Let’s let the Bishops sleep by themselves and keep them out of everyone’s bedrooms, from the President and First Lady on down. President Obama: Make sure that all women have the same access to birth control without a co-pay that you, your staff, members of Congress and others will enjoy.
Allowing institutions to deny their employees contraceptive coverage is discrimination, not religious liberty. And what’s more, it’s not good sense. Making women’s health secondary to the bishops’ policy preferences serves no one – except the bishops.
There is another 99 percent group in our country, distinct from but inextricably entwined with the now more familiar #99Percent. I refer to the 99 percent of American women who have ever had sexual intercourse and have used a birth control method at least some of the time.
According to a New York Times article today, the White House has now publicly confirmed that President Obama is considering caving to demands by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and other far right religious groups on the requirement that insurance plans under health reform cover birth control without a co-pay.
God has apparently told members of Congress it is ok to wage war on women. Well, at least some Congressmen have decided this is the case.
Today, more than 20 organizations representing millions of Latinos sent a letter to President Obama urging him to support and maintain the recent Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) decision requiring health plans to cover preventive health care, including cancer screenings, immunizations, and birth control, with no co-pays.
The Bishops are lobbying hard for the Obama Administration to effectively excuse any and all “religious” entities from covering contraceptives without a co-pay. Last week Archbishop Dolan paid a private visit to President Obama and word on the street is that the White House may cave. This would be a grave mistake.
PRCH supports the recent recommendation of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to include contraception in the preventive health benefits for women under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). As physicians, we know that access to contraception is essential to the health and well-being of our patients.
There are those who assert that unintended pregnancy is not a health condition and therefore prevention of unintended pregnancy is not preventive health care. From my personal practice I can say that I cannot disagree more.
I firmly believe the requirements under the Affordable Care Act, and the slate of regulations being created to implement it, infringe on no one’s conscience, demand no one change her or his religious beliefs, discriminate against no man or woman, put no additional economic burden on the poor, interfere with no one’s medical decisions, compromise no one’s health — that is, if you consider the law without refusal clauses.
