Shorter Steve King: “We are losing our ability to force women to give birth”

No, that’s not exactly what Representative Steve King said last night when he made the faulty statement that following the recommendations of the IOM to cover birth control in all new health insurance plans will bring the end of civilization, but he might as well have.

In his own words,

They’ve called it preventative medicine. Preventative medicine. Well if you applied that preventative medicine universally what you end up with is you’ve prevented a generation. Preventing babies from being born is not medicine. That’s not— that’s not constructive to our culture and our civilization. If we let our birth rate get down below replacement rate we’re a dying civilization.

Birth control and access to other types of family planning does not lead to less births, it leads to less unwanted births, impractical births and births that cost the state millions of dollars. What King is really trying to say is that women having so many options to determine when they want to have children will bring the end of society, because we can’t force them to be held captive and breed. We as women can decide when it is appropriate for us to have children–what a threat to have an educated populous with access to reproductive health technology, leading them to happier more self determined lives!

Essentially, Steve King doesn’t want us to have the option to make responsible choices for our own lives, which will then make our families happier. That doesn’t sound very pro-family to me.

Related:

Breaking: health insurance plans required to offer no co-pay birth control

Breaking: IOM recommends free birth control under health care reform law