DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz told Megyn Kelly today that all women deserve free contraceptives. (Really? Since when?)
Wasserman Schultz also insisted that religious institutions shouldn’t be imposing their values on their employees… (That’s the job of the government)
You got that?… Religious groups shouldn’t be imposing values on society – That’s government’s role.
Lord help us.
Item: House panel holding hearing on contraception mandate initially calls only male witnesses to testify. Denies minority’s request for female witness; hurriedly adds two to their own.
Item: Netherlands has (1) free universally available abortion on demand and (2) free universally available contraception on demand and (3) 1/4th the abortion rate of the most conservative, abortion restricted states in the USA. Contraception prevents 100 times as many abortions as the sum total of all Operation Rescue activities, conservative judges, ultrasound photos, gory abortion photos, and speeches and blogs and conservative, evangelical talk shows combined.
Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA
She is correct. The right to impose values that are totally unrelated to a worker’s performance of the job that he or she is paid to do is not generally considered a normal part of modern employer/employee relationships.
@Greg: But that’s not what’s happening here at all and it is idiotic to assert otherwise.
@Opened.aol.com/runnswim: So Larry, we can demand that a Muslim business serve its employees pork to help support US pig farmers?
@Greg:
She is wrong. An employee should not force their beliefs on their employer. If you decide to work for a catholic organization, you should be aware of their beliefs going in. Really though, it’s impossible to force beliefs on someone…. unless you’re a telepath. Nothing stops a catholic worker from using birth control. They just have to pay for it themselves.
Having said all that, there is some point where society (gov) can interfere with religious practice. Do we allow Mormons to practice polygamy? Muslims to do “honor killings”? Human sacrifice? How about a diner owner who’s religion believes in segregation?
@Greg: It would appear then that the DNC should hire Republicans for their staff members. Based on your thinking such should not be a problem.
In the 21st Century, it is important for people to be able to avail themselves of contraceptives in order to limit unplanned pregnancies. Anyone who believes otherwise is living in the 1800’s, and relying on an interpretation of the Bible that is even more anachronistic.
By the way, the pork/Muslim is an invalid right-wing argument in that it suggests that providing pork on the menu is the same as forcing people to eat it—which would be an infringement of their religious rights. Offering it on the menu for those Muslims and non-Muslims attendees who wish to imbibe seem to be more a matter of courtesy, rather than religious right.
Furthermore, the ultimate motive behind this issue is not to sell more contraceptives for the benefit of the manufacturers (as the ‘pork industry’ analogy suggests), but because men and women want to have sex without running the risk of pregnancy.
AIDS? Plague? Measles? H1N1? Heart Disease? Cancer? Malaria? Diabetes? Alzheimers? Parkinson’s?
Nope. The number one disease that needs to have free government preventative measures is ….. pregnancy.
@SouthernRoots:
Great point, SouthernRoots.
This news has been breaking slowly and sort of under the radar:
1.Drug resistant gonorrhea becoming more of a concern in US;
2. Drug-resistant HIV set for rapid upsurge
Seems ”free” pills is NOT the answer.
Dems are so stupid.
Looks like we need men to step up.
See Olberman’s issues with even accepting men as part of the problem.
Pregnancy can be chosen by couples.
But sex should be safe from infection from diseases, especially incurable diseases.
I was reading that a generic ”pill” is $9/month or $111/year.
Yet insurers are claiming they cannot deliver ”the pill” to females who want it for less than $360/year.
Obama is finding yet another way to line the pockets of his supporters on OUR dimes.
Hi Dr. John, I don’t understand the reference to “serving free pork.” It’s an odious comparison.
Let’s make it a valid comparison. Let’s say that it was shown the eating pork had major health benefits to the person who ate it and also had the side benefit of dramatically reducing the number of abortions and also would save the health system money, over the long run. Let’s say that people needed medical counseling in how to cook and serve pork and that, on average, the cost of pork was $30 per month or $360 per year and that the people most in need of health insurance to cover this particular problem were young people with low incomes and a high unemployment rate. Then, yes, it would be perfectly appropriate to include this as a covered benefit, with the proviso that pork wasn’t required to be served in Islamic hospitals or administered by Islamic doctors.
This is no different than a lot of things. Vaccines are a mandated benefit of most insurance policies. So are colonoscopies, mammographies, etc. But no individuals are mandated to take advantage of these benefits, if they don’t want to, for whatever reason.
You are also not considering that such mandates for contraceptive coverage are a matter of law in 28 states, including in 8 states with no 0pt outs. This was never a big deal until it got associated with Obama.
Hi Nan,
You want to talk sweetheart deals with Big Pharma…nothing tops the George Bush/GOP Part D Medicare act, in which the GOP rammed through a provision preventing Medicare from negotiating drug prices (the way it’s done in all other countries in the world, which is why prescription drugs are typically much cheaper in Canada, Europe, and Asia than they are here).
Even at $30 a month for oral contraceptives, it’s a bargain, considering the expense which is prevented, including abortions.
Question (for Catholics out there): During the past month, you’ve probably heard priestly homilies denouncing the contraception coverage mandate. I related my own experience, where the priest at my local parish said “This President is waging war on the Catholic Church. It’s just like Hitler.” Curiously, he didn’t admonish the faithful to eschew contraception themselves and I can’t ever recall a homily admonishing the faithful to eschew contraception. 98% of Catholics have used “sinful” contraceptive methods and most Catholic couples use it repeatedly, over years. That’s why the size of the average Catholic family has declined from 5-7 children to close to 2.
I’m just curious, did anyone hear a recent homily admonishing against the use of “sinful” contraceptive methods? It seems as if the Bishops are trying to get the government to do what they can’t do for themselves. It’s a case of Physician, heal Thyself.
What is meant by “declaring war on the Catholic Church?” It’s a fact that the Obama administration Department of Justice is pursuing criminal investigations at the level of the Bishops, not just in terms of culpability for abuse, but also for allegedly hiding assets to get out of agreed settlement contracts. There’s no doubt that Rich Santorum or even Mitt Romney would probably call off the DoJ attack dogs. Church officials are now recanting or walking back from prior apologies, precisely because of the threat of criminal charges.
e.g.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-crime-bishoptre81f1py-20120216,0,2949153.story
http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/the-feed/item/34095-priest-abuse-trial-jurors-will-review-churchs-secret-archives
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120217/A_NEWS/202170316
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/opinion/his-eminence-in-denial.html
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA
Larry, I’m not Catholic, but I know quite a few of them.
The ones who go to their Confessional on a regular basis do and say whatever their priest tells them to do as a way to wipe out their sins, INCLUDING using birth control.
It has always mystified me that Catholics keep repeating the same sins month after month but believe they are clean from them as long as they confess and do what the priest tells them.
But, hey, that’s their system!
Whenever any human government has come in and tried to place its standards over those of the Catholic Church’s there has been a battle.
Just like now.
Think about Becket for example.
Hi Nan, The number and percentage of Catholics who go to confession regularly has dramatically plummeted since the 1960s. This has been repeatedly blamed (and I read this just last week on the “Commonweal” web site) on the “criminalization” of contraception, combined with the availability of much more effective and convenient methods of contraception. Who wants to have to keep confessing the same sin, over and over and over again?
e.g.
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/faithbased/2005/11/the_sin_box.html
But I’d like to hear from anyone who has actually heard a homily admonishing the flock to eschew “sinful” methods of contraception. I’ve personally never heard this, from the pulpit, even as there are occasional rants against government policies.
– LW/HB
To your first sentence, I totally agree. And for the states that mandate coverage, some of them allow for a “religious institution”, such as the Oregon opt out clause, as an exception. So any non religious employee, working for a religious institution, needs to accept that as part of a limitation of their employment perks.
To the second statement – “Nothing stops a catholic worker from using birth control. They just have to pay for it themselves.” – there are two sides to that coin. Nothing stops a religious worker for not utilizing that insurance benefit, nor obtaining insurance from a different carrier on their own who doesn’t cover it. The only stopping point there is that some states mandate all insurers provide that benefit without exceptions… and have done so since circa 1999 and later. Larry is correct. No one made a stink about this until it was associated with O’healthcare.
Perhaps those located in the offending “no exception” states should be gathering their legal briefs for belated challenges. However they will still run into the precedents and AG opinions that while the individuals may be allowed an exception for themselves personally, they cannot extend their religious exceptions to others.
As is usual, the Dems are playing this out of proportion to the base issue, and predictably making this about “republicans want religious oppression”, and the Republicans are framing the debate in the worst way possible, and attempting to extend it beyond the realm of legal realities.
@openid.aol.com/runnswim: I usually don’t weigh in on topics like this preferring to focus on issues I feel are more important like the debt, national security, and issues relating to our Constitution, but here it goes since it does relate to our Constitution. My views will probably put me at odds with the more conservative folks who post here who I normally agree with. Personally I believe abortion is wrong except in cases of rape, incest, or to save a mother’s life, but I don’t believe it’s in my place or the governments, to dictate morals onto others. I have no problem with contraception since I believe it does cut down on abortions. The FEDERAL government should not be getting involved in moral issues like these because our pols in D.C. have few morals themselves. By telling religious groups or companies that they have to provide contraception or abortion amounts to the Feds dictating morals to others just like they would be dictating morals to others if they outlawed those practices. As such, if a particular religious group or company does not want to provide those services, it’s none of the federal government’s business to dictate that they do. Mammographies and colonoscipies do not involve moral issues. As for the Netherlands, if their Constitution allows their federal government to dictate morals like that, then so be it. As for the states who mandate covering those costs, they have the power to do so under the 10th Amendment. Are there any studies showing what the abortion rates are between the 28 states who mandate contraception and those that don’t? It would probably be a more relevant comparison than the Netherlands because it’s comparing Americans to Americans and not Americans to Dutch. I would guess the abortion rates would be somewhat lower. BTW, I was born and raised Catholic but am not a very religious person.
@Greg: @Greg:
To say that she is correct in that religious institutions should not impose their moral values on their employees is ludicrous. What she is basically saying, if religious institutions cannot impose their values in the places they control, is that religious institutions should not be religious institutions, as ridiculous as it sounds. In addition, why isn’t ok for religious institutions to impose their moral values in the places they control, but it is ok for a liberals to impose THEIR moral values with this forceful mandate on religious institutions when they are in control of the goverment.. AGAIN this is just ridiculous! THIS HAS NOTHING to do with whether contraception or aborption is right or wrong.. this has to do with religious liberty.. If today they force you to do this, tomorrow what are they going to force you to do?
@openid.aol.com/runnswim: Larry,
It sounds like you’d love to be in charge and making the rules for all Catholics.
I think you have to become Pope for that.
I don’t pretend to make their rules.
I don’t live by their rules.
But Catholics, Muslims, Protestants, Buddhists, Hindus and all the rest have the right, in the USA, anyway, of practicing their religion beyond the four walls of their church or home.
Obama wants to stop that.
Hi Nan, #16. Good grief, Nan. Obama “wants to stop” people from “practicing their religion?” Good grief.
Where in the Catholic religion does it say that the Board of Directors of St. Elsewhere Hospital can’t employ non-Catholics and allow them to participate in a group insurance plan, wherein the employee can voluntarily elect to receive a benefit — not paid for by St. Elsewhere — which includes coverage for contraception?
It’s an utter abuse of the “conscience clause,” which is why the Catholic Hospitals Association, Catholic Charities umbrella organization, and a majority of lay Catholics support this coverage for contraception.
“Practicing their religion…” sheeesh.
P.S. To Another Vet (#14): Thanks for the thoughtful comments and 10th Amendment reference.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
SEX — SEX — SEX women are addicted to thinking 24-7 and being coersed over having sex. OUR BODIES – OUR SELVES, in its hundreth printing, is the seminal tome on female sexuality insisting that government and theocracy get out of the bedroom so the sex obsessed woman can enjoy her sex with self, partner(s), groups.
Such an opinion and public attitude is so demeaning to the whole of the female population. Michelle; compared to such brainiac sparklers as Whoopie Goldberg, Rachel Maddow (Oxford Ph.D lost in her own choice of words), Barbara Waters (“I love kissing a++ President Assad”), Barbara Boxer, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz; is an attorney – not from Grande Ole Ivie – with a Masters Degree in Tax. One of the key Democrats in this snit is Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D: NY) who is mega-mega rich owning several office and residential buildings in Manhattan. Her rent revenues, after taxes, buy tax-exempt Clipper Chip bearer bonds dictates to the rest of us her slavish attitude on sex.
To Democrats women are sex objects needing all of society the burden for paying for their booze, drugs, birth control pills, and baggies needed when enjoying a stranger.
@THE SOOTHSAYER:
So tell me, why did Darrell Issa bar the single female witness who was to provide testimony before a Congressional committee concerning contraceptives?
That single linked photo is worth a couple thousand words.
The GOP and religious right’s antiquated positions on women’s reproductive rights–namely, that there really shouldn’t be all that many–has turned into a joke that nobody is laughing about. They won’t be laughing about it either, come November.
@openid.aol.com/runnswim:
Hello openid.aol.com/runnswim, I think you are mistaken when you said:
“Where in the Catholic religion does it say that the Board of Directors of St. Elsewhere Hospital can’t employ non-Catholics and allow them to participate in a group insurance plan, wherein the employee can voluntarily elect to receive a benefit — not paid for by St. Elsewhere — which includes coverage for contraception?”
Obama indeed seemingly changed the mandate where the insurance company and not religious institution pays for the contraceptions and aboptifacients, but the issues is that
1) Most of the St. Elswhere hospitals are self-insured, so they internally provide the health insurance coverage for their employees, ergo, the contraceptions and abortifacients are paid by them.
2) Even if they are not self-insured and the insurance company pays for the contraceptives and abortifacients, who pays the insurance company??? At the end it is the religious institutions paying for the contraceptives and abortifacients. The insurance company eventually WILL eventually increase their premiums and pass bill to their customers..
@Greg:
Greg, this has nothing to do with WOMEN REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS.. it has to do with RELIGIOUS FREEDOM.. The religious institution’s employees can have whatever position and practice whatever they like regarding how they do their family planning (nothing is being imposed on them), but don’t make them pay for what they believe to be wrong… We are not talking about healthcare here (pregnacy and babies are not diseases)…
Funny thing here what we are argueing about is what Rep Schultz said that religious institutions should not impose their moral values on their employees, but here the REAL ISSUE is that the liberal Obama administration is who is actually IMPOSING, under penalty of jail or fine, their moral values on religious institutions..
Because of this I think D.W. Schultz’s comment is very hipocritical!
Hi Cesar: Number one, the contraception mandate does not include coverage for “abortifacients” — only contraceptives. The “abortifacient” claim is spurious. Allegedly, the “morning after” pills are postulated to prevent implantation; in reality, they work (at the prescribed doses) by preventing ovulation and/or fertilization. Theoretically, at much higher than prescribed doses, there could be an effect on implantation; however there’s no direct evidence that therapeutic doses are capable of doing this and virtually all authorities state that the “morning after” pills do not work by this mechanism. This is, parenthetically, why the “morning after” pills are only about 50% effective. They only work if actual fertilization has not taken place.
Regarding the self-insured businesses (hospitals, universities, etc.), they are exempt from the mandate; so no problem:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/feb/15/self-insuring-faith-groups-exempt-from-contracepti/
Regarding insurance companies charging higher premiums to pay for contraceptives, this would be prohibited, under regulations announced by Sibelius. In any event, contraception saves money, over the long haul, as well as being — by far — the most effective means to prevent abortions.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA
In an open cull the woman could have petitioned the speaker to make an address to the assembled group. Her plea would require a second open to be challenged. If her petition to address was accepted without further opposition she could address according to the rules set by the speaker. The interest of every citizen should be to avoid verbal chaos and parliamentary anarchy. The United States House of Representatives or its committees are not an open cull and that woman stood unelected representing no recognized constituency. Just because she may say, to our republican legislature, to represent the Planet Venus does not compute that the People of the United States are required to receive petitions on the behalf of Venusians. Obviously, her petition went trans-parliamentary directly into the Media Matters template to be disseminated to every sympathetics news outlet globally. I feel compeled to check The Guardian or PRAVDA to see if that woman’s story has legs. Strategically, a case can be made that that woman yesterday and the flack today was all pre-arranged several days or longer ago. Was it you who told me she is a law student at Georgetown?
@openid.aol.com/runnswim:
Hello Larry.. There has been ONE study, which is what you are citing, that says that the morning after pills (there are many types with different ingredients) does not actually work by preventing the implantion of the fertilized egg. So as a result you have MANY christians (catholics and protestants) believing that using such drugs causes aborption and until this is FULLY demonstrated, given that to Christians this is a human life we are talking about, they will continue to maintain that they are abortifaciens. Also, thanks for showing that the self-insured religious institutions are exempt, but it all comes down to that those that have to buy insurance from someone else, whether the premiums go up or not, they are still the ones paying for the bills of those who are going to provide those drugs.
In any case, I don’t want to debate with you here on the mechanism of the morning after pill, nor will I debate whether this measure will save money in the long run.. I problaby can’t argue about that, and I might even agree with you.. just like I might agree with someone that tells me that killing those who do not contribute to society will save money and that it is very practical… but you are failing to see what the BIG PICTURE IS.. You are seeing things from the practical point of view and that is not the issue. The measure might be very practical, but the issue is that it goes against the conscience of US citizens who have the right to religious liberty.. Gush there are many things that could be very practical and could save LOTS of money on the long run, but they must be avoided because they go against the values and concience of many US citizens and that has to be RESPECTED.
The government should never ever mandate you to do anything against your concience.. never.. and if we let them in things that might seem insignificant, little by little they will want more.. Today they force you to pay for contraception and morning after pill.. tomorrow they might force you to pay for aborption, euthanasia and all the other “values” that liberals uphold..
I REPEAT, and so far no one has been able to refute this.. D.B. Schultz’s assertion that religious institution are imposing their values on their employees is a misconception, because the religious institutions are not FORCING their employees not to use such drugs.. they simply do not want to pay for them.. on the contrary, the Obama administration IS IMPOSING their “values” on the religious institutions because one way or another they are making them pay for those drugs against their concience. (they are making the insurance companies pay for it, but they are also forcing them to pay for that same insurance that will provide it).
Liberal-Dem- dumbnuts are such prigs. Professional sexologists recommend that there are over 25 ways a woman can reach great sexual pleasure orgasim without riskimg pregnancy. Those jerks all have thin rails on a one-track mind because that woman doesn’t need them.