Advice

On a reasonable response

What’s a reasonable response to someone whose counter to arguments for the need to better access to contraception is to “just not have sex”?


I try not to argue with stupid people, but if I had to give a reasonable response to someone that ignorant, it would go something like this:

You can’t just tell people not to have sex. That’s a dumb and dismissive thing to declare. It’s no different than closing your eyes, putting your hands over your ears, and shouting “La la la, I can’t hear you!” at the top of your lungs like an idiot child.

Sex is a part of the human condition. People fuck. There’s no stopping it, and there’s no use disregarding the inevitability of it. To try and pretend otherwise is to ignore reality for the sake of either weak-minded fedora libertarianism or small-minded puritanical conservatism.

Telling people to “just not have sex” in an argument about contraception is the logical equivalent of telling people to “just not breathe” in an argument about clean air, so if you can’t even grasp the fundamental facts of human sexual behavior, then there’s really no point in arguing a public policy issue as complex and nuanced as reproductive health.

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