Birth Control/ Woman Control

In the blog post entitled “Puritanism: The Haunting Fear that Someone, Somewhere, May be Happy” Ms. Althouse touches on a topic very near and dear to my heart. The issue of birth control not being covered by insurance was not even something I thought was possible till my sister started working for a Catholic hospital and she had to pay for her own birth control at the age of nineteen. She is now the proud mother of a baby boy and still trying to get through school being a single mother.

I believe Ms. Althouses intended audience crosses political lines and is aimed at people that can decipher hoopla over real political issues. In her article she gives those of us that wouldn’t be caught dead listening to Rush Limbaugh a little glimpse of what and how he forms his political arguments and the process in which he convinces his listeners the opposing point of view is ridiculous.

Althouse is an experienced blogger of eight years and is a Professor of law at University of Wisconsin. This woman is no dummy.

In the post Ms. Althouse shows a good sense of humor over the theatrics Limbaugh is prone to and she does not let him get away with calling the birth control debate a “welfare program”. Calling Limbaugh out in her blog post is one reason I enjoyed this article but the best point made in the article was Ms. Althouse’s statement “It is fundamental to women’s freedom that we have the ability to decide for ourselves when our bodies will go through pregnancy and bear children.” This is the crux of the matter, the ability of women to control their own reproduction, whether they are eighteen and can’t afford birth control or middle aged and successful. Birth control should not be excluded from their insurance because it is contrary to some ones belief system.

Ms. Althouse states that the emotional theme of the Republican Party has been religious freedom and I would like to ask what about the rest of our freedom to not have their religious views pushed on us. I guess we should be grateful that cancer treatment is not against theirr religious views.

I love that Althouse exposes the ridiculousness of treating women like they should not be sexual beings and implying that women wanting their birth control covered by their insurance does not make them a sex maniac.