Somehow, the moral debate over the use of contraceptives has been carried into the 21st century. It is not known for being a debate that changes very much even as more contraception methods become available to us.
Although the contraception issue has never been one prone to periods of dormancy, it has in recent years experienced relatively strong media and political presence. This high period began with laws and healthcare providers offering contraception to insured women with no additional cost outside of insurance.
The groundwork was laid through the Affordable Healthcare Act by the Obama Administration to mandate that most healthcare plans provide free contraceptive coverage. This action is not without backlash in the form of lawsuits by many employers and organizations against the mandate.
The viewpoints against widespread contraception availability are largely religious, and so tend to debate morally right or wrong. They are grounded in the idea that contraceptive use promotes premarital sex, particularly in teens.
It is a point that, while not unreasonable, is not supportable at its base level and becomes less so at higher levels of the debate.
While contraceptives may contribute to a generally more casual attitude toward premarital or underage sex, the numbers simply are not there to make the point more rational than idealistic.
The United States simply has not reached that level of technology-driven apathy toward invasive screening of our personal lives. Even if we had, those numbers would still not be enough to serve as indicators of attitude, an entirely too elusive abstraction to chase. History shows that the society’s attitude fluctuates over years – increasingly less years in the modern age – and the individual’s attitude fluctuates within even less time.
The viewpoints for widespread contraception availability, though exceedingly more supported by quantifiable research, are largely philosophical and often phrased directly in response to religious viewpoints, meaning that they end up debating right or wrong even when they do not mean to. To be fair, the numbers make these responses far more rational than their counterparts.
A NY Times article recently praised the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment whose outreach program offering long-acting contraceptives to teens, particularly poor teens, correlated with a phenomenal 40 percent drop in teen pregnancy and a 42 percent drop in teenage abortions between 2009-2013.
Not only are the findings positives for the pro-contraception argument in and of themselves, there are more to be found as a result of them while the negatives struggle to achieve undeniable existence.
The numbers in no way indicate that teens are having more sex than previously, and the evidently high teen pregnancy and abortion rates prior to this outreach program indicate that a lack of access to contraception in no way discourages teens from sex.
Those against contraception would of course then debate that the answer would be instead to teach abstinence more rather than providing contraception. The number one issue with that is that abstinence is taught in schools and discussed even in textbooks along side contraception methods as rightfully the best form of birth control. Despite this education as well as at least basic level understanding in teens that they could just not engage in intercourse, teen pregnancy remains a prevailing issue.
The problem with both sides of the debate is what they are – religious and philosophical, debating right or wrong and who should get to dictate right or wrong. Religious arguers maintain that the government should stay out of a religious issue of right or wrong while their counterparts argue that religion cannot claim ownership over a general people issue of right or wrong.
The issue is more what the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment evidently realizes – contraception is an individual medical issue and on the macro level an issue of public health and economics.
It’s important to communicate that no contraceptive is perfect. Different contraceptives can cause issues in women relating to hormone balance, ability to get pregnant in the future, and more. However, these issues are rare and even more rarely untreatable. Pregnancy can cause issues in the body as well.
On a larger scale, teen pregnancy and unplanned pregnancy are both symptoms of poverty and reinforce socioeconomic immobility. Contraception allows poorer women to finish education and pursue careers.
On the global level, contraceptives have been linked both with too-low birth rates in highly modernized countries including but not limited to Japan, China, the United States, and many European Countries.
However, also on the global level, contraceptives have been linked to mobilizing more poor or otherwise restricted women into higher education and the workforce in both lesser and more developed countries worldwide, helping many economies become more active,
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