The Supreme Court got it right when it ruled earlier this month that employers have the right to opt out of providing health insurance that covers birth control. Not only is this an issue of religious liberty, but it is also an issue of fairness. For health insurance to provide free birth control is unfair for a simple but often overlooked reason: birth control is only useful for people who have sex, and that category does not include everyone!
The purpose of health insurance is to cover medical services and products that people need in order to be healthy. But birth control is not really medical in nature, not is it a need, because if someone is unable to obtain it for whatever reason, he or she can simply choose not to have sex. Some people might argue that being able to avoid unwanted pregnancies affects a person’s health, and I suppose that it can indirectly, but there are lots of other products that affect people’s health more directly yet are not covered by health insurance, such as food, exercise equipment, and sunscreen, to list just a few examples. Plus, birth control is not necessary to avoid unwanted pregnancies, because simply not having sex is always an option. Of course, many people would be unhappy with this option because sex is an activity that a lot of people enjoy. But, at the risk of sounding insensitive, too bad! There are many activities that I enjoy, such as photography, art, and cheering on my favorite sports teams. I would never expect other people to pay for the equipment that I need for these activities. If I could not afford, say, a camera or pencils or sketchbooks or Bruins jerseys, I would be expected to live without these things and forgo my favorite activities. Why should sex be any different? It is not fair for me, either through my taxes or through the price I pay each month for health insurance, to have to contribute to the costs of other people’s sex-related products when other people are not expected to contribute to the costs of my photography, art, or sports-related products.
Another thing that proponents of free birth control get wrong, in addition to ignoring the unfairness towards people who do not have sex, is by framing the debate as a feminist issue. In my opinion, birth control has nothing to with gender at all. Sex and the products and services associated with it involve both genders equally. An editorial in the Los Angeles Times, for example, opines that the Supreme Court ruling and Justice Clarence Thomas’s explanation “betray every woman in this country.” Speak for yourself. I am a woman in this country, and this ruling does not betray me at all. In fact, it benefits me by making it easier for me to avoid having to pay for products that I do not use! The editorial also states, “For anyone to say that preventive care for women does not, de facto, include birth control is disingenuous and sexist.” I could not disagree more with this statement. Actually, to say that preventive care for women does include birth control is sexist. The editorial cites the statistic that 86% of women have used three or more birth control methods by their 40s… but what about the other 14%? Not all women use birth control, because not all women have sex. There seems to be an attitude held by many people in our society that women are somehow more associated with sex and reproduction than men are. This is completely sexist, and as a woman who has never been interested in sex or reproduction, I find it highly offensive.
So to sum up, requiring health insurance plans to provide free birth control is both unfair and anti-feminist. The more companies that opt out of this unfair, sexist requirement, the better.