Rick Santorum thinks we should all stop using contraception

By Richard K. Barry

Just when you think GOP presidential nomination candidates can't say anything dumber, they raise the bar. Yes, ThinkProgress has a clip of Rick Santorum being interviewed in which he says that he would repeal all federal funding for contraception. He goes on to say that birth control devalues the act of procreation. Here's the quote:

One of the things I will talk about, that no president has ever talked about before is I think the dangers of contraception in this country. It's not okay. It's a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.

Well, Santorum is half right, which is probably better than his average. Contraception is a license to do things - fun things. I suspect, however, that if he were to conduct a poll even amongst solid conservatives, he would find that most people who do things in the "sexual realm" with the benefit of contraception probably don't think what they are doing is counter to how things are supposed to be. Just a guess.

As he continues:

[Sex] is supposed to be within a marriage. It's supposed to be for the purposes that are yes, conjugal.. but also procreative. That's the perfect way that a sexual union should happen. This is special and it needs to be seen as special.

I'd like to recommend that a question be asked of GOP presidential candidates at their next debate. I propose that each be asked if they think that contraception is "not okay." I think they should be made to answer whether or not they think everyone should be made, or at least encouraged, to stop using contraception. Simple up or down answer.

I'd love to hear the responses.

I think it's worth quoting the ThinkProgress piece at length on the benefits of contraception:

An overwhelming majority of Americans - virtually all women (more than 99 percent) aged 15-44 have used at least one contraceptive method - rely on contraceptives to prevent unintended pregnancies and limit the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases. In fact, the Guttmacher Institute estimates that contraceptive services provided at publicly funded clinics helped prevent almost two million unintended pregnancies. Without funding from Medicaid and Title X "abortions occurring in the United States would be nearly two-thirds higher among women overall and among teens; the number of unintended pregnancies among poor women would nearly double."

I know that Rick Santorum is a radical Christian nutjob. I get that. It just amazes me that the other GOP hopefuls feel the need to tip toe around this kind of bullshit for fear of alienating social conservatives.

So much of Republican politics these days is about finding the lowest common denominator. It's about not sticking out in a way that might alienate the vocal minority on the radical right. Where does that leave them? No tax increases under any circumstances, draconian immigration laws, real enthusiasm for capital punishment, gay bashing (even for our gay soliders), climate change denying, even some evolution denying, and, now, the rejection of contraception.

What a bunch of yahoos. The more they talk, the more I like Obama's chances.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)