Let’s synchronize our watches. Then we can together count the
mili-seconds between the announcement of the birth control pricing fix
for college women and the moment the religious right and its
Congressional enablers begin misleading the public about it.

The birth control pricing fix, which was included in the appropriations
bill released today, neutralizes a Bush era anti-contraception
maneuver that caused the price of birth control to skyrocket for
college women, in some cases by 900%. Bush removed college health
centers from group discount drug programs. The fix would simply put
college health centers back into the program. The almost immediate
result will be a reduction in the cost of contraception for college
women: the demographic most at risk of unintended pregnancy. It bears
repeating: this fix will cost the taxpayers nothing. The studies, in
fact, show that such a program which does little more than give people
the opportunity to make their own important life decisions, will save
taxpayers money. In these economic times, you’d hope any and every
cost-neutral/cost-savings proposal would be given serious attention by
lawmakers.

But that’s not how the anti-contraception movement rolls.

And that’s sad. Because one of the few areas of common ground in this
divisive debate is contraception. The truth is the American public
supports contraception. And 72 percent of voting Americans even
believe that taxpayers should pay for birth control for low-income
women. An even greater percentage, 80 percent of voters, believes that
women won’t achieve full equality without access to family planning.

The dramatic results of family planning are hard to argue with. Honest
fiscal conservatives and even so called “pro-lifers” cannot ignore
the facts. According to the newest information from the Guttmacher
Institute, the leading non-partisan research organization on
reproductive health, for every public dollar spent on family planning
we save $4 in averted costs. Guttmacher studies show that each year
public funding for contraception prevents 1.94 million
unintended pregnancies, including almost 400,000 teen pregnancies. And
that’s at the starvation budget-levels for programs enforced by the Bush
administration for programs like Title X.

In upcoming months, along with the birth control pricing fix, we will
need to increase public funding for contraception to the same level
(when adjusted for inflation) that we invested in it in the 1970’s,
when the nation’s contraceptive program began.

Unfortunately, the debate on this and other contraceptive issues is
often hijacked by ideological zealots. In fact, just two weeks ago we
witnessed a rightwing take-down of a contraception-related proposal.
That takedown required a misleading sleight of hand by Representative
John Boehner, who recently pledged his support to the Pope’s
anti-contraception agenda. Boehner blithely led the public to believe
that Obama’s economic stimulus package included $200 million for
contraception. And like the search for WMDs, it took investigators
some time to find it wasn’t there. Turns out the $200 million figure
in the stimulus package actually referred to the cost-savings that
would have resulted by giving more women access to birth control.

Unfortunately, the media coverage of the Boehner-led fiasco had that
fraternity-style, fact-light coverage that serves right wing issues.
On MSNC Chris Matthews, seemingly fresh off a bong hit, compared
government funding contraception to China’s coercive one child policy.
We should expect the same demeaning media horseplay with any future
proposals on birth control.

This conversation needs some designated drivers. Especially since one
of the outcomes of Bush era policies is that the number of women in
need of publicly funded services increased by more than a million (7%)
between 2000 and 2006. And that was before our economy disappeared.

Americans’ most important life decisions, like when to start or expand
a family, now take place against the backdrop of a society in economic
free fall. Even though the media treats contraception as a springboard
for irrational right wing fulminating, for the millions who have lost
their jobs and their health insurance, access to contraception is
essential. There are no doubt plenty of wisecracks to be made about
stimulus and contraception—but unless a factual national conversation
about family planning starts real soon, the joke will be on us.