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Should the country pay for women's contraceptives?

Should the country (taxes) pay for women's contraception?

  • Yes

    Votes: 41 41.8%
  • No

    Votes: 57 58.2%

  • Total voters
    98

Krystov

Active member
Joined
Sep 4, 2011
Messages
453
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Location
Mount Juliet, TN
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Libertarian - Right
I say no. Being able to get these things at the expense of others not only enables bad behavior, but reinforces the entitlement ideology. Men and women should take responsibility for their decisions, not get a free ride to be irresponsible.
 
Any woman who qualifies for medical assistance should be able to get birth control under that insurance. If we ever managed to join the developed world and have a single-payer system, birth control should be covered on that as well.

Using contraception is not "bad behavior," and the mind-blowing degree of ignorance it requires for someone to think that is just so beyond me I can't even comprehend it. Using contraception is good, responsible behavior.
 
I swear we did a thread just like this a few weeks ago and it came out with a resounding no.

In any case, I agree with how that turned out as people should be paying for what they need on their own and taxes should be for the protection of our rights and liberties.
 
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Yes, we should pay for contraception (for both men and women). Not only am I for paying for condoms and birth control medication, I am also for paying for tubal ligation and vasectomies. No paying for reversals though.

And my reasons are purely selfish. It is in MY best interest that people aren’t out there having unwanted children. Take however many cents you need to out of my paycheck to make that happen please.
 
No paying for reversals though.

I agree with everything but this. We should be doing everything we can to encourage people who are married and financially stable to have more children, and the reversals are far far more expensive than the initial procedures. Paying for reversals not only encourages people to get the procedure done in the first place, but it allows people to reverse it when the time is right.
 
I say yes.

It will save us money in the long run. Less single mothers on welfare, less demand for other public services, etc.

There just needs to be cost control so the government isn't overpaying for the birth control.
 
I agree with everything but this. We should be doing everything we can to encourage people who are married and financially stable to have more children, and the reversals are far far more expensive than the initial procedures. Paying for reversals not only encourages people to get the procedure done in the first place, but it allows people to reverse it when the time is right.

Well, I am all for reducing population so I initially disagreed with you. However, the point I bolded is a very good point. People would be more likely to get one if they knew the option to get it reversed was available. So you have convinced me to change my stance on that point.
 
Paying for a kid to go to school costs about $20k/year. Locking someone up in prison costs about $40k/year. No clue how much food stamps, housing assistance, or child/family services cost, but they ain't cheap.

Paying for contraceptives costs...what, $500/year, at most?

Those are just the direct costs of someone having a kid. We can't even quantify the indirect costs unwanted kids have on the parents, how they can stop them from having a brighter future and becoming more productive citizens. (Exceptions exist, but the majority will be bogged down by their unwanted kid and live, less productively, in poverty.)


As I've said before:
You'd have to be an idiot to ignore the costs to society of NOT paying for contraceptives, and a hypocrite for then complaining of people being an irresponsible and unproductive burden on society when you shirk responsibility for choosing to deny them a cost effective means of avoiding that situation.
 
I say no. Being able to get these things at the expense of others not only enables bad behavior, but reinforces the entitlement ideology. Men and women should take responsibility for their decisions, not get a free ride to be irresponsible.

Being on contraceptives is responsible behavior in my book. Having sex without protecting yourself from unwanted pregnancy is bad behavior.
 
Paying for a kid to go to school costs about $20k/year. Locking someone up in prison costs about $40k/year. No clue how much food stamps, housing assistance, or child/family services cost, but they ain't cheap.

Paying for contraceptives costs...what, $500/year, at most?

Those are just the direct costs of someone having a kid. We can't even quantify the indirect costs unwanted kids have on the parents, how they can stop them from having a brighter future and becoming more productive citizens. (Exceptions exist, but the majority will be bogged down by their unwanted kid and live, less productively, in poverty.)


As I've said before:
You'd have to be an idiot to ignore the costs to society of NOT paying for contraceptives, and a hypocrite for then complaining of people being an irresponsible and unproductive burden on society when you shirk responsibility for choosing to deny them a cost effective means of avoiding that situation.

This is pretty much how I see it in a nutshell. It will cost me far less if people are having fewer children and are more likely to have children when they are ready and are in a stable point in their lives.
 
I agree with everything but this. We should be doing everything we can to encourage people who are married and financially stable to have more children, and the reversals are far far more expensive than the initial procedures. Paying for reversals not only encourages people to get the procedure done in the first place, but it allows people to reverse it when the time is right.


WHAT????????

We do not need more people in this world.

Rather than pay for reversal of a surgical procedure, those people could adopt.
 
I swear we did a thread just like this a few weeks ago and it came out with a resounding no.

In any case, I agree with how that turned out as people should be paying for what they need on their own and taxes should be for the protection of our rights and liberties.
Yes. My rghts and libertes are more protected when women can get the inexpensive, or free BC pills even if my taxes pay for them. Yup, a practical solution.

note: I'm assuming that a woman having sex w/o bc is bad behavior, i.e. if you don't have the money for BC pills stay away form men. Sure.
 
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Being on contraceptives is responsible behavior in my book. Having sex without protecting yourself from unwanted pregnancy is bad behavior.

True. We also know that this happens all the time. Do we want those people who can't act responsibly to keep having more and more babies who will also be taught those same behaviors from those irresponsible parents?

I don't.


Birth control is far cheaper, and far better for the country than the alternative.
 
Birth control pills are a doctor prescribed treatment. Although they're called "birth control pills", they are used to treat a variety of conditions in addition to pregnancy prevention.

As has been mentioned previously, are we really going have issues with funding pregnancy prevention at $20 a months when the alternative is possibly food stamps, wic, welfare, AFDC, Medicaid, etc. totaling into the tens of thousands? That's not to mention educational costs and the higher likelihood of societal problems kids and then adults from single parents homes are at risk of. Ths IMHO is a prime example of partisan teamism where people without thinking through the issues thoroughly jump on their teams agenda.
 
I say no. Being able to get these things at the expense of others not only enables bad behavior, but reinforces the entitlement ideology. Men and women should take responsibility for their decisions, not get a free ride to be irresponsible.
Any woman who qualifies for medical assistance should be able to get birth control under that insurance. If we ever managed to join the developed world and have a single-payer system, birth control should be covered on that as well.

Using contraception is not "bad behavior," and the mind-blowing degree of ignorance it requires for someone to think that is just so beyond me I can't even comprehend it. Using contraception is good, responsible behavior.

What I don't understand is why in America does everything have to be all or nothing? Why do we either all have to pay for birth control or none of us?

If it's going to be done by a government healthcare, why not have an opt-out ability, so those who do not wish to pay for birth control won't have to, but also won't be able to receive the benefits.

If it's going to be done by private healthcare, some insurance providers will cover it, and some won't. The ones that do cover it will get substantially more business than those who don't, making it financially viable for them.

Hell, there could even be an opt-out ability in private health care.

Why do we have to force any one anything on everyone?
 
Pregnancy is not a disease that needs to be prevented or treated, and chemical contraceptives do precisely zero to prevent STD's.

From a public health standpoint, the only form of birth control that can be rationally justified is condoms. Anything else ought to be paid for out of pocket.
 
I say no. Being able to get these things at the expense of others not only enables bad behavior, but reinforces the entitlement ideology. Men and women should take responsibility for their decisions, not get a free ride to be irresponsible.
I’ll pay for your contraception ladies if I’m the one helping you use them.;)
 
I dispute the premise of this thread. Both a man and woman are necessary for procreation, therefore contraceptives are as much about precluding conception for men as they are for women.
 
I say no. Being able to get these things at the expense of others not only enables bad behavior, but reinforces the entitlement ideology. Men and women should take responsibility for their decisions, not get a free ride to be irresponsible.
If we want to encourage personal responsibility we should be covering contraception, not making it more difficult to obtain. How in the world does increasing access to birth control enable bad behavior? Do you think sex is bad behavior?
 
NO. Regardless of one's viewpoint on Contraceptives, it is not the proper role of Government to be paying for ANY private medical care for ANYONE who is not in the military.
 
What I don't understand is why in America does everything have to be all or nothing? Why do we either all have to pay for birth control or none of us?

If it's going to be done by a government healthcare, why not have an opt-out ability, so those who do not wish to pay for birth control won't have to, but also won't be able to receive the benefits.

If it's going to be done by private healthcare, some insurance providers will cover it, and some won't. The ones that do cover it will get substantially more business than those who don't, making it financially viable for them.

Hell, there could even be an opt-out ability in private health care.

Why do we have to force any one anything on everyone?

You could say that about anything. Why not just have opt-in/out for every single thing we're taxed for? I don't want to pay for the wars. Should I be allowed to opt out? What's so special about birth control? War actually kills people. Contraception saves people. Surely I should be able to opt out of paying for war if you think people should be able to opt out of paying for contraception.

That's not viable and would turn our government into even more of a mess than it already is. This isn't an "American" thing. This is a "government" thing. You can't splinter the government into 100 million different tax schemes and try to function as a society. At that point, we should just split off a la Civil War and go our separate ways.

The "American" part of it is that we can't ever seem to pony up to the fact that we're a society and we have to function like one. That means you won't like every single thing you're taxed for. I sure as hell don't. But you win some and you lose some. You put in your influence when you can, stop whining like a child if your team loses, and stop resenting people who don't think like you to the point where you try to act like they belong to some other country in all but name.

Pregnancy is not a disease that needs to be prevented or treated, and chemical contraceptives do precisely zero to prevent STD's.

From a public health standpoint, the only form of birth control that can be rationally justified is condoms. Anything else ought to be paid for out of pocket.

It sure as hell is from a social perspective. Unwanted pregnancy is a social disease that creates cycles of poverty, unhappiness, sickness, and social burden, and it should most definitely be prevented and treated. It ruins lives and burdens the system.

What makes condoms justifiable and other birth control not? Hell, if you're having sex often, other forms of contraception are probably cheaper in the long run. Not all poor people are single. Some are in committed relationships or married and aren't worried about STD's. Condoms by themselves are also not as good as other forms of contraception. Doubling up is best, if condoms are part of your regime.
 
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You could say that about anything. Why not just have opt-in/out for every single thing we're taxed for? I don't want to pay for the wars. Should I be allowed to opt out?

That's not viable and would turn our government into even more of a mess than it already is. This isn't an "American" thing. This is a "government" thing.

The "American" part of it is that we can't ever seem to pony up to the fact that we're a society and we have to function like one. That means you won't like every single thing you're taxed for. I sure as hell don't. But you win some and you lose some, and you put in your influence when you can, and stop resenting people who don't think like you to the point where you try to act like they belong to some other country in all but name.

I see two major differences between these two scenarios (taxes funding wars, which not everyone agrees with, and taxes funding birth control, which not everyone wants to pay for.).
- The constitution specifically outlines the power of the government. Everything not covered in the constitution is by definition out of the scope of government. To levy war is definitely included, to provide birth control is not.
- It's also simply not viable to opt out of taxes for defense, because not only does every single American benefit from it (defense, i'm not talking about afghanistan and iraq), but the costs are also astronomically higher.

I'm all for all women being able to get the birth control that they need or want, I just see a whole lot of compromises that could be made to get that done instead of taxing every single American for it.
 
I say no. Being able to get these things at the expense of others not only enables bad behavior, but reinforces the entitlement ideology. Men and women should take responsibility for their decisions, not get a free ride to be irresponsible.

Do people realize we already do pay for it?

Most insurance companies cover related treatments and procedures. . .welfare does, too. I always had mine covered in whole or part. There are some otc methods and I used those, too - like spermacide and condoms.

Do people know how frequently the human body can enter into pregnancy? I was pregnant just 3 months after my first son was born - even though my cycle hadn't even started, yet - and I was nursing.

Pregnancy is not a disease that needs to be prevented or treated, and chemical contraceptives do precisely zero to prevent STD's.

From a public health standpoint, the only form of birth control that can be rationally justified is condoms. Anything else ought to be paid for out of pocket.

It's a condition - and if you've ever been pregnant in less than ideal circumstances you're treated like you've committed a horrible crime. . . so perhaps it's a crime against humanity.
 
No.

Your reproductive health is your responsibility. Our approach is woefully broken when we assume that the best solution is to just give **** to people who can't be responsible on their own.

I can understand a discount program funded via low-income welfare initiatives, but for women like me who work full time, have health insurance, and can easily afford the $15-30 a month for birth control there's absolutely no reason it should be "free". If I were diabetic my insulin damn sure wouldn't be free, and that's a medication I would need to stay alive. Birth control is not imperative to my survival, so why should I get it at no cost simply because somebody somewhere seems to think they only way women can POSSIBLY be responsible about their reproductive health is if all the tools to do so are just handed over to them at not cost?
 
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