When modern women are finally fitted with their regulation compulsory chastity belts, dare one dream that they’ll come in a range of pretty colours, delightful materials and snazzy designs? Or would it just be the old-school medieval iron trad models? Hey, little ladies, do you think we’d be allowed to choose?
I muse facetiously because, in the US, President Trump has issued a ruling that makes it far easier for companies and insurers to opt out of providing free birth control to employees on the grounds of religious and moral beliefs, rolling back a key feature of Obamacare. Now that it will become easier to opt out, many more will do so, with the potential to affect 55 million women. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the National Women’s Law Center have announced that they will sue the government over the decision.
Obamacare provisions also covered treatment for gynaecological conditions such as endometriosis and polycystic ovarian syndrome. Now, many women will be worried about being able to afford such treatments. However, these unfortunate women probably just count as collateral damage. Apart from the huge amount of money that big business will save, the real target here is sexual autonomy, doubtless all sexual autonomy, but specifically the female kind that a certain mindset has long wanted to control.
Contraception, though imperfect, was one of the chief liberators of women, taking much of the fear out of sex. Thus, this removal of free birth control could only be about putting the fear back into sex. At the least, putting an end to the corporate bankrolling of the more liberal, humanist, proactive and protective approaches to sex.
It should come as no surprise that among the reasons cited for the change were findings that access to contraception incited “risky sexual behaviour”. Eh? One would have thought that reduced access to contraception was far riskier and that, for both sexes, access to barrier contraception would be the least “risky” of all?
However, even thinking like this is to participate in the delusion that this is about people enjoying themselves safely. Take away the figleaf of social responsibility and this becomes about stopping people being able to enjoy sex when they want, with whom they want, without fear of the consequences of unwanted pregnancy. And when I say “people”, I mainly mean women.
Not that things are so peachy for reproductive rights back in Europe. Even as an Irish abortion reform referendum is under discussion for next year, a poll has revealed that only 24% of Irish people are in favour of legalising terminations in nearly all cases. Meanwhile, Prof Lesley Regan, the president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, has argued that parts of the 1967 Abortion Act are outdated and that women need faster, safer access to abortion, without the need for the approval of two separate doctors – thus far to no avail. The lesson seems to be that it will never be over – there will always be laws that need to be updated and, when appropriate, protected. Where the Trump contraceptive ruling is concerned, it’s scary enough that it’s such a backward step – yet scarier that it has been so slyly done.
It’s an example of how a quite subtle shifting of legislative emphasis – simply making something easy (the opt-out) that had previously been difficult – could be enough to undermine, or even destroy, major sociopolitical progress, with far-reaching repercussions for women. The imminence of chastity belts or not, this appears to be an era when there’s a real need for women to stay alert – when hard-fought gains could be eroded in an instant with the quiet swish of a departmental pen.
