Birth control

Tuesday

Declan Leary

What I saw on the White Dudes for Harris Zoom call

When I was a younger man, I found myself on the receiving end of a good bit of unsolicited advice for surviving as a member of the right — tried and true lessons in how to stay interesting without getting canceled or killed. Read all the archives of the Weekly Standard. Avoid talk of Israel, IQ and the Glorious Revolution. Don’t drink too much. Don’t drink too little. Take up smoking. And, most importantly, don’t involve yourself with any organizations predicated on white identity. I have never been very good at following sound advice, which is why I joined “White Dudes for Harris” on Monday. The existence of such an affinity group is remarkable in itself.

Tuesday

Ben Domenech

Nancy Mace, the Waffle House populist

If you want to be a prominent member of Congress in this day and age, the surest path is to become a hype machine for the ideological extremes of your party. Yet Nancy Mace gives no signs of responding to these tabloid incentives in conversation with her constituents. It’s an odd thing to say about a politician in 2023, but you might even find yourself taking her seriously. In a Washington where the House of Representatives is dominated by GOP would-be pundits, including bomb-throwers such as Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert, the second-term Republican from South Carolina’s 1st district sounds like a politician from a different era.

mace

Sunday

Taylor Millard

It’s time to allow over-the-counter birth control

Birth control may finally become available over the counter in the United States. HRA Pharma, a French drugmaker, hopes the FDA will approve its application for sale of the Opill brand after seven years of tests. You’d think Opill was some new kind of drug, except it’s been prescribed to women for decades. “For a product that has been available for the last fifty years, that has been used safely by millions of women, we thought it was time to make it more available,” commented HRA’s chief strategy officer to the Associated Press. HRA Pharma started lobbying for OTC status in 2016 after purchasing the drug rights from Pfizer. And HRA isn’t the only drug company playing a regulatory game of limbo. Cadence Health planned to start a trial for its drug Zena last year.

birth control

Thursday

Guy Shepherd

The coming age of the vasectomy

The Supreme Court has overturned the tables that have governed our mating and dating for the past half century. We ought now to expect a real-time rewrite of the sexual social compact. Absent Roe v. Wade, organized women of the world are going to be asking more of men. Women are rightfully angry with men in general, SCOTUS men in particular — and, if you’ve been a free rider on your partner’s reproductive sacrifices, you. Men, it’s time for our best behavior. We ought to expect a sustained pushback across the culture and public institutions. This is not a good time for a man to find himself in front of a family court judge for being delinquent on child support. Things tough at home with the missus? Open your mind and heart to marriage counseling. Work it out.

vasectomies