Lies, Lies and More Lies: How Anti-Choicers Are Using "Personhood" to Ban Birth Control

by Amanda Marcotte

What do you do when all the discourse around a topic is based around a scientific fallacy---or even an outright lie---but pointing that out distracts from the most pertinent issues of a specific debate? Most of the time, the right wing war on science is an easy one to figure out how to fight: conservatives tell lies about science, pro-science people fight back with the facts. There are drawbacks to this strategy, since it’s often a matter of pitching emotions vs. reason, but at least the path of fighting lies with facts is clear. It’s the strategy we use to fight back against claims that global warming isn’t real, that evolution didn’t happen, or that the HPV vaccine causes mental retardation. But when it comes to debating whether or not the birth control pill should be made illegal, the strategy of simply pointing out that the right is lying falls apart, and unfortunately for very understandable reasons.