On January 27^th,
the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board (WSJ) published an opinion piece
titled, "Speaker
Nancy Malthus."

It isn’t Speaker Pelosi whose
thinking is seriously out-of-date. Inclusion of Medicaid family planning
access in the economic stimulus package does not imply a belief that
"more people mean less economic growth," as the WSJ assumes. Equally
unsubstantiated and even internally contradictory, is the editorial
board’s rather medieval
argument that we
must produce more children to support us in our retirement. (Although,
after last year’s stock market crash, maybe children are the only
pension plan we have left.) Although the editorial suggests that contraceptives
as a part of an economic stimulus plan are "loopy," the editorial’s
assertion that we need to have more children to maintain domestic
consumption is
clearly the all-out loopiest – tracing its roots, perhaps, to the "go
shopping" response
to terrorist attacks. "Larger families have more credit cards, so
have a larger family."

Access to contraceptive care
enables women to meet their educational goals, to participate fully
in society, to
time pregnancies for health as well as to achieve career aspirations. 
Family planning is voluntarily prevention of unintended pregnancies
— meaning women and their families are able to determine for themselves
whether and when to have children. The human
capital connection
is that the cost of unintended pregnancy is also borne by employers
in the form of higher insurance premiums, more family medical leaves,
substitution expenses, rehiring/recruitment costs, retraining costs,
and lost productivity.  

This piece also appeared on Belowthewaist.org.