Missouri votes to remove contraception from state clinics

The world is full of people who believe -- largely for religious reasons -- that contraception is a bad thing and should be eliminated. While I respect their right to believe this, I think it's a horrible and illogical position that most thinking people disagree with.

It's part of another slippery slope, one heading towards forced pregnancy, and the criminalization of non-procreative sex. It also exhibits a fundamental disrespect for freedom: the freedom of people to exert control of their lives and bodies.

So when I read this, it makes me worry:

Yesterday, during debate on HB1010, the budget for the Departments of Health and Mental Health, House Republicans voted to ban county health clinics from providing family planning services.

[...]

The amendment, offered by Rep. Susan Phillips (R-Kansas City) removed "voluntary choice of contraception, including natural family planning" as one of the permissible services that county health clinics could provide with state funding.

I could be sad about the disrespect this exhibits towards the people who need and use these free services, or the misguided thinking that allows people to rationalize this, but instead it just makes me afraid of the creeping paternalism in this country and shocked at the abandonment of the fundamental liberties the United States were founded on.

(via atrios)