The health care reform law passed last year required coverage of preventative care, and a report by the Institutes of Medicine has been released, and recommends covering birth control without copays or deductibles. From the Washington Post:
Virtually all health insurance plans could soon be required to offer female patients free coverage of prescription birth control, breast-pump rentals, counseling for domestic violence, and annual wellness exams and HIV tests as a result of recommendations released Tuesday by an independent advisory panel of health experts.
This is excellent news. Birth control should be covered by health insurance. And no one should be allowed to prevent women from accessing it, not pharmacists who refuse to do their jobs, and not parents abusing their children by denying them something they have the right to use.
Besides contraception, the recommendation to cover interpersonal violence counseling, breast pump rentals, screening for cancer and STDs, and wellness exams is also really good news.
And to what should be no one’s surprise, anti–choicers are freaking out. When will the people learn that the abortion debate is not really about abortion, but rather about controlling female sexuality.
Via RH Reality Check and Echidne.
July 22, 2011 at 9:11 AM
Well, I’m not a big fan of abortion (though I AM a big fan of minding my own business if a woman decides that’s what she wants and doesn’t ask for my input), I must say, I AM a big fan of these other forms of birth control. It’s hard for me to imagine what the right wingers could be so upset about.
July 22, 2011 at 10:15 AM
Wingnut types are really upset about birth control because the (vocal ones, at least) want women to be barefoot and pregnant and to reverse the sexual revolution. It really is about puritanical gender roles and controlling women. See the chart in this post from Alas, a Blog.
July 24, 2011 at 8:28 AM
So, it’s just as I suspected. In the end, it’s all about controlling people with whatever lies they need to tell to fool their constituency to think otherwise. For right wingers, it’s this crazy abortion stuff. For left wingers, it’s human rights. But, in both cases, it’s all a pack of lies designed to keep control.
July 29, 2011 at 10:55 AM
Authoritarian is generally accepted to be a mostly right-wing phenomenon. Read any academic book about it or abstracts of psychology journals.