I’ve been listening to the debate about birth control and a lot of the left’s response has been that rightwing nutcases are trying to control women’s sexuality. Which is very true, but one argument that no one is making is that birth control IS family values.
Instead of children being the side effects of sexual activity, a woman who uses birth control can make her children the intended outcome of her sexuality. When a woman can control when and how she gets pregnant, she is more likely to be a good mother to the children she gives birth to. People who make conscious choices about their lives are happier and more in control than people who just let life happen to them.
Also, by limiting the amount of children she gives birth to, a woman will provide better care and give more attention to the children she does have. Out of morbid curiosity, I’ve watched “17 18 19 Kids and Counting” , and I’m struck by how much Michelle Duggar relies on her daughters to care for her younger children. While I would never advocate limiting the amount of children a family can have, I would never choose to give birth to more children than I myself could care for.
Before Planned Parenthood, many women became pregnant so often that their health suffered greatly. And by women’s health, I’m not using John McCain air quotes around the words. Pregnancy and child birth create tremendous strain on a woman’s body. A woman who is constantly tired and is not healthy cannot be a good mother. And what happens to her children when a woman dies from too many pregnancies? How can it be “family values”, for a child to grow up without a mother because she risked her life to give birth to more children?
Birth Control is not just a woman’s issue. Many men have been sent to an early grave trying to support more children than he can afford. A real man cares more about his wife’s health than he does the amount of offspring he produces. And most men want their wives around to help them raise the children they have produced. My great grandfather had 17 children, 4 with his first wife and 13 with his second. When his first wife died, the state came in and took his 4 children away from him, because at that time a man alone could not raise children.
And what about when the couple is not married? Should one act tie you to someone you don’t love for the rest of your life? I know that the crazies on the right want to believe that sex is only for married people. But come on, sex is not a new invention. To believe, as Rick Santorum does, that sexual activity only recently became divorced from marriage shows a dangerous lack of knowledge about history and human relationships. NO ONE with this lack of insight should be allowed to make decisions for me or my family. And they certainly should not be President of the United States.