If I Were Queen of the Forest… [my ideal policies on abortion, contraception, etc.]

Originally published at Faith Seeking Understanding. You can comment here or there.

Earlier this morning I posed about the Gosnell trial, basically saying that the pro-life and pro-choice wings both seemed to hate him, but for very different reasons. Criticizing extreme cases like Gosnell is all well and good, but I’d like to be a little more constructive. What would policies about sexuality and birth control look like in Martaland, where I get to write the laws?

First, on contraception:

The first line of defense is comprehensive sex education, focusing on the facts of fertility, sexually-transmitted disease, and how effective things like condoms and other birth control is at fighting these things. I would also encourage parents and larger civic groups (churches, fraternal and neighborhood organizations, etc.) to teach their values when it comes to sex. But this should be separate from teaching the medical facts that bear on this aspect of life. People, and in particular females, are responsible for the consequences of their action, but this means they be <i>aware</i> of those consequences in thorough enough detail to be held responsible for their actions.

On a related note, we need to work on contraceptive availability. From a societal level, contraceptive is a bargain compared to the cost of an unplanned pregnancy, and certainly avoids the moral issues many people see in abortion. No one should be forced to use contraception, but we should make sure it’s easily available for those who aren’t ready to become parents but still want to have sex. We should distribute free condoms in public locations like many college campuses do. We should also  try to eliminate loopholes for female contraception. We really shouldn’t require parental notification before teens can get birth control pills, and unless there’s a pressing medical reason why a doctor needs to monitor women using contraception (meaning, unless it’s more dangerous than OTC medication like diet pills) we should seriously consider making birth control available over the counter.

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