An Open Letter to Women from Conservatives

Secured by my crack investigative team:

Dear Uterati,

Fuck you.

Love,
Conservatives

P.S. Especially you bitchez in the Red States.

P.P.S. Thanks for your votes!

While the FDA dithers endlessly about making emergency contraception, specifically Plan B, available without a prescription, the states are starting to legislate its access—and, predictably, while blue states are looking to expand access, red states are seeking to restrict it.

With the application in regulatory limbo, a growing number of states have passed bills that allow pharmacists working in conjunction with doctors to dispense Plan B to women who do not have a prescription -- with Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New Mexico and California acting most recently. The Massachusetts bill was passed last year over Republican Gov. Mitt Romney's veto…

But some bills would make it more difficult for many women to get emergency contraception, which is effective for only 72 hours after a woman experiences a contraceptive failure or unprotected sex. Legislation in New Hampshire, for instance, would require parental notification before the drug is dispensed, and more than 20 other states will consider bills that give pharmacies the right not to stock the drug and pharmacists the right not to dispense it, even to women with valid prescriptions…

Efforts by antiabortion groups led to the passage last year of a Texas bill that eliminated the drug from a demonstration family-planning program, and to an Arkansas bill that kept emergency contraception off a list of protected contraceptives.

Huzzah! Because what we really want is to revictimize rape victims by withholding emergency contraception that could ensure they don't get pregnant with their rapist’s baby. And we definitely want to force women using contraception, but who have an unfortunate and unavoidable birth control failure, to go through the a more invasive abortion procedure. And we most certainly want to make sure that couples who weren’t responsible enough to use birth control in the first place face the possibility of being responsible for a child.

I suppose it’s also futile to point out, yet again, that parental notification laws are bullshit. In a perfect world, pregnant teens would be able to tell their parents they are pregnant and they could work out the best solution together, but in this world, step-fathers rape their unconscious and dying step-daughters. (And only get 9 years for it, which is a whole other post.)