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Women Don't Care About Contraception?

Jennifer Dalven,
Director, Reproductive Freedom Project,
ACLU
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April 6, 2012

On ABC’s The View, the governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley, said that women don’t care about contraception. News to me. Here, all along I thought, women (and men) care very much about contraception. I thought American women and families cared very much about being able to decide whether and when to have a child. Shows what I know.

When pressed, the governor tried to backpedal, saying that maybe women cared about birth control, but we don’t need government making that decision for us. I am sorry, I missed it. Exactly which government policy is telling women they have to use birth control? Here I thought we were talking about government making sure that women had insurance coverage for birth control and allowing a woman and her partner to decide for themselves about using it. Silly me.

And while we are on the topic of letting women decide for themselves, can we talk about the South Carolina bill that would take away comprehensive insurance coverage from women and families? The South Carolina legislature is currently considering a bill that would actually prevent an insurance company from selling, and a woman from buying, a comprehensive insurance plan that includes abortion care. Remind me again how a government ban on insurance coverage for reproductive health care allows a woman to make her own decision?

Tell Gov. Haley that women do care about contraception. Tell her that we do care about being able to make our private health care decisions. Tell her she ought to support comprehensive insurance coverage for women instead of working to take it away.

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