And so here we have the American Life League, gearing up for a big protest (they hope) on June 7 titled, “The PILL KILLS,” the idea being that birth-control pills don’t merely prevent unwanted pregnancies but actually can act as abortifacents. And therefore, on that basis, it should be banned.
But, as usual for such folks, there’s more to the real basis for their opposition:
June 7 marks the 43rd anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision Griswold v. Connecticut. This was the first of many decisions that led to the culture of death we live in today.
On that day in 1965, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the Griswold v. Connecticut case, it set a legal precedent for claiming that the Constitution grants women the right to privacy in matters of sexual practice. This meant that Connecticut and the rest of the United States could not stop a married woman from obtaining birth control pills. However, as Judge Andrew Napolitano has pointed out, the constitutional right to privacy has nothing to do with birth control.
The plaintiff was Estelle Griswold, then executive director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut. She and Dr. C. Lee Buxton opened a birth control clinic. They were arrested and fined for selling birth control pills, which was illegal in Connecticut. The case was pushed all the way to the Supreme Court. In other words, Planned Parenthood was breaking the law; yet it turned this case into a legal precedent for selling contraception. Because of the Griswold case and others that followed, unmarried women and teenagers were later permitted to obtain birth control pills.
See? Thus unmarried women and teenagers - you know, maybe 19 or 18 - should not be permitted to obtain birth control pills at all. And the subtext here of course is that married women should also not be able to obtain birth control pills. Because they can be abortifacents.
But more than that - because there should be no privacy in matters of sexual practice.
I don’t know why these folks have to hide behind these elaborate rationales, when this is what they believe. Why don’t they just come out and say it - We do not believe you have the right of privacy in sexual matters. Which means no abortions; but it also means no birth control. It also means that since we believe the purpose of sex is and should be for procreation alone, you then must practice sex according to this, that we believe.
No deal.
People are going to say, no no, this is not what they’re saying. To which I’d respond: What, then, is this group’s position - or maybe your position - on condoms, then? Do I or you or anyone else have the right to try and prevent pregnancy in this manner? Do you or I have the right to try and prevent pregnancy at all?
Or do we have no sexual freedom whatsoever?
