During the last two election cycles, the social policy agenda was almost solely about "abortion-on-demand-and-gay-marriage" as if it were one key on a political reporter's keyboard. Charts in the mainstream media comparing the positions of the candidates in 2004 did not include a host of women's rights issues, as had been the case in the 1990s. Women's rights issue were reduced to a single topic: abortion, as if that was all women voters cared about.

This year, the picture is changing. Yes, abortion is being discussed but along with it other women's issues are getting attention, like equal pay and a broader set of reproductive health issues including birth control. For the first time ever, sex education has gotten attention. In the wake of Bristol Palin's abstinence-only outcome, even the main-er than mainstream Parade magazine asked readers whether abstinence-only programs should continue.

This year candidates who formerly fell victim to a caricature of being "pro-abortion" or more likely pro-"abortion on demand" are returning fire. Some have countered that their opponents are the true extremists. They have turned the tables by exposing them as not only anti-abortion, but, more radically, anti-contraception.

According to research done by Moving Forward, the percentage of voters who are opposed to a host of issues being hijacked by abortion including birth control, stem cell and sex education are only 9% of the electorate. Polls taken by the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association found that even 80% of self-described "pro-life" voters support access to contraception. Opposition to contraception is the mark of extremism. Yet, to appease their fundamentalist "pro-life" base that vehemently opposes contraception, many elected officials Members of Congress have voted against access to contraception.

And so in 2008 pro-choice candidates have begun to paint those who oppose contraception as extremists. This election cycle marks the first time since the legalization of contraception that access to birth control has become a campaign issue. In tight races, the issue may prove decisive.

The following is a snapshot of how contraception is being used as an issue in House, Senate and Gubernatorial races.

Colorado

Contraception has become an issue in the tight Markey-Musgrave race for Colorado 4th district House seat in part because of Amendment 48. The proposed amendment would alter the state constitution to grant fertilized eggs equal rights, the same as a human being, and pave the way for a ban on birth control as well as stem cell research, IVF and abortion. Democrat Betsy Markey opposes the amendment as do many moderate "pro-lifers" including Democrat Governor Bill Ritter. Republican Marilyn Musgrave is a lead supporter of the ballot measure, along with many other anti-contraception ideologues.

Washington

Whether a woman has a right to get her prescription for birth control filled has become a campaign issue in the Washington gubernatorial race. The Seattle Times reports that Republican challenger Dino Rossi opposes requiring pharmacists to fill birth control prescriptions. Incumbent Democrat Governor Christine Gregoire followed up with this ad:



In September, Politickerwa.org reported on how access to contraception has become an issue in the 8th Congressional District Race in Washington as well. Democratic candidate Darcy Burner organized and submitted over 900 comments to the Department of Health and Human Services on the proposed regulation that will allow health care workers to deny women birth control.

Politickerwa.org reported,

"Burner's campaign also tried to make a campaign issue out of the move [proposed HHS regulation], saying in an accompanying release that [Republican Dave] Reichert is "too extreme" on abortion issues for Washington state... "The people of this district strongly oppose these proposed restrictions on access to birth control, which are nothing more than the President Bush's parting gift to his social conservative base." said Burner campaign spokesman Sandeep Kaushik. "So where does Congressman Reichert stand on this issue? His track record is not encouraging. He supports giving pharmacists the right to deny 'birth control' to women, voted to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood, is rigidly anti-choice, and has a zero rating from women's reproductive rights groups. Congressman Reichert is too extreme for Washington State on all of these issues. That is not a record the people of this district will support."

Here is the ad Burner's campaign ran against Reichert:



Recognizing how damaging the label "anti-contraception" could be, Reichert's campaign quickly worked to bolster his pro-contraception credentials. Amanda Halligan, Reichert's Communications Director, went on the defensive pointing out Reichert was a cosponsor of H.R. 4054, the Prevention Through Affordable Access Act which corrects the escalating birth control prices at college health centers caused by the 2005 Deficit Reduction Act. Halligan stated,

"Dave Reichert is for women's health. He also believes that women should have access. This is being trumped up for political reasons and it speaks volumes about their campaign and about Darcy Burner. They want to muddy the waters. They reference the debate, but that is a different issue. If they are talking about birth control, then he supports women's health and he wants to provide access to birth control."

Virginia

In September, The Washington Post reported that contraception had become an issue in Virginia's 11th House race between Democrat Gerry Connolly and Republican Keith Fimian. The Post article quotes Connolly accusing his opponent of having extreme views on birth control because he serves on the board of Legatus, a foundation for Catholic Businessmen founded by Domino's Pizza mogul Tom Monaghan, a staunch opponent of contraception. In the article Connolly is quoted as saying,

"Mr. Fimian's views on social issues are relevant because he has pretended in this campaign to be a moderate in the mold of Tom Davis. Tom Davis is pro-choice. Tom Davis is pro-stem cell research. And Tom Davis certainly supports the availability of contraception in the United States. My opponent belongs to an organization that opposes these things. I assume when you belong to an organization, you subscribe to the tenets of this organization. If he wants to disavow the tenets of this organization, now's the time to do it."

The Legatus mission is to find "what ways can we as Apostles bring Christ into our businesses." Political bloggers in Virginia picked up on the issue. The blogger Left of the Hill added a new wrinkle to the anti-contraception charges made against Fimian, focusing on his days as a CEO. Left of the Hill wrote,

"In the health care plan offered to employees from the mid 1990's to about 2003 of US Inspect and InVision Technologies (the companies that Keith Fimian was CEO and Chairman of), it explicitly says that "oral contraceptive[s] used for birth control" were not covered. This is despite the fact that over twenty states have laws that basically say oral contraceptives have to be covered if the plan covers other prescriptions or outpatient procedures."

Connolly's "Too Extreme" ad:



New Hampshire

In the New Hampshire U.S. Senate race between Democrat Jeanne Shaheen and Republican John Sununu, contraception has become a campaign issue as well. NARAL Pro-Choice New Hampshire has highlighted Sununu's votes against contraception including voting against funding international family planning programs and contraceptive coverage for federal employees. Shaheen has used the issue to portray Sununu as extreme.


(scroll forward to 1:24 to hear Candidate Jeanne Shaheen compare herself and her opponent, John Sununu, on the issue of birth control.)

Ohio

In the OH-15 open House seat between Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy and Republican Steve Stivers. Emily's List, the national group that supports pro-choice women candidates, highlighted Stivers's opposition to requiring insurers to cover contraception when he served as a state senator.

Emily's List writes,

"A true swing seat. This Columbus-area seat has been in GOP hands since 1967, and they won't give it up without a fierce fight -- especially in a presidential year, when Ohio's 20 electoral votes are up for grabs. Republicans have coalesced behind Steve Stivers, a right-wing state senator and former lobbyist for the banking industry. Stivers has repeatedly opposed legislation to protect consumers, including efforts to curb predatory lending. He has consistently earned "0" ratings from Ohio NARAL and even worked against an amendment requiring insurance companies to cover contraception."

New Jersey

The race for NJ's District 7 open House seat has also taken on the issue of pharmacy refusals. Democrat Linda Stender has hit challenger Republican Leonard Lance on voting against a bill, that Stender sponsored, that would ensure women can fill birth control prescriptions at any pharmacy in the state.



Democrat Josh Zeitz, the Democratic candidate in NJ's 4th district is challenging incumbent Republican Chris Smith, well-known for his anti-contraception activities. In a campaign ad, Zeitz focused on Smith's opposition to contraception.



In a blog on the Huffington Post entitled "Rep. Chris Smith Wants to Criminalize the Birth Control Pill" Zeitz wrote,

"On twenty-two separate occasions, Chris Smith has introduced legislation to criminalize the common, everyday birth control pill and IUD… I believe that access to basic birth control and family planning services is a fundamental right. By attempting to criminalize the pill, Chris Smith's policies increase the number of unintended pregnancies."

The anti-contraception movement is well-funded and very active, as Birth Control Watch documents. In the races reviewed above, the discussion of social issues has expanded to include birth control, sex education, stem cell and more; all the issues that get stalled in Congress once the "abortion" label is applied. This is the first election year that a candidate's anti-contraception position has come under public scrutiny. If birth control gets on the radar of our very pro-contraception electorate, and some of the more extreme anti-abortion, anti-contraception legislators are edited from Congress, "Prevention First" policies should find a spot on the first 100 days agenda. Maybe it is time to move from being just pro-choice to being pro-choices.

Earlier this month, Governor Bill Ritter announced his opposition to
Amendment 48 which seeks to grant a fertilized egg the status of a
human being, complete with equal rights. The groups pushing the
amendment advertise it as a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, the
Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide, but it
targets far more than that. In fact, even those opposed to legal
abortion, like Ritter, have good reason to reject the proposal too.

The creators of Amendment 48 have been coy since the start. They
haven't fully explained the implications of their plan and with good
reason—it's extreme. Amendment 48, if passed, would undermine our
right to have a baby by establishing the legal groundwork to outlaw
IVF treatment. It threatens our right to plan a family by adding the
most commonly used forms of birth control alongside abortion to the
list of banned procedures. The state, under this proposal, could
intervene in a woman's life, even a woman with cancer and deny her
life saving medical treatment if it could endanger a fertilized egg.
This constitutional amendment is not about protecting life. Amendment
48 does nothing less than rob us of the ability to make many of life's
most important decisions.

The architects of the proposed amendment know this. The initiative's
sponsor Kristi Burton asserts, "As far as birth control, IVF and
abortion and all that, our amendment doesn't ban anything." But then
she slyly admits, "That would be up to the legislature and courts. If
our amendment passes and that's (a fertilized egg) considered a person
you'd have to view those issues in that way." Ms. Burton knows full
well that the only purpose to granting a fertilized egg full human
rights is to target the right to birth control, IVF and stem cell
research. If it were simply about targeting the right to an abortion,
then Amendment 48 would have attempted to define life as starting at
the moment a pregnancy begins and not before, as Amendment 48 does.

The groups supporting Amendment 48, as listed on the Personhood
Colorado website, represent the most extreme wing of the right to life
movement. These groups and individuals lead campaigns against
contraceptive access. They don't believe that individuals should
decide what's best for themselves according to their values. For
example, the American Life League hopes to ban contraception entirely
and this year led a campaign called "The Pill Kills." Its purpose was
to confuse the public into thinking the most common and effective
forms of birth control, like the birth control pill, cause abortion.
They held protests outside of family planning clinics nationwide
trying to convince Americans to stop using contraception. Another
backer, Human Life International, targets the poorest and most
desperate places on earth. In these distressed countries, it seeks to
block access to birth control and to de-fund relief agencies that
distribute contraception. The Pro-Life Action League, another
Amendment 48 supporter, held a conference several years ago entitled
"Contraception is Not the Answer." Many of the individuals signed on
in support of Amendment 48 are most famous for their
anti-contraception work and activities. Dr. David Hager is credited
with helping to block over-the-counter access to emergency
contraception. He led the FDA to ignore the advice of its own
scientists and for the first time in its history make a decision based
exclusively on ideology. Neil Noesen, another supporter, is a
Wisconsin-based pharmacist who made national news by denying a woman
her prescription for birth control and refusing to transfer it to a
nearby pharmacy that would fill it. Supporter Dr. William Colliton
published an article entitled "Birth Control Pill: Abortifacient and
Contraceptive" in which he said, "There is an unarguable logic
connecting the contraceptive act and the abortive act. They are both
anti-life."

Access to birth control options including emergency birth control is
the only proven way to reduce unintended pregnancy and abortion rates.
That's why even 80% of self-described "pro-life" Americans support
access to contraception.

Voters must know that Proposal 48 threatens much more than the right
to a safe and legal abortion. For women to achieve equality, they must
have access to birth control. We need to respect people's ability to
make their own life decisions and not impose our values and views upon
others. The extreme team assembled in support of Prop 48 knows its
hidden purpose and potential—and they are committed to making sure
that before Election Day you don't.

Yesterday, a new pharmacy that will not sell birth control opened in a Virginia strip mall. Divine Mercy Care may sound like a place one goes to die, but it's the seventh pharmacy certified by the group "Pharmacists for Life" and encouraged by HHS's new "conscience" rule. Now, if you're a pharmacist who finds birth control immoral, you don't have to waste time refusing to fill customers' prescriptions and sitting through pesky court trials. Instead, you can set up your own pharmacy where only like-minded people shop. If a woman desperately begs you to fill her prescription for contraception, or a rape victim requests a morning after pill, you can just say no, or better yet, explain that their imminent pregnancies are part of God's beautiful plan.

At first, I thought maybe this wasn't such a bad idea. After all, the customer knows what she's getting into up-front. Women can spare themselves the humiliation of being denied a prescription. If they need the morning after pill, they won't waste time being turned down and frantically searching for a pharmacy within the brief time period that Plan B remains effective. Best to keep real pharmacies and "faith-filled" pharmacies separate—Leslie Unruh can shop at her local Divine Mercy Care, and everyone else can just go to Rite Aide. And maybe it's in everybody's best interest not to have a medical professional perform a task they disagree with. Doctors who oppose abortions are not required to perform them, and it seems fairly reasonable that this serves the good of the patient, as well.

But here's the problem, or rather, multiple problems. First of all, Divine Mercy Care is not so up-front. On a section on their website called, "What Sets Us Apart," the fact that they do not sell contraception is tenth on a bulleted list. What really sets them apart, according to the first few bulleted items, is that they are "family friendly" (as opposed to all others which are, what, family-unfriendly?), "a non-profit pharmacy, meaning [their] prices are fair, low and competitive as [they] strive to serve the insured, underinsured and those without insurance," and "an educational pharmacy, meaning the pharmacist is always available to counsel, teach and explain, and drug literature is available in English and Spanish." Which points to a second problem: the pharmacy is targeting the uninsured and uneducated. These are the people who are least likely to have the knowledge and resources to say, "I know that I need the morning after pill immediately, and that it's within my rights to have access to it. I'm going to drive another 30 miles to find a pharmacy that carries it." These are the women who will come to their nearest pharmacy in an emergency seeking advice, and will be the most vulnerable to a pharmacist who tells them that their only option is to trust in God's design.

The parts of the country that are most pro-life tend to be rural areas far from big cities—the kind of place that would have just one pharmacy. As NARAL's Virginia chapter's executive director Tarina Keene commented in the AP article on DMC, "If this emboldens pharmacies in other parts of the state, it could really affect low-income and rural women in terms of access." So this is not a matter of women choosing between running an errand at their local Divine Mercy Care or neighborhood Duane Reade. This could become a choice between Divine Mercy Care or no care at all. If one pharmacy can be anti-contraception, all pharmacies can become anti-contraception, and in certain regions, if they can, they will. This is a situation where the federal government needs to step in and require all pharmacies to provide contraception. Instead, they've done the exact opposite.

Thank you to Hannah for help researching this piece.

View Larger Map

If my embedding was done correctly, the above map will allow you to see the actual "Street View" of 46 Amboy Street, Brooklyn, today--the site of Margaret Sanger's first birth control clinic (click on the address and then choose "Street View" to visit the block). I've pasted above that an archival photo of the same site during Sanger's time when it was the first clinic in the United States to provide women with family planning services. As you'll see from both images, one of the original structures still stands, now abandoned, with no trace of it place in history or the massive social changes that the movement, which took its first tangible form at this location, set in motion. It's sadly poetic, it's current condition, certainly the anti-birth control groups would revel in its obscurity.

In honor of Sanger as well as this little plot of earth, take a moment to read a brief history of the site and the struggle Sanger began there and that we continue today. This link to The Margaret Sanger Papers Project at New York University's archives offers a window into that time.

The news was buried in an AP story yesterday. Levi Johnston, Bristol Palin’s fiancée and soon-to-be baby daddy has dropped out of high school. He informed a reporter in what sounded like a real casual interview that took place on his driveway. The news is surprising only insomuch as how closely this story has followed the national statistics on teen sex and pregnancy. As if a piece in a Tetris puzzle, Levi now falls into his predestined spot neatly alongside all other teens dropping out of high school to prematurely become adults through unplanned parenthood.


Levi has been a stand-up guy, no doubt. He's made difficult choices (under the bright national spotlight). But will they pay off for him and his loved ones? While we know a lot more about the impact of teen motherhood on girls, we have some idea what early parenthood does to fathers. Teen fathers have lower education levels and suffer earning losses of 10-15 percent annually which may mean that prosperity escapes people like Levi and Bristol.

It’s not hard to feel for these teens. It's also not hard to think that their predicament was the result of lack of information about how to protect themselves once they have strayed from their abstinence plan, the one Bristol's mom championed. And while there’s been a lot of focus on the ineffectiveness of abstinence-only education, little attention has been paid to its side effects even when it works. For example, it's a gateway to early marriage. It’s not just those who traded in their virginity pledge for an unintended pregnancy, like Bristol and Levi, who are susceptible. Even the most diligent abstainers are likely to marry much earlier; heavy petting their way down the aisle. The Center for Law and Social Policy found that the number of married teenagers in the US jumped by nearly 50 percent in the 1990s, the decade during which abstinence-only programs became all the rage. The report credits the spike in early marriage to the sudden emphasis on abstinence-until-marriage which flourished during the rapid increase in teenage marriage.

And the irony of it all is that while Christian conservatives vehemently defend these programs, they are often upset by the results. According to the Guttmacher Institute, “Teen marriages are highly unstable.” In fact, the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University reports, people who marry in their teens are two to three times more likely to divorce than people who marry in their twenties or older.

We all truly wish Bristol and Levi the best of luck. Given the statistical pool they’re diving into, it is no doubt what they’ll need.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff's wrote an excellent piece this week enititled "Can This Be Pro-Life?" It focused on USAID's defunding of the reproductive health NGO Maria Stopes International. Under the banner of "pro-life", Kristoff explains, this action will lead to the deaths of countless mothers and children in Africa, where pregnancy is already the leading killer of women between fifteen and forty-five years old. Maria Stopes International's family planning services can only be described as life-saving: it rescues women from dangerous childbirths, STDs, debilitating conditions like fistula, and allows them to begin to lead lives outside of the home. What Kristoff failed to account for however was who instigated the defunding except in a vague way: "There is something about reproductive health — maybe the sex part — that makes some Americans froth and go crazy," he insufficiently explained. It's not just "some" Americans who are responsible for US government's outrageous action, but rather, a well-funded and well-organized coalition with tremendous lobbying power: America's so-called "pro-life" movement.

Birth control is the only proven factor in reducing abortion. Yet somehow, not a single anti-abortion group in the U.S. supports contraception. The shockingly high rates of teen pregnancy in America—on par with Third World countries and four times as high as the European Union—are direct consequences of the pro-life movement's strength in our country, as are disproportionately high rates of AIDS contraction in regions where contraception is not taught in schools. Now our domestic anti-choice groups are exporting their dangerous efforts beyond our borders, which, coupled with lack of healthcare and extreme poverty, will result in even more dire consequences. One such group, Human Life International, boasts on their website about bringing about the destruction of 10 million condoms in Tanzania, where almost 9 percent of the population, roughly 1,600,000 people, have AIDS. In her signature loony reasoning, American Life League president Judie Brown thanked HLI's founder for teaching her that "the practice of contraception always leads to aborting babies." These extremists ignore all scientific and statistical data in order to pursue an agenda that is anti-health, anti-women, and anti-life.

There is something about guys who go to the mat for women's rights, especially for women facing important life decisions, that makes them unbelievably sexy. I've had a huge crush on Mayor Bloomberg ever since he launched the initiative (which I helped design--so that helps also) to improve residency training in abortion throughout the New York City public hospitals. In the few times I've met him I've been a blushing dope. (Meeting Senator Santorum just didn't have the same romantic effect.) You name em, if they've got women's interests in mind it translates to a sexiness upgrade. Take Kucinich -- hard to imagine his wife who, let's face it, could pretty much have anyone set her sultry eyes on (let’s face it, not totally hot) Dennis. He’s a champion of women who want to prevent unintended pregnancies, much sexier than if he was the type to yuck it up with James Dobson, that anti-choices demagogue.

Now back to my point about Colorado Governor Bill Ritter's sexiness. Today, he is announcing his opposition to Amendment 48 which would grant fertilized eggs full human rights and establish the legal groundwork for eliminating all reproductive rights, including the right to use contraception. Ritter is in our corner. He respects women and their right to privacy.

The fastest way to a woman's heart is through her head. Governor Ritter, we're officially smitten.