If you want to prevent abortions, you make sure everyone has health care, a high school education and birth control. Not the exact opposite.

When I’m at my most cynical, I almost believe that the Republican Party isn’t just a conspiracy to explode the national debt. It’s also a plot to force women into abortions.

In countries where the GOP dream of making abortion illegal has been realized, abortion rates are higher than countries where access is available.

In Arizona, where anti-abortion crusaders have passed some of the most restrictive women’s health laws in the country, abortion rates seemed to have increased.

And nothing is more incomprehensible than the GOP’s campaign against what should be seen as the greatest victory for pro-lifers in decades: the contraception mandate.

In any insurance plan, women will receive contraception with no co-pays. Nothing the government has ever done will prevent more abortions.

Several states have mandated that insurance include contraception for years. The reasons for this are obvious. Reproductive health care is basic health care for women. Not only does contraception save insurers and the public the costs of unwanted children, it’s necessary for many women to treat common health problems. Arguing against including contraception in insurance because it may violate an employer’s beliefs is like arguing insurance shouldn’t cover kids born out of wedlock.

In America, you have the freedom of your beliefs. And I have the freedom to not have your beliefs thrust upon me.

Last weekend, Paul Ryan promised to get rid of the contraception mandate on “day one” of a Romney administration. “It will be gone. I can guarantee you that,” he said.

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright wondered how any woman except Ann Romney could vote for Mitt – a man who is literally promising to repeal a law that prevents insurers from charging women more just because they’re women.

The choice this election could not be starker. A woman’s right to make private, personal choices about her body is on the ballot. So is the right to be treated as an equal human being by insurers. If Mitt Romney wins, that will be taken away, as Paul Ryan says, on “day one.”

[CC image by Anne Savage.]