Columnist proposes extra tax on contraceptives to remedy environmental damage

CWN - June 05, 2012

While the Obama administration argues that health-insurance companies should not charge women for contraceptives, a columnist in Forbes magazine makes a dramatically different argument: that women should pay an extra tax for contraceptives.

Tim Worstall reasons that the hormones contained in contraceptive pills eventually find their way into the world's water sources, with damaging effects on the environment--most notably a drop in fish populations. If manufacturers can be required to pay for the environmental damage their factories cause, users of contraceptives should pay for the damage done by the pills, he argues.

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  • Posted by: rpp - Jun. 05, 2012 9:41 PM ET USA

    Makes sense to me, but goodness knows we should not ever do anything to discourage women from being, well, I guess I should not use that word. Let me rather say we must never do anything that would lead a woman to less available to scratch a man's "itch". Or so says the secular world of Obama. In all seriousness, it is actually a good idea.

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