Birth control isn’t just about sex — but it’s also about sex

If the Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of government then so be it! Let us take that discussion all across America because women are far more than the Democrats have played them to be.

It is so, so tempting to take Huckabee down the easy way, highlighting the importance of contraceptives for women’s education, careers, family lives, and overall health — it isn’t all about sex, Mike. On MSNBC Cecile Richards countered the accusation that we’re all slutty-slut-sluts by enumerating the medical and economic reasons people need birth control.

Richards is of course correct: birth control isn’t just about sex. But even if there are many reasons other why we need birth control access, helping people create the intimate lives they desire is an important goal, too. Huckabee’s comments are misogynistic and illogical on so many levels, but we don’t need to concede his basic premise — that sex is bad, and good women abstain — in order to prove their absurdity.

I absolutely get why it’s sometimes strategically necessary to hold up as the poster child for contraceptive access the patient with polycystic ovary syndrome or the hardworking mother who just can’t take care of another child and keep her job. But, wherever possible, we need to avoid drawing lines between “good” and “bad” reasons for accessing reproductive services, from contraceptives to abortions, that accept our opponents’ anti-sex moral framework as the only option. A win on their turf is an empty victory; let’s win on our terms.

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