully screened eugenic sperm (and hopefully not with a controlling husband who thinks it’s his baby too – the cultural agenda is to “give women control of their fertility” as marcus notes, which means strip men of control of their fertility).
Also, “impartial doctors?” Hahaha, first of all they aren’t impartial, they are obviously biased toward funding doctors and medicine and giving them more control and input, each in their own way. Second, this idea of free birth control didn’t come from doctors anyhow, or insurance companies. How do you explain that?
It demonstrates that you’re against the recommendation of doctors. And yes, they were doctors who made the recommendation to HHS. Specifically the doctors at the IOH.
President Obama is campaigning on his initiative that birth control must be covered by every insurance plan with no co-pays, and (soon?) that everyone must purchase an insurance plan (if they need to work). Are you saying McCain would have mandated the same thing???
… known for ignoring smart people. Health care, climate change, voters rights, regime change, take your pick.
This discussion I think misses the main cultural point: we need more babies, birth control inhibits babies and allows people to pursue sex easier outside of the baby-making and baby-raising institute marriage. A healthy society knows this and therefore encourages policies which promote marriage.
Birth control allows women to use sex without the responsibility of potential babies. The people who are most threatened by the sexual revolution are women who want to wait until marriage. Women are the ones who have the big problem with slutty behavior. That is why women also oppose easier access to birth control.
We have gone through a period where lots of women thought it was better to have fewer babies. The result has been two workers for every retiree. Society just can’t survive this way.
Paying for a larger proportion of retirees is a much smaller problem than running out of resources. Food prices are more than double what they were a decade ago and the price of oil and other commodities have similarly skyrocketed.
The left does not “hate babies”. We want to give women control over their fertility. A couple that chooses to have a baby is more likely to raise their child well than one for whom it is an unwanted surprise.
Giving women control over their fertility means fewer children. Birth rates are declining globally and are lowest in countries with higher rates of education. David Brooks of the New York Times wrote an alarmist article about this recently. Perhaps you read it? A stable global population that comes from voluntary choice would be a great thing, for the environment, for managing resources, for reducing poverty. The alternative, that you seem to prefer, would be a population bubble followed by a crash, which would come from widespread famine, disease and war. Which future do you want?
If this is not sarcastic, it is among the most vile and sexist assaults on women I’ve seen recently. The US and the world most assuredly does not “need more babies”. Your vision of a “healthy society” is woefully bigoted against women, as is your entire second and third paragraphs.
Under the old rating system, I would have given this a “0” and hoped that enough others would feel the same to remove the comment.
things you’ve written.
There is a problem with decreasing population and paying for retirees, but there are ways to solve it without ranting. One such way is called immigration.
Unhealthy society’s like Western Europe?
(( “a heap of sophistical crap” ))
There’s a bit more to it, unfortunately. Click on the pic if you know what Vorzug means.
Happy days.