Contraception Does Not Support Equality:
The Windmill Mason’s Guild,
The Jew-Hater’s Dilemma, and Schrödinger’s Mexican
“Don’t trust People in the Cyber World”
English text of a primarily-Cantonese poster erected by the Police Force of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region,
photographed on 2011-02-04, available here.
Advocates of contraception frequently claim that contraception supports, or is even essential for, the equality of women with men. Such statements include:
1. “Despite the importance of the right to contraception in achieving health-related SDG 3, as well as gender equality SDG 5, there are still several reasons that prevent women from a free access to contraception.” – Access to Contraception Around the World: Situational Analysis & Current Challenges, Focus 2030, published 2024-03-06. Accessible here. Editor’s Note: Focus 2030 is a French non-governmental organization ostensibly dedicated to the advancement of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs.
2. “Family planning is central to gender equality and women’s empowerment.” – The United Nations (UN) Population Fund, retrieved 2024-12-20. Accessible here. Editor’s Note: “Family planning”, in the context of this article, is clearly is a euphemism for, or at least a euphemism inclusive of, contraception.
3. “Since reproductive health and women’s empowerment are intertwined, trends in contraceptive use can also reveal progress towards another global target: progress towards gender equality.” – The Unmet Need for Social Context in Family Planning, World Health Organization (WHO), published 2020-03-10. Accessible here. Editor’s Note: The implication made by the author(s) is that the availability of contraception is necessary for women’s empowerment, and suggests that an increase in contraceptive use would be an indicator of increasing gender equality.
4. “The Parliamentary Assembly believes that protecting women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights should be given a high priority by public authorities at all levels, as an important part of gender equality policies, with a view to building fair and equal societies and promoting health and well-being.” – Empowering Women: Promoting Access to Contraception in Europe, Resolution 2331 of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, adopted 2020-06-26. Accessible here. Editor’s Note: The implication of this Resolution, clearer perhaps from its title than its content, is that contraception is necessary for equality and is a part of “sexual and reproductive health and rights”.
5. “The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives.” – Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania versus Casey, United States Supreme Court Case 505 U.S. 833, adjudicated 1992-06-29. Accessible here. Editor’s Note 1: Although the case in question related to abortion as opposed to contraception, the core of the argument – that artificially limiting fertility is essential to women’s equality with men – applies equally to contraception, and indeed Planned Parenthood, the plaintiff, has applied this argument to contraception as to abortion. Editor’s Note 2: On 2022-06-24, this ruling was overturned. Based.
6. “В России нет запрета абортов. В этой сфере нужно действовать очень аккуратно, права и свободы женщины должны соблюдаться.” | “Within Russia there is no prohibition of abortions. In this sphere (alt. ‘area’, ‘topic’, ‘realm’), it is necessary to proceed very carefully – the rights and freedoms of women must be protected (lit. ‘obeyed’, ‘followed’).” – Владимир Владимирович Путин | Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, rejecting a proposal to restrict abortion within the Russian Federation, 2023-12-14. Accessible here. Editor’s Note 1: The law in question, which petitioners sought to alter in order to restrict private healthcare providers from performing abortions (they did not seek to prohibit abortion wholesale), is Статья 56: Искусственное Прерывание Беременности (“Article 56: Artificial Termination of Pregnancy”) of Федеральный Закон N 323-ФЗ: Об Основах Охраны Здоровья Граждан в Российской Федерации (“The Fundamentals of the Defense of Health of Citizens within the Russian Federation”). Accessible here. Editor’s Note 2: The same law N 323-ФЗ contains a provision creating a right to contraception and indeed requiring the State to provide contraception; this is Статья 51: Права Cемьи в Cфере Охраны 3доровья (“Article 51: Rights of Families in the Area of the Defense of Health”). Accessible here.
Although the Russian example does not equate contraception with women’s equality to the same degree as the English-language examples (“one of these things is not like the others”), I include it here because I seek always to dispel lies, and a common lie told in the Western world – particularly among self-described “Conservatives” – is that Russia is a Conservative country from a Western standpoint. In my judgement, this idea is a whole-cloth, delusional fantasy of American Rightists. In nearly every stereotype, there is some drop of truth: Not all Americans are fat, but there are plenty of fat Americans. Not all of India is dirty, but there are dirty areas of India. Not all of Africa is violent, but there are rough neighborhoods in Mogadishu. Not all Mexicans work in construction, but there are a lot of Mexican construction workers. The stereotype that Russians are conservative is the only stereotype in which I see zero truth. In many stereotypes I see little truth, but in this alone, I see zero.
The examples above are but a fraction of a fraction of what’s out there.
-Second-Life (Stanford class) & The Windmill Mason’s Guild. SecondLife has many severely physically disabled people. Shoved my arm.
AMAZING Russian article (contraception is about adapting women’s bodies to “the modern world”):
Э О, [12/21/2024 1:38 AM]
AMAZING article. https://www.medicalexpress.uz/journals/articles/id=1272
Э О, [12/21/2024 1:39 AM]
That contraception is about adapting women’s bodies to “modern life”
Э О, [12/21/2024 1:39 AM]
AMAZING honesty.
Э О, [12/21/2024 1:39 AM]
I am gonna rip them to shreds though.