We have two medical breakthroughs today, courtesy of conservative Republicans. First, Rick Santorum’s sugar daddy major financial backer has this bit of birth control advice:

Asked if he worried that Santorum’s Puritanical views on sex and social issues could hurt the candidate in the general election, Friess offered a more home-spun family planning scheme:

FRIESS: On this contraceptive thing, my gosh, it’s so inexpensive. You know, back in my days, they used Baer Aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly.

Given that Aspirin is not a contraceptive, Friess seems to be suggesting that women keep the pill between their knees in order to ensure they legs stay closed to prevent having sex. Conspicuously, Friess doesn’t put the same burden on men.

Actually, in days of yore, they used condoms. But aspirin will probably work. Or something.

There’s also been a major breakthrough in our understanding of the link between the Pill and cancer (boldface mine):

Today [NH state] Rep. Jeanine Notter (R-Merrimack), who sits on the State-Federal Relations and Veterans Affairs Committee, caught our attention once again with another of her “Notter Notions”. During a hearing on late-entry House Resolution 29, urging the United States Department of Health and Human Services to rescind its rule requiring health plans to cover preventative services for women such as contraceptives, she told committee members that health plans shouldn’t cover birth control because it causes prostate cancer.

For those of you keeping score at home, women don’t have prostates, men do.

First, this crap about birth control and condom use, whether due to douchebaggery (e.g., Friess) or to abject stupidity (Notter), is every bit as harmful to the nation’s health as much of alternative medicine is–in some cases, more so. Just a few days ago, I discussed the link between condom use and preventing the spread of antibiotic resistant gonorrhea. Reproductive health, including preventing unwanted pregnancies matters (and, no, telling people not to have sex and shaming them never worked).

Second, how do we compromise with such idiots? Answer: you don’t. We are so far beyond debating what the top marginal tax rate should be. Movement conservatives are dwelling in an alternative universe. Their movement is best thought of as a mass public communicable psychosis.