On Monday, Bill Kristol said that Mike Huckabee would beat Chris Christie in a race for the Republican nomination, and I don’t really doubt that that is true. But that’s not a good thing for the Republican Party. At the RNC’s winter meeting in Washington DC this morning, Huckabee made some provocative remarks:
“I think it’s time Republicans no longer accept listening to the Democrats talk about a ‘war on women,'” Huckabee said during a speech at the Republican National Committee’s winter meeting in Washington. “The fact is the Republicans don’t have a war on women, they have a war for women, to empower them to be something other than victims of their gender.”
Huckabee said Democrats rely on women believing they are weaker than men and in need of government handouts, including the contraception mandate in Obamacare.
Huckabee said Democrats tell women “they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing them for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of government.”
Let’s deconstruct this. I understand that he’s putting words in the Democrats’ mouths, but what is he really saying? I think he’s saying that anyone who can’t afford birth control pills needs to remain abstinent. And he’s saying that women are strong enough to go without sex for their entire lives unless and until they have enough money for birth control. I don’t think he’s even contemplating the possibility of a woman being coerced into having sex, or feeling that they have no choice but to exchange sex to alleviate their poverty. He definitely isn’t thinking about poor women’s desire to avoid having more children than they can afford, which may well be none.
Now, it’s also possible that Huckabee is just opposed to birth control regardless of who pays for it. He’s not Catholic, but maybe he feels that way. I don’t know. I just think it’s a strange argument that poor women should go without birth control. And it’s an even stranger argument that women should just go buy it in cash rather than having it covered as part of their preventative health care package. I don’t know if Huckabee is aware of this, but pregnancy can be hazardous to your health. A lot of woman cannot safely carry a baby to term, and many others can only do so at great personal risk. So, it’s not like this isn’t a valid heath care concern.
Finally, insurance companies know that pregnancy is expensive and potentially complicated, which is why they are perfectly happy to help women avoid unwanted pregnancies.
I don’t even know who Huckabee is talking to. Who are the people who think he makes sense?
