Politics 
Youngins’ with interesting ideas on what they believe they’re entitled to, put in your mouthguards: 
Now I’ve heard a lot of talk lately of birth control being a basic human right. (Shockingly this came up in an election year, to appeal to a voting base badly needed by an incumbent party.) By that token though, why isn’t food, or water, or housing a “basic human right?” If things like that are provided, what is the purpose of even working to make a living? The purpose of making a living is to pay for the essentials for life, regardless of what your circumstance is. Things like cable TV and vacations are extra, that one has to budget for; we do not work simply to pay for extras. The entire purpose of working is to pay for your expenses.

“Yes, but birth control is expensive, and women “have to” pay it! (But admittedly not expensive in all areas or from all places, and apparently proponents of this idea’s male partners do not chip in “equally” to pay for something he’s benefiting from)”
This is the norm in life. A person that’s 6’5″ has to pay for more food than most other people simply due to their body mass. People like this are often live in a family of tall people, their food bill is likely much higher than average sized humans. That’s not “equal” at all. As someone born with poor vision, glasses and contact lenses are things I more or less need to live as well, I would be blind without them. I did not choose to have terrible vision. There are people born with feet that require the use of expensive cushions in their shoes. A person living in a high crime neighborhood may need a security system, better locks, or a firearm for protection more so than others- but perhaps they “can’t afford it” either.

Many people have extra expenses in their lives that some others do not- why don’t we “just pay it” to help them out too? After all, all of the above are much more important than one’s “need” to have recreational sex (note: those who use birth control to treat a medical condition- the vast minority of birth control users, are not part of this group in this discussion). That idea is not at all kind or politically correct, but it’s true. The oft cited statistic is that 98% of women (of course of some narrowed down group that those who use this stat do not clarify) choose to use birth control, as they should be free to choose to do so if they desire. Apparently it’s not actually prohibitively expensive nor poorly distributed! If one is complaining about the costs, there are private-market methods to lower the costs of these things.

Proponents of “free” birth control are neglecting an important fact in the debate. Birth control recipients are in fact already paying for it, so when they are asking for health insurance companies (who do not grow money on trees, but get it from other customers) to “just pay for it”, are really asking for people who do not choose to use or do not need birth control to help subsidize their costs. I find this idea that something that is without a doubt mostly an elective medication, suddenly needs to be paid for others- a far more offensive idea than one of my sentences above that would garnish much anger from those who disagree with me. They would likely call my opinion “hate-speech”, and ignore the entitlement attitude in what they’re championing.

Birth control is not a human right, it sits nowhere in the ballpark of being “basic” either.. Through technology we quite recently (in terms of human existence) found out a way to prevent the process of creating life- to make sex a recreational activity. That’s incredibly new, as is the idea that one’s ability to defend themselves is a subject up for referendum by those who live in safe neighborhoods and wish to pretend their idealism will prevent people from being the victims of violent crime.