Will GOPs Back Bobby Jindal’s Push to Put the Pill Over the Counter?

Pajamas Media ^ | 12/20/2012 | Bridget Johnson

[SeekAndFind]

At American pharmacies, a woman can get the controversial morning-after pill without a prescription but not the basic daily pill for issues ranging from birth control to painful periods.

One conservative Republican says it’s time to put contraception over the counter, in accordance with recent guidance from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, eliminating the mandate that has angered religious employers and taking the wind out of the Democrats’ sails on “birth-control politics.”

As a Roman Catholic, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal understands why groups have filed suit against the Obama administration’s mandate to provide birth control without co-payment.

“As a conservative Republican, I believe that we have been stupid to let the Democrats demagogue the contraceptives issue and pretend, during debates about health-care insurance, that Republicans are somehow against birth control. It’s a disingenuous political argument they make,” Jindal wrote last week in the Wall Street Journal.

“As an unapologetic pro-life Republican, I also believe that every adult (18 years old and over) who wants contraception should be able to purchase it. But anyone who has a religious objection to contraception should not be forced by government health-care edicts to purchase it for others. And parents who believe, as I do, that their teenage children shouldn’t be involved with sex at all do not deserve ridicule,” he added.

Jindal contends that continuing the status quo would needlessly add to healthcare costs while lining the pockets of pharmaceutical companies.

“Contraception is a personal matter — the government shouldn’t be in the business of banning it or requiring a woman’s employer to keep tabs on her use of it. If an insurance company or those purchasing insurance want to cover birth control, they should be free to do so. If a consumer wants to buy birth control on her own, she should be free to do so,” he wrote.

But will the GOP sign on to this plan to defuse a combustible Dem talking point (see most of the 2012 DNC)?

It’s difficult to tell right now. Jindal’s op-ed was published mere hours before the Newtown, Conn., school shooting seized the headlines — and the attention of every lawmaker on Capitol Hill, turning the lame-duck narrative toward a gun control debate.

Liberals are split on Jindal’s call, simultaneously praising him for an enlightened viewpoint and accusing him of pandering to independent and Democratic voters while not-so-secretly wanting to torpedo the controversial ObamaCare mandate.

“Jindal understands that, like it or not, Democrats were quite successful at demagoguing Republicans this year over their opposition to the contraception mandate. And yet, the Republican base is still dead set against the idea that ‘religious institutions’ should be required to pay for contraceptives for their employees. How to square this circle?” wrote Kevin Drum at Mother Jones. “Easy: if contraceptives are sold over the counter, then the issue disappears.”

Putting the pill over the counter gives contraception advocates the universal access they wanted – more women would use it without a doctor’s visit being required. But some argue that access will be restricted if there’s any out-of-pocket expense – even if going over the counter knocks the price down as expected and is comparable to buying a box of Pepcid or Claritin. They also contend that other, more expensive contraceptives such as IUDs should still be covered through a government mandate, and that kids under 18 should have access to the pill, too. See Sandra Fluke for this train of thought.

“The idea here is that, oh, OK, now we have to pay for it again? To me that sounds like thanks but no thanks. We won the election, thanks,” Christina Page, author of How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America, told the Daily Beast in reaction to Jindal’s op-ed.

One can’t imagine that opposing OTC contraceptives would look good to voters in either party who want convenience and savings and would cheer at the idea of not having to go through a doctor to get a pill they may have been using for years.

Not to say that opposition won’t come from Jindal’s side, though, in the form of social conservatives who just wouldn’t want wider access to birth control.

“Pro-lifers tend to believe that contraception is the root cause of many societal evils; divorce, rampant misuse of sexuality, sexually transmitted diseases, and abortion,” Austin Ruse wrote at First Things. “…Perhaps, though, the toothpaste will never get back in that tube.”

“Democrats have wrongly accused Republicans of being against birth control and against allowing people to use it. That’s hogwash,” Jindal wrote. “But Republicans do want to protect those who have religious beliefs that are opposed to contraception.”

Still, Jindal got chided by the church even though he made his personal views clear. “The Archdiocese of New Orleans disagrees with Governor Jindal’s stance on this issue, as the use of birth control and contraceptives are against Catholic Church teaching,” Sarah Comiskey McDonald, communications director for the Archdiocese of New Orleans, told EWTN News Dec. 14.

Jindal could open a new conversation in Washington, though, as there hasn’t been legislative attention to this sort of unfettered contraceptive access this Congress.

Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) introduced the Religious Freedom Protection Act of 2012 — which has been stuck in committee since February — to address the key concern with Obama’s mandate. Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) introduced a bill that would expand contraception education in an effort to prevent teen pregnancy. Nothing’s come close to what Jindal proposes.

“Access and cost issues are common reasons why women either do not use contraception or have gaps in use. A potential way to improve contraceptive access and use, and possibly decrease unintended pregnancy rates, is to allow over-the-counter access to oral contraceptives (OCs),” the obstetricians and gynecologists’ group wrote in their committee opinion. “…Weighing the risks versus the benefits based on currently available data, OCs should be available over-the-counter. Women should self-screen for most contraindications to OCs using checklists.”

Women who take the pill would find such checklists very familiar: smoking increases risks, shouldn’t be taken with a history of blood clots, taking antibiotics decreases efficacy, etc.

Considering his experience as the head of Louisiana’s Department of Health and Hospitals (at age 24) and as an assistant secretary of Health and Human Services in the George W. Bush administration, Jindal has the credentials to back up his proposal.

He also likely has a 2016 ambition to move it forward.

Jindal’s race began with a shot at Mitt Romney soon after the election.

“What the president, president’s campaign did was focus on certain members of his base coalition, give them extraordinary financial gifts from the government, and then work very aggressively to turn them out to vote,” Romney said in a mea culpa call with top donors shortly after his loss.

The new chairman of the Republican Governors Association, at a press conference at the group’s meeting in Las Vegas, lashed out at the comments as “absolutely wrong.”

“One, we have got to stop dividing the American voters. We need to go after 100 percent of the votes, not 53 percent. We need to go after every single vote,” Jindal said.

And though his birth control message may be viewed cynically as simply an attempt to woo women voters, Jindal’s proposal serves a greater purpose of letting the GOP launch a key offensive on the Democrats’ “war on women” narrative while putting at ease those who object to having to pay for employees’ birth control.

____________________

Bridget Johnson is a career journalist whose news articles and opinion columns have run in dozens of news outlets across the globe. Bridget first came to Washington to be online editor at The Hill, where she wrote The World from The Hill column on foreign policy. Previously she was an opinion writer and editorial board member at the Rocky Mountain News and nation/world news columnist at the Los Angeles Daily News. She has contributed to USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, National Review Online, Politico and more, and has myriad television and radio credits as a commentator. Bridget is Washington Editor for PJ Media

[Dr. Sivana]

Moral conservatives use birth control.

You cannot find a single Christian denomination (excluding the ones with Gnostic leanings, and faux Christians like Unitarians) that supported artificial contraception before 1930 (at the Anglican Lambda Conference, which had prescribed a VERY narrow allowance, which was quickly expanded).

Opposition to the promotion of the violation of Natural Law is something binding on all men, from even before the Catholic Church's Founding. The great Pagan philosophers (Plato, Aristotle) recognized this as well as Orthodox Jews.

You can call yourself a conservative, but it would be a strange sort of conservative who wants to introduce such a novelty, one that undermines the observance of the Natural Law. Many of us could not classify such as moral conservatives.

[Dr. Sivana]

Those who oppose birth control of all kinds can mind their own business.

For starters, and only starters, how is an abortifacient drug available at the corner candy store over the counter bought as easily by my minor age children as aspirin or Tums not my business?

The contraception lovers are the Rockefeller Republicans who fund this stuff all over the world, and would LOVE to be able to tell distant countries accepting aid that this stuff must be good and safe, it's OTC in the USA.

By the way, there are NO unwanted babies, only unwanting parents.

And whether you like it or not, it IS a wedge issue, and some of us care more about Natural Law and children than you do about your stupid money.

[Longbow1969]

but I don’t want to subsidize someone elses. I think most Consevatives would feel the same way, and that’s the way to beat-back Sandra Fluke and the AHCA debacle the Democrats have us in

I am not sure where you are getting the idea that Jindal or I are advocating paying for anyone's birth control. The point of making it 'over the counter' is so that we DON'T have to subsidize others sex lives. The idea is to take the pill out of the realm of prescription drugs so that it no longer needs to be covered by insurance.

The reason the idea will get some conservative support is that many on the right don't much like the FDA requiring so many drugs be prescription only in the first place. It's icing on the cake that we take the pill away from Obama as a political tool.

You know, as we discussed earlier, you can both win your point and lose it, too.

You are right about this. I get your point. But that ship has sailed, and quite frankly I don't want politicians babbling about whether birth control is good or bad. If the church wants to take a position on that, fine. But it's really just not something I believe the government should have much to do with.

[Dr. Sivana]

No it wouldn't. The number of conservatives that want to ban contraception is tiny. Classifying the birth control pill as 'over the counter' is most certainly not going to split the conservative coalition.

If opposition to an aggressive expansion of the ingredients of Plan B (The morning after pill, not the tax plan) to be made freely to children anywhere and everywhere is not controversial among conservatives, then it would have simply happened long ago, unless it really is a drug that requires a doctor's supervision for safe (to the taker) use.

Fewer than 50 years ago, liberal Connecticut had prohibited the sale of such things, leading to the awful Griswold v. CT decision, which in turn led to Roe v. Wade. The lefties supported the law being overturned. None of us has any idea how the debate will shape over the next 50 years.

Twenty years ago, Constitutional Concealed-Carry wasn't an issue, but those who recognize the right to defense as God-given never abandoned it, even though it wasn't widely discussed outside of the narrowest circles, and even then, mainly as an academic exercise, much as the Tenth Amendment is today.

Even those who don't see the banning of abortifacient contraception a discussion we can have today, their philosophical underpinnings would repel them from the further promotion of these poisonous drugs. Don't say it won't be a wedge issue because you don't think it should be one. You don't understand the mindset of a Natural Law conservative. Find people who don't like the idea whether it would be a deal-breaker or not. Until you do, you are unable to tell whether it is a wedge issue or not.

[gdani]

For starters, and only starters, how is an abortifacient drug

FYI - I stopped paying attention to your screed right after you falsely claimed The Pill is an abortifacient.

[Blackirish]

Sell birth control over the counter with a warning label. It takes a weapon from the deplorable plump pampered facist Sandra Fluke.

It also takes away a weapon from Obama and his anti Catholic comrade Katherine Sibelius by trying to force the Church to pay for their condoms and pills.

[Longbow1969]

If opposition to an aggressive expansion of the ingredients of Plan B (The morning after pill, not the tax plan) to be made freely to children anywhere and everywhere is not controversial among conservatives, then it would have simply happened long ago, unless it really is a drug that requires a doctor's supervision for safe (to the taker) use.

The topic is standard birth control pills. The ones tens of millions of American women use. No, those are not controversial to most Americans - and no, those are not controversial to most conservatives. You seem to be conflating morning after type pills with regular old birth control pills. And besides, there are all sorts of ways to self induce a miscarriage, we don't go around banning everything that might be used to do that.

Contraception is not controversial. Only a tiny percentage of people would oppose it. Supporting making birth control pills 'over the counter' is most certainly not going split the conservative coalition. YOU apparently don't like birth control pills and are trying to claim you have huge numbers that agree with you. The truth is you just don't.

Lets get the government out of regulation so many pharmaceuticals. Many more drugs that currently require a prescription should be sold 'over the counter'. Let the consumer that is willing to do their own research save money by not having to go to a doctor every time they need an antibiotic, skin creams, things like birth control pills, etc, etc.

[Empire_of_Liberty]

Yes, but you asked why it is any of our business. I tried to point out that I think there are medical (and parental rights) reasons for BC to be by prescription. This politicization of it is what is making it “our business”. I am not interested in a “political” solution to birth control any more than I thought you were. It’s medical (and maybe moral), so let’s stay out of it.

Besides, I can club the dumb Democrats with it, since with typical four-year-old logic, they launched National Healthcare without thinking about how it tramples our freedoms.

[Dr. Sivana]

FYI - I stopped paying attention to your screed right after you falsely claimed The Pill is an abortifacient.

How did you know that it was a screed if you stopped paying attention after the first line?

I also stated that it often acts as an abortifacient in one of the first responses to this thread, you likely saw it earlier if you read any of them.

In any event, you give your uninformed opinion as fact, or you want to redefine abortion to some later point after conception. For most pro-lifers, human life begins at conception (fertilization, sperm meets egg, zygote). Many ... most, don't know that low-estrogen pills (most of them) abort some of the time. I will direct you to thepillkills.com , and cite the testimony of surgeon Dr. Angela Lanfranchi. You will have to provide an authority or reasoning greater than you said so so it's true. Take your hands off your eyes for long enough to read points that disagree with yours.

[Empire_of_Liberty]

I wish I could use italics in my reply as you are doing. It makes this much easier to read. But I am doing this on a stupid Tablet, and don’t know how.

In our posts, it seems we both understand that people don’t want to pay for other people’s BC, and many don’t want to have support for its use mandated if they are morally opposed to it.

Jindal’s lame-brained idea is to accomodate this thinking within the framework of Obamacare. So rather than fight Obamacare with this valid issue, he concedes on Obamacare completely by trying to remove the issue.

Let’s try to think a few steps ahead, which is something a Democrat would never be caught dead doing.

How will this “solution” work for abortion, which you know is coming next? Can you “legislate” that it is not a medical procedure? Make it not covered by private health-care?

Jindal’s “solutuon” is moronic. It plays directly into the Democrat’s hand. The Demicrats have politicized healthcare. They need to get burned by people’s dislike of what they are doing. Sandra Fluke is a loathsome albatros that we should drag out every chance we get.

This just sounds like another political intrusion into healthcare, trying to get Obamacare to work. Jindal should just switch parties if this is what he thinks is right.

[Dr. Sivana]

those are not controversial to most conservatives.

Even if it is controversial to a sizable minority among those who describe themselves as conservative, that would constitute a wedge issue.

The topic is standard birth control pills.

There is no "standard" birth control pill just as there are no "standard" analgesic (to compare with something else widely available OTC). There are many distinct types. I don't claim there are a huge number who agree with me, but abandoning truth is no way to promote it.

All of us here have some opinions that are held by only a tiny number of those who describe themselves as conservatives, let alone Americans at large. And yet we do stand up for our beliefs.

You seem to be conflating morning after type pills with regular old birth control pills.

No. Plan B is primarily a strong dosage of the same ingredients used in some of the more popular artificial contraceptive pills. From wikianswers (a presumably not conservatively biased source)

Will plan b have side effects on babies later in life? Answer: Plan B doesn't affect future fertility or the health of future children, and it doesn't end or harm an existing pregnancy. Remember that the ingredients in Plan B have been used for many years in birth control pills. They have a long safety record.

Most modern "standard" birth control pills have several mechanisms to prevent a baby, some of those mechanisms come into play after implantation. The very early birth control pills were high-estrogen, with more side-effects. The move to remove the side-effects introduces a significant number of conceived children who die. Before Plan B was formally marketed, using multiple "standard" birth control pills was promoted as an off-label way to get the same effect.

Many more drugs that currently require a prescription should be sold 'over the counter'.

I agree that this could be considered. I am always amazed that the libertarians don't use this approach to move towards a relaxing of attitudes towards narcotics. They will argue that they have a right to put LSD or heroin in their bodies if they see sit. I want to say, "Whoa, man! Let's start with Amoxyicillin, and see how that goes?" I can only be led to believe that they aren't really thinking of higher concepts of individual liberty, but that they mainly want to get wasted. (BTW, I am of course familiar with arguments against widespread non-prescription use of anti-biotics, it just shows that this is not always an easy issue).

One last reason why this is a wedge issue: for whatever size minority holds my position, there is not a lot of room to compromise like one can on tax rates, or penalties under the Endangered Species Act. Even if the use of oral contraceptives were morally good or neutral (and I am of course omitting the less common use of these pills for therapeutic treatment, such as endometriosis which should remain by prescription), the movement to change the current regs through the political system would be more libertarian than traditionally conservative (which would tend to maintain things that are not broken). A conservative position (IF the use of these things were morally neutral) would be to let the states decide for themselves, knowing that some would stock up over the state border the way they do for cigarettes and vodka.

Because this is an issue of Natural Law, those of us who strive to abide by it feel repelled by anyone who would make the existing regulations that much worse.

[gdani]

How did you know that it was a screed if you stopped paying attention after the first line?

I saw the additional text littering the page.

Look, let me save you time -- if you want to argue that The Pill = abortion you're going to have to stop wasting your time on me. That dog don't hunt.

I have a) a fine understanding of how the female reproductive system and pregnancy works and b) zero patience for people who would like to see all birth control and/or contraceptives outlawed, as I suspect you do.

[Dr. Sivana]

I have a) a fine understanding of how the female reproductive system and pregnancy works

The question is how do the various pills work? You have done the web equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears, yelling lalalala. Also, saying "that dog won't hunt" is not an argument at all. Jindal proposes changing the status quo, he risks driving a wedge in a delicate alliance, without any likely return.

[Dr. Sivana]

I have a) a fine understanding of how the female reproductive system and pregnancy works

The question is how do the various pills work? You have done the web equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears, yelling lalalala. Also, saying "that dog won't hunt" is not an argument at all. Jindal proposes changing the status quo, he risks driving a wedge in a delicate alliance, without any likely return.

[Longbow1969]

I think perhaps we have a different idea of what Jindal’s proposal is.

Jindal is simply saying that we should make birth control pills ‘over the counter’. This removes it from Obamacare. It is no longer a prescription and no longer covered.

It almost seems like you believe we are winning this debate as is. We aren’t. Not even close. Playing Santa Claus is a very successful ploy for Democrats, and promising to give away free prescription birth control to women has just proven itself to be an electoral winner.

Lets get the government out of this altogether is basically what I understand Jindal to be advocating. Make it ‘over the counter’ and we no longer need to worry about insuring it as a prescription drug.

[Empire_of_Liberty]

I think we both see Jindal’s proposal the same way.

I think we (Conservatives) do win the issue with winable voters from the Sandra Fluke perspective. The “womyn” voters will never be won anyway.

The “Santa Clause” vote wants Obamacare. Giving the issue to them to preserve Obamacare is self-defeating.

This is the beginning of a long train of “discoveries” about the impact of National Healthcare on our freedoms. Contraception, abortion, sex-change procedures, euthenasia - we should hit hard on the fact that making each of these public makes it so that we all have to accept all of these.

We don’t want National Healthcare. Why should we want Jindal’s proposal to enable it?

[riri]

I used a birth control pill to treat acne I developed as an adult. It completely fixed the problem. It sure would have been nice to get it OTC!

[riri]

Love your post. The problem with having the RR in your tent -—they often think “the better, the worse” as it means end times are upon us.

[ansel12]

What is the religious right’s position on this?

The religious right is Evangelicals and a few Catholics and other Protestants, the majority of Catholics are of the religious left.

[Longbow1969]

I still don’t get what you are arguing about. The issue is not a winner for us. Even if it could be, far too many Republicans (think Akin and Mourdoch types) have no clue how to talk about these things without alienating huge swaths of voters. Either way, why not get government out of it and let birth control pills be sold ‘over the counter’. The less government regulates the better. We should be advocating for government to allow many if not most pharmaceuticals to be ‘over the counter’ anyway.

Jindal’s proposal does not enable government healthcare. It gets government OUT of regulating how people acquire birth control pills.