John Boehner's out there trying to rehab his image into a principled elder statesman. Don't buy it. He is one of the main architects of the right wing craziness that led to Trump and that we're dealing with now. https://www.salon.com/2021/04/09/john-boehner-doesnt-deserve-a-rehabilitation-tour-mayor-of-gops-crazytown-sparked-rise-of-trump/

Boehner spent his time as Speaker pandering to the Tea Party racists and using radical tactics like hostage-taking and brinkmanship in a largely failed bid to gut social spending and other government services.

Boehner was instrumental in convincing conservatives that it was better to burn down the entire government than let other people — especially racial minorities and women — have access to health care. Now he plays the victim of the people he created!

I’m particularly salty about Boehner, because the choice to target Planned Parenthood necessarily meant advancing the idea that any health care for sexually active women was inherently illegitimate. No birth control, no STI treatment or testing, etc. because that was “sinful”.

Conservatives were arguing that mammograms were legitimate but cervical cancer screenings were not. The only difference being that virgins can theoretically get breast cancer, but only non-virgins get cervical cancer and apparently your life is forfeit if you ever touch a penis.

And if you pushed back against this logic, you had smarmy conservatives arguing that since lifelong sexual abstinence is technically possible, that should be what women choose instead of comprehensive health care. Meanwhile, there was no similar demand made of men.

That’s how big a monster troll Boehner was. He trapped us in years of bad faith debate over whether or not lifelong sexual abstinence for the vast majority of women who aren’t independently wealthy was a legitimate substitute for health care.

Truly, those who weren’t around then, it was brutal. Thousands, millions perhaps, of men on Social Security or disability fanning out online to argue that your birth control pills were the cost that would break the bank, and that you were a selfish slut for wanting them.

Boehner shamelessly tapped the aging Republican base jealousy that young people are free and sexy to argue for pulling up the ladder, health care wise, it was so, so, so gross.

Folks, I know you mean well by saying “not all women use the pill for sex/not all sex is consensual/etc.” but those arguments only end up reinforcing the idea that women who have consensual sex are somehow not “innocent” and have forfeited their right to health care.

Instead, argue against the idea that consensual sex is bad and/or a luxury item that one should be independently wealthy to afford. You’ll find that defending sexually active women instead of hiding behind “innocents” is a stronger, harder to refute argument.

No one believes most Planned Parenthood patients need the pill because they are worried about rape. Let’s not be afraid, after all this time, to argue that sex is normal and healthy and sexually active women deserve health care.

So, I beg you, instead of arguing "not all sex is consensual" or "some women take the pill to manage periods", turn on the guy arguing against this health care coverage by saying, "Oh, so you're a virgin, then? So why do you expect women to abstain for life?"