In my classmate Ashley Underwood’s blog post “Contraception Should Be Covered by Insurance,” she makes great points about the benefits of contraception and the reasons it should be covered.  She points out several medical benefits in addition to the obvious benefit of preventing unwanted pregnancies.  Ashley stresses that defunding Planned Parenthood would be a horrible idea since it assists many women in caring for their health.  Some extremists have cast Planned Parenthood in a light as if it’s an immoral institution because it happens to perform abortions as well as all the other health assistance it provides.  This self-righteous view is hurting more than helping.  It seems a bit ironic that so many of these people who want to defund Planned Parenthood are the same people who want to make cuts to welfare programs.

So let’s say they get their way and abortions can’t be obtained and birth control becomes unaffordable for so many.  Then what?  There will be countless people in even more dire need of assistance from the government than there already are.  I think the people who want to defund Planned Parenthood ought to sit in a CPS court for a week and see all the resources that go into helping children whose parents don’t take care of them.

Ashley did a great job laying out various reasons why a woman might choose to be on contraceptives.  Some women want to pursue education and a career before starting a family.  A woman who makes the decision that now is not the time in her life to bring a child into the world should be applauded for her wise decision, not penalized for it.  She should be admired for wanting to establish herself with an income that she can count and provide for her child with rather than having hurdles put in the way that will increase her chances of having to rely on government assistance.

One would think the government would want to make it easier for people to help themselves, not harder.  One would think the government would want to have contraceptives covered by insurance to decrease chances of needing government assistance.  Ashley sums it up well that having a child should be a choice every woman gets to make and the affordability of contraceptives is important.