WashPo: Contraceptive insurance mandate due to waning abortion support?
All of us agree the Obama administration’s decision to force religious institutions to cover contraception and abortifacients in insurance policies was to keep his liberal feminist voting bloc happy and further line the pockets of Planned Parenthood. That’s kind of a “duh.”
But Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post pitched a new theory today I found most interesting. Knowing Kliff is a friend to the abortion lobby made her thought that much more intriguing:
But where Shields sees “cataclysmic” fallout, the White House sees something quite different: a chance to widen the reproductive health debate beyond abortion to issues like contraceptives, winning over key demographics of independent voters in the process….
And a lot of this likely isn’t about Catholic voters at all.
Rather, it may well be about the demographics that are most supportive of this particular health reform provision: young voters and women…
Those two demographics are important here for a key reason: they were crucial to Obama’s victory in 2008….
These voters have tended to be difficult for abortion rights supporters to engage on reproductive health issues like abortion. Research from NARAL Pro-Choice America, which I wrote about last weekend, found a significant “intensity gap” there, with abortion rights supporters much less likely to see it as a crucial voting issue than their anti-abortion counterparts.
But when the conversation moves away from abortion to contraceptives – as it has this week – the intensity gap flips: A much larger segment of voters are willing to penalize a legislator who votes to defund family planning.
In other words, abortion proponents acknowledge they are losing the support of youth – and women.
The February 5 piece Kliff linked to also contained helpful information:
Last spring, Cecile Richards’s BlackBerry buzzed with an unexpected text message. It was from her son Daniel, a college student in Pennsylvania. He was heading off to Toledo, having organized a bus trip of friends to attend a rally supporting Planned Parenthood. The message came as Congress was debating ending the group’s nearly $100 million in federal funding.
Richards was surprised: Despite her five years now as president of Planned Parenthood, her son had never been active in abortion politics. To her, Daniel and his friends represented a wave of young supporters whom groups such as hers had long struggled to engage. All it took was a sustained attack on government funding of family planning, waged at the federal and state level, to get them there.
In other words, even the son of Planned Parenthood’s CEO is disengaged on the abortion issue.
Continuing the piece:
“I’ve been at Planned Parenthood for about five years and have spent those years telling people, ‘This is what we do, we see 3 million patients a year,’ and it’s just like the reaction is, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’?” Richards says, reflecting on the congressional funding debate. “In the space of two months, we did more to educate people about who we are and what we do than anything else.”
In other words, as much as Planned Parenthood has tried to have us believe otherwise, its pitch that it is about much more than abortion hadn’t hit home.
Continuing the piece:
In wide-ranging interviews over the past month, heads of a half-dozen major women’s groups echoed Richards’s sentiments. They are frustrated at the restrictions that passed in 2011, but they also recognize that the fight finally got young people involved.
For years, abortion rights advocates have battled an intensity gap: Their supporters don’t feel as strongly about protecting abortion access as antiabortion voters do about restricting it. This has been especially true for younger voters, the Millennials who grew up after the Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973…. In 2010, a NARAL… survey found that most voters under 30 who opposed abortion rights considered it a “very important” voting issue. Among abortion rights supporters, that proportion was 26%.
“These are people that we haven’t quite crossed their radar screen,” NARAL President Nancy Keenan explained in a recent interview. “They share our values, they’re pro-choice, but the question is: How do we talk to them?”
Keenan’s opponents unexpectedly came up with an answer: Widen the reproductive-health debate to include family planning and contraceptives.
In other words, Millennials (Gen Y) who consider themselves pro-“choice” aren’t passionate while pro-life Millennials are. And the only way the abortion lobby can engage them is to threaten that their gateway to sex without consequences will be taken away.
It’s no wonder the other side is pushing harder than ever to engage the youth culture in sex. The free love mentality is not just a money maker (contraceptives, STD treatment, abortion), it’s an ideology keeper.
The problem for pro-lifers is that the strategy is working. Any thoughts on competing strategies?
[Middle photo via Reuters]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
“It’s no wonder the other side is pushing harder than ever to engage the youth culture in sex. The free love mentality is not just a money maker (contraceptives, STD treatment, abortion), it’s an ideology keeper.”
The above quote just needed to be repeated.
It is the old tactic once again… divide and conquer. They constantly look for the weakest link, the area that pro-lifers have the least common ground, and they attack.
A strategy to tackle this one is the same tactic the pro-life side always uses. It is our best tactic: to tell the Truth. Once again, pro-lifers are called to educate the public, to stop the misinformation machine of PP. Each contraceptive is different and the public knows this vaguely. Lets not be like PP and treat the younger generations as ignorant fools but as the bright leaders of tomorrow that they are. Lets give this young generation the information about contraception they need and let them decide which contraceptives are morally acceptable. PP and the Left think they can fool the young….but we know better, we know they are smart.
Tyler – I agree. And I would go even further to say let’s give them the Truth about Sex as well. When I tell my children that sex is a wonderful thing to share with your spouse they understand. And when I tell my daughters that their bodies are wonderful beautiful gifts that they should share with their husbands they get it. And when I tell them that they are too precious to share with the first boy that come sniffing around, it rings true with them. And when I tell my sons that they need to treat girls the way they want their sisters treated, they understand. And when I tell them that they have the same responsibility that I do to model the ideal man and show their sisters what they should expect, they understand. I really believe that if we help our children to truly understand the wonder and beauty of Life and their responsibility to each other, that they will recognize the lies when people tell them they should just do whatever feels good just like the animals do.
All we have to do is keeping giving the truth. When the majority of Americans can see what truly happens during an abortion, the abortion industries’ rhetoric goes out the window. Whether it is 10% or 3% or 1% of their services, babies are dying in gruesome ways. Keep pro-aborts on this topic and their ideology will fail. 3,400 babies are scheduled to die today, and the day after, and the day after that. Just keep giving the facts. People’s hearts will react.
How should we respond?
Step 1: Educate the public that this is not about contraception. It is about First Amendment Rights.
In a country that values First Amendment rights so highly we recognize the right of Nazi’s to march in the predominately Jewish city of Skokie, and we recognize the right of the Westboro Baptist Church to protest at funerals, surely we can recognize the right of religious organizations to practice their faith while serving the common good, without government infringement.
Freedom of Speech we hate.
Freedom of Religion we don’t agree with.
Ain’t America beautiful!
I found this article interesting:
http://www.nctimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/parker/parker-this-isn-t-about-the-pill/article_e5ade4de-9c8e-5b53-82fa-721b371c847e.html
More Tim Tebows. Drumming out the consequences of addiction does not turn a drunk from drink, nor does it keep a teen from sneaking that first cigarette or beer or binge drinking when their peers’ voices ring louder than their parents (if their parents have bothered to shape the conversation on or development of self-discipline). But why is smoking down in this demographic? Peer pressure. It is no longer portrayed in the media as cool or desirable. Sex, however, is. So there needs to be more admirable, cool, successful young people who are willing to start a movement of abstinence and making much of the true benefits of saving self for faithful, lifelong marriage in God’s design. Youth need to be challenged to do the hard stuff of a disciplined life, and trusted to value why “everyone getting a trophy” for participating is selling out character building for the easy fix. They deserve better. More than instant oatmeal (instant gratification in exchange for less quality experience and nutritional value) and hookups (disposable relationships). And that’s the best this administration can dream for them? The easy way out? They can be trusted with more responsibility. They want to go deeper. And they need role models for why and how. Youth also want to be defined as different from their parents’ generation (even if this, ironically, makes them the same as one another in the process) and they are at best indifferent to the fight for rights (to vote, to reproductive “freedom”, etc…) that fires up their elders. Their parents did the free love thing, and look where it got them. Divorce, disease, and seared consciences about killing the baby sister or brother in the sonogram photo on their fridge, 50 million of their peers “disappeared”. Elected officials are their parents, and they are betraying their own youth. Remember our president’s pro-abortion sound bite that he wouldn’t want to punish his daughter with a baby if she happened to “make a mistake” and get pregnant? That’s his grandchild he’s talking about. The generation in power has not only abandoned their unborn, they are abandoning their born children to the culture and the power brokers who want to keep them sedated and pliable and numb to conscience and the true if difficult marrow of life. “And they want us having more conscequence-less sex? That’s the best we can hope for? Free sex will make everything better? Or distract us from how bad it is? Like we don’t know? Like we can’t handle it? Like we want to be like them and make it worse? What kind of role models are they? They’ve messed things up… our generation can get back to truth and save this mess they’ve got us all into. We want to feel honestly hopeful about their futures, even if it’s going to be hard… at least we know what’s true.” And that includes a return to real love and family and a respect for life and the freedom to pursue joy.
We also might consider pointing out more frequently that if our culture is so attached to sex that we are willing to climb over a million tiny corpses a year to get it, then we might need to reexamine our priorities. And we need to point it out in terms that stark.
But when the conversation moves away from abortion to contraceptives – as it has this week – the intensity gap flips: A much larger segment of voters are willing to penalize a legislator who votes to defund family planning.
If we make this about contraception, sex, or morality, we just might lose. We don’t need to convince the culture at large that we need to reorder our thinking about human sexuality. We need to help the culture at large see that this issue is about First Amendment rights. Because it is. We need to motivate the masses quickly, and a culture war will not do that.
Lrning, I see your point. However, even if the point is made that this is about First Amendment rights the public may still decide to side with PP out of preference for sexual license over religious liberty. So without clearly explaining how removing the mandate doesn’t impact their True freedom and that all contraception methods are not the same a good number of the public may wrongly accept PP’s underlying reasoning: that casual irresponsible sex is more important and fundamental than religious liberty, and even more preferable!!! Let us not underestimate the intelligence of the public.
I have an idea. If religious institutions and hospitals don’t want to fund birth control and contraception for their patients, then they should turn away all federal funding and not serve any patients nor employ any workers who do not adhere to their particular religion. That way everyone is happy and nobody’s rights are trampled on.
But hey, what do I know? I’m just a dirty liberal who likes to use logic. Silly me.
Amanda,
First of all, hospitals don’t fund contraception for their patients. Also, if they turn away federal funding they may not be able to provide the “free” care they are often called upon to provide to indigent people. When I worked ER in a Catholic hospital, we didn’t check baptismal certificates on patients that were arriving near death from a car accident or a barroom brawl. Drug addicts and cirrhotic alcoholics didn’t usually carry their baptismal certificates either. Neither did the homeless woman ready to deliver at any moment.
When you are employed at any religious institution you do so with the understanding that you will respect and abide by their rules, not that you need to practice their faith. If you have a problem with this, seek employment elsewhere.
Employees receive a paycheck, so why can’t they buy their own contraception? They buy their own food and gas and pay their rent or mortgage, right?
You like to use logic? One wouldn’t know it by reading your post.
Amanda,
The only problem with that idea is that one in six hospitals is a religious institution. What happens when they lay off all their non-adhering employees and turn away all non-adhering patients?
Well said, Mary! :D
“if religious institutions and hospitals don’t want to fund birth control and contraception for their patients, then they should turn away all federal funding”
Most religiously affiliated hospitals would probably be happy to turn down taxpayer funds if they had the means to, but prefer to take federal funds rather than close down. Do those who feel that religious hospitals should refuse federal funds believe that we would all be better off without the services that such hospitals provide? (It’s a sincere question ~ I honestly don’t know what they think.) What alternatives do they propose?
Amanda, logic is a good thing. However, this seems a bit one-sided. I’m an older lady and a retired ER RN. I have seen many changes in healthcare throughout the years. Why does PP receive millions from the Feds and a Catholic hospital will be unfunded if it sticks to religious beliefs? PP is a religion as much as any church body. On an individual basis I have seen many accommodations regarding individual staff beliefs. I worked with a nurse who refused to administer any blood products due to her faith. I refused to be involved in any abortion procedures, except caring for women with complications afterward. Another RN had every weekend off due to her faith. I could recite many more examples. No one was fired or coerced into doing anything that didn’t line up with their belief system. I’ve worked in a Catholic and secular hospitals. If it was found that a Mormon hospital was of the old school and practiced polygamy, to include sex with underage children, do you think the Feds would pull funding? PP is the religious beacon of liberals and yet Obama can’t wait to fund them. Catholic hospitals are being targeted to their very core. We all get to use logic, even when we are in opposition.
@Susan Ruth I am right there with you on this. I think that a major cultural overhaul is due. This is my huge worry with the abortion debate, that the contraceptive thing is going to get in the way. Especially since things like Plan B are pushed so hard as contraception. Right now young people who don’t drink, do drugs or have sex call themselves “Straight Edge”. You see more and more wearing “True Love Waits” type rings and tee shirts. It is doable, but there has to be a shift in the mindset of older people that sex is not bad and dirty, but something to be taken seriously and that teens need to be treated with respect and like they are intelligent enough to see the truth. Let them know the medical risks of the Pill, abortion and casual sex. They’re plenty smart.
BTW, I’m not picking on Mormons. I’m just saying our government is oddly protective. Why haven’t we heard anything about what’s going on behind Warren Jeff’s compound walls? Big news for awhile, now nothing. The children are still there. Does any one think things have changed? Where is our government?
Competing strategy – vote the trash out of office. Anyone But Obama 2012.
Also, birth control costs less than $10 a month at WalMart. If you can’t afford that, you are on Welfare, so Medicaid pays for your birth control. If you want fancy designer birth control, spend your own money on it. Just because I can afford a Hyundai doesn’t mean my employer should buy me a Ferrari, but that’s the argument being used by the pro-HHS mandate people.
If you want fancy designer birth control, spend your own money on it. Just because I can afford a Hyundai doesn’t mean my employer should buy me a Ferrari, but that’s the argument being used by the pro-HHS mandate people. Yeah, but the fancy designers contribute to campaigns and forcing every employer to provide their products to employees increases their profits.
Obama is a crony capitalist and Wall Street’s darling. More profits, higher stocks, rah, rah rah!
1 in 6 hospitals is a religious institution. I see that as a major problem, myself.
By which I mean, no hospitals should be religious institutions, at least not officially.
Most religiously affiliated hospitals would probably be happy to turn down taxpayer funds if they had the means to, but prefer to take federal funds rather than close down. Do those who feel that religious hospitals should refuse federal funds believe that we would all be better off without the services that such hospitals provide? (It’s a sincere question ~ I honestly don’t know what they think.) What alternatives do they propose?
A fair number of counties are serviced only by a Catholic hospital. If it closed, it would not be replaced because a high proportion of the county is poor, so there is no way to make the hospital profitable. Now, in urban areas, the Catholic hospitals probably get a fair amount of full paying well insured customers and the for profit hospitals would love to see them closed down to get those paying customers because the poor would go to the county hospital. Those for profit hospitals make campaign contributions.
By which I mean, no hospitals should be religious institutions, at least not officially.
Why so intolerant?
Bigoted much?
“By which I mean, no hospitals should be religious institutions, at least not officially.”
Why not?
Nothing to do with bigotry. Just being fed up with bigotry fed by religion. I don’t think this nation should extend privileges to religious institutions out of line with secular institutions. I also think that if religious lobbying groups are able to get so much spending money to push for their god-given privilege to be intolerant that their churches should be taxed. James Madison at least would have agreed with me.
1 in 6 hospitals is a religious institution. I see that as a major problem, myself.
Gee, I wonder why that is?
How come so many hospitals are religiously affiliated?
Hmm, oh yeah, they were established before medicine was profitable; when all hospitals were charities that religious people started because they believed in helping the poor. Now we just tax people to support county hospitals so it is much more expensive to service the poor. The rich people go to for profit hospitals which are indeed very profitable. Even those that claim they are non profits pay their executives very high salaries and provide no more than the legally required minimum to the poor. Some have even been sued because the only service they provided to the poor was their existence, not actual services.
James Madison at least would have agreed with me.
Not just bigoted and intolerant, defamatory as well.
What incredible self aggrandizement and self righteous moralizing!
Could you be more full of yourself, Miss I-think-therefore-it’s-true?
Could you be more hateful?
Amanda, 5:31PM 5:32PM
You’re not serious right? You’re goading, right?
Amanda, there’s a First Amendment. Get over it.
Oh, James Madison wrote it. You might do a little googling and get your facts straight on the issue of seperation of church and state.
Amanda is shill for crony capitalists who want special favors from government so that more money goes in their pockets. The poor can go blank themselves for all she cares.
“When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obligated to call for help of the civil power, it’s a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.”-Benjamin Franklin
Just being fed up with bigotry fed by religion.
Right, like the religionists who championed the civil rights and abolitionist movements? Like the religionists who wrote the US Constitution which freed millions of people. People like you, Amanda, are the bigots. Sure, you’ll take the freedom that religious fanatics provided you with and you’ll use it to oppress them in return. But you know what, if you were sick and poor the Catholics would still take care of you even though you hate them, oppress them and defame them. We can imagine how you would treat them given the reverse situation.
An apologetic acknowledgement that I am completely off topic but given the dearth of discussions on the gop nomination contest just lately I want to say
Go santorum, go! Yay rick! Go santorum!
Go santorum, go! Yay rick! Go santorum
LOL, second the motion.
“When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obligated to call for help of the civil power, it’s a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.”-Benjamin Franklin
It does support itself, and many charitable endeavors. Its professors ask that the civil authorities not persecute it. Catholics aren’t asking for help. They are complaining of the government’s oppression.
The protections of the first amendment do not afford you the right to government funds.
If a hospital receives public funds, then they should be required BY LAW to adhere to federal nondiscrimination policies, and that includes nondiscrimination against women by denying them healthcare.
If Catholic hospitals want women to pay for their own healthcare and cover men’s healthcare in its entirety with no similar stipulations, then they need to give back government money. I for one don’t want my tax dollars paying for Catholic doctrine and gender-based bigotry.
When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obligated to call for help of the civil power, it’s a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.”-Benjamin Franklin
The same could be said of pp or any other entity seeking charitity.
It is called the free market place.
pp would fold in short order if it was disestablished and defunded.
Right now it is the sacred golden calf of the ‘dead babies r us’ religion.
It is also a money laundering machine of gastronomic proportions which funds all things democRAT, liberal, progressive and humanist.
It is time to wean the simpering and whining brats from the public teat.
Important question for pro-lifers to be pondering, Jill….. Perhaps the most straightforward argument might simply be to (appropriately) re-frame the question being debated to this: Why should GOVERNMENT put itself in charge of collecting monies from you and me to subsidize other people’s sex lives? (How is that a legitimate use of government authority? Where in the constitution does government get that authority? What happened to the sentiment, “Govt needs to stay out of the bedroom”?…).
Ron Paul’s most enthusiastic (and numerous) voting demographic is young people including Generation Y’ers and the bit older (and still reproductively-aged) Generation X’ers, some of whom support the ongoing legality of abortion (like Ms. Richards’s son and those under discussion). Liberty (from government) is Ron Paul’s main offering – and it’s what appeals most to Gen X/Y’ers. While I think a significant subset of them might favor contraceptive legality, (like Cecile’s son and his friends clearly do), that’s a very different thing than saying they insist that contraceptives be handed out free of charge (and inevitably at the cost to somebody else). Many will instinctively recognize that there’s no such thing as a freebie – and in this case, the price would be a more dictatorial and confiscatory government that could do all sorts of other offensive things with their expanded power – hardly worth the price for some free contraceptives!
Cecile, Barack, Kathleen, Nancy, and assorted Big Control friends will continue to try to conflate contraceptive LEGALITY with contraceptive GIVEAWAYS in an attempt to con users and would-be users into thinking that anybody’s trying to change the legality and that they must ensure re-election of their “contraceptive savior”.
Amanda says:February 8, 2012 at 4:20 pm “But hey, what do I know? I’m just a dirty liberal who likes to use logic. Silly me.”
============================================================== From your comments I surmise that you know a lot, but have difficulty culling truth from fiction.
But lest us test your ‘liberal logic’.
When your momma was pregnant with you what species of embryo/fetus was present in her uterus?
apostate,
The protection of the First Amendment does not afford you the right to gov’t funds.
Great apostate, so can Catholic hospitals stop giving “free” care to the indigent?
Can we refuse care to the indigent family? The car accident victim?
The homeless woman who shows up in ER in labor? I just took care of a few heroin addicts today, one who has been hospitalized for sometime because of injuries from drug injections. I suppose the Catholic hospital I work at should refuse to care for her, right?
Or how about that AIDS patient I had not too long ago that required transfusions. Being he had been sick and out of work for some time perhaps the Catholic hospital should have told him to take a hike. Or maybe just increase everyone else’s costs to accomodate him.
Denying women healthcare. Give me a damned break. Since when must visiting your doctor, getting a prescription, and purchasing contraception be a service provided by your employer? How about cosmetic surgery? A face lift and tummy tuck would do wonders for my mental health. Is my employer obligated to provide me with this “health care”? You have no clue the services offered by the Catholic hospital I work at to provide care to women, women with cancer, abused women, etc. Give back the gov’t funding apostate and low income women may not get some of these services. Be careful what you wish for. Your “concern” for “gender based bigotry” might come back to bite you in the a**.
@ken the birther: Funny you would ask me questions about embryos/fetuses when you make the comparison of progressives as ‘simpering, whining brats on the public teat’. Your language suggests to me that you have nothing but disdain for babies, yourself. And I thought us pro-choice people were supposed to be the baby-haters. Huh.
@hippie: The government hardly ‘oppresses’ the church. Unless you count investigations into sex abuse by priests oppression.
Amanda,
Haven’t we also had some investigations into teachers molesting their students? Let’s see, didn’t one seduce her teenage student and have him kill her husband? We have read a few accounts of some female teachers and their male students, which included sending suggestive photos on cell phones. Then there was this huge scandal here in my city. Close to 15 female students.
Oh, and didn’t some teacher out in LA just get caught with a bunch of photos of students in bondage?
When do we go after teachers? Obviously they are all sex offenders.
For the sake of fairness:
Are natural family planning education courses covered in the health mandate? How about a credit for $600 per year for those services for people who want to go that route? (so crazy, I know, but I think they still exist somewhere!)
Planned Parenthood alumni and other supporters have essentially proven after the Komen uproar that they can rally and fund the services that Obama wants to mandate Catholic employers directly cover. As long as they are getting free birth control, etc., why would they care who is picking up the tab? And will the new health insurance mandates include coverage for assisted reproductive technologies, or is it only to expand free access to preventing and terminating new life? What about mandating coverage for health-related services that result from natural family planning? If, as so many supporting PP believe, it is so very hard to abstain from intercourse during fertile times to prevent pregnancy (knowing how impressively effective birth control overall seems to be, noting how minuscule the number of elective abortions are performed each year), then certainly progressives would support my chosen form of birth control – which is to get a hotel room in a neighboring city for three nights each month. Works for us! And at about $150 per month, it is roughly equivalent to the penalty fee Catholic employers will have to pay per employee each year if the employer chooses not to cover contraceptives, etc. And while we are discussing women’s health, numerous studies have demonstrated the beneficial effects of coffee. Can’t we lump coffee coverage into the health insurance mandate? So if an employer offers basic coffee at their business to their employees, and I choose to work there, I should certainly have access to more free options. For me, I prefer a daily Starbucks for about $5, as my physician and I have discovered this coffee works best for my body. To all taxpayers that do not drink coffee and don’t want to pay for my coffee or anyone else’s, tough luck. Maybe if you started drinking coffee too you wouldn’t feel like a minority who is being taxed for the well-established healthy choices of another! And don’t forget that all employees’ health is best served by a healthy diet. Who’s for our employers supplying us with fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts and wheat bread each week? That may even have a bigger overall public health impact than employer- funded birth control, as it certainly seems a lot easier to find privately-funded free birth control than privately-funded free healthy food!
It would seem that if Planned Parenthood wanted to have the greatest impact, they would mass advertise and offer free vasectomies to boys once they enter high school. They could even offer free reversals after, say, age 30. For women, they could promote motherhood through sperm donation, which negates the need for any sexual activity. What percentage of PP funds go toward either of these activities? Are any funds set aside for either of these solutions to unplanned parenthood? Or is the abortion market simply too lucrative to attempt to reduce?
Is the goal free access to contraception, or is the goal to have religious employers pay for employees’ access to birth control? What is preventing Planned Parenthood from creating a dedicated fund to which people can contribute, that would cover the cost of birth control for all employees whose health insurance doesn’t cover birth control? Then Planned Parenthood staff and volunteers can, among o…ther marketing strategies, stand on sidewalks outside of Catholic hospitals, universities and charities and advertise their services. Certainly this would solve the issue of funding, access and awareness of resources, and Planned Parenthood would likely gain some new supporters in the process. Surely, as job openings occur elsewhere, Catholic institution employees can switch employers to those that cover these services, if they so desire. This just seems like a golden opportunity for Planned Parenthood to again demonstrate their compassion and commitment to choice!
@Mary: So why did Ireland decide to snub the Vatican ambassador? Surely it had nothing to do with their negligence in dealing with abuse cases. Nope. Nothing at all.
Natural Family Planning aka Vatican Roulette
I truly think the Catholic Church could do a better job forming young Catholics, and attracting other non-Catholics, by helping these young people realize that there are certain criteria they should seek in a potential spouse (or boyfriend or girlfriend) and that so much advertising is driven toward them in an effort to get them to sell out to the sex culture. Asking them to post, “Which ads, TV shows, etc. do you automatically reject as sexist, etc.?” on Facebook, or, how do you spend your money on “YOU” and not on selling out to the culture, would help advertisers realize we are watching, and we are a MARKET! Also, types of compatability quizes, etc. online, that people of any denomination (or none) could fill out to help them consider whether a potential mate is right for them!
Amanda:
The only problem with your 9:00 post, other than it being completely false, is that it is about 60 years old and not at all funny any more. Perhaps the intellectually challenged finds it uproarious.
Amanda,
You didn’t address my question concerning teachers.
Many will instinctively recognize that there’s no such thing as a freebie –
But many will also recognize that prescription drug coverage within their insurance plan is part of their compensation, not a freebie.
Why should GOVERNMENT put itself in charge of collecting monies from you and me to subsidize other people’s sex lives? (How is that a legitimate use of government authority? Where in the constitution does government get that authority? What happened to the sentiment, “Govt needs to stay out of the bedroom”?…).
Okay, so you’re saying that a company’s female employees should have no legal recourse if it decides to cover every medical expense except pregnancy. What if the company decides that it will cover obstetric care for married women but not single ones? Presumably you would argue that the company has that right, since you appear to think that a law keeping employers out of their employees’ bedrooms is the same thing as the government being in the bedroom. But I’ve not seen anything to suggest that the majority of Gen Xers and Ys agree with you.
To the Post article on the reason for the mandate: Cecile Richards said a day or two after the ruling was issued that the mandate would draw more women to Obama in 2012. For Cecile to say this is probably as sure of an indicator there is that the same thinking is operative on the rest of the abortion plantation, Obama included.
Which in turn brings us to Obama politicizing issues. Just a few weeks back he politicized the Keystone pipeline decision to placate and energize his tree hugger base. Now he is seeking to do the same with the anti-conscience mandate. His advisers know the president holds nothing more sacred then he does abortion rights and they also know that PP and choicers are among his most lucrative supporters.
In fact when Obama went to Chicago recently to attend three fund raisers thrown by the 1% (please, tell me how a 99%er pays the $36,000 a plate entry price) local media reports spoke of major prochoicers attending the functions. This mandate has thrown heaps of red meat to the choice hounds, but the president’s hubris may see the issue thrown back to him in spades. When all is said and done this may very well be the highlight in the replay film that commentators will concede was the turning point in the game that threw the presidency to the Republicans.
“The government hardly ‘oppresses’ the church. Unless you count investigations into sex abuse by priests oppression.”
Especially as a faithful Catholic, I wish “the government,” ie, the police, HAD investigated more priests. The Church hierarchy is indefensible on this point (the sex abuse crimes), but I have to think that law enforcement must have dropped the ball in some cases too.
At any rate, the Church abuse crimes have nothing to do with religious hospitals receiving federal funds, so to get back to the topic at hand: for those who don’t wish to see religious health care institutions receive taxpayer funds, what alternative are you proposing to care for those who currently and would in the future avail themselves of the services that such institutions provide?
hippie, your comment @ 6:07 is great. How could a desire to help the sick not be the *obvious* reason that religious hospitals were founded in the first place? The Mass General doesn’t seem to recognize any religious affiliation currently, but even MGH was founded in part out of what was recognized to be the “duty” of Christians to help their neighbors.
Joanne,
I am not Catholic and I am liberal, but folks like Amanda gall me. They don’t want everyone to have freedom. They aren’t liberal. They want to eliminate anyone that doesn’t agree with them. They despise the live and let live essence of liberalism. And worst of all they are just enablers of the greediest corporate interests who suck us all dry. Just devoid of reason or the ability to think to the next step. So gullible. So willing to jump on the latest cool crap. Did you see how she said that religionists shouldn’t even be allowed to operate charitable enterprises for the poor?! She thinks anyone who doesn’t agree with her should be eliminated!! even from serving people in need. Just sick.
Here is a competing strategy all you pro-life women on bc need to face the truth and speak the truth no matter how much it hurts. bc IS an abortifacient. It is a fact that while on bc breakaway ovulation occurs in women and eggs get fertilized and embryo’s get abored because the bc hardens the uterine lining where the embryo is supposed to implant.
@LisaC: A couple points: Pregnancy is a condition that clearly requires medical attention – sometimes a little, sometimes a lot – to ensure and optimize the health of the pregnant mother and her yet-to-be-born child. Maternity coverage inclusion in a health care plan, thus does not seem odd given the universal agreement that prenatal care and medical assistance during labor and delivery are important and beneficial. (though I think many Gen X and Y voters, among others, may chafe at a government mandate to include it…or a prohibition against including it.)
In contrast, I’d be hard pressed to divine a legitimate government interest in forcing employers to pay for drugs and surgery which have as their only purpose the facilitation of sterile sex (ie sex in which conception is specifically prevented). [Yes, some women may be on contraceptive pills for non-contraceptive purposes…but that’s clearly not what the PP-sponsored politicians are hysterically claiming the need for. No, they’re wailing that women must have their “CONTRACEPTIVES”!]
The idea that contraceptive drugs and sterilization surgery (let alone the sometimes abortion-inducing morning-after and week-after pills covered under this edict) would be required while various other, even life-saving drugs would not points out the absurdity of this edict specifically and Uncle Sam butting in generally…..setting aside the unfairness to employers AND employees of (unConstitutionally) demanding their monies to subsidize drugs and procedures in direct violation of their religious beliefs.)
BECAUSE THE SEX. MUST. CONTINUE.
Amanda,
The worst term used from prolifers you can use from them to paint them as hating babies is brats? Lol Your side regularly paint the unborn as parasites, rapists of their mothers when unwanted, deserving of death for using their mothers’ bodies against the mothers’ will, etc.
@hippie: Your reading comprehension needs some work. I never said that religious people shouldn’t be allowed to operate charities, I just said that charities should not be proselytizing agencies or mere extensions of the religious institution or church itself. And I have no interest in furthering greedy corporate interests. That statement is completely unfounded. All I’m saying is that if someone who is Catholic or is not and is working for a Catholic non-profit should have their birth control covered under their normal insurance, or should have coverage for sterilization if they choose to undergo the procedure later in life. Honestly, how is that so hard to understand?
Amanda wrote:
I just said that charities should not be proselytizing agencies or mere extensions of the religious institution or church itself.
And why not, may I ask? (I’d also point out that no charity is a “mere” extension of the religious institution… but that it’s quite bizarre to insist that such a charity pretend that it is in no way affiliated with its origins/source!)
All I’m saying is that if someone who is Catholic or is not and is working for a Catholic non-profit should have their birth control covered under their normal insurance, or should have coverage for sterilization if they choose to undergo the procedure later in life.
Why? Would you also insist that Narcotics Anonymous groups who use state buildings for meeting-room must supply their members with drugs and needles, or that PETA be forced to supply ham sandwiches in their vending machines? Why would you insist that any given group be forced to supply something which violates a core part of the very definition of that group?
Honestly, how is that so hard to understand?
Well… speaking for myself: I find it difficult to understand how any fair-minded person (regardless of religious persuasion) could support what you claim to support, above.
Amanda, natural family planning actually works BETTER than condoms-it’s hard to believe, but if you’re a woman and you pay close attention to your body, you KNOW when your ovulating.
If your having sex with a person you don’t trust, and who doesn’t trust you=your most likely having recreational sex which is playing Russian Roulette with your health.
Society has gotten into the routine of pressuring men and women into having un-wed sex. Hate to say it, but PP is once again, the guilty party and it is a sales tactic for birth control and abortions. Why WOULDN’T the sex industry and the contraceptives industry be holding hands-if their end objective is the bottom line?-it’s not protecting women from exploitation-and it’s not to serve families, which is what the Church tries to do.
Here is a really good quote from MKL JR:
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. On Premarital Sex
QUESTION: I was raised in a Christian environment. My father placed great stress on premarital virginity. I am 29. Of late, I have begun to doubt the validity of his teaching. Is he right?
MLK: I think you should hold firm to the principle of premarital virginity. The problems created by premarital sex relationships are far greater than the problems created by premarital virginity. The suspicion, fears, and guilt feelings generated by premarital sex relations are contributing factors to the present breakdown of the family. Real men still respect purity and virginity within women. If a man breaks a relationship with you because you would not allow him to participate in the sexual act, you can be assured that he did not love you from the beginning.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. On Homosexuality
QUESTION: My problem is different from the ones most people have. I am a boy, but I feel about boys the way I ought to feel about girls. I don’t want my parents to know about me. What can I do?
MLK: Your problem is not at all an uncommon one. However, it does require careful attention. The type of feeling that you have toward boys is probably not an innate tendency, but something that has been culturally acquired… You are already on the right road toward a solution, since you honestly recognize the problem and have a desire to solve it.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. On Abortion
QUESTION: About two years ago, I was going with a young lady who became pregnant. I refused to marry her. As a result, I was directly responsible for a crime. It was not until a month later that I realized the awful thing I had done. I begged her to forgive me, to come back, but she has not answered my letters. The thing stays on my mind. What can I do? I have prayed for forgiveness.
MLK: You have made a mistake… One can never rectify a mistake until he admits that a mistake has been made. Now that you have prayed for forgiveness and acknowledged your mistake, you must turn your vision to the future… Now that you have repented, don’t concentrate on what you failed to do in the past, but what you are determined to do in the future.”
please see ObamaNation.com for more!
More proof aborts aren’t pro-choicers at all. They want to take away other people’s choices. They want religious charities and hospitals to have no choice on issue of abortion. They want to take away their choice to preach their message associated with their churches or groups if the aborts don’t like the message. Aborts aren’t for anyone’s freedom. But for power for themselves to take away life of those unborn they dont want abd to tyrannize over rights of consciences of others on the issue.
Yeah. That term. Pro-‘choice.’ That has got to go.
The fetus screams and kicks, it doesn’t want to die.
The fetus moves away from the cannula, as is evidenced in Abbey Johnson’s testimony.
The pre-born actively chooses life after his or her parent’s make their choice for them.
This whole thing is a web of lies.
Here is the pro-‘choice,’ dialog
Me: Ok, what are we doing today? Let’s make a free will choice.
You: I would like to…
ME: Ok-Great! That was my choice, too-so glad you agree!
You: But I…
ME: Ah-Ah, you bigot! I will fine you 150.00 a month if you don’t believe in freedom!
Yeah, ok, good idea! Take the word choice-and use it in the fashion of meaning no-choice at all-that should trick ’em.
Pro-Choice Mandates. Pro-Life terrorists whose names go on a 911 list. Gay-Marriage Unions. The devil works by creating confusion-then chaos-then who knows what’s right from wrong because we all have vertigo!
I agree with the TRUTH solution.
Oh, no no, Amanda, you liar. We got it right here.
By which I mean, no hospitals should be religious institutions, at least not officially.
No one should be allowed to do stuff you don’t approve of. What do you think a catholic hospital is if not a charity, you ignoramus.
I don’t even agree with the catholic church, but that doesn’t mean I get to tell them what to do, like you seem to think you are entitled to do, princess. Nasty totalitarian. Ugh, oppressive and totally intolerant reactionary. You want to take us back to the time of kings and tyrants. Of course it is all swell when it’s your tyrant, huh?
Makes me sick this illiberal anti-freedom, useful idiot for the greedy corporations and the politicians who empower them.
I just said that charities should not be proselytizing agencies or mere extensions of the religious institution or church itself.
Uhm, then how exactly are charities going to get money to run on? Lots of people are not real charitable except that their faith teaches them charity and they wouldn’t give anything otherwise. Get it?
Cue Amanda’s totalitarian suggestions for extortions and confiscations of private property to fund charity work.
The mandate to provide health insurance that covers the cost for contraception, abortion and sterilization by Catholic organizations is a clear violation of religious freedom. It is also a direct attack on the Church, aimed at removing the influence of religion on the society in order to create an atheistic society. This mandate must be stopped now, because it a fore runner of many more to come which will slowly, completely take away our freedom. We must act in a big way now; because this is crucial for the future of our country. It is good to try legislative maneuver and legal recourse; but from our experience with Roe vs. wade we know that such matters do not resolve quickly. We should therefore have a million people walk to the White House to protest this mandate. This should take place before the upcoming election in order for it to make an impression on the president and produce quick resolution.
The word “liberal” has been hijacked, just like the word “choice”.
Mary: “Great apostate, so can Catholic hospitals stop giving “free” care to the indigent?
Can we refuse care to the indigent family?”
So now you care about the indigent? I thought the indigent could go slide down a chainsaw if they sought care from PP.
“Since when must visiting your doctor, getting a prescription, and purchasing contraception be a service provided by your employer?”
Since it’s BASIC HEALTHCARE. Since this was part of the negotiations by women and unions as part of their employment compensations. If employers are providing basic healthcare as part of compensation packages, they cannot discriminate on the basis of gender and deny basic healthcare to women. I really don’t understand why you people have such a hard time with laws that protect YOU.
And as far as I can tell, the rest of the “BUT BUT BUT, Catholic hospitals doo goood things!” is really a non-argument. Doing good things doesn’t give you license to do bad and bigoted things especially if you are receiving MY money to do it.
“They don’t want everyone to have freedom.” “More proof aborts aren’t pro-choicers at all. They want to take away other people’s choices.”
Everyone? Other people’s? Is this twist on the “corporations are people” meme? The USCCB is now a person whose right to treat women like second-class citizens is now being threatened?
Courtnay:
“BECAUSE THE SEX. MUST. CONTINUE.”
I would imagine a married couple would agree with that since they use birth control too, including most Catholics. Regardless, you might want to examine what it is about you that is hostile towards adult people you don’t know and are not entitled to a say over engaging in consensual sexual activity. It is not your affair.
Bobbi: “Amanda, natural family planning actually works BETTER than condoms-it’s hard to believe, but if you’re a woman and you pay close attention to your body, you KNOW when your ovulating.”
If you learned this from Catholics or at a Catholic hospital, that is all the more reason to pull their funding, as government largesse should not be involved in pushing this kind of pseudoscience. The reason “NFP” is an abject failure is 1. you can get pregnant at any time in your cycle http://bedsider.org/features/12 and b. because sperm can live inside the vagina for 5 -7 days. So it doesn’t matter what day you ovulate. If you ovulate days later, you can still get pregnant. Even Catholics admit that it’s not a birth control method, but rather a method for making sure you have lots of kids:
http://www.catholicity.com/commentary/crocker/04828.html
Besides, I thought abstaining from sex for reasons other than prayer were defrauding and against Biblical teachings?
Honestly, all I’m getting out of this is: 1. The Catholic church wants to prevent its parishioners from using contraception by making them pay for it out of pocket, despite the fact they’ll already be paying into their insurance plans. 2. They want to have their cake and eat it too. Sure you can help the poor, but if the poor don’t happen to be Catholic, and they need birth control, they’re just out of luck. 3. They want to ‘cleanse’ their institutions by discouraging non-Catholics from working for any of their non-profits and other large organizations that help the general public. I heard someone say the mandate is the equivalent of forcing a Jewish or Muslim hospital to serve pork. That’s not a valid comparison. But repealing the mandate would be the equivalent of having a Jewish or Muslim patient and serving them pork as their only source of protein at every meal. Sure, they might get a healthy and balanced meal otherwise, but if all they get is pork and they can’t eat it, there’s something crucial missing from it-AND THEY CAN’T HAVE ANYTHING ELSE UNLESS THEY CAN GET SOMEONE TO COME GET THEM OUTTA THERE. That’s the way I see it. Oh, and the Church is completely out of touch with its younger members. That’s important to note, too.
motherjones.com/mojo/2012/02/catholic-bishops-want-entire-birth-control-rule-repealed-not-just-religious-exemption
So there you have it. Even if you own a Taco Bell, you should be able to decline to cover birth control for your employees based on your religious beliefs, at least according to the USCCB.
I do take offense at hippie’s comments calling me totalitarian for thinking there should be laws in place that serve everybody, not just certain groups. Plenty of people who are not faithful give a lot to charity. Richard Dawkins comes to mind with his sponsorship of Doctors Without Borders. There are plenty of secular charities that are not exempt from taxation because they lack god-belief. So, nice try on attacking those oh-so-selfish atheists. Yes, hippie, we really just want to make sure everyone takes birth control and has lots of premarital sex so we can destroy everyone’s morality and decimate every religion out there. Do you not remember that churches themselves are not required to cover contraception? Is that not good enough for you? If you support repeal of the mandate just because you stand on the principle that anyone with god-belief can do just whatever they want, even if it means treating their female employees unfairly and denying them basic health care, then you are the worst kind of moron.
ok, enough of trolls and trolling!
1.ORGANIZE
so identify roles and strong points of the different pro-life groups, who is good at what and how? Pin-point what each groups focus is, zeroe in on that-then figure out how to fit in and connect that with other groups so we can help eachother achieve our end goals.
2. WATCH THE LANGUAGE
It is important to recognize the abortion industry and it’s trolls are relying on other people to repeat it’s false hoods. Don’t play into it-pro-‘choice’ doesn’t exist-all pro-aborts are PRO-ABORTION, if they believed in choice they would respond to the fetus struggling for it’s life-and they would try to preserve it’s choice for life.
3. LAUGH!
The Obama cartoons and troll meme’s are sweet!
e-mail positive and fun pro-life comics & videos to any one you know in the pro-life movement who needs a laugh because of the pro-abortion movement. OR ANY ONE-you know needing a wiff of the truth. That means Christians not participating in the life movement.
Amanda and apostate-you funny. Pro-‘choicers,’ are deluded. Kinda like watching a one eye’d bullfrog try to catch a fly.
4. RELAX
Dude, this is the most happening thing, happening! If you noticed in the Tosh.0 video-Tosh is old scool and kinda creepy and the pro-lifers he was talking to were all lively and fun. The OLD-outdated people are the ones that are becoming the minority and the people who are persevering an not growing weary-those with sustainable courage are ringing in the essence of what the New Millennium is all about: TRUTH, and the freedoms that come with expressing that freedom. We’ve already won, spread the word! By the way Hippie, I LOVE YOUR NAME!!! I think the prolife and pro-creation movement is way cooler than woodstock, though! I can’t wait to what other historic events matriculate from this new culture of life.
5.MANDATERS=HATERS
If some one is forcing you to present an unsavory choice to a pregnant woman, chances are they are probably trying to capitalize off of what makes life good: they see the happiness children bring as competition. That is pretty immature. If your feeling intimidated by people who laugh off the mandate or the abortion issue, remember, your 4life, your working to fight for the cause of good-LIFE is the issue of our time. The mandaters are for watching bad T.V., and avoiding responsibility at all cost. Don’t feel bad for not wanting to spend time around that kind of attitude-you are the future, they are the past.
With the Komen flap, PP fanatics were quick to home in on Handel. Effectively.
I notice that conservatives tend to just rail about the front man and never really raise holy hell about the back office powers that be.
Same thing happened during the Bush administration. Liberals were regularly apoplectic about Rove and Cheney.
So why, tell me, are most conservatives constantly harping on Obama and never raising a stink about Axelrod? Or Jarrett? With respect to the current flap, Sebelius has obviously come under fire — but again not much about Jarrett. And yet she’s the heart and soul of the administration.
Seriously, are we that stupid? Obama’s about image; if that weren’t evident by now, someone can’t see well. So where’s the substance of this administration? Obama? Are you KIDDING, people? He’s a noob, remember? Can’t even speak extemporaneously when the TOTUS crashes, contrary to delusions about his oratory prowess — the compulsion that drove voters to hysterical enthusiasm for the guy.
The Biden faction counseled Obama not to take on the Catholic Church, specifically because this would be construed as a first amendment issue. The Jarrett camp didn’t give a flying f**k about that, to put it bluntly. So the Washington insiders (Biden) aren’t heeded, whereas old school Chicago home-girl Jarrett carries the day. Again. And again. And again. And again.
Seriously, does anyone here get it? Search this site for Biden, and for Jarrett. Biden gets more than 10 times as many hits.
WHY? For the love of God, WHY?
@Bobbi: pro-abortion folks see the happiness children bring as ‘competition’? What kind of crack are you smoking? I’m not even going to comment on the rest of your drivel, but that statement alone stood out as unbelievably batsh*t delusional and crazy.
Amanda doesnt want laws to serve everyone especially when she wants laws to take away first amendment rights of religious folks to force them to do what she wants them to in serving the state when she deems fit. That is precisely totalaritarian idea! On top of already taking away of a segment of the population’s right to life, liberty and property (in this case limb)
Hey Punisher, if I were your employer and decided that I didn’t want to cover antibiotics or vaccines for your kids because my religion dictates that they’re immoral, you think I should have a right to do so? Really?
What if I were to say that according to my beliefs you got sick because you were sinful and should pray to God for healing and forgiveness, rather than relying on the medicine of man? I mean, if this is really about religious freedom, then birth control probably won’t be the only thing we can decline to cover. What about erectile dysfunction medication? What if I say that’s God’s will and you have no right to ask for me to cover it? What if I think antidepressants or antipsychotics are wrong because I believe you’re possessed by a demon and should go get an exorcism?
Well, since there’s no enumerated Constitutional right to any services whatsoever from insurance companies, then THAT would be the problem — not someone’s Constitutionally enumerated right to free exercise of their religion.
Understand? Nothing about health care or insurance is an enumerated right. Not at all.
“What if! What if!”
Do you seriously think those sound like dramatic challenges? They’re not. They reflect back at you because the problem is with the service you imagine is an entitlement.
Enumerated Constitutional rights are RIGHTS. Everything you’re talking about is just services we’ve grown accustomed to expecting.
Learn the difference.
short version of rasqual’s post: BOOTSTRAPS! BOOTSTRAPS!
I also trust you haven’t had any life-threatening illnesses or had any family members with cancer? The NIMBY attitude you display leads me to believe that.
Um, Amanda? I’m just pointing out facts.
Which of them do you imagine are not actual facts?
Insurance once covered catastrophic events. Now liberals want it to cover everything.
Imagine what this would be like if we treated auto insurance this way — instead of covering accidents and helping people avoid unexpected huge expenses, insurance would also cover every time you needed new windshield wipers.
Not even a warranty does that.
And the administration yammers that this will drive down the cost curve? LMAO
The madness isn’t just about freedom of religion, in other words. It’s also about what a passel of wack yahoos want to do to our country. Europe is going over a cliff in their socialist car, standing on the brakes with sudden realization of their folly at the last minute. And what do they see as they glance in panic in their rear view mirror? Here we come, right behind ’em, stepping on the gas — oblivious to their (and our) fate.
Doesn’t matter, Amanda. This is all about culture wars and power battles. So when the next conservative is elected president, we’ll park a theocratic nut job in HHS and require onerous certifications of abortion clinics. Then we’ll make it ILLEGAL for insurance companies to cover contraception.
Why not? Why not, Amanda? If it’s all about whoever happens to be in charge and what they can get away with, and never mind the Constitution or the rule of law — why not?
I’m not seriously proposing that. But if I were, the only objections you could really offer would sound a lot like . . .
… the objections currently being offered to this administration’s actions.
The only difference is your apparent lemming-like loyalty to this administration, rather than to the Constitution.
Sheeple.
You’d’ve been up in Concord telling the British where the colonials were conspiring, because you’d’ve thought King George was riding unicorns across rainbows to bring hopenchange across the water to British citizens in need of his paternal benevolence.
Rasqual – if you are not yet commenting on Huffington Post, please do! We need you there!
rasqual’s argument relies on him equating health insurance with auto insurance. LOL it would be funny if it didn’t lead me to believe he thinks his car is more important than human beings.
Mandating that taxpayers subsidize the car insurance of those unable to pay will save lives. Have you ever been in an accident with an uninsured driver? The time it takes to recoup any type of financial reimbursent for injury can be the difference between affording life-saving medical treatments or permanant damage or even death. I agree we should all pay into a group auto insurance plan.
Amanda: Are you capable of thought at all? Not a rhetorical question.
The vast majority of human thought makes use of analogy and metaphor. My own thinking is no exception. It has nothing to do with “equating” auto and health insurance. It has to do with noting a dissimilarity in their respective evolutions.
Auto insurance has never covered consumables, such as windshield wipers. Such insurance is intended to buffer risk by distributing the cost of unforeseen costly damage. Not even a warranty covers consumables.
Health insurance was once this way as well. Its purpose was to rescue people from the expense of unanticipated costly medical bills. But people have come to expect it to pay for everything, however commonplace and routine (such as birth control, which we’re told is as normal as breathing).
And yet for all that, no Constitutional principle of any kind may be identified which, in any penumbral emanations, indicates an entitlement or a right to such things.
You realize, I take it, that yammering about it as if there were some Constitutional entitlement to birth control, sounds terribly stupid when you’re up against people whose gravamen concerning religious liberty is actually backed up by an enumerated Constitutional right. Right?
Mc: Yeah, I’ve commented from time to time at HuffPo. It’s low-hanging fruit for conservatives, to be sure.
Oh, and I forgot to mention: the administration pivots from a continued insistence that religious people violate their conscience by paying for violations of their beliefs, to insisting to private companies that they will be obligated to give products “free” to their customers.
This idiotic, tyrannical administration — even amid controversy — doesn’t know how to ameliorate their abuse of power. Their first intuition is to take things into even more egregious territory vis-a-vis personal freedom — the power of a company to not have a government telling it it must GIVE something to its customers.
This is SO classic Chicago politics — just double down on in-your-face B.S.
Remember, folks? “Punch back twice as hard.”
Ergo, without really withdrawing the punch from religious, throw another into private enterprise’s face.
Which doesn’t bother social-justice Catholics, I’m sure, but they’d do well to consider that the assault on freedoms grew 100% with the latest turn, regardless of whether they’re sympathetic with the target(s).
Hey rasqual, if you just want to see Obamacare dismantled, why don’t you just say that instead of making all this posturing as if you care about ‘religious freedom’? I highly doubt you care about religious freedoms unless Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity is involved in said religion. You wanna have a conversation about freedom of religion for Wiccans? Or Christian Scientists? Or Muslims? Do you care about them? Would you give a hoot if the government tried to force Muslims to go against their conscience on something?
Amanda – pro-life sentiments are not limited to any one religion, and people pledging no religion can still honor life at all stages. I think you will find, if you look, pro-life people in every country on this earth.
Amanda – I understand that you are angry at what you perceive is a misogynistic view on life (being women who choose not to use birth control). How do you feel about this video?
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DL9Zj9yx2j0Y&v=L9Zj9yx2j0Y&gl=US
Amanda says:
Hey rasqual, if you just want to see Obamacare dismantled, why don’t you just say that instead of making all this posturing as if you care about ‘religious freedom’? I highly doubt you care about religious freedoms unless Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity is involved in said religion. You wanna have a conversation about freedom of religion for Wiccans? Or Christian Scientists? Or Muslims? Do you care about them? Would you give a hoot if the government tried to force Muslims to go against their conscience on something?
Bwahahaha! Uh oh, looks like Amanda recognizes she’s lost the argument.
I personally believe that universal access to affordable healthcare is a GREAT idea! We just need to implement it in a way that doesn’t trample Constitutional rights.
Lrning, I didn’t lose any argument. Go do some research on the Libertarian platform these guys support, then come back and join the conversation. I’d hate for you to be out of the loop. These people don’t want the government to have anything to do with healthcare besides let privatized insurance do whatever, and charge whatever, they can get away with.
LibertarianinLA: Your video link doesn’t work.
Amanda says:
Lrning, I didn’t lose any argument.
Then why not address the Constitutional issues instead of blathering on about your suspicions that rasqual doesn’t really care about religious freedom? In fact, I just skimmed through your posts and I don’t see where you’ve made any kind of argument at all.
I would like someone to coherently explain how the “right” to free contraception and sterilization trumps the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion. You got anything?
So sorry your computer prevented it. Are you familiar with YouTube? Just go there and search the title below:
Planned Parenthood Manager Offers to Help Sex Ring, Gets Fired
LibertarianinLA: Oh, haha, I saw that vid. It’s pretty boring.
and Lrning: This country has been using the Constitution as toilet paper for a long time. And the contraception mandate is not a First Amendment issue, because actual houses of worship are exempt. It is a workers’ rights issue. You can argue all day about how Obamacare itself is unconstitutional, but don’t make me laugh with your First Amendment malarkey.
I think they started using the constitution as toilet paper the day Roe v. Wade was decided.
Heck, I even agree that forcing people to purchase health insurance is unconstitutional! That wasn’t what I was arguing about, though.
Amanda: “ I highly doubt…[etc.]”
So you’re wrong again.
When you imagine that people personify your prejudices instead of standing as persons not following a script your bigotry expects them to follow, you’re bound to be wrong more often then not.
Suggestion: discover who people actually are (hint: what they say may just be what they mean). It’s more satisfying than perversely hoping they are what you hate.
Free exercise of religion is not limited to houses of worship.
According to you, free exercise of religion applies to everybody everywhere, I guess. Unless you have a uterus. Then the religion of others dictates whether you can afford birth control. Makes sense. rasqual, you’re playing into my hands more than you’ll ever comprehend. You’re saying exactly what I expected you to say, and confirming all my prejudices.
Conservative Christians seem to have this idea that they’re very clever and can outsmart liberals by using things like the Constitution to justify their ulterior motives. It doesn’t work. You’re so incredibly transparent, and it’s sad that you’re so convinced of your own righteousness you can’t even see that.
No, we simply know we are right. You simply mix up with having right to use contraceptives with sense of entitlement to force others to foot the bill including religious organizations that object to them on moral grounds. A woman’s right to use contraceptions and even abortions are taken away because religious groups won’t pay for them. Those groups’ right to practice their religion are taken away if they are forced to foot the bill against their conscience. Nothing in this is trying to be clever. It is the plain truth. To try to make it about trying to take away women’s rights to contraception is like Peggy Noonan said, mischievous and dishonest.
Amanda says:
“According to you, free exercise of religion applies to everybody everywhere, I guess.”
Well this is interesting. Amanda, who do think the First Amendment free exercise of religion applies to?
“It is a workers’ rights issue.”
Do you have any support for that statement?
Like you aren’t convinced of how much morally righteous you are over others, Amanda.
Folks know the Catholic Church and their agencies oppose contraceptives. If people like you disagree with them why go to work for them to then demand it do things against it’s conscience? No one force people to work for it.
Freedom of religion refers to issue of governmental interference with religious affairs and free exercise of religion of individuals and coercive manner. What it doesn’t refer to is freedom of individuals from within church bodies and organizations from deviating from the teachings and practices of those groups without being booted out. Sorry you Amanda- and Obama- don’t know the difference.
Amanda and others who think a contraceptive mandate is the bees knees,
No one owes you free bc any more than I am owed free allergy medicine. (A friend of mine pays over $2400 per month for his). Or what about depression medicine? One could argue that Obama’s plan is giving women on bc preferential treatment over all other Americans’ medical needs. Who or what gives him the authority to do do? Planned Parenthood? LOL.
Who or what gives him the authority to do do?
I meant “to do so”,
although “to do do”
sounds more
appropriate.
:)
“It is a workers’ rights issue.”
“Do you have any support for that statement?”
Yes, the federal government pays a big chunk of the funding for religious non-profits and public works agencies. Not all of the workers at these places care that the Pope thinks contraception is a sin, and they pay part of their insurance as well. It’s not like the church foots the whole bill like you’re trying to say. It’s wrong that people have to pay such exorbitant prices for things like allergy medication, but trying to use that as a justification for having women pay $600 a month for birth control is outrageous. Both situations are wrong. And if you really thought Planned Parenthood is behind this and not…I dunno, actual doctors, healthcare advocates, and private insurance companies who understand the benefits to the mandate, wouldn’t everyone be forced to channel their money to Planned Parenthood to get them? Oh wait, that’s not what’s happening at all, and actually Planned Parenthood is experiencing slashed funding all over the U.S. Honestly Janet, open a newspaper or something. Your ignorance is like a loud sweater.
No, Amanda, you are ignorant. The Obama admin consulted the abortionist right groups primarily before forcing this mandate.
It is not the job of the church to foot the bill for what goes on in the bedroom and abortions. Funny abortionists love to say get your religion out of the bedroom (and uterus). More like they want to force those of religion to pay for not only what goes in the bedroom but also for abortions as well.
I have a novel idea: don’t work for religious organizations if you don’t like their stance. Trying to force them to violate their conscience violate what the first amendment is all about.
Just very recently the US Supreme Court ruled against the Obama admin 9-0 since it thinks it can tell a Christian denomination (in this case the Lutheran Church Missouri Symod) who can or cannot fire according to Onama admin’s view of how the federal law applies to churches. When even the most liberal judgesx ruled against Obama on such an issue it shows how far out the President is on first amendment religious rights.
PP experiences slashing of funds from Republican Congress and at the state level. We arent talking about either but about Obama and his cronies. Try to get your facts right before you accuse others of being ignorant.
It’s wrong that people have to pay such exorbitant prices for things like allergy medication, but trying to use that as a justification for having women pay $600 a month for birth control is outrageous. Both situations are wrong.
By whose moral compass? Again, by whose or what authority does Obama enforce this mandate? If you get your BC, I want my allergy medication or cholesterol medication and I want free food and free housing. Where does it end? We become like broken Europe, that’s where. (The PP thing… that was a joke.)
Thanks punisher, but I don’t mind being called ignorant by liberal progressives, it’s just what they do…
Janet, where do you get the idea that it’s free? You don’t think part of the workers’ salary goes toward paying for their employer-based insurance? Do you have a job? Do you know how your insurance coverage even works? lol
And Punisher who are the, as you call them “abortionist right groups”? I’d like to know who the abortionist right is. That sounds very interesting.
“It’s wrong that people have to pay such exorbitant prices for things like allergy medication, but trying to use that as a justification for having women pay $600 a month for birth control is outrageous. Both situations are wrong.”
I would like to see what woman is paying $600 a month for birth control.
Ah my bad $600 a year. Although some people have adverse reactions to birth control pills and are limited to only buying specific ones, which can be very expensive. Good catch, though.
Amanda,
I am not referring to the right as in conservative but rights. I forgot the s. As in abortion rights groups. Or abortion advocate groups.
As to your claim PP wasn’t involved with the Obama mandate to call someone ignorant, you are wrong:
http://www.themoralliberal.com/2012/02/18/pro-abortion-fingerprints-on-hhs-mandate-2/
The author of that article looks like Bill Lumberg from Office Space. Ew.
Punisher,
Thanks for that excellent link.
This one’s worth a read too:
http://www.themoralliberal.com/2012/02/17/its-not-about-contraception-negative-vs-positive-rights/