Thursday marks the 47th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision to make birth control legal in the United States, but the case is still being argued.
The threshold Griswold v. Connecticut ruling of June 7, 1965, reversed an 1879 Connecticut statute prohibiting the use of “any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception,” and stipulating that “any person who assists, abets, counsels, causes, hires or commands another to commit any offense may be prosecuted and punished as if he were the principal offender.”
Comments
What about free medication for life threatening diseases, we have seniors that can't afford their co-pay, yet they want to give free birth control to women of working age, something stinks here. Seems to me it's about buying vote.
This piece made me think about how the sexual revolution of the 1960s was born. While I do agree that birth control is a good thing, I also believe that its wide spread distribution and ease of access has added considerably to the cultural decline we see in our country today. Thanks to the changes that took place in the 1960s, out of wedlock birth is rampant; "hooking up" is a common practice on college campuses; and casual sex is a common practice that is now done without shame. NEW PARAGRAPH: The risk of pregnancy served an important role in keeping moral conduct in tact. The ease of abortion, birth control, and societal acceptance has made immoral conduct far too easy. Parents today have to work against the grain of the culture to instill moral values in their children. I would not suggest that birth control be taken away, but I think this column misses the downside of this evolution in sexual freedom.
Today's issue is Birth control by Abortion in today's Planned Parenthood clinics. Abortionist physicians in these clinics maintain a water filled tub next to the operating table in case the little miscreant creature is born alive. Birth control is too complicated for thousands of women who choose instead to kill and those little souls fly off to heaven launched by a medical team. Why does being a child bearing person grant women the right to kill? I imagine some believers in the inviolability of women's rights reading this are wishing I had been launched into heaven instead of writing this today. Truth is, birth control is cheap, easy and convenient. Free pills are not the problem or the real issue. Killing babies is a horror and a crime against humanity.
What we have here is your freedom of choice ending where another persons morality begins. We have the emotionalism of "little souls flying off to heaven", a bit dramatic and mythical, versus your "little soul" being forced into untenable or undesirable situations. Or we have the rantings of the moralists worried about keeping "moral conduct" in tact. Who's moral conduct, well theirs and Gods of course. You see these folks only like "freedom" when it suits their purpose or matches their ideals. Cross that line and the time for repression begins. The especially like morality when it's impact is upon others and not upon themselves. You see they get to sit high and mighty and pronounce on what a sinner you are and it costs them nothing for their lives are in fact morally dead. Why? Because they live this "unconscious" life where their actions, their morality, has no long term impact. Once they take a moral position the results of that position doesn't matter. It is a little twist on an old saying, "The end doesn't matter only the means matters."
The open secret of the anti-abortion movement is that they are less concerned with preventing abortions than they are with controlling female sexuality. That's why so many leaders of the movement are also opposed to the practice of contraception and why the fantasy of abortion as a method of birth control persists on the right even though it has no basis in reality.
"The risk of pregnancy served an important role in keeping moral conduct in tact [sic]." Proof that ancient wisdom is not wisdom, it's just ancient.
Free Birth Control.....is not "free". It is part of a woman's basic medical needs and is paid for by her insurance premiums. The sex act is not new! It has been performed since the dawn of time. Life only changed after the 60's for those who were not aware of what was going on in the first place. Forced marriages, women trapped and battered and impregnated by drunken husbands. Families with more kids than they could feed...blah, blah, blah. Yes, of course, I do remember being told that if it weren't for the fear of pregnancy women would just lay down and be available to whom ever wanted to do it. We were, it seems, brainless and immoral as well. We might even act like men and brag about who we did it to. Think about it Richmond!
And if birth control for women were easier to get, then we wouldn't have any need for what you describe above. Last time a checked it took two people to make a baby. Where are the fathers in this discussion? Long gone after leaving the mother with the choice to remove their fertilized egg or take almost of year of their life to carry a baby to term that is unwanted (absolutely unwanted by the father since 99.9% of the time they are long gone before a women even knows they are pregnant."
Lack of contraception never kept moral conduct intact. It only left women holding the proverbial bag. You talk as if men were a paragon of virtue prior to the 1960's and it is only female wantonness that has led us down this immoral path. You must be Catholic. My great grandmother (who died before 1960) used to say "The first baby could come any time, the second one takes nine months." "Hooking up" is as old as the species.
Thank you for your replies. While I understand that bad behavior, on the part of men, mostly, has been around forever, I just think that the risk of pregnancy did serve a way to keep immoral behavior more in check. My example would be this: Why are there so many MORE children born to unwed mothers now, than in 1960?
I have no problem with birth control. I do have a problem with the current trend of abortion. Abortion being used as a form of birth control, late term abortions and gender selection via abortion. Are we going the way of China? There are millions of female fetus aborted because of the desire to have a boy instead of a girl. If the feminist don't recognized this as a direct assault on the female of the specie, I don't know what would.
You only know about more. Women use to go into hiding to have babies out of wedlock. And as far as abortions there were plenty back then. The only difference between now and then is that now it is out in the open and poor women can actually have a safe procedure. Wealthy women could always have a safe abortion. Ask youself, where did all those orphans that Dickens wrote about come from? I think sometimes people look at the tv show "Father Knows Best" like it was reality.