Unwanted pregnancies screw everyone.

They are bad for teenagers and not-yet-ready parents, but most importantly for this discussion, they are bad for Gov. Scott Walker’s taxpayers.

In the recently unveiled 2011-13 budget, Walker proposed eliminating the law requiring insurance plans providing prescription drugs to include coverage for birth control as well. Walker defended the cut on a moral ground, stating in the budget summary, “[It is an] unacceptable government mandate on employers with moral objections to these services.”

And silly us, thinking the cuts were about balancing the budget.

While Walker’s proposal may please the odd employer with “moral objections,” the rest of the state will suffer if unwanted pregnancies increase.

You see, babies born to parents unprepared to raise them often don’t become the most productive members of society. While MTV and Gilmore Girls may celebrate the successful teenage pregnancy, actual data suggests children born to teen mothers are much more likely than the average kid to drop out of school and end up with a criminal record. Which, fiscally speaking, hurts taxpayers who must support each person we add to an already bloated corrections system or fail to graduate from high school.

It isn’t just theoretical logic that supports this point of view either. Anyone who took a day to read the decidedly nonpartisan economist Steven Levitt’s “Freakonomics” can attest to the strongly suggestive correlative data.

And we haven’t even touched on the fact that birth control is often prescribed as a cheap resource to help women in non-contraceptive-related measures, or the moral claim rape victims can make that birth control at the very least helps provide some protection from making a horrible situation worse.

This board understands an over-regulation of health care drives costs up and if MPS school teachers want Viagra, Wisconsin taxpayers probably shouldn’t have to pay for it. But this isn’t a slippery-slope issue, this is Walker forgetting his responsibility is to protect all Wisconsin taxpayers, not just the religious fringe that helped elect him.

Walker has stated again and again he is making these budget cuts to save the Wisconsin citizens’ money.

Making sure women have affordable access to birth control will do just that.