Florida measure would criminalize birth control

It may seem hard to believe we have to write about efforts like this in 2009, but it goes hand in hand with the economic engineering we've confronted regularly.

In Florida, right-wingers are supporting an effort to pass a state constitutional amendment that would in effect outlaw and criminalize birth control pills.

Supporters need less than 700,000 signatures to place the measure on the ballot. But it seems to be generating little support.

This amendment doesn't take a moderate position; it takes an extreme stance. Nothing is more moderate than allowing people to choose whether to use birth control. If you don't believe in birth control, it's certainly your choice not to use it. This amendment would criminalize those who make a different choice.

But one supporter said the amendment would give her "the right to make my own decisions and not have someone override it." Wrong. This is the polar opposite of what the amendment would do. I'm reminded of George Orwell's '1984', in which the government boasted of its policies being the opposite of what they really were.

The amendment is really about controlling the public - much like Florida's work-for-less law. The ideologues who babble that health care reform is too much government are generally in favor of oppressive work-for-less laws and criminalizing birth control.

But they think of themselves as "messengers of God", so I guess they think they can excuse their dangerous hypocrisy.

(Source: http://www.alternet.org/blogs/reproductivejustice/142623/anti-choice_floridians_peddling_constitutional_amendment_to_criminalize_birth_control_pill_)