A) This is about a mandate that insurance companies cover birth control prescriptions, not about government spending money to distribute birth control, B) birth control pills are prescribed by doctors for a multitude of health-related reasons, C) being against birth control because you want to encourage responsible sexual behavior is like being against air bags and seat belts because you want to encourage responsible driving, and D) Huckabee and the rest of the GOP
were for a birth control insurance mandate before they were against it.
That highlighted section is the misunderstanding that drives so much of the opposition to the insurance requirement (one that Huckabee seems to share, with his "Uncle Sugar coming in and providing them for them a prescription each month for birth control" construction- he should know better). I don't know how many times I've seen "why should the gov't provide your BC?" in comments on other sites; it's aggravating to have to correct a mistake in understanding the issue that's so basic it makes the issue hard to talk about reasonably.
I've also seen the phrasing "why should
I have to pay for your BC?" with the implication that it's either through taxes, or through premium costs. It's true that taxes would help those who use the government exchanges in buying insurance to get a plan that might cover BC; but so what? The exchanges help pay for plans that cover any number of other health issues for other folks that some folks would never have to deal with; insurance is a method of spreading risk, and the costs for those risks, among a pool large enough to keep those costs down to acceptable levels; and to argue that you shouldn't have to pay for someone else's needs, either indirectly through taxes or directly through premium costs, is just arguing against the idea of insurance itself. I doubt I'll ever need a mammogram, but it would be ridiculous for me to object to an insurance coverage that I'm part of paying for it for someone who does on such a childishly selfish ground. (Not to mention that, in terms of costs, BC now is certainly cheaper than the costs of pregnancy- prenatal care, the birth itself, etc.- would be later)
It's one thing for someone to argue that they shouldn't have to help
at all in paying for insurance for others through a program like Obamacare; I disagree with this position, but at least it's a straightforward, understandable argument. But to narrow the objection down to this one specific part of it- the BC mandate- on such a mistaken (or dishonestly misrepresented) ground certainly smacks a little of misogyny (to say the best of it I can say).
