Sex

Bill O’Reilly says the Government Shouldn’t Pay for Birth Control Because Women Are Too Blasted to Use It Anyhow

The anti-choice, anti-contraceptive, anti-women arguments against insurance coverage for birth control now includes this gem from Fox News's Bill O'Reilly. 

As we noted last week, the Institute of Medicine released a report in which it recommended that the health reform guidelines for preventive care that are being developed by the Department of Health and Human Services should include no-copay for contraception.  Since then the anti-choice, anti-contraception, anti-women conservatives have come out with a slew of ridiculous arguments as to why this is a bad idea.  Robin Marty pointed to the Des Moines Registers’ argument that without a co-pay, people have “no skin in the game” and may use more health care (in this case birth control) than they really need (I’ll take two diaphragms please?).  And, in her piece this morning Amanda Marcotte looks at arguments that say we will create a society based on “consequence-free sex” and are dangerously “decoupling sex from procreation,” and suggests that many of these arguments boil down to “Dirty sluts don’t deserve nothing.” 

One of those singing that tune is Bill O’Reilly, who briefly discussed the report in his Culture Warriors segment last week. He seemed outraged that the government would be forced to pay $4 billion just for the pill and argued:  “Many women who get pregnant are blasted out of their minds when they have sex. They’re not going to use birth control anyway.”

O’Reilly either is a misogynistic ass or has spent years purposefully cultivating his image as one so quotes like this shouldn’t come as a surprise (and yet they do).  Perhaps we have to remind Bill that women don’t actually take the birth control pill right before they have sex, it’s a daily ritual. More importantly, though, we have to remind him that he shouldn’t be having sex with women who “are blasted out of their minds,” birth control or no birth control since they’re in no position to give their consent.