Rick Santorum supporter Foster Friess appeared on MSNBC Thursday with his own idea of how to cut costs of contraception.

The comment made by Foster Friess is not simply the case of one man making a chauvinist comment. Rather, it reveals anti-choice campaigners for their inherent patriarchy and misogyny, implying that women should have no right over their own reproduction by any means other than abstinence. This attitude, that women having sex is a problem, advances a reactionary position that women should be the chaste servants of men with no control over their bodies. Patriarchy is a system, not merely the expression of individuals like Friess.

 — Red Phoenix Editorial Staff

Foster Friess caught MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell off-guard with colorful comment 

By Rheana Murray / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

A chief backer of Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum stunned viewers when he made an off-the-wall comment about birth control Thursday.

Foster Friess, the primary supporter of a pro-Santorum super political action committee, suggested on MSNBC that women use Bayer aspirin as a contraceptive.

“This contraceptive thing, my gosh, it’s so expensive,” he told host Andrea Mitchell.

“Back in my days, they used Bayer aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly.”

Friess’ inference that women can place a pill between their legs to keep from spreading them understandably sent some heads spinning.

Even Mitchell was visibly taken aback, saying she needed to catch her breath after the comment.

She later addressed it on Twitter:

“I’m still trying to get my head around this,” she wrote. “Tweeps, what should I have said?”

Her followers were sympathetic.

“You had no way of knowing he’d just stepped out of the 1940s. Time portals catch us all off guard. #aspiringate,” one wrote.

“Don’t ask how, but I just put some Bayer between my knees and now I’m pregnant,” another wrote.

Friess, whose comments came as a defense of Santorum’s stance against birth control, is a 71-year-old millionaire from Wyoming and a frequent contributor to conservative causes, USA Today reported.

As a close friend of Santorum, Friess even introduced the presidential hopeful before he spoke at last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference.

Santorum’s stance on birth control has been the eye of a media firestorm since a 2006 interview with the former Pennsylvania senator resurfaced.

“I think it’s harmful to our society to have a society that says that sex outside of marriage is something that should be encouraged or tolerated, particularly among the young and it has I think we’ve seen very, very harmful long-term consequences to the society,” he said.

“Birth control to me enables that and I don’t think it’s a healthy thing for our country.”

Santorum has since said that women should have access to contraception, citing a difference between public policy matters and religious beliefs.

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