# Why do conservatives want to deny women free birth control? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 1, 2014, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-want-to-deny-women-free-birth-control/680266 "2014-02-01T05:15:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-want-to-deny-women-free-birth-control/680266/101 "2014-02-03T15:08:35Z")
What is it among politicians? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-want-to-deny-women-free-birth-control/680266/102 "2014-02-03T15:10:06Z")
> [@Lightnin](#): > > Although this is very tangential to the actual OP, I’ll just leave this here: > > [“Among the things he learned while researching his new book, “The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry”: the incidence of psychopathy among CEOs is about 4 percent, four times what it is in the population at large.”](http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2011/06/14/why-some-psychopaths-make-great-ceos/) So, the conclusion is that “generally” CEOs are not psychopaths. In fact it is rather rare, which is the opposite of the claim that was originally made, and that this cite was supposed to prove. Can you elaborate on the medical methodology used to obtain this data? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-want-to-deny-women-free-birth-control/680266/103 "2014-02-03T15:38:57Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > 1. You can say that the general public is not responsible for raising children, but if the parents cannot afford to do so you have to choose between letting the child starve or having the general public feed it. If conservatives truly favored smaller government, they would prefer to spend pennies funding contraception or dollars funding abortion as opposed to thousands of dollars bringing up children that the parents cannot. Conservatives will argue that we didn’t have children starving in the streets in the past. And they will argue that, although they favor smaller government, they don’t favor killing a million people a year to achieve that. People in this case being “unborn babies”. You and I may not consider them people, but most conservatives do. > [@](#): > > 1. The prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment has pretty non-partisan roots. Sure, you have sociopaths like Joe Arpaio gleefully abusing his prisoners, many of whom are not guilty of anything and only awaiting trial. But on the whole, most people don’t want to abuse people in prison. Not sure what conservaties would do to make it more cost-effective, sounds to me like the old “if we only could cut waste in government we could balance the budget” bullshit. Again, you are making the mistake of holding conservatives accountable for your standards. They don’t define “abuse” the way you do. As one example, conservatives are going to be more likely to be willing to speed up the execution process so that it doesn’t take 20 years to execute someone convicted of a capital offense. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-want-to-deny-women-free-birth-control/680266/104 "2014-02-03T15:53:02Z")
> [@Llama\_Llogophile](#): > > Well, this is where the rubber (heh) meets the road: I most definitely see contraception as a matter of public health. Yeah, but we’re talking about conservatives. They generally don’t view pregnancy as a disease that needs to be prevented and controlled by the government. Perhaps we can re-write the title of this thread as: Why Can’t Conservatives Think the Same Way that Liberals Do? ---
**Author:** ![OurLordPeace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e8c25b/32.png) [@OurLordPeace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OurLordPeace)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-want-to-deny-women-free-birth-control/680266/105 "2014-02-03T15:58:33Z")
I have citations for this, but I can’t get to them now… For one thing, many conservatives are under the impression (I have had arguments with them about this, and read others) that contraception actually leads to more abortion, because then people have so much more reckless sex, without practicing Vatican Roulette, that eventually they have a contraceptive failure. They often quote something about “54% of women getting abortions were using contraception.” The problem is that this figure includes a huge amount of human error (forgetting to take pills, for example), dishonesty (contraceptive sabotage on either partner’s part), outright lying, etc. All of these factors are mitigated with real sex ed, and largely eliminated with Long Acting Reversible Contraception/Contraceptives (LARCs, i.e. IUDs and implants). The National Association of Evangelicals has recently admitted this, and realized that subsidizing LARCs (along with sex ed, I think) is the best way to collapse the abortion rate. The ignorance remains, among many. Secondly, many conservatives don’t understand investment any more, if they ever did. Subsidizing contraceptives saves them a lot of money, but this doesn’t register for some reason. Other posters made the same point regarding single-payer health care in general. Third, as others have mentioned, many conservatives these days are deeply neurotic about sex and sexuality. Amanda Marcotte (who grew up in West Texas among pregnant teenagers) has said that it isn’t really a coherent philosophical position as much as a mess of repression, shame, and guilt. They project it on others, leading to the counterproductive, backward, and deeply harmful chains of events we are discussing here. Also, natalists are petrified of Muslims (among others) taking over Western Civilization. ---
**Author:** ![OurLordPeace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e8c25b/32.png) [@OurLordPeace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OurLordPeace)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-want-to-deny-women-free-birth-control/680266/106 "2014-02-03T16:01:02Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Yeah, but we’re talking about conservatives. They generally don’t view pregnancy as a disease that needs to be prevented and controlled by the government. > > Perhaps we can re-write the title of this thread as: Why Can’t Conservatives Think the Same Way that Liberals Do? Speaking of which, here’s one citation: [Red Sex, Blue Sex. Why do so many Evangelical teens get pregnant?](http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&sqi=2&ved=0CCQQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newyorker.com%2Freporting%2F2008%2F11%2F03%2F081103fa_fact_talbot%3FcurrentPage%3Dall&ei=Cr3vUsTnMarLsATH3IHQBw&usg=AFQjCNE0SOnCzL6Tn8D4tumIboPqLOa12g&bvm=bv.60444564,d.cWc) ---
**Author:** ![OurLordPeace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e8c25b/32.png) [@OurLordPeace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OurLordPeace)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-want-to-deny-women-free-birth-control/680266/107 "2014-02-03T16:02:58Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Well no, it’s not an obscure factoid - factoids are true, and “obscure” is not a synonym for “something made up”. > Thanks, but I would like to see a real cite. You know, like we do in GD. > > Regards, > Shodan Factoids are (or were, but should still be) false. That’s what the suffix “oid” means. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-want-to-deny-women-free-birth-control/680266/108 "2014-02-03T16:05:10Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Conservatives will argue that we didn’t have children starving in the streets in the past. And they will argue that, although they favor smaller government, they don’t favor killing a million people a year to achieve that. People in this case being “unborn babies”. You and I may not consider them people, but most conservatives do. > Again, you are making the mistake of holding conservatives accountable for your standards. They don’t define “abuse” the way you do. As one example, conservatives are going to be more likely to be willing to speed up the execution process so that it doesn’t take 20 years to execute someone convicted of a capital offense. 1. If they’re that freaking opposed to abortion, why are they obsessed with defunding the organization that prevents more abortions than anyone else? Why doesn’t the Republican convention burst into a rendition of “Every Sperm Is Sacred” every four years? So they hate abortion so- they want to prevent people from preventing pregnancy in the first place. It might make sense on some planet. So these unwanted children may not actually starve to death, but they are condemned to a life of poverty. Which, for certain groups of people, is also on the right wing agenda. 2. You want to speed up the death penalty process. What else ya got? Bread and water for inmates? Packing them in tighter than a slave ship? It seems to me that conservatives believe that life begins at conception and ends at birth. Human life is sacred- except for those people that we consider less than human. Got it. ---
**Author:** ![OurLordPeace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e8c25b/32.png) [@OurLordPeace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OurLordPeace)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-want-to-deny-women-free-birth-control/680266/109 "2014-02-03T16:15:02Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Very well. You’re wrong for a quite large number of reasons. > > First, you seem to think that the annual cost of ‘the pill’ is $600. It’s actually about $8 per month. (There are other forms of birth control that are more expensive.) > > Second, you seem to think that birth control is not currently available for free. But it is. Any woman (or man) can go to a Planned Parenthood clinic or a thousand other sources and get free birth control. This has been true for decades. > > Third, you seem to think that conservatives are opposed to this. Perhaps some are, but I’ve never heard anyone say that he or she is opposed to it. (The question that’s drawing a lot of publicity during Pres. Obama’s fight against the Little Sisters of the Poor and other organizations is whether employers should be forced to pay for their employees’ birth control, but obviously that has no effect on whether free birth control is available. > > Fourth, in your OP you list groups that conservatives supposedly “don’t want to see breeding”. Where’s your evidence that conservatives don’t want to see these groups breeding? LARCs have a high upfront cost, partially leading to their lower usage at the present time. When this upfront cost is removed, LARCs become much more common, leading to great savings in the medium/long term, and very few abortions. [Here it is in today’s WaPo](http://news.google.com/news/url?ct2=us%2F1_0_s_0_1_a&sa=t&usg=AFQjCNFd-U3xZlFToBgNZmwGQe1TiwPZMA&cid=43982313035724&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonpost.com%2Fnational%2Fhealth-science%2Fstudy-abortion-rate-at-lowest-point-since-1973%2F2014%2F02%2F02%2F8dea007c-8a9b-11e3-833c-33098f9e5267_story.html&ei=M7_vUrDUMsjlgQe9Lg&rt=SECTION&vm=STANDARD&bvm=section&did=987800813669880126&sid=en_us%3Am&ssid=m). Here’s the [Contraceptive Choice Project](http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&sqi=2&ved=0CDIQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.choiceproject.wustl.edu%2F&ei=er_vUuD5IJOvsAS_j4F4&usg=AFQjCNHvirGd7aQaHM4eMnHftbiN2B2-aQ&bvm=bv.60444564,d.cWc), which got a lot of press demonstrating exactly what I just wrote. [Here’s Contra-Contraception](http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCQQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2006%2F05%2F07%2Fmagazine%2F07contraception.html%3Fpagewanted%3Dall&ei=2L_vUtKBB43gsATo44CgDA&usg=AFQjCNGsQWrFztsezrCuekRJCfEa91kxFg&bvm=bv.60444564,d.cWc), from NYTimes (Magazine supplement, I think) in 2006, sounding an early warning about non-Catholics turning against contraception. Towards the very end, you can see Southern Baptist mullah Albert Mohler becoming uncomfortable with the Dutch method of reducing the abortion rate. Last, do you really think conservatives want more of those they consider economically dependent and electorally problematic? ---
**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-want-to-deny-women-free-birth-control/680266/110 "2014-02-03T16:28:56Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Yeah, but we’re talking about conservatives. They generally don’t view pregnancy as a disease that needs to be prevented and controlled by the government. Who views pregnancy as a disease? Something needs to be a disease to be a part of public health? > [@John\_Mace](#): > > Yeah > Perhaps we can re-write the title of this thread as: Why Can’t Conservatives Think the Same Way that Liberals Do? Because conservatives are completely irrational on this issue, possibly because they can’t abide the idea that people having sex for pleasure is both OK and inevitable? John, you’re a courteous debater and I appreciate that. But come on… I’m not the only one making this point - please, make a rational case for why pregnancy, family planning and birth control isn’t an appropriate part of public health policy. Or better yet, concede that it is and the conservative position we are debating here is indefensible outside of a religious context. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-want-to-deny-women-free-birth-control/680266/111 "2014-02-03T16:38:58Z")
Some birth control pills and the IUD work by preventing implantation of a fertilized egg. If you believe that life begins at conception, then this is murder. ---
**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-want-to-deny-women-free-birth-control/680266/112 "2014-02-03T16:44:04Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Some birth control pills and the IUD work by preventing implantation of a fertilized egg. If you believe that life begins at conception, then this is murder. Even if I were to concede this is a rational position (which I don’t, even though it’s not an exclusively religious arguement), the issue would then change to “OK, we’re going to provide birth control as a matter of public health, EXCEPT those particular methods.” Think the conservatives would be agreeable to that? If so, I have a bridge to sell you. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-want-to-deny-women-free-birth-control/680266/113 "2014-02-03T16:52:30Z")
> [@Llama\_Llogophile](#): > > Who views pregnancy as a disease? Something needs to be a disease to be a part of public health? I think that for conservatives, yes. > [@](#): > > Because conservatives are completely irrational on this issue, possibly because they can’t abide the idea that people having sex for pleasure is both OK and inevitable? > > John, you’re a courteous debater and I appreciate that. But come on… I’m not the only one making this point - please, make a rational case for why pregnancy, family planning and birth control isn’t an appropriate part of public health policy. Or better yet, concede that it is and the conservative position we are debating here is indefensible outside of a religious context. If we define “rational” as “following, logically, from ones axioms or assumptions”, then I think I am. I don’t agree with those axioms, but if I accept them, I can see how the rational argument gets made. But let’s also remember that politics and policy aren’t always rational. We’re Humans, not Vulcans. And Humans are religious, especially conservative Humans. As an atheist, I would prefer people did not inform their political positions with religion, but I realize that’s not a realistic expectation. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-want-to-deny-women-free-birth-control/680266/114 "2014-02-03T17:07:59Z")
> [@OurLordPeace](#): > > LARCs have a high upfront cost, partially leading to their lower usage at the present time. When this upfront cost is removed, LARCs become much more common, leading to great savings in the medium/long term, and very few abortions. [Here it is in today’s WaPo](http://news.google.com/news/url?ct2=us%2F1_0_s_0_1_a&sa=t&usg=AFQjCNFd-U3xZlFToBgNZmwGQe1TiwPZMA&cid=43982313035724&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonpost.com%2Fnational%2Fhealth-science%2Fstudy-abortion-rate-at-lowest-point-since-1973%2F2014%2F02%2F02%2F8dea007c-8a9b-11e3-833c-33098f9e5267_story.html&ei=M7_vUrDUMsjlgQe9Lg&rt=SECTION&vm=STANDARD&bvm=section&did=987800813669880126&sid=en_us%3Am&ssid=m). Quopting from the Washington Post article that you linked to: The study did not examine the reasons for the drop. But the authors suggested that one factor was greater reliance on new kinds of birth control, including intra-uterine devices such as Mirena, which can last for years and are not susceptible to user error like daily pills or condoms. So belief that birth control has lead to a decrease in abortions is not actually based on this research, just on a “suggestion”. ---
**Author:** ![OurLordPeace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e8c25b/32.png) [@OurLordPeace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OurLordPeace)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-want-to-deny-women-free-birth-control/680266/115 "2014-02-03T17:14:18Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Quopting from the Washington Post article that you linked to: > > The study did not examine the reasons for the drop. But the authors suggested that one factor was greater reliance on new kinds of birth control, including intra-uterine devices such as Mirena, which can last for years and are not susceptible to user error like daily pills or condoms. > > So belief that birth control has lead to a decrease in abortions is not actually based on this research, just on a “suggestion”. But look at the very next link, about the Contraceptive Choice Project. As I mentioned, it got [some](http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&ved=0CEMQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.stltoday.com%2Fnews%2Flocal%2Fmetro%2Fcontraceptive-study-in-st-louis-coincides-with-drop-in-abortion%2Farticle_9efe9196-b672-5f6a-9a6a-c094e7fe5546.html&ei=4M3vUum3AqbfsASJkgE&usg=AFQjCNFcRBINupfkeUNv5jZ3EUCzaeuSOg&sig2=eLau6u6vTmzHKrNf7_1yZQ&bvm=bv.60444564,d.cWc) needed [coverage](http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=10&cad=rja&ved=0CIABEBYwCQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2F2012%2F10%2F05%2Fstudy-free-birth-control-abortion-rate_n_1942621.html&ei=4M3vUum3AqbfsASJkgE&usg=AFQjCNH99Q8ISxZuIkbpYWgRk8qoppvfGA&sig2=a68sl55sK8nRvEaE3Qhl2w&bvm=bv.60444564,d.cWc). ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-want-to-deny-women-free-birth-control/680266/116 "2014-02-03T18:05:32Z")
On a side note, there was a time when conservatives [supported](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_X) expanded access to birth control for fiscal reasons. That was before the emergence of the organized religious right, though. ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-want-to-deny-women-free-birth-control/680266/117 "2014-02-03T18:26:26Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > So, the conclusion is that “generally” CEOs are not psychopaths. In fact it is rather rare, which is the opposite of the claim that was originally made, and that this cite was supposed to prove. As the article states, psychopathy among CEOs is 4% higher. Sure, it’s not common, but it is more common than among non-CEOs, apparently. > [@John\_Mace](#): > > Can you elaborate on the medical methodology used to obtain this data? I didn’t write the book or the article. You asked for a cite, I gave you a relevant cite. I’m sorry you didn’t like that I did. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-want-to-deny-women-free-birth-control/680266/118 "2014-02-03T20:13:38Z")
Re: Some birth control pills and the IUD work by preventing implantation of a fertilized egg Not really. Birth control pills (as distinct from those pills sold explicitly as abortifacients) may theoretically interfere with implantation, but there’s very little evidence that they actually do. Every study on the subject that I’ve been able to find suggests that birth control pills don’t actually interfere with implantation to any appreciable degree. If anyone wants citations, just ask, I’m happy to dig them up. IUDs were thought to act (in the past) by interfering with implantation, but as far as I understand, modern IUDs _primarily_ work by inhibiting fertilization rather than implantation. Re: from NYTimes (Magazine supplement, I think) in 2006, sounding an early warning about non-Catholics turning against contraception. Towards the very end, you can see Southern Baptist mullah Albert Mohler becoming uncomfortable with the Dutch method of reducing the abortion rate. I am not personally anti-contraceptive pill, but I’m relatively sympathetic to the arguments by the Catholic Church, Mohler, etc., that ‘contraception is a sin because it perverts the sexual faculty’. That is to say, I don’t _agree_ with the argument (and am increasingly less sympathetic to Aristotelian/Scholastic reasoning in general), but I think it’s an intellectually respectable argument that should be engaged with. And of course it is a moral/philosophical argument, not a scientific one. This argument about birth control pills causing implantation failures is very different: it is a scientific, falsifiable claim (and an interesting and respectable one) which has in fact been falsified. And so it really should be put to death: to do otherwise would be a discredit to the biologists who have spent time and energy trying to test the hypothesis. Object to birth control pills all you want, at the level of morality, but I think cultural conservatives should stop pushing the ‘implantation failure’ line. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2014, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-want-to-deny-women-free-birth-control/680266/119 "2014-02-04T02:26:46Z")
> [@Lightnin](#): > > As the article states, psychopathy among CEOs is 4% higher. Sure, it’s not common, but it is more common than among non-CEOs, apparently. Perhaps, if there methodology used was scientific. But still, the claim was that psychopathy was “generally” the case, which I think we must agree means something at least \> 50%. > [@](#): > > I didn’t write the book or the article. You asked for a cite, I gave you a relevant cite. I’m sorry you didn’t like that I did. I have not said that I don’t like the cite. I’m asking if this is an actual scientific study or not. If you don’t know, that’s fine. But without knowledge of the methodology, I’d say that cite is objectively not very useful, whether one likes it or not. People write books about all sorts of nutty things all the time. The mere fact that a book has been written on a given subject is not worth the paper the book was written on. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2014, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-want-to-deny-women-free-birth-control/680266/120 "2014-02-04T14:01:20Z")
\*\*Why do conservatives want to deny women free birth control? \*\* Conservatives don’t. Religious whackjobs do. Please don’t confuse the two. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-want-to-deny-women-free-birth-control/680266.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-conservatives-want-to-deny-women-free-birth-control/680266.md?page=7)