[img]7|left|||no_popup[/img]An old saying that I’ve recently coined goes like this: You can lead a pop-conservative to reason, but you can’t make him or her think — especially when it comes to issues influenced by religion. It’s a cheap shot to be sure. There are some good conservative thinkers out there in a wilderness dominated by disilluminaries like Beck, Limbaugh and Bush administration officials. But for the most part, I can’t figure out how conservatives manage to keep on keeping on without their heads exploding from the contradictions inherent in conservative ideology. If cognitive dissonance is an art, pop-conservatives create masterpieces. Opposition to Plan B, the morning-after emergency contraceptive, is a good example.
Plan B, you’ll recall, is a pill intended to be taken the morning after sex to prevent pregnancy. It consists of a high dose of birth control drugs. As the name suggests, it’s a backup measure in case the first line of contraceptive defense fails. For broken condoms, missed dose – and horrors like rape – Plan B offers a means of staving off pregnancy – without the need for abortions. According to the Emergency Contraception website (http://ec.princeton.edu/questions/ecsafe.html) operated by the Princeton University’s Office of Population Research and the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals:
• Plan B contains only the progestin levonorgestrel
• Plan B is not the same as RU-486, the abortion pill marketed as Mifeprex in the United States
• Plan B Medical experts agree that Plan B is safe for almost all women
So word (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090423/ap_on_he_me/us_morning_after_pill_25) that a judge ordered the FDA, mired in Bush administration politics that went against the FDA’s scientific recommendations, to make Plan B available to 17-year-olds without a prescription is good news. This means women have more reproductive health options available to them. And, of course, better contraception means fewer unwanted pregnancies and fewer abortions – a win-win-win situation for everybody.
Of course, not everyone is thrilled. Cue conservatives, especially religious conservatives, who see Plan B as an encouragement to promiscuity (like the Pill), a sneaky way to conduct abortions, and an assault on parental rights. Christianity Today’s interview with Albert Mohler (http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/octoberweb-only/143-12.0.html), president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, is revealing:
“…the Pill…has facilitated extramarital and premarital sex on a scale unprecedented in human history.” Of course, the real fear is that Plan B, like the Pill, “will lead to a further loosening of the tie between intercourse and child-bearing—procreation.” That’s really what’s it all about. Sex stripped of unwanted consequences like unplanned pregnancy and mitigated for things like STDs – in other words, sex as a source of pleasure – is considered wrong. By rejoinder, I will abuse H.L. Mencken by suggesting that pop-conservatism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere is having an orgasm.
The Sex Is Evil Canard…It’s Ba-ack!
But if the usual fear and loathing of sex is the underlying motivation behind all this railing against contraception, the lack of scientific acumen is the thick sticky icing on the cake of intellectual dishonesty. Mohler, again: “It is difficult to imagine Plan B works as anything other than an abortifacient, in general terms, preventing the successful implantation of the fertilized egg in the uterine wall.” Actually, it’s not that difficult to imagine. Emergency contraceptives like Plan B work to prevent fertilization in the first place. As I understand it, they may, on rare occasions, prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterine wall, but this is still not an abortion. Abortions, which occur AFTER implantation, consist of removing the embryo/fetus from the uterus. It’s an important distinction; Plan B is contraception, not abortion.
Here’s another question; if preventing fertilization is so bad, then isn’t abstinence a bad thing, too? After all, no sex, no fertilization. So under the premise that preventing fertilization is a bad thing, we shouldn’t be abstaining. We should be having constant sex and making sure that each and every sacred little swimmer gets a chance to hook up with some gorgeous egg.
But I digress. To continue: “Parents should be furious at the FDA's complete disregard of parental rights and the safety of minors,” an AP article quotes Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America, as saying. Sound familiar? This sounds an awful lot like those abortion-related parental notification laws pop-conservatives keep putting up for a ballot measure. The rejoinder is the same; it’s not up to government to parent kids, it’s up to parents. This FDA decision doesn’t force young women to go behind their parents’ back. It doesn’t force them to have sex. But if sex occurs and young women can’t, for whatever reason, turn to their parents for help, then at least they have the ability to seek medical help and make choices for themselves. If this is objectionable, the solution is simple: It’s up to parents to be involved in their children’s lives and foster a family environment of love, nurturing and support.
This brings me to the notion of small government conservatism. You know, DIY bootstrapping. Yet in pushing against Plan B, pop-conservatives are basically using the government to tell other people what to do with their own bodies. Religion? Small government? Contradiction?
Of course, I can see where I might be going wrong. It could be that instead of a grand unified pop-conservatism there are actually factions. But regardless of their ideological unity, the struggle over Plan B reveals talk (http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/meyer/040914) about personal accountability as a sham. Conformity is what this, at heart, is all about. The sad thing is that if the FDA is limited to testing drug safety but leaving drug use to individual choice – a choice that can and often should be made with the support of doctors, family and friends – pop-conservatives are free to choose what is best according to their ideals, just like everyone else. However, by politicizing Plan B and using the force of government to push their beliefs on others, pop-conservatives show themselves less interested in freedom, but in conformity.
Frédérik invites you to discuss this week's column at his blog (frederik-sisa.blogspot.com).