The problem with the furor over the Affordable Care Act mandating contraceptive coverage by all employers, including institutions run by the Catholic Church, is that we’re looking at this from the top down instead of the bottom up.
Already, 28 states including New York, require employers to cover contraceptives in their health insurance plans. The Obama Administration wants to extend that across the remaining 32 and even more significant, he wants birth control to be free. Women who can least afford to bring another child into the world are also the least able to afford the contraceptives to prevent pregnancy, but no one is asking them how they feel about free birth control. We haven’t heard much from women in general. Mostly I’ve seen a bunch of politicians in suits and ties backing up the Catholic heirarchy of aging celibate men, express outrage over “this attack on religious freedom”. That should be the first hint we’ve got the wrong demographic arguing the point.
Religious freedom goes both ways. The Obama administration is not ordering the Church to hand out condoms and pills along with communion at Mass. It wants no place inside the Church at all. But the Catholic Church has chosen to be a major employer in this country, running Universities and hospitals which employ millions of workers of all faiths. By using faith to deny an essential service like contraception, the Catholic Church is imposing its values on employees who have no such religious prohibition against artificial birth control.
Conservatives say this is not a problem because the workers can go elsewhere for birth control. But why should they? We are trying to streamline the health care system to make it less bureaucratic and more accessible and cost effective, very much a “small-government” conservative issue.
As a Roman Catholic, I have long believed the Vatican is wrecking a perfectly good religion. We have an institution run exclusively by men who will never have a family of their own dictating what is best for women and families. While the Vatican apparently ignores this irony, the people do not. Attendance at weekly Mass is down, priests are being imported from developing countries to manage two or three different parishes, and churches and Catholic schools continue to close. Insisting on an exemption from a service required by all other employers in this country is not only unfair and unhealthy for women, but it threatens the relevancy of Catholicism in the 21st century.
Both women and the health care community in this country are overwhelmingly in favor of the new contraceptive measure and it is a pity they have allowed the smaller but more vociferous opposition to stir so much trouble. I do hope the Obama administration holds firm. In 2012 it shouldn’t be too much to ask to keep pace with the other industrialized countries of the world.
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Well said.
Good Mornin Maureen, I did not see you in The Swamp last night,but, you said everything the War-Department and I had during our wine hour and world problem solving section. Your words were exactly what was spoken here. You go girl and keep our small part of the world knowing what we think. Good job as usual
Amen, Maureen.
Hi Maureen-
A Boston Red Sox Home Run! One former cabinet secretary in some administration of long ago said of the Pope’s opposition to birth control, words to the effect – if you don’t play the game, you can’t make the rules. Gimme an Amen!
Don
PS..Hey Denny, where’s the swamp?
Don, The Swamp is where I hang my hat and take on all the world problems with the War Department at evening wines and deep thoughts. We find alot of the answers here with Maureen and it is so nice to have company once and in awhile
This is a tough issue. I am a life long Roman Catholic, so can understand why the hierarchy is so vocal about this new requirement. However, some women have a true medical need for the birth control pill for reasons other than contraception. They should not be denied coverage. A health insurance plan covers a wide range of medical and surgical procedures. If the insured person does not wish to undergo medical or surgical contraception, that is their choice, not the employer’s. Further, no other employer in the country could get away with this.
Contraception is NOT an essential service. It is utterly ridiculous that you would claim that it is.
No one is forcing anyone to have sexual relations. People choose of their own free will to have sexual relations. Having sex is NOT something that anyone is required (by law) to do, so I’m failing to see the logic.
Hello John,
I agree with part of your argument. I don’t think anyone should be forced to have sexual relations, but for those who do, if insurance covers medication for men’s erectile dysfunction, it is only fair that contraception for women be covered as well.
Thank you for your thoughts. Maureen