Reason: ‘Telecontraception’ secret-shopper study shows safety of online birth control services
Is the elimination of the prescription requirement for birth control a cause of the Left Wing or the Right? I recently ran this by someone whose opinion I hold in esteem, someone I’d call a Jimmy Dore-style leftist, and they believed that it was generally thought to be Left Wing. It certainly has been. Yet, to advocate for the elimination of a barrier to a market transaction, it could be also described with the scare-term “deregulation”, has traditionally been a “Right Wing” imperative. Yet the “Right Wing” has primarily consisted of individuals who bring a heavy dose of moral baggage that prevents them from applying this “deregulation” consistently. Members of the “Right” have been the primary supporters of such totalitarian programs as the War on Drugs.
I immediately descended into the reasons why this is yet another instance that proves the Left/Right dichotomy to be utterly bunk. To abolish the prescription requirement is clearly humanitarian, yet the principle behind it contradicts the traditional Left wing distrust of the “free market”. It also contradicts the Old Testament moralizing of many on the “Right”, who are thankfully aging out of politics. Yet examples like this prove the underlying humanitarianism of the principle. Clearing away restrictions results in wider access, so why not apply it to every aspect of society? Why not apply it to healthcare, which is currently hog-tied with restrictive regulations that prevent growth, competition, innovation, and which would lead to wider access to a far better, far more affordable service? This life-or-death dependence that everyone feels with regard to their health insurance is as clear a sign as any that something is very wrong with the healthcare industry. It lacks a true market. And lacking a true market, it’s more expensive, more inconvenient, and far inferior to what would exist had many of these regulations never existed.
It is difficult for someone to accept that the only path to a better world lies in a clearing away of these obstacles to choice and voluntary interaction. Too many dirty words have been associated with it: “deregulation”, “capitalism”, “free market”, etc. It is difficult to accept that artificial regulation benefits the powerful. The prescription requirement for birth control has been a clear benefit for doctors, with women picking up the tab. Unnecessarily so. It’s examples like this that can turn on a light bulb in the minds of idealists who are willing to advocate for a better future, leading them to the underlying, universal principle of liberty.
The human race has gone about as far as it can go with regulation and restriction. Every manner of engineered utopia has been attempted, and the results are hard to look at. The consistent pursuit of the principle that opposes this restriction in every walk of life is our only option. Following that path would mean the acceptance that the future is uncontrollable, but also the acceptance that it is a future that will be far better than the present, something to welcome, not to fear.
