The Sun-Times, worrying that the cost of birth control available to students in colleges is going to rise, imagines a law reducing Federal spending is somehow forcing students to have unprotected sex. "Birth-control costs soaring at colleges -- Pregnancies could rise now that law limits drugmaker incentives", they proclaim. This calamity is all being blamed on the "Deficit Reduction Act signed by President Bush last year" according to the Sun-Times.
Women and Minorities Hardest Hit
The Sun-Times focuses on a poor, poor student of a "low-income home" because she has somehow, or the other, gotten herself pregnant. Amazingly, after going off birth control, Elizabeth Harris, a pre-med student at the University of Chicago (UIC), "found she was pregnant," the Sun-times laments.
Imagine, a pre-med student not realizing she could become pregnant as a result of unprotected sex? Shocking, eh?
Naturally, the Sun-Times wants to make it seem that "low-income" students are hit hardest so they subtly imply that with a paragraph header that says "Low-income students hit hard." They claim that our Miss. Harris is in a bind because she just cannot afford birth control. She is so poor that the $35 a month for her prescription was just too much for her. Why, she even had to cancel her trip to Costa Rica last Spring because of this whole pregnancy thingie.
Last spring, 20-year-old pre-med student Elizabeth Harris had only Costa Rica on her mind. She was hoping to wine and dine there while taking a few biology courses.But the Waukegan native and University of Illinois at Chicago junior had to skip her trip.
Having gone off birth control, Harris found she was pregnant. She said she quit when the cost of her prescription at the UIC clinic more than doubled.
Imagine being so poor that your trip to Costa Rica has to be cancelled?
I wish I was that poor.
So, why is the cost of birth control at colleges going up. It's that mean 'ol Bush, of course!
The price increase in hormonal birth control can be traced to the Deficit Reduction Act signed by President Bush last year, aimed at reducing federal spending by $39 billion. The legislation made it more costly for drug makers to offer low-cost birth control to college clinics. Then the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued regulations that dropped college clinics from a list of agencies to which drug companies could sell discounted drugs.
So, there you have it. Bush is causing well meaning, yet curiously stupid pre-med students to get pregnant because he is allowing less Federal money to unconstitutionally go to fund birth control drugs in our colleges and universities than was previously unconstitutionally going to fund birth control drugs in our colleges and universities.
It's a dastardly plot, I tell you.
The Sun-Times is, of course, absolutely sure that our university students are just too darn stupid to stay out of such trouble. Heck, we can't expect students to think of their future, finish school, get their degree and begin their lives in a planned and sensible way, can we? We MUST have that nanny state government out there to hold their hands... or hold their contraception... for them.
And who can deny that it's all Bush's fault?
That sex pusher!
