An Oklahoma Republican Speaks The Truth

As regular readers of this blog will know, I seldom have anything good to say about today's Republican Party. That's because they seem to have abandoned their conservative principles in favor of a mean-spirited ideology -- an ideology that puts right-wing religious fundamentalism above common sense solutions to this country's problems.

But every now and then, a Republican will surprise me by actually seeing and speaking the truth -- and when they do, I feel an obligation to point it out. One of those Republicans is Oklahoma State Rep. Doug Cox. I probably will disagree with Rep. Cox on many issues, but on the issue of contraceptives we are in agreement (an issue he should be familiar with since he is a practicing physician).

Rep. Cox wrote the following in The Oklahoman on May 29th of this year:

All of the new Oklahoma laws aimed at limiting abortion and contraception are great for the Republican family that lives in a gingerbread house with a two-car garage, two planned kids and a dog. In the real world, they are less than perfect.

As a practicing physician (who never has or will perform an abortion), I deal with the real world. In the real world, 15- and 16-year-olds get pregnant (sadly, 12-, 13- and 14-year-olds do also). In the real world, 62 percent of women ages 20 to 24 who give birth are unmarried. And in the world I work and live in, an unplanned pregnancy can throw up a real roadblock on a woman's path to escaping the shackles of poverty.

Yet I cannot convince my Republican colleagues that one of the best ways to eliminate abortions is to ensure access to contraception. A recent attempt by my fellow lawmakers to prevent Medicaid dollars from covering the “morning after” pill is a case in point. Denying access to this important contraceptive is a sure way to increase legal and back-alley abortions. Moreover, such a law would discriminate against low-income women who depend on Medicaid for their health care.

But wait, some lawmakers want to go even further and limit everyone's access to birth control by allowing pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for contraception.

What happened to the Republican Party that I joined? The party where conservative presidential candidate Barry Goldwater felt women should have the right to control their own destiny? The party where President Ronald Reagan said a poor person showing up in the emergency room deserved needed treatment regardless of ability to pay? What happened to the Republican Party that felt government should not overregulate people until (as we say in Oklahoma) “you have walked a mile in their moccasins”?

Dr. Cox is right. The best (and probably the only) way to reduce or eliminate the number of abortions is to make contraceptives easily available to all women. And I believe this should be done at no cost and without any age restrictions (as recommended by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists).

It simply makes no sense to be against both contraceptives and abortion -- since the one is the solution for the other. Those who are against both don't really have the health and well-being of women in mind. They are just trying to shove their own religious view on their fellow Americans -- a view that women should be kept in a second-class status in this country.

I can understand the desire of many to reduce or eliminate abortions -- but the way to do that is not to criminalize abortions. It is to make contraceptives free and easy for all women to access -- and to educate Americans on their proper use, starting in our schools.

I applaud State Rep. Doug Cox for speaking the truth on this issue.