As much as I hate to give any of my precious attention to Lauren Boebert because she is truly an awful specimen, sometimes, however, she says something so stupid I have to stop my day just so I can figuratively point and laugh at her. Today, friends, is an example of that. Join me, won’t you?
See, Boebert recently said—in her official capacity as a sitting member of Congress—that having a child was cheaper than filling a prescription for birth control. I’m not kidding, watch for yourself:
Her quote from that clip, in full:
I left a prescription at a pharmacy once. I went to get birth control, and I was there at the counter and went to pay for it and the price was very, very high. I said, ‘Wow, is this a three, six month prescription?’ ‘No ma’am, this is one month.’ And I said, ‘It’s cheaper to have a kid.’ And I left it there, and now I have my third son, Kaydon Boebert so it actually turned out to be a really great thing.
Since this is a fascist MAGA we’re talking about, obviously Boebert has tried her damndest in Congress to restrict access to birth control. As her colleague Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was quick to point out, Boebert voted against the Right to Contraception Act last summer, which increased access to affordable birth control. It never ends does it?
Boebert had her third child in 2009 (whom she gave birth to in a pickup truck—an act she has since tried to spin with bizarre logic as justification for denying people parental leave), right before the Affordable Care Act took effect in March of 2010, which rendered birth control effectively free if you have health insurance. Even back in the dark ages of no Obamacare (may we never go back to those times) there were ways to get birth control relatively cheaply, I say from experience. In 2007/2008—approximately the time Boebert was supposedly choosing not to fill her birth control prescription—I enrolled in a birth control pill club that cost me $19.99 per year when I was uninsured and paid $30 per month for my prescription. That’s still way more than anyone should have to pay for birth control but I promise you, even a broke early-20-something me knew that $30 a month was infinitely cheaper than getting pregnant, carrying that pregnancy to term, and having a child. When have facts ever mattered though? It’s much easier to make bonkers claims and speak them confidently as facts from the floor of the House of Representatives instead of showing any sort of responsibility for the truth. Especially when you’re Lauren Boebert.
So here are some fun facts: the average cost to raise a single child up to age 17 in America is $310,605 if they were born in 2015, according to Investopedia. Now, look, I am an English major and Boebert’s third child was born in 2009, so if you want to know the monetary approximation for that child specifically, you gotta crunch the numbers yourself. Although according to the same article, subsequent children cost less, because of the “economies of scale” which means, you get to make the kids share a room, the younger sibling gets the older’s hand-me-down, and you can buy food in bulk saving money in the long run. So take that into account, but I think the real takeaway here is that raising a child in America is f-ing expensive and you could almost buy a home outright in cash for the same cost. (The average home price in America being $348K in 2022)
As a woman in America who has been on birth control in some form or other for the past 23 years, I can guarantee you that my expenditure over that time is nowhere near $300k even if you take into account my insurance premiums (again, thank you Obamacare!) Also, since we’re on the subject, and I absolutely love false dichotomies—Boebert does understand that condoms cost approximately $1 each, right? Like, she had other options here beyond the binary of filling her birth control prescription or just having a child. As a teen during the Bush years, I seem to recall a heavy push in high school toward abstinence-only sex education. While a crappy option, it still exists and was one Boebert’s party pushed for a very long time—one that, coincidentally, the Obama Administration got rid of fully in 2017 by eliminating all federal funding for it. Gee, another thing we have to be grateful to him, for.
So as a reminder, Boebert remains a liar, and we should all be grateful to Obama and the Democrats for sacrificing the House and getting the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, which ensures virtually all birth control costs are free under a health care exchange plan.
(featured image: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
