We have coverage of Melinda Gates promoting birth control for the developing world and insisting it is uncontroversial in the August Interim. The irony is that Gates would not have to repeatedly call contraception uncontroversial if it weren’t already controversial. She sees it as substantively different from abortion, but that doesn’t mean it is not without issues (many contraceptives are abortifacient, her favoured organization for delivery is the notorious International Planned Parenthood Federation, and it is tied to population control and eugenics, which has even left-wing critics). Here is another reason it is controversial, which is under-reported: Melinda Gates’ insistence on a form of birth control that pits wives against husbands:
At a TED Talk earlier this Spring, Gates claimed that contraceptives lead to healthier, prosperous, and more educated children. She laments the fact that the more popular, injectable contraceptives are hard for women in developing countries to acquire. “The reason women like it so much is they can hide it from their husbands, who sometimes want a lot of children,” she said, in effect advocating deception rather than real dialogue between spouses and advancement of the status of women.
