Missouri ends funding for birth control

Missouri state legislators voted to increase the number of unwanted children on welfare on Wednesday.

JEFFERSON CITY — The Missouri House voted Wednesday to ban state funding of contraceptives for low-income women and to prohibit state-funded programs from referring those women to other programs.

Critics jumped on the proposal, saying it would lead to more abortions and more unwanted children on welfare.

But the proposal’s sponsor, Republican Rep. Susan Phillips of Kansas City, said contraceptive services were an inappropriate use of tax dollars. “If doctors want to give contraception privately or personally, they can,” Phillips said. “But we don’t need to pay for contraception with taxpayer funds.”

[...]

The contraceptive services banned were an effort to jump-start a family-planning program that had been cut in 2003 because of the state’s severe budget crunch.
[KCS]

You know, the Enlightenment sure was a blast. I'm glad I caught the tail end of it. At least I'll have some good stories to tell my 37 grandchildren.

Comments

[Lawrence Krubner]

"The Missouri House voted Wednesday to ban state funding of contraceptives for low-income women and to prohibit state-funded programs from referring those women to other programs."

Even white women? How egalitarian of them. I recall in the early 90s David Duke caused a stir when he said abortion should be legal for black women, but not white women (since America has a shortage of white babies).

[Wade]

Am I missing something here, Lawrence? Because I had thought David Duke was from Lousisiana, not MO. Of course, they are all the same down there, aren't they?

[Lazarillo]

You are planning on teaching your children how babies are made, right? And how not having sex can enable the avoidance of babies?

Yes, Locke, Voltaire, Kant -- that's what the Enlightenment was all about: government funded birth control.

[gordo]

Lazarillo--

You're right, sex shoud be the sole province of the middle class and the affluent. And this proposal will probably go a long way toward saving money for the state in the future, since people tend to stop having sex as soon as birth control is unavailable. Poor women will probably stop having children altogether.

And the Enlightenment was all about writing dry philosophy with no implications for the real world. It had nothing to do with crafting public policy using reason instead of religious dogma.

[Lazarillo]

I will look forward to a persuasive argument from either (1) Enlightenment anti-authoritarian epistemological views or (2) Enlightenment moral theory to the conclusion that birth control should be government funded. The Enlightenment was fab, but it hardly entails every policy Majikthise readers find desirable.

Pull out the studies that show that government funding of birth control lowers birthrates in the poor. Don't say it's true a priori. In this sort of thing, nothing is knowable a priori. (But I'm also thinking the rationale for this wasn't cost-effectiveness, anyway, so I doubt that this is where the argument is going to grab hold.)

[Bob Koepp]

Time for a reality check.

This is about using tax dollars to pay for services that a fair number of tax payers claim (sincerely, for all I know...) are immoral, and which certainly are not essential to a well-ordered society. I wish more of my fellow "liberals" appreciated just how anti-enlightenment such a practice is.

[FungiFromYuggoth]

Lazarillo - the word for today is "Google". "Publicly supported family planning services prevent an estimated 1.3 million unintended pregnancies annually".

There is no right to ensure that your tax money is only spent on causes you think are moral. I think it would be quite an interesting experiment, but that isn't the world that we live in. I give you example A, the War on (Some) Terror. Last I checked, that was a wee bit more expensive and controversial than handing out government-subsidized contraceptives.

As Immanuel Kant might say, have the courage to use your own intelligence.

[gordo]

Bob Koepp--

"Essential for a well-ordered society" is irrelevant. The fact is, it's smart. And the bill also bars state-funded agencies from referring women to private birth control providers. Do you really think that the people behind this are taking the liberal position?

Lazarillo--

Your position is ridiculous. Cutting off birth control won't raise birth rates? Maybe, if abortion rates rise enough to take up the slack. If you click through to the article, you'll see that teen pregnancy rates declined in Missouri by 32% from 1991-2002. That coincided with wider availability of contraceptives. No doubt, that counterintuitive result came as a big shock to everyone.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

Bob, nobody's questioning the authority of the legislature to pass this legislation. Their constituents obviously have very primitive pre-Enlightenment attitudes about sex, contraception, and morality. So, the legislators are giving them the pre-Enlightenment society they so desperately want.

[Bob Koepp]

Gordo - Per "clasiccal" liberal principles, a compelling state interest (i.e., being essential for a well-ordered society) most definitely _is_ relevant to justify compelling support from those with moral objections. As for barring the provision of information and referrals, that seems to me to be an obvious violation of free speech.

Lindsay - Who said, or even implied, anything about legislative authority? My comment was directed to self-described liberals, far too many of whom seem oblivious to liberal principles.

[John Stith]

I don't know. I'm starting to see more and more of these types of issues as class warfare. Many of the poor won't get free contraception anymore, as if they don't have enough to pay for with rising prices in heating and other basic living expenses.

This is about control of the lower classes, to try and dictate their morality even though those who're passing this bill probably never had to ask for help with something like contraception.

There will be more societal costs as abortions will go up, medicaid costs will increase as well as other forms of government assistance.

I've got a lot more to say but I shall end it here. I just think these people passing this legislation really have no clue about the realities of being dirt poor and not needing another mouth to feed.

[theogon]

Bob: who the hell cares what "classical" liberal positions are? The meaning of words drift. Otherwise we'd be drubbing self-described libertarians on the "libertarian principles" of abolition of property.

[Lazarillo]

Fungi: You should read what you Google. Less than half of that number is attributed to birth control. Most are attributed to abortions.

Let's not be morons. Of course, in the short term (say, 10 years, gordo), the results of supplying birth control will match up with the a priori "of course supplying birth control lowers the birthrates in the welfare dependent" reasoning. What I want is something more convincing than that, something that shows that the feedback effects -- changes in attitudes re the child-generating risks of sex -- don't end up rendering the effects negligible. Anyone who takes the 'no duh' attitude about provision of birth control and lower birthrates in the poor hasn't thought at all about the possibility of these feedback effects. Might people who get birth control end up screwing more? (Everything interesting happens at the margins...)

Lindsay, start lining up those Enlightenment figures that share your views on sex and contraception. Mill seems a little late for a start. You're not likely to get Kant, or Locke. Or, perhaps, you have no idea what Enlightenment figures you have in mind? I think 'Enlightenment' may have nothing more than emotive meaning for you.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

Bob, the liberal principle has been honored--the citizens of Missouri have gotten what they want. I honor their right to citizens to vote on matters of public policy. If the majority finds birth control morally offensive, then they can vote not to fund it. However, a culture that finds birth control and non-procreative sex offensive and immoral is showing its pre-Enlightenment biases.

Are saying that liberals must never promote any policy that anyone has moral objections to? Because that would make your brand of liberalism incompatible with policy-making and democracy in general.

The liberal solution to the problem of moral disagreements is to allow people to elect leaders. In exchange, we all agree to be bound by the will of the majority.

[FungiFromYuggoth]

Lazarillo - you've actually misread the summary, which is not unreasonable. The original study (which I was checking out, actually) makes it more plain that the number of abortions you're referencing are the number of abortions that they believe would happen if contraceptives were not publicly funded.

I notice that you're trying to move the goalposts now that a study has been cited; to quote from the study in question: "Without introducing a true experimental design in which we purposefully withhold services from women who obtain reversible contraceptives from publicly funded sources, we have no direct way of determining such women's contraceptive behavior in the absence of subsidized family planning services."

The original CDC paper did note that the average size of families has been declining over the past century, which is longer term than 10 years. However, I feel confident that you will find an excuse to reject anything that does not suit you.

Let's not be morons.

Mote, beam, etc.

[Wade]

I don't know that free birth control or enlightened attitudes would do much to alleve the problem. Compared to the poor, young parents from the middle class suffer a much steeper decline in their standard of living. People living on welfare don't have so much to lose (at least not in the short term) by having children.

[epitaphforacentaur]

disappointed by some of the inane chatter on the comments here. i wholeheartedly agree with lindsay, a narrow ideological moralism replacing pragmatic social responsibility is indeed anti-enlightenment (and the first ones to get hit are women and the poor - they've seemed to have gotten uppity and forgotten their place).

i've been waiting to see anti-birth control ideologues riding on the coattails of the anti-abortion groundswell (i.e.; http://www.noroomforcontraception.com/), it was only a matter of time. as for bob koepp and lazarillo, if you think any of this is about practical use of states dollars rather than the institutionalizing of a state-mandated theology/morality, you are seriously deluded.

[Lazarillo]

No, you did what was asked: pull out the studies. I don't object to that. I object to the following: it is obvious that this is the effect that you will get, and this effect is well-confirmed by the evidence. The evidence offered is very helpful, but we would be morons if we thought that these sorts of limited studies just drive the nail in on what was already a priori obvious. It is not a priori obvious, and no nail has been driven in.

There could be other ways to confirm the lack of important feedback effect -- for example, studying long-term effects in two otherwise similar communities, one of which offers free birth control, the other of which does not. I would not be in the least surprised to discover that the overall effects are just what you think they are. But let's have some good old Enlightenment skepticism.

[Bob Koepp]

Lindsay - "The" liberal principle???

Liberalism is not,incidentally, the same as majoritarianism. Think JS Mill...

[Lazarillo]

Ah, yes, the plaintive cry of 'state-mandated morality' is now heard. As if there could be a state that did not employ something like moral criteria in deciding what to subsidize and what not to subsidize.

[Lazarillo]

Mote, beam, is funny.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

Bob, you seem to be arguing that it's illiberal to favor any policy that anyone has moral objections to. Sure, freedom of conscience is an important liberal principle. But you're making an incredibly strong claim that's incompatible with any form of liberalism or liberal democracy that I know of.

You seem to be committed to the view that it would be illiberal to support state funding for contraception even if the majority of the population supported the program--because, if any citizen had moral reservations about birth control, it would be unfair and illiberal to force them to pay for it.

If you took that view to its ultimate and logical conclusion, all policies would be illiberal. The rule of law would also turn out to be illiberal on your view because that principle forces us to apply the laws equally to everyone and not allow people to simply opt out of the ones they don't like.

I just don't see what your position has to do with liberalism as it's normally understood.

Maybe you're making a radical libertarian or anarchist argument to the effect that nobody should ever be coerced into doing anything.

[epitaphforacentaur]

lazarillo,

would you say 'employing a moral criteria' is the same as 'institutionalizing of a state-mandated theology/morality'? i'm not seeing missouri here in a petri dish. i can't help but think of south dakota, the recent i.d. battles (currently shot in the foot, but don't think it won't be back in a new costume), the fcc changes, doj's focus on pornography, the not-so-subtle religious underpinnings of the iraq war, and on and on and on. i don't think i'm being reactionary or ignorant of 'moral criteria' in law and government and i don't think lindsay's comment 'the Enlightenment sure was a blast' was strickly about missouri.

[Bob Koepp]

Lindsay -
I'm relieved that you used the qualifier "seem" when attributing an outlandish position to me, even though you then drop it when you say that I make an incredibly strong claim.

Following tried and true liberal principles, my actual position is that a liberal society can use tax revenues to support morally contentious practices when (1) there is a compelling state interest (classical liberal position), or (2) when the funds for morally contentious, but non-essential programs do not come from general funds, but from "restricted" funds to which only the willing contribute (I don't think this will be found in the classical literature of liberalism, but it is a modern extension that reinforces, rather than undermines, the principles in question.)

Although I'm an anarchist, for purposes of this discussion I assume the position of a proponent of liberal governmental institutions. And I'm addressing my remarks to those who portray themselves as liberal governmentalists.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

The state has a compelling interet in supplying birth control to low-income women, namely, to prevent unwanted pregnancies (the state still pays for prenatal care) and to prevent the birth of unwanted children (whom the state will have to support). The anti-choice groups who backed the Missouri legislation presumably think that the state has a compelling interest in preventing abortions as such.