War on Contraception

The year was a frantic one in the fight over reproductive rights, but what was really remarkable was how anti-choicers quit pretending to simply love fetuses, and wage all-out war on women's non-abortion reproductive rights. 

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 The joys and obstacles facing the female music nerd are discussed with Courtney Smith. Mainstream media clues into the war on contraception, and Michele Bachmann goes on the warpath against the HPV vaccine.

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Reviewing the panel on the war on contraception at Netroots Nation: what it means, and how the lessons learned can be paid forward. Does the war on contraception provide pro-choicers an opportunity to defend all reproductive rights?

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The war on contraception seeks to replace bedrock values--equality, freedom of thought, freedom of conscience, democracy--with blind obedience to authority and second class status for women.

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The war on contraception may not go mainstream any time soon, but current efforts point toward the creation of sexual Haves and Have Nots, those who “deserve” contraception and those who don’t.

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There is no doubt that the coarseness of political life and the politics of personal destruction are tied to the rise of social conservative ideologues, and their fight against a woman's right to choose since Roe v. Wade. The advent of a "Culture War" was born out of a movement that opposed legalized abortion and pretended that was its only agenda for many years. But as religious belief turned from mission to power, the greatest of corrupting influences, the swagger of social ideologues and their control of the GOP, the White House, Congress, Courts, Governorships, State Legislatures and School Boards has them ready to take the next step, an all out war on contraception.

This past weekend in Chicago, Joe Schieldler's Pro-Life Action League hosted 250 people at a conference entitled Contraception Is Not The Answer, opening a new strategic front to advance their ever-more narrow agenda, coming from an ever-expanding cast of ideologically motivated organizations. If conservatives think our culture is coarse now, its probably good to remind them that coarseness is coming less from people actually having sex responsibly than it is from the way uptight ideologues and corporate marketeers and others talk about sex, making it seem clinical and shameful on one extreme, or detached and less sacred on the other. Take the average American's contraception away and its a safe bet life will be more coarse as people's tension increases.

One of those 250 people attending the two-day conference was RH Reality Check's Associate Editor, Tyler LePard.