President Donald Trump has made his personal views on women very clear throughout the election and his presidency, but now he is using those views to take away affordable birth control . In the Obama-era, birth control was a part of all insurance policies, people could choose certain insurance and health care that could provide little to no cost for birth control. This saved more than 55 million women 1.4 billion dollars.

Now, under the new regulations allowing companies to exclude birth control from coverage, hundreds of thousands of women could lose birth control because they won’t be receiving it from the Affordable Care Act. In the beginning of October, Trump is passing laws to make it difficult for millions of women to have affordable birth control.

Trump is rolling back on Obama’s mandate that employers have to include birth control on health insurance. He is passing a law that will let employers decline including birth control on their health insurance due to religious or moral beliefs. The president argues that this law Obama made five years ago is a weapon against people of faith, saying it will put a substantial burden on freedom of their religion, but this is also a substantial burden on thousands of women who depend on birth control to be easily obtainable. They’re mixing religion with women’s freedom.

“He’s mixing church and state,” English teacher Mr. Knobloch said. “A medical state shouldn’t be mixed with religion.”

 “It’s not his rights. Church and state should not be connected because it’s telling someone how to live,” Junior Harry Yoxall claimed.

“It hurts my heart,” health teacher Ms. Lawrence sighed. “There are so many unwanted children. I don’t think it’s right. Sexual health care shouldn’t fall under religion.”

Birth control was a part of health insurance. Women could choose certain insurance that would provide birth control, other people could choose that health care and help other women pay for it. There is now a debate over if people want to pay for it. People ask why they have to pay for someone else’s contraceptives, the government has argued that it’s too much money. Ultimately, policyholders should be the only ones who get to have a say. They are the ones paying for insurance and they should get what they want.

“The government is paying for Viagra and things like that in the army,” Knobloch said. “They will pay for old men to have sex, but won’t help women.”

“I think it’s dumb to use money as excuse. It’s not unsafe and dangerous for men to not have Viagra, but it’s unsafe for a woman to have an unwanted child,” Junior, Rubi Aspen-Holloway said.

For every one dollar someone spends on birth control, they get four dollars back with their taxes. Using money as an excuse to roll back the Obama Mandate is not followed by accurate facts. If the government can give money to help men have sex, they can spare some money for women.

Others are also arguing that this mandate is promoting risky behaviour, saying that if it’s harder to get birth control, people will stop having so much sex. There are no statistics that show that removing contraceptives will decrease sexual behavior. There are statistics that show that since this mandate was passed teen pregnancies and unwanted pregnancies have gone down.

“If they take this a way people are still going to have sex. It will hurt more than help,” Junior, Hannah Stahmann said.

People will still have sex no matter if you take these contraceptives away from women or not. It just makes it harder for women to have safe sex, placing more boundaries and obstacles for women to be healthy people.

“Half of all pregnancies are surprises,” Ms. Lawrence stated “It scares me that it’ll go up if women don’t have access to affordable contraceptives. It should be a family issue not just be a woman’s issues. Men should care.”

The government can make it a religious thing, a money thing, even a sexual thing, but the bottom line is that the White House is not very discreet about their views towards women. Women are human. They have sexual desires; they want to be healthy and this pill helps that. Trump taking away something that can help women not only prevent unwanted pregnancies but help them with their period, acne, hormones, is dehumanizing. A bunch of old white guys sitting around the White House should not have more power over women’s bodies than they do.