PLAN B (a.k.a. “Hussy Pills”)

Big news this past week:

Plan B, also known as the “morning after pill,” (or in the words of pseudo-conservative, Stephen Colbert, “hussy pills”) will now be made available over the counter—no prescription required—for girls and women, ages 15 and up.

Naturally, according to conservatives, this just means society is practically pushing young girls into having sex.

Ok, first of all, if anything in society is pushing young girls into having sex, it’s the media and our visual culture’s sexualization of girls and women. Moreover, this line of thinking fails to acknowledge that a young woman may actually be capable of possessing her own sexual agency. I know teenagers are crazy, with their hormones flying all over the place, and they often think they know everything, when as we all clearly know from hindsight, they don’t…. However, it is a point in time during which many are figuring out their own sexuality, and learning to be their own sexual agents (God willing!). So, with that kind of thinking in mind, the old “this is encouraging promiscuous behavior!” rhetoric is really rather patronizing. Plan B isn’t going to “encourage” unprotected promiscuity any more than abortion “encourages” unplanned pregnancies.

Not to mention, this brings up the most glaringly contradictory flaw contained within any and all Republican/conservative, pro-life arguments against contraception:

If you’re so anti-abortion, you should love contraception. You should want more of, and increased access to, contraception. It actually prevents abortions. Guess what, conservatives and Republicans— it’s thanks to Planned Parenthood that I, and many other girls and women out there in the U.S., have never even had to consider abortion. Thanks to Planned Parenthood, and access to contraception. It will never cease to amaze me how pro-life/anti-abortion politicians seem to conveniently leave out of their arguments the fact that contraception is actually essential to their cause. (That and sexual education, which is another thing they are often illogically against.)

And if they want to argue for abstinence or some other such farce, well, that leads to the biggest caveat of all:

TEENAGERS HAVE SEX. Overwhelmingly, regardless of your opinion, or your morals, or what you choose to believe, the fact of the matter is: TEENAGERS HAVE SEX.

A few facts, taken from the Guttmacher Institute website:

• Although only 13% of teens have had sex by age 15, most initiate sex in their later teen years. By their 19th birthday, seven in 10 female and male teens have had intercourse.
  
• On average, young people have sex for the first time at about age 17
• A woman who is sexually active and not using contraception has an 85% chance of becoming pregnant within a year.
• Each year, almost 750,000 U.S. women aged 15–19 become pregnant. Two-thirds of all teen pregnancies occur among 18–19-year-olds.
• Overall, 68 pregnancies occurred per 1,000 women aged 15–19 in 2008. The 2008 rate was a record low and represented a 42% decline from the peak rate of 117 per 1,000, which occurred in 1990.
• The majority of the decline in teen pregnancy rates in the United States (86%) is due to teens’ improved contraceptive use; the rest is due to increased proportions of teens choosing to delay sexual activity.
• Despite having declined, the U.S. teen pregnancy rate continues to be one of the highest in the developed world. It is more than twice as high as rates in Canada (28 per 1,000 women aged 15–19 in 2006) and Sweden (31 per 1,000).
• Eighty-two percent of teen pregnancies are unplanned; teens account for about one-fifth of all unintended pregnancies annually.

[Read more from the Guttmacher Institute’s Fact Sheet on American Teens’ Sexual and Reproductive Health Here.]

Finally, I heard a new one here:

According to Conservative Columnist, Francesca Chambers, “Repealing the age restriction to buy the morning after pill will encourage young women who are too embarrassed or afraid to talk about sexual abuse to bypass the authorities. Terrible men who deserve to go to prison could never face charges, allowing them the opportunity to continue feeding their sexual addiction. Despite the way many pro-choice advocates are attempting to frame the issue, this is not a women’s health or a women’s rights issue.”

Wow. I have never heard of access to contraception as something that could, or would, “encourage young women…to bypass the authorities” when it comes to rape. Once again, I am encountered with ill logic. Have we ever relied on pregnancy as an indicator of sexual abuse? Moreover, she is either unaware of the conditions that actually do engender girls and women keeping quiet about rape, or she is aware, but chooses not to disclose that information. Let’s see: Threat of death, humiliation, no one believing you, ostracization, and now, apparently you could get kicked out of school… And then there’s this:

Why Will Only 3 Out of Every 100 Rapists Serve Time?

And ultimately, Ms. Chambers, this IS a women’s health AND a women’s rights issue. It has to do with our—specifically, women’s—sexual and reproductive health. It doesn’t get any more logical than that. (Maybe she’s never heard of a uterus or a vagina? Then again, if she’s a conservative, probably not- those words are dirty!) To try and argue otherwise is like trying to argue that contraception and unplanned pregnancies have nothing to do with each other.