SEXUAL COMMONSENSE

Senate bill S. 20 is a step toward an adult approach to sex and would reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies in America. This would also reduce the number of abortions.


Here are the major points of the bill:

Increase Access to Family Planning Services. This bill increases funding for the national family planning program (Title X) and will allow states to expand Medicaid family planning services to women with incomes up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level.

End Insurance Discrimination Against Women. The legislation ensures equity and fairness in contraception coverage by ensuring that private health plans offer the same level of coverage for contraception as they do for other prescription drugs and services.

Provide Compassionate Assistance for Rape Victims. Women who suffer sexual assault should not have to face the additional trauma of an unwanted pregnancy. Our bill ensures that women who survive sexual assault receive factually accurate information about emergency contraception (EC) and access to EC upon request.

Improve Awareness about Emergency Contraception. Approved by the FDA as a safe and effective means of contraception, EC could substantially reduce the staggering number of unintended pregnancies. Our bill provides $10 million to implement important public education initiatives about EC and its benefits and uses to women and medical providers.

Reduce Teen Pregnancy. The bill would provide $20 million in annual funding for competitive grants to public and private entities to establish or expand teen pregnancy prevention programs.

Truth in Contraception. Government-funded abstinence-only programs are precluded from discussing contraception except to talk about failure rates. A recently study found these programs distort public health data and misrepresent the effectiveness of contraception. Our bill ensures that information provided about the use of contraception as part of any federally funded program is medically accurate and includes information about the health benefits and failure rates of contraception.


This seems pretty reasonable, except to the right-wing puritans:

"There's a utopian view that women ought to be able to have sex any time they want to without consequences - that's the bottom line of all these bills," said Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America, a conservative group which opposes the measures.


And why shouldn't sex be without consequences if one so desires? Why ignore the evident desire women have had over the last 3700 years to control when they conceive and reproduce?