The right to birth control

As a concerned and voting citizen of the United States of America, I would like to address the current Administration's plan to undermine our Constitutional rights by enacting limitations on the access to birth control. I'd like to start by reminding you what some of these rights are.

The Constitution's preamble guarantees all U.S. citizens domestic tranquility, general welfare and individual liberty. Under the Bill of Rights we have additionally been granted the rights to freely express our beliefs (the First Amendment) and the right to security/ privacy from government invasion within the home (Fourth Amendment). Furthermore, the state shall not deny or disparage these Constitutional rights (Ninth Amendment), nor shall they enforce any laws that deprive citizens of life, liberty, or property without due process of law (Fourteenth Amendment).

In 1965, the Supreme Court case of Griswold v. Connecticut addressed the privacy of a married couple to engage in the use of birth control versus the state's law which declared contraception illegal. The Court ruled in favor of Griswold and cited rights to individual liberties granted by the U.S. Constitution. In that decision, Justice Douglas stated that "the First Amendment has a penumbra where privacy is protected from governmental intrusion." It was furthermore stated, "The present case, then, concerns a relationship lying within the zone of privacy created by several fundamental constitutional guarantees. And it concerns a law which, in forbidding the use of contraceptives, rather than regulating their manufacture or sale, seeks to achieve its goals by means having a maximum destructive impact upon that relationship. Such a law cannot stand in light of the familiar principle, so often applied by this Court, that a 'governmental purpose to control or prevent activities constitutionally subject to state regulation may not be achieved by means which sweep unnecessarily broadly and thereby invade the area of protected freedoms.'"

The current Administration in its quest to associate "birth control" with abortion will undermine our fundamental Constitutional rights. When the government is allowed to limit our personal medical choices they open the door to impose restrictions on any type of domestic tranquility, general welfare and individual liberty granted in the U.S. Constitution; they set a precedent for future decisions. It should be noted that "birth control" includes but is not limited to any of the following methods:

Pill
Tubal ligation
Male condom
Vasectomy
Injectable
Withdrawal
IUD
Natural family planning (including monitoring basal body temperatures and choosing when not to engage in sex)
Implant
Diaphragm

While the "abortion" debate is centered around what constitutes "life" and who should have decisions to alter or affect a life, "birth control" has no place for debate/ restriction by the government. Birth control is not just about individual liberty, it is about scientific and medical knowledge. Given the freedom of both men and women to alter the physical state and/ or genetic make-up of their bodies via medical or surgical procedures including but not limited to: cosmetic and plastic surgery, liposuction, tattooing, in vitro fertilization, hormone replacement therapy, chemotherapy, anti-aging cosmetics, vitamin supplements, sexual enhancement drugs (such as Viagra), makeup/ cosmetics, and the vast array of pharmaceuticals on the market, birth control methods represent just a small fraction of methods available to alter the natural state/ processes of the body. Once we allow the government to restrict one, we open all to the possibility of unrestricted limitation. Birth control is one of many medical (and sometimes even natural) options that is and should continue to be protected by our Constitutional rights to domestic tranquility, general welfare and individual liberty.