Obamacare mandate “the beginning” of conscience problems
by Kelli
All told, 300 plaintiffs are involved in 100 challenges to the anti-conscience mandate. But it is important to remember that all this commotion is the result of one small aspect of one set of regulations concerning preventive care under Obamacare.
And that means we’ve only just begun to see the potential conscience problems that could come from this massive overhaul of our health care system.
From beginning of life to end of life, health care involves innumerable moral considerations….
Handing the moral compass to remote bureaucrats to navigate this territory is a bad idea….
Obamacare has given the federal government the power to determine what insurers must cover, what employers must include in their health plans, and what individual Americans must buy. There is no way out, and that is bad news for conscience.
~ Jennifer Marshall, The Daily Signal, June 16
[HT: Jill; photo via loucouss.be]
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.
I guess the Supremes are waiting until Thursday to announce the Hobby Lobby and buffer zone cases. Hold onto your hats. . .
A lot of the controversy would be removed if the healthcare law limited itself to healthcare.
Birth control pills are taken to be able to have sex and avoid pregnancy. That is a matter of lifestyle choice, like cosmetic surgery or viagra.
Birth control pills do not prevent a disease, cure a disease, or ameliorate a disease.
Abortion is a lifestyle choice – it is obvious from many lines of evidence that abortion is only extremely rarely a matter of life or death – so rare to make all of this irrelevant; abortion does not cure a disease, prevent a disease, or ameliorate a disease.
Limit healthcare policy to healthcare and much of the controversy is gone.
Birth control is healthcare. There are some women whose lives may be directly threatened by pregnancy. There are those who are told that any pregnancy would not succeed, thuse exposing them to unnecessary risks. Then there is the mental health aspect. So yes, birth control is healthcare.
“Limit healthcare policy to healthcare and much of the controversy is gone.” – those who oppose blood transfusions? Christian scientists?
“I guess the Supremes are waiting until Thursday to announce the Hobby Lobby and buffer zone cases. Hold onto your hats. . .”
Just one more day. I honestly can’t wait.
It seems that they may also leave them until Monday.
http://live.scotusblog.com/Event/Live_Blog_of_opinions__June_25_2014?Page=0
Reality says:
Birth control is healthcare. There are some women whose lives may be directly threatened by pregnancy. There are those who are told that any pregnancy would not succeed, thuse exposing them to unnecessary risks. Then there is the mental health aspect. So yes, birth control is healthcare.
–This is the ridiculous type of arguments people need to buy into in order to define birth control, or abortion, as “healthcare.”
“There are some women whose lives may be directly threatened by pregnancy.”
That tired example is irrelevant. If a woman’s life is unquestionably threatened by a non-viable ectopic pregnancy, most every pro-lifer would agree that it is acceptable to kill the child, that would eventually, surely die either way, in the short-term, so that at least the mother will live.
Those occasions are quite rare. But to continue to have publicly-funded abortion acceptable to “progressives” so that their world view is not threatened, this chestnut is nice to throw in the mix.
“There are those who are told that any pregnancy would not succeed, thuse exposing them to unnecessary risks.”
Nobody understands what this means, but it sounds compelling to “liberals” who are grateful to have some thing to throw out there that sounds intelligent.
If a woman would DIE if impregnated, she might want to consider birth control or sterilization.
“Then there is the mental health aspect.”
In the realm of mental health care, nowhere is abortion indicated as a treatment. This is ridiculous. But it sounds compelling to those who don’t want to think too much, and are happy to be thrown some hollow, but impressive-sounding, rhetoric.
Becoming a parent / being a parent puts a damper on the mental health of nearly every parent. Sorry, but welcome to the real world, everyone.
Nowhere is there a study that shows that abortion is an effective preventive treatment for any mental illness or disorder.
It is tough enough to find any preventive evidence for mental disorders. There are some. They can do cognitive-behavioral psychology treatments with cohorts of school kids, and find lower rates of depression and anxiety in the future, relative to a well-matched control group who did not get the preventive treatment. There is some evidence that typical psychological interventions in pregnant women at risk can prevent postpartum depression – the rates of depression in those treated will be lower in the group of those treated versus not treated.
But there is no such evidence using abortion to prevent mental health problems.
This throw-away line just sounds good enough to keep the troops rallied.
Once Obamacare was put into law, the next task was to get birth control covered.
This took some fancy footwork.
An all-star panel was appointed by the Institute of Medicine, a private, independent panel called for by the fed govt to exist and provide high-level analyses in healthcare.
They developed a study indicating, per existing evidence, what “preventive services” should be covered in healthcare.
http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2011/Clinical-Preventive-Services-for-Women-Closing-the-Gaps.aspx
Anyone can get this document.
They declared that birth control should be included.
They did NOT say birth control was “healthcare.” They cleverly word-smith-ed the report to avoid this.
They noted a set of social benefits that are associated with widespread use of birth control. And then said since these things are good things, birth control should be covered by healthcare plans, even though it is NOT healthcare.
They handed this report to Kathleen Sebelius. The next day, Sebelius said these “preventive services” – not “preventive health services” – should be mandated in Obamacare policies.
And so they have been.
Anyone can go read this IOM report. BC is never identified as “healthcare,” or as preventing ANYTHING medical or curing ANYTHING medical; they KNEW this. They have a SEPARATE argument than, say, for Pap smears and other actual health care services.
No one paid attention, and the rhetorical tricks, including saying ” preventive services” versus “preventive medical services” worked.
“This is the ridiculous type of arguments people need to buy into in order to define birth control, or abortion, as “healthcare.” – the correct term is factual.
“That tired example is irrelevant. If a woman’s life is unquestionably threatened by a non-viable ectopic pregnancy, most every pro-lifer would agree that it is acceptable to kill the child, that would eventually, surely die either way, in the short-term, so that at least the mother will live.” – that would make it relevant then. And healthcare.
“Nobody understands what this means, but it sounds compelling to “liberals” who are grateful to have some thing to throw out there that sounds intelligent.” – ‘nobody’, or just you? My former wide almost died having a stillbirth. She was told in no uncertain terms by a raft of medicos not to get pregnant again. Therefore preventing pregnancy became healthcare. Do you understand?
“If a woman would DIE if impregnated, she might want to consider birth control or sterilization.” – see, you do understand. Birth control is healthcare.
“In the realm of mental health care, nowhere is abortion indicated as a treatment.” – I assume you have a citation for that? If a woman becomes suicidal because of an unwanted pregnancy then her ability to choose termination would preclude suicide. Once again, healthcare.
Birth control is a part of healthcare.
“Birth control is a part of healthcare.”
We often hear this rhetoric, but nowhere in the clinical literature is birth control described as “healthcare.” The docs know this. Forgoing that, we “liberals” again have to rely on incomplete, emotionally-laden, rare anecdotes.
The pregnancy example does not fit: there is no condition noted that would indicate that pregnancy would lead to death, and so either pregnancy prevention or abstinence would be needed.
I have become fatigued of hearing “liberal” ideals and policies justified by extreme hypothetical examples. A woman can have a stillbirth, then later have a live birth. If getting pregnant would mean death, then they might have a name for that condition. WebMD could possibly be perused to find one.
A bunch of physicians telling a woman to abort is not unusual; neither is it unusual to find cases of women ignoring the physician and delivering, with mom and baby both happy and healthy.
If physicians were trust-worthy, or if there were some recognized diagnosis, then the physicians involved in any such anecdote might be trust-worthy.
“In the realm of mental health care, nowhere is abortion indicated as a treatment.” – I assume you have a citation for that? If a woman becomes suicidal because of an unwanted pregnancy then her ability to choose termination would preclude suicide. Once again, healthcare.
This is another good example of how “liberals” cook up rhetoric to support ridiculous positions.
Pineapple is nowhere noted as an intervention for suicide.
I do not have a citation for that.
The burden would be on the person advocating pineapple as an intervention for suicide to claim that pineapple must be covered by insurance to treat suicidality.
Same for advocating killing a defenseless human as an intervention to prevent a mature, capable human from killing himself or herself.
Suicidality is suicidality. There are ways to intervene.
A woman is despondent, and ready to jump off a bridge.
No responder ever says, “Gee, if she were pregnant, I could offer to help her get an abortion. What will I do now?”
These comments can only be so long.
Hopefully, people get thinking in a decent way about these various claims about birth control, or abortion, being “healthcare.”
The august panel composed for the IOM report knew better.
Certain things are factual despite not appearing in a book written by you TLD.
“We often hear this rhetoric, but nowhere in the clinical literature is birth control described as “healthcare.” – citation?
“The pregnancy example does not fit: there is no condition noted that would indicate that pregnancy would lead to death, and so either pregnancy prevention or abstinence would be needed.” – so a woman almost dying once and being told it’s even more likely if she repeats the exercise isn’t enough for you? Nice.
“If getting pregnant would mean death, then they might have a name for that condition.” – again, the fact that it occurs doesn’t mean anything to you because it lacks a singular label? Each case is different, the causes are different. It is a fact that it happens, labelled or not.
“If physicians were trust-worthy, or if there were some recognized diagnosis, then the physicians involved in any such anecdote might be trust-worthy.” – ah, I see, now we get to the heart of the matter. You don’t trust doctors.
“This is another good example of how “liberals” cook up rhetoric to support ridiculous positions.” – fact =/= rhetoric.
“I do not have a citation for that.” – you don’t appear to have one for anything.
“These comments can only be so long.” – take as long as you want TLD, take as long as you want :-)
“Hopefully, people get thinking in a decent way about these various claims about birth control, or abortion, being “healthcare.” – absolutely. Yes, thinking, not ideology.
If the owners of Hobby Lobby were Scientologists, would they preclude psychiatric help for their employees?
If they were Jehovah’s Witnesses, does that mean that having surgery is out?
Would it be okay to fire somebody for being single and pregnant, if that is against the owners’ beliefs?
“If getting pregnant would mean death, then they might have a name for that condition. WebMD could possibly be perused to find one.”
Of course it is not the case that getting pregnant necessarily “would mean death.” It ‘can’ mean death, but the rate of maternal mortality is very low.
While it is safer to have an abortion – to a point in gestation – rather than continue a pregnancy, it is only in rare cases where just being pregnant is a significant risk to the woman, per se.