Birth control is a human right

The argument

Proponents of this position argue that access to contraception belongs among the entitlements a person holds simply as a person, and that recognising it as such settles the question of who should pay. The reasoning begins with reproduction: anything that has to do with reproduction should be a matter of choice, and so any item regulating it should be provided to women free of charge, leaving a family to come in its own time, when and if the woman chooses, and not before. If that choice is to be a real one rather than a bare permission, the means of exercising it must be available to the woman who needs them. A right whose exercise depends on affording the item that regulates it is, on this argument, not yet a right but a purchase — and a purchase those least able to pay will simply forgo, which makes the entitlement unevenly held precisely where it matters most. The second strand concerns what follows when the entitlement is honoured. One cited source states that 'women who use contraception are healthier, better educated, and more empowered than those who don't', an association proponents read as evidence that control over one's own reproduction is not an isolated good but a precondition of the others: a woman able to decide whether and when to bear a child can also plan an education, hold work, and make commitments that an unplanned pregnancy would foreclose. On this account the right to control their bodies makes women happier, smarter and more confident members of society, because it allows them to act on long-term intentions instead of accommodating events they did not choose. Proponents therefore conclude that birth control is a human right, and that a right which must be bought is not one all women hold, so it should be free.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Birth control is not a right. Women can simply abstain, or monitor when it's the safest to partake in intercourse. Birth control is not a natural product, and thus should not be considered a freely given right.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Controlling pregnancy is not a human right.