It has to be said that the so called “pro-life” movement has really gone off the deep end. And it is not just the catholic church trying to deny access to birth control to women employed at their affiliated organizations that have no explicit religious functions. We see corporations trying to deny such access to women, not because the corporations have anything directly to do with religion, but because of the religious beliefs of the executives-and getting away with it in court, which is shameful. And beyond that, the “pro-life” camp think the government gets to decide who does or does not use birth control. And catastrphize the fact that it doesn’t:
Family Research Council senior fellow Pat Fagan appeared alongside Tony Perkins, the head of FRC, on Washington Watch yesterday to discuss his article which claims that Eisenstadt v. Baird, the 1972 case that overturned a Massachusetts law banning the distribution of contraceptives to unmarried people, may rank “as the single most destructive decision in the history of the Court”:
“It’s not the contraception, everybody thinks it’s about contraception, but what this court case said was young people have the right to engage in sex outside of marriage. Society never gave young people that right, functioning societies don’t do that, they stop it, they punish it, they corral people, they shame people, they do whatever. The institution for the expression of sexuality is marriage and all societies always shepherded young people there, what the Supreme Court said was forget that shepherding, you can’t block that, that’s not to be done.”
Essentially, the Family Research Council freaks want to have a say in whether or not others are having sex. Which sounds bizarre, but it is not really the most bizarre behavior we can expect from the religious right. After all, Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia said in one of his opinions that the state should have the ability to regulate masturbation.
And while they decry the accessibility of birth control, the reality is that such accessibility brings abortion rates way down. Hence, when these people claim to be against abortion, you can tell easily that that is just a gimmick; they are not about abortion, they are about forcing others to live by their religious standards. They are no better than the Taliban.
