The XX Factor: What women really think.

For Women, Good Jobs Depend on Good Contraception ... and Yet ...

Dayo, I agree with you on a number of things about contraception and economic prosperity for the country and for women—and disagree with Rachael's contention that contraception isn't related to jobs.

Let's be real: Most women (with the exception of lesbians like me) couldn't be 21st-century workers without contraception. Helping poor women pay for contraception keeps them in the workforce (good for the economy), keeps down maternity-related health care costs down (ditto), helps poor women not have more children than they can support (TANF costs reduced), incrementally helps expand health care coverage, and all sorts of other things that are good for the economy, for women, for children, and for the country. Yes, I salute Medicaid coverage for contraception!

What's more, I agree with Ruth Rosen's more recent analytical post explaining the right wing's philosophical objection to family planning at all. Here's a snippet from her brilliant explanation of why Margaret Sanger was repeatedly arrested for opening her pioneering birth control clinics, why she and her fellows were attacked so ferociously by the forces of Comstock, and why contraception is still being attacked today:

... the religious right's real agenda is not just to eliminate abortion, but to end the historic rupture between sex and reproduction that took place in the 20th century.... If reproduction ceased to be the goal, sexuality might become yoked to pleasure and that is quite unsettling to many Americans. That is the legacy the religious right has fought against, and it's that agenda that cut funding for family planning.

As I explained in my book What Is Marriage For?, when women won the battle over contraception, it blazed the trail for the acceptance of lesbians and gay men. Hurray contraception, both practically and philosophically! What's more, there's some disguised racism in the opposition to Medicaid-funded contraception; all "welfare" supports for poor folks get a racialized tinge in the cultural imagination (however false the imaginary picture). 

And. Yet. I still don't get the angst over whether expanded Medicaid payments for contraception should or should not have been in the stimulus package. Can't we give Obama a chance to make this happen some other way? The man has been in office for all of nine days. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine! And in those nine days he has already done some amazing things for poor women—both symbolically resonant and immediately practical—like repeal the gag rule, appoint a female solicitor general, make Hillary Clinton (with her explicitly pro-women approach to foreign policy, dating back to the Beijing conference and beyond) our secretary of state, and support equal pay in the fabulous Ledbetter Act.

Look, Clinton went down in flames when he tried—right after he was inaugurated—to allow lesbians and gay men to serve openly in the military. The idea was right but the tactics were wrong—and the results were the disastrously restrictive Don't Ask Don't Tell policy. Can we give the Obamanauts another month or two—or call me crazy, three! —to work on Medicaid-funded contraception, which is so outrageously controversial, for the reasons Ruth explains, and more?

More Stimulation

Rachael, it's lovely to agree with you ... at least partly. I too am vastly in favor of contraception being available to all, and yet agree that it shouldn't be in the stimulus package.

I've long found it amusing that Viagra, but not contraception, is regularly covered by health insurance: Why should men's sexual pleasure be underwritten but not women's? I don't know whether Medicaid covers Viagra without a waiver (according to MSNBC, 27 states' Medicaid programs do cover contraception, but they had to seek a waiver to do it.) If yes, obviously contraception should be, too. And I agree that underwriting contraception for poor folks seems like a no-brainer-except for the radicals (and yes, they do exist) who believe that all sexual activity should lead to babies.

And yet like you, Rach, I humbly disagree with my admired friend Ruth Rosen's position ... although for different reasons. I don't have any economic philosophical objections to its inclusion: After all, this stimulus package includes money for food stamps, the GAO, the census, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, unnamed projects for the Department of Homeland Security, information technology projects for the Department of State... and what's most relevant, Medicaid. If the Obamites deem a project good for the country, it's in this bill.

So why do I disagree with Ruth? Because the White House is already showing incredible savvy in making controversial changes about women's health. I was wowed by the fact that the controversial global gag was repealed on Friday at about 4:45 p.m. ... perfect timing for missing the American news cycles. Thursday's and Friday's news cycles were dominated by Gitmo closing; Monday, the news media were all over the plan to back higher fuel-emissions standards, a big symbolic move on environmental policy. Obama slipped through his move to improve women's lives by allowing women's health providers to talk freely about all options without losing U.S. funding with no controversy. (If Rick Warren's ghastly inaugural prayer was a fig leaf for this repeal of the gag rule, well, it was worth it.)

That's why I don't mind seeing this particular, um, withdrawal from the stimulus package: because I'm guessing that the Obamamites are being savvy—taking this fight out of the public eye so that they can handle it in a better way.