Asymmetrical Information

As a libertarian, do you support public funding for any medical services? If so, do you believe that prenatal care, labour, or delivery should be among the publicly-funded services? Anyone who supports federally mandated coverage of maternity care ought to support funding for maternity prevention. I don't see why someone's decision to reproduce should be vastly more heavily subsidized than their decision not to bear children.

As a libertarian, do I support mandating what health insurance companies have to offer? No. As a libertarian, do I support taxpayer funding of medical services which a significant minority of Americans believe to be murder? No.

People on the public dole, who can't afford to bear and raise children, should not be doing so. People who are not interested in , or capable of, bearing and raising children should not be engaging in risky sex practices which can result in unwanted pregnancies. (The same is true for those who are not interested in contracting STDs.)

I am fascinated that people who have achieved a passing grade in putting a condom on a banana or a cucumber cannot figure out how to put one on an erect penis. Go figure.

The most effective birth control pill known to man is also the least expensive: an 81mg. coated aspirin tablet, pressed tightly between the knees. These birth control pills are available in a 400 count bottle for about a penny apiece - much cheaper even than the unreliable condoms available from Planned Parenthood (Avoidance). I know this sounds a lot like abstinence; and, it is equally effective.

Jane writes:

As a libertarian, do I support taxpayer funding of medical services which a significant minority of Americans believe to be murder? No.

But do you support public funding for birth control?

Let's stipulate the obvious fact that abortion isn't birth control and take emergency contraception off the table.

Lindsay Beyerstein,

It seems to me that the obvious difference between "maternity care" and "maternity prevention," as you put it, is that one involves keeping human bodies functioning normally (which I had generally understood was the purpose of medicine) and one doesn't. Making birth control a part of women's ordinary "health care" amounts to defining a "healthy" woman as one who can turn her fertility on and off at will.

Given that the easiest means to prevent pregnancy requires no purchase, and the next-easiest is very cheap and universally available, I really don't see why anyone should want to force this issue.

Altho the next-easiest is very cheap and universally available it is not 100% reliable. We decided we were thrilled when we realized the condom had not contracepted, but there are people for whom it is a catastrophe.

Risking "catastrophe" is hardly a decision to be made casually by mature adults, no less by immature children.

I fail to understand why a lack of responsibility on the part of those risking "catastrophe" is assumed to automatically impose a requirement of (financial)responsibility upon the rest of us. I am willing to accept responsibility for the rational risks I take. I am far less willing to accept responsibility for the irrational risks taken by others.

From an economical standpoint oral contraception might cost about 1000-2000$ for any minor girl. Th figure should be in that order. Surely even very few girls flunking out of high school due to an early pregnancy are more expensive than that.
Is there really somebody who considers ordinary oral contraception murder?

If the minor girl or her adult parents choose to fund oral contraception so that the minor girl can be sexually active with greatly reduced risk of a "catastrophic" pregnancy, they are free to do so. They should remember, however, that oral contraception is not "fool proof" and provides no protection from STDs, including HIV. (It is interesting to note the number of teenage girls who never forget to apply their makeup, but apparently somehow forget to take their pills.)

However, if the state chooses to use taxpayer funds to provide the oral contraception, I have a problem. I especially have a problem if the state provides the oral contraceptives without the knowledge of the minor girl's parent(s). I have an even greater problem when the minor girl, who is not legally capable of entering into a contract, is provided with an abortion without her parent(s) knowledge, even though the state does not fund the abortion.

These are seperate questions.
Either somebody is free to obtain medication or he is not. Abortion is yet another issue. I would outlaw it if I could, but that is yet another discussion.

We probably agree that teen pregnancy is a burden to the community. It negatively affects the tax base if nothing else. By enlightened self interest the public should spend tax money to prevent it, if an effective way is found. If we don't do so we allow other considerations to overrule that interest.
I say that parental control of minors is not a justification to forgo a measure that reduces the burden on the community.

This begs the questions of: "How much more control / responsibility for minor children you would be willing to hand over to the state?"; and, "How far would you be willing to go in absolving parents from responsibility for their minor children's actions?". These are not trivial questions!

I am not in favor of moving further toward a society in which no one is responsible for his / her actions. The "Great Society" has made our society sufficiently less great already by tolerating (encouraging?) irresponsibility. And, why place the "burden on the community" at all?

The parents of these minor girls and their minor (or major) lusters are part of the "public". Let them fund the contraception. Let Janey and Dickie (pun intended) get their parents together and explain how they can no longer control their lust and that they want their parents to provide contraception. I suspect few of the girls parents would chant: "You go, girl."

I think you should care about the costs of any useless instruction in government schools. Sex education is NOT a failure as measured by Planned Parenthood's parameters. To the princesses of the pudenta a captive market for their main sources of income is a swell thing. The pills they sell you for $25 cost them about a dollar. The abortions they sell are their main source of income (other than reaping government funding).
If we accept your view that sex education is worthless then why not just excise sex education from government schools?

"The Supreme Court: Bush. A number of commenters have tried to convince me not to vote for Bush by trying to scare me with dire tales about another Scalia or Thomas appointed to the bench. Folks, this is like trying to scare me with a free Porsche. I'd be in heaven with nine Clarence Thomases on the bench. Why am I supposed to be so scared, again? Oh, right, abortion. News flash: libertarian does not equal pro choice, and pro-choice does not equal pro-Roe. As it happens, I'm pro-choice (reluctantly), but I'm against Roe v. Wade; I think the matter should be decided at the state level, and NARAL can use all the money it raises to lobby to provide bus tickets and nice hotel rooms to women wanting abortions in states where it is illegal."

I loved that line back around election time and still love it now.

I've heard more sex ed nonsense in my life than I care to and I still take chances I probably shouldn't take. Dead nuts on about teenage pregnancy in New York City. Yeah, kids are going to talk about sex and have sex, but interrupting math class (a libido killer if ever there was one) for stimulating discussions about sex is certainly not a surefire way to reduce teenage pregnancies or teenage std's or even teens getting involved in sexual relationships they're not ready for. There are some things government shouldn't be involved in, and consensual, of-age sex is at the top of the list.

Why place the burden on the community?
Because you have no influence over this. Directly giving out public money is an obvious expenditure. That doesn't mean that inaction is without cost. A burden on the community is not only a direct expenditure, but also revenues lost to the community. Teen aged mothers on average will have less education, less employment opportunities and pay less taxes. And realistically speaking the community will pay at least the medical bills for children in need.

People are responsible for their own actions but for nobody else's actions. I believe parental control is no concern of the state, neither in the negative nor in the positive sense. The state should not concern itself with the question of how much opportunity to control children a public policy offers or takes away. The state is concerned with the welfare of the nation. If some behavior that lessens the potential welfare of the nation can be curtailed by a state measure it should be taken (provided the state doesn't curtail individual liberties. in this case it doesn't. it is an offer)

You may place the cost at the parents but still the community will have to live with the consequences regardless. Having somebody to blame is more fun, but doesn't solve this problem.

oliver:

there's a difference between arguing with a conservative and a libertarian.

the conservative can be persuaded by arguments wrt the net costs to society. a libertarian does not agree that there is a society, and generally disfavors all of the programs that create the costs that you are assuming. we have different axioms, so no, a teen age pregnancy has no effect on the government, or at least it shouldn't. we are trying to pare back government action across most if not all spheres. I'd advise that you figure out who you're arguing with first.

don't know bout jane, but i don't want the government spending any money on medical care except on some old fashion public health (preventing highly deadly and communicable diseases (plague, typhoid), monitoring quarantine, etc, not the "new" public health that sees everything as a public health issue).

My review of the enumeration of powers in the Constitution does not reveal any reference to the federal government supplying birth control materials, or abortions, for individual citizens. That provision must be somewhere in the "living document" constitution, which is currently changing so fast that there appear to be no full text copies available for review.

The insidious part of this argument, from my perspective, is Oliver's willingness to have the government provide contraception and abortion services without the minor's parents knowledge, because this is "better for society". Male bovine excrement alert!

I, for one, managed to achieve my current advanced age without a nanny. I feel no urgent need for one in my life now! Sorry, Oliver.

"The most effective birth control pill known to man is also the least expensive: an 81mg. coated aspirin tablet, pressed tightly between the knees."

Ed, I presume that the knees involved here belong to the same person? The mind boggles. . .

leon dixon lies. Simple, straightforward and true. I worked for a Planned Parenthood affiliate in the office, keeping computer systems running and programming. I also helped with the budget spreadsheets and accounting software. The big bugaboo about how they make tons of money is just another lie from the right. The people who can afford to pay for tests and treatments subsidize those who can't. The main part of the budget process consisted of determining the absolute least that could be charged for everything. Given when I started and left I went through that process four times. Same thing each time except for once. That time it was an emergency re-evaluation caused by a clinic being fire bombed.

"Myself, I'm pretty sceptical of the miraculous abilities many people attribute to sex ed; New York City students get all the information about birth control you could ever want, and are amply provided with Planned Parenthood clinics to hand it out, and yet it is one of our nation's leaders in teen pregnancy. (I don't think that abstinence-based education works either, mind you; I don't particularly care which sort of uselessness is taught in our schools.)"

I rather doubt treating all of NYC's schools as a single unit for regressing the effect of various sex education methods is a valid statistical method.

A legitimate compromise would be seriously enforcing the principle that third-trimester abortions--when the fetus is presumably viable--must be justified by a need to prevent a significant risk of death or severe bodily harm to the mother, or by profound birth defects to the fetus, and that such grounds must be meticulously documented and available for later review--and backed up by sworn affidavits from all of the medical personnel involved. No more unreviewable "doctor's discretion" crap.

Jane states that Planned Parenthoods sells a pack of pills for $25.00 Is that a lie? PP is also the largest purchasor and distributor of those pills (condoms too,I would imagine). They are also the largest provider of dead babies. They then get the best price from the manufacturer (although not the best condoms, apparently-according to Consumer Reports). I think their acquistion cost is $1.00 a pack. Maybe it is $2.00 but pushing pills, condoms, and abortions is what PP is all about...no lie.

You guess as to how much they pay. You ignore the fact that many who can't afford to pay anything don't. You ignore the fact that they use a sliding fee scale based on patient's income. You also ignore the fact that they do health screenings on STDs and cancer. You ignore the fact that PP is in fact not a monolithic organization but an affiliation of multiple groups. Yes, leon, you are a raving ideologue who lies about those you disapprove of.

So, if:
a) we don't want to spend any tax money on birth control or sex education,
b) we don't accept that birth control is medical care because it does not save lives,
c) we don't want birth control to be covered by health insurance because of b, and
d) we despise the nanny state and want everyone to take responsibilty for their actions,

then:
why can't a woman walk into a drug store and buy birth control pills without a prescription?

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