Aspirin between the knees as birth control? Is this GOP leader dumb or merely insulting?

Gov. Katie Hobbs on Thursday held a news conference, calling on the Arizona Legislature to pass a state law guaranteeing women the right to contraception.

Of course, the Republican-run Legislature isn’t about to pass a law guaranteeing that women can remain in control of their own bodies, and Hobbs knows it.

What she may not have known is that women, apparently, have an alternative to contraception.

Leave it to Senate Majority Leader Sonny Borrelli to mansplain our options.

“Like I said, Bayer Company invented aspirin,” he told Arizona Mirror’s Gloria Rebecca Gomez. “Put it between your knees.”

No plan to ban contraceptives, Borrelli says

Borrelli didn’t indicate how that aspirin between the knees would help women with polycystic ovaries, endometriosis, premenstrual issues or even pregnancy. (Perhaps he ought to give the Kama Sutra a look?)

But the Lake Havasu City Republican went on to assure Gomez that there’s no plan afoot to deny women access to contraceptives.

“They’re creating a controversy that doesn’t exist because nobody’s opposing — nobody has any kind of plan to ban any contraceptives,” he said.

On the day after the Republican Party had a woman deliver its response to the State of Union speech from her kitchen …

In the weeks after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that an embryo in a freezer is a baby, briefly threatening access to invitro fertilization …

In the nearly two years since the constitutional right to an abortion was struck down …

You’ll have to excuse a fair number of women if we’re looking for more than Borrelli’s assurances that a plot won’t suddenly surface to tell us yet again what we can — or cannot — do with our bodies.

So many reasons to believe otherwise

Of course, the right to contraceptives is protected by the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Griswold v. Connecticut ruling in 1965, recognizing the right of married people to obtain contraceptives.

And the 1972 Eisenstadt v. Baird ruling that extended the right to unmarried people.

Then again, the right an abortion was protected by the Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973 …until, suddenly, it wasn’t in 2022.

In a concurring opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Justice Clarence Thomas said the court should reconsider whether the Constitution affords Americans a right to birth control.

Meanwhile, we’ve got the Arizona Supreme Court pondering whether an 1864 law that criminalizes abortion, even in the case of rape and incest, is now state law.

So, yeah, color me not so reassured by Borrelli’s assurance that a woman’s right to have children at a time of her choosing is not at risk by the far-right fringe that has taken over the Republican Party.

Why abortion in Arizona: Is not health care

Especially given that companion House and Senate bills, dubbed The Right to Contraception Act, didn’t rate so much as a single hearing in the Legislature this year.

This, in a Legislature that held a hearing on a bill that would have awarded Arizona’s electoral college votes to Donald Trump before we even vote.

Is Borrelli an outlier among Republicans?

Strange, that there would be time to hear a bill that would strip us of our right to decide who should be president but no time for a bill to guarantee women the right to control our own bodies.

“This basic, commonsense proposal hasn’t made it past step one,” Hobbs said on Thursday.

“It begs the question: Why won’t they codify this basic freedom into law? What do they have against allowing us to have control over our own bodies and access to basic health care?”

It’s a good question.

As for Borrelli, I’m not sure if he’s representative of the Senate Republicans who elected him their leader or if he’s just a ‘50s throwback, alone in his apparent belief that promiscuous women are the cause of all that is wrong with society.

In the (slim) hope that he does stand alone, here's a tip for Republicans who hope to cling to their one-vote majorities this fall.

Try an aspirin between the lips of your Senate majority leader.

Reach Roberts at [email protected]. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, at @LaurieRoberts or on Threads at laurierobertsaz.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona GOP senator tells women to use aspirin as birth control