“Contraception could be free under health care law”, announced a pre-election Washington Post headline. A “panel of experts” is supposed to be meeting this month “to begin considering what kind of preventive care for women should be covered at no cost to the patient, as required under President Barack Obama's overhaul.” Up front in the push to make all birth control free is, not surprisingly, Planned Parenthood.

But what part of “health care” don’t these people understand? Isn’t birth control a personal lifestyle choice? And if so, why should the public purse pay for it? Well, because it‘s just good for the country, said Cecile Richards, PP’s president (pictured) on the Bill Press Show:

"I think it's important, Bill, to understand that unlike some other issues of cost, birth control is one of those issues that actually saves the government money," said Richards. "So an investment in covering birth control actually in the long run is a huge cost savings because women don't have children that they weren't planning on having and all the sort of attendant cost for unplanned pregnancy.

"So we actually feel that covering birth control is not only it's the right thing to do for women, it's good for women, it's good for their health care, but it's frankly good public policy."

Huh? Eradicate the national debt and financial crisis by eradicating the nation’s future citizens? Good luck with that.

PP’s logic dictates that someone whose birth has been planned is more likely to be an asset to society, as opposed to someone whose birth was unplanned. Real life, however, doesn’t always follow that model. Many successful people emerge from less than ideal circumstances. “Rags to riches” stories (and there are many) in business, art, entertainment, and sports, will bear this out. It’s preposterous to suggest that the circumstances of one’s conception determine one’s destiny.

Steven Mosher and Colin Mason, from the Population Research Institute,  contend:

No one denies that it costs money to raise children, of course, but those who do so are making a fundamental investment in the future. Children grow into adults, who not only contribute to the GDP by entering the workforce, but also contribute, using their own special gifts, to creating families, communities, and societies. To view babies solely as economic liabilities, as Richards does, is not only dehumanizing; it makes no economic sense whatsoever.

On the “dehumanising” note, the push for free universal contraception ignores many moral and ethical issues. For example, some forms of birth control (the “morning after pill” and IUD to name but two) are not preventative, but actually terminate pregnancy in its earliest stages. Many doctors, pharmacists and other health care professionals don’t want to be complicit in this type of “health care.” Of course these things do not bother the country’s largest abortion provider. It bothers other people though:

Jeanne Monahan, a health policy expert at the conservative Family Research Council, said her group would oppose any mandate that lacks a conscience exemption for moral and religious reasons.

[…]

U.S. Catholic bishops say pregnancy is a healthy condition, not an illness. In comments filed with the Department of Health and Human Services, the bishops say they oppose any requirement to cover contraceptives or sterilization as preventive care.

"We don't consider it to be health care, but a lifestyle choice," said John Haas, president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, a Philadelphia think tank whose work reflects church teachings.

Others who advocate the comprehensive contraceptive coverage may simply be dreaming when it comes to its proposed efficacy:

The use of birth control is "virtually universal" in the U.S., according to a government report this summer from the National Center for Health Statistics.

[…]

Still, about half of all pregnancies are unplanned, and many occur among women using some form of contraception. The government says the problem is rarely the birth control method, but "inconsistent or incorrect use," such as forgetting to take a pill.

Advocates say free birth control would begin to address the problem.

By what logic do they come to that conclusion? If people aren’t “careful” about using birth control for which they had to shell out their own hard-earned money, what makes anyone think that folks would be more conscientious with “free” contraceptives paid for by government largesse? That simply defies human nature, common sense, and historical precedent.

WaPo concludes:

"The shift we need to see in the United States is a shift away from methods like the pill and condoms to the most effective methods, like implants and IUDs," said Dr. Jeffrey Peipert, a principal investigator on the study. "And we'll only see that shift if somebody is willing to pay for it."

The question is: who is that “somebody” going to be?  The burden of multi trillion-dollar debt will have to be borne by American citizens yet unborn (even though we’re not allowed to think of them in terms of “people”).

The post-modern western welfare state is running out of taxpayers. I wonder why.