Self-explanatory and unpublished letter to The Boston Globe. Genesis was a campaign mailing, but it echoed what was being widely reported in the press at the time….
18 October 2012
Today I received yet another campaign missive from some Democratic-related entity (this one from the New Hampshire Democratic Party) exhorting me to be outraged that someone wants to let “politicians and employers make decisions about your birth control”.
I assure you I would be outraged if someone wanted to do that.
Perhaps some local candidate in Mississippi or West Virginia wants that but no one on the ballot anywhere near me is asking for it. The issue in contention is not whether I, or anyone else, is allowed to choose whether or not to use birth control. The issue is whether I, or anyone else, has the right to make someone else pay for the birth control we’ve chosen to use. Obama and the Democrats say “yes”; Romney and the Republicans say “no”.
As a consumer of resources, I love the idea of someone else paying to support my lifestyle choices. But, as a producer of resources — and as a liberty-minded citizen of the American republic — I abhor the notion that the government should oblige me to provide for the lifestyle choices of others.
Perhaps the availability of contraception transcends mere “lifestyle choice” and comprises a public good worthy of government compulsion. Perhaps it doesn’t. That is worth a debate and I won’t pass judgement on it here.
But I must insist that those debating the issue do so honestly. No one is threatening to take away your birth control. All they are asking is that they not be forced to pay for it.
© Copyright 2012, Augustus P. Lowell