Recently, the Trump administration has allowed almost any employer to claim a religious or moral objection to Obamacare’s birth control coverage under an expansive rollback. This means millions of women will be without access to free or affordable birth control. Trump’s attack was not on birth control, but on the left’s abhorrent obsession with forcing “the other” to pay for their choices.
It means forcing many women to choose between paying for their birth control or paying for their groceries. It will almost certainly mean higher abortion rates and more unplanned pregnancies. Therefore, the administration’s decision to rollback coverage makes little sense since many members are proudly pro-life.
The abortion rate in America has been at an all-time low since Roe v. Wade because of access to birth control. The report by the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports legal abortion, states that the total number of abortions in America fell below a million for the first time since the 1970s.
Turning back the clock on access to contraception also means going back to the days when many women did not have the power to decide if or when to start or expand their families. Therefore, this rollback will likely cause the abortion rate to skyrocket again because of an increase in unplanned pregnancies.
This leads to the burning question: why are men still, in 2017, making choices for women about their bodies? A report from The Guardian has found that 80 percent of nominations for positions in the Trump administration have gone to men. This gives Donald Trump the most male-dominated federal government in twenty-five years. Men outnumber women four-to-one in top positions of the Trump administration.
In addition, birth control pills are not just a contraceptive. Some women use them to regulate hormonal fluctuations. These fluctuations may result in irregular periods, painful menstruation or acne flare-ups. However, even though birth control is not just for sex, women should not have to argue that access to it is necessary for medical reasons.
The medical argument draws attention to the fact that even in the twenty-first century, women are still shamed for having sex. And that being able to avoid unplanned pregnancy after sex is not a good enough reason to have affordable birth control provided.
Regardless, women’s bosses should not be making personal healthcare decisions for them. It is time to do something about men making decisions for women when it comes to healthcare pertaining only to women.
