I have long been thinking about the problem of unwanted pregnancy. The solution proposed by most of the more old-fashioned Protestant Christians is just to abstain from sexual activity until marriage; and the oft-unspoken advice is to contracept in marriage to limit the number and timely arrival of children. Catholics, with all their fuss against contraception, have an abstain-until-you-are-married-and-want-children approach to this problem. Neither of these approaches deals fairly with the single biggest problem faced by people who don’t want children: unplanned sexual activity.

I am not by any means referring solely to rape, horrible as that is. It may certainly get the most press coverage and the most use as a rebuttal against anti-abortion arguments. One would indeed think that it was the only method under which a woman conceived—or at least that it was the most common means of conceiving an unwanted child—based upon its frequency of occurrence in debates concerning contraception in general and abortion in particular.

As terrible as rape is an as common as it would seem to be, there are plenty of other forms of ‘unplanned sexual activity.” Why, what kind of dull world would we live in if a fellow could never innocently enter a bar one night only to wake up with a stranger in his hotel room bed the next morning? It is doubtful that the fellow necessarily planned the night’s activity, so he can’t very well be expected to have a condom ready. Besides, how boring would that encounter be if he entered the bar expecting the same conclusions? Similarly true is the experience of any number of joint fraternity and sorority parties, or indeed of parties in high school when the parents are away for the weekend.

One simply cannot plan for such things, especially if they happen in the heat of the moment. Yet, conception can just as likely occur in these outings as in the “planned” attempts made by the loving parent(s). If the Christians get one thing right, it’s that people—never mind young people—are often irresponsible when it comes to planning ahead. It may be so easy to fall in love, but it is not so easy to plan out the how and when and where of it, and it is so hard to be prepared for everything. It is also too hard to fight off the urge to act upon one’s love.

I therefore propose a rather simple solution, which ought to find all parties in agreement. Except, of course, for those traditionalist Catholics, they may not sign on to this one, they’re much too difficult, always resisting progress. I propose that all women ought to start popping birth control pills with their meals—breakfast and dinner, at the least, and lunch if they can remember to pack it. Place them in the cupboard next to any other pills which you may be taking, and place and extra container in you purse just in case. The effects of the better pills, taken with each meal, will last long into the day, so there is no chance to forget “in the heat of the moment.” Then, when a woman is ready to conceive, she can stop taking the pills with her meals.

No one could possibly object to this modest proposal. The Christians will be kept happy knowing that they can still practice abstinence with this system. Their daughters will be taking oral contraception, but this does not mean that they need to stop trying to get them to abstain—only that should their daughters not live up to these impossible demands, they will not then be punished with the burden of a child. As for the Muslims, well, they’re always ready to have children, so they will naturally be exempted from this proposal. Thus, there ought to be no objections from any of the mainstream religions; they’ll not stand in the way of this bit of progress.

Then there are those who complain about parental rights. This is large group of people, perhaps even a majority. I ask, which rights exactly are we trampling upon? The parents will have every right to choose between the various pills on the market. Besides, there aren’t many parents who complain about any other widespread or mandatory medical treatments. How many outside of certain fringe religious groups complain about their children’s receiving “mandatory” vaccinations at certain ages prior to attending schools? For that matter, much of the complaints out of Texas’ mandatory HPV vaccinations were about the efficacy and side-effects of the vaccine, and not so much about the rights of parents to refuse this treatment to their daughters. And this was in Texas, a state in which people seem to care somewhat about parental rights.

It’s such a backwards notion, “parental rights.” Most sensible states like Massachusetts and New York have long since dispensed with “parental rights.” When given the chance, even the voters in Oregon voted this concept down in the form of a parental notification (let alone consent) law. You wouldn’t want parents to force their daughters to suffer the consequences of sexual activity, now would you? Or to leave the ability to deny this freedom to young girls up to parents who may be backwards fundamentalists? If the people don’t care about parental rights pertaining to abortion—a surgical operation—they why would they care about something as minor as a simple little harmless pill? If the parents really have the best interests of their daughters in mind, then they wouldn’t object to this proposal anyway. As with those who want parental notification or worse—consent—laws, the only people who would object to this proposal on grounds of parental rights are the incestuous parents who have something to hide.

There are certainly some who might object to this on logistical grounds. They ask how we can afford to do this financially, and they also cast doubt on how we could ever find a means of distributing these pills and ensuring that everybody has them on-hand at all times. I ask you, does this objection make any sense? There are plenty of benevolent providers out there, like Planned Parenthood, who freely offer their contraceptive products to anyone who wants them.

It would be absolutely no burden to the tax-payer to get these wonderful charities to simply produce and distribute more of their products to anyone who needs them. Furthermore, since organizations like Planned Parenthood are not-for-profit, they have no financial incentive to cheat people in this exchange. They are the world’s largest provider of women’s reproductive health care services, after all. They surely know what they are doing, and they obviously don’t want anybody to become unintentionally pregnant.

Also, Planned Parenthood already has plenty of great volunteers who would be more than happy to pay door-to-door visits to make sure that every-body is well-supplied. They have a similar network of helpful volunteers already in place to ensure that every pharmacy in the country has contraceptives available. Under this proposal, they would be able to simply go door to door and bring the contraceptives to each woman directly—thus saving her the hassle of driving all the way to the pharmacy—let alone the bother of finding a pharmacist who is willing to distribute the contraceptives in the first place. It’s easy and convenient for everybody involved. This friendly network of volunteers could also be used to ensure that every woman is taking her contraceptives properly, except of course when she is ready to have children.

Finally, some people may also object as to the long-term effects of this plan. What long-term effects could there possibly be? The population is already largely using some form or other of chemical contraception, so it’s not like this proposal has people trying anything new. Rather, people will be asked to more regularly do what they’ve already been doing for the last 40 years of so. What could possibly go wrong? Take any good comprehensive sex-education class and you’ll learn that contraceptives are perfectly safe alternatives to abstinence.