The Body Politic

Photo by Christopher Harting

If you’d asked American women a year ago about the most pressing concerns facing the country, they’d have given you a variety of responses: the economy, war, education. Some might have even mentioned reproductive rights. But I doubt a single one of them could have anticipated that in 2012 they’d be worrying about access to birth control. I mean, didn’t we settle all of that decades ago?

Actually, we did. In 1967, Bill Baird, the founder of the Pro Choice League, was arrested for giving spermicidal foam to a female student at Boston University. His case, Eisenstadt v. Baird, went to the Supreme Court, and resulted in the legalization of birth control for anyone, regardless of their marital status. Massachusetts, in other words, once again stood at the forefront of progressive change.

But Senator Scott Brown has done his state’s proud legacy no honor. In February, he cosponsored the Blunt amendment — a radically anti-birth control measure that would have allowed religious groups, insurers, and employers to deny coverage for contraception, or any other service or medication, on moral grounds. Yes, you read that right: Your boss could deny coverage for the pill, and hospitals could refuse to give life-saving abortions to dying women. “No one should be forced by government to do something that violates the teachings of their faith,” Brown argued.

Elizabeth Warren, Brown’s likely Democratic challenger in November, couldn’t believe the opening Brown provided, and unloaded: “This is an extreme attack on every one of us,” she told the Washington Post in February. “It opens the door to outright discrimination. It would let insurance companies and corporations cut off pregnant women, overweight guys, older Americans…because some executive claims it’s part of his moral code.”

Megan Amundson, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts, calls the debate “appalling.” Not only does it set back women’s reproductive rights, she says, it runs counter to this state’s universal healthcare policy. “Because we have been at the fore of this battle to provide preventative care to everyone, we would expect our U.S. senators to reflect that ideal, not look to destroy it.”

Thankfully, the Senate defeated the Blunt amendment by a 51–48 vote, but the aftershocks of birth control suddenly becoming a national “controversy” continue. Republicans are claiming religious discrimination, Democrats are focusing on GOP extremism, and feminists remain baffled that decades after these issues were seemingly put to rest, here they are again.

But the resurrected debate over contraception isn’t merely a tone-deaf GOP burning bridges with female voters (though it certainly is that, too). It’s a clash of old-school conservative gender norms and a new generation of women who are fed up and have the power of online activism to make their voices heard.

Despite the recent media attention that the “war on women” has received, these attacks are nothing new. The Blunt amendment is just the latest example of Republicans using morality as an excuse to try to keep contraception from women. In fact, 47 states already have some sort of “conscience clause” law on the books, allowing healthcare providers, employers, and pharmacists to refuse medications, services, and referrals that they morally oppose. During the Bush administration, that refusal was so common that some pharmacists publicly shared tips for dealing with women seeking birth control. In 2005, the Arizona Republic published a letter by pharmacy manager Dan Gransinger, which advised that a “pharmacist should just tell the patient that he is out of the medication and can order it, but it will take a week to get here. The patient will be forced to go to another pharmacy because she has to take these medicines within 72 hours [of unprotected sex] for them to be effective. Problem solved.” Great! Because nothing says “healthcare professional” like lying to clients.