Contrary to popular belief, Rick Santorum is not “coming for your birth control.” The senator has explained that, although state governments have the power to pass laws banning contraceptive use, he is not interested in seeing these laws get on the books.
“It’s been clarified about oh, 150,000 times, so I’ll clarify 150,001,” Santorum said on Sunday afternoon in Greenville, South Carolina. “I’ve never said I wanted to ban birth control. I wouldn’t vote for it.”
A President Rick Santorum, however, would undoubtedly use the bully pulpit to talk to Americans about what he sees as the dangers of contraceptive use, just as Michelle Obama has used it to talk about the dangers of childhood obesity. As Santorum put it in October:
One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country. … It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.
While I disagree with Santorum’s conclusion about birth control, is it really such an off-limits topic that the country couldn’t stand to have a little discussion about its pros and cons? Sure, 99% of sexually active American women either use or have used some form of birth control. But it is also undeniable that since the birth control pill’s invention a half-century ago, STDs have become more widespread and the number of unintended pregnancies has increased. Even a recent New York magazine cover story celebrating the anniversary of the pill acknowledged that it has helped create a group of women who, having put off pregnancy until their late thirties, spend thousands on various fertility treatments: “Inadvertently, indirectly, infertility has become the pill’s primary side effect.”
I’m not Catholic. In fact, I’m an agnostic Jew who loves a nice ham and Swiss sandwich. But what, exactly, is so terrifying and bizarre about the Catholic Church’s teachings on the intrinsic beauty and sanctity of life, death and sex? Rick Santorum is being derided for living his life in a way that respects his faith and its teachings, but his example is an admirable exception in a culture that routinely treats sexuality as a consumable product. Liberals are always paranoid about Christian right-wingers who want to take away their condom Christmas trees and heap disapproval — horror of horrors — on their licentious lifestyles, but it is liberals who do not want to let the Santorums, and their lifestyle choices, just be.
Inez Feltscher has a philosophy BA from UCSD, where she was chairwoman of the College Republicans and an editor of the conservative newspaper on campus.
