What happened to the separation of church and state?!
Why do religious people get to choose what women should do with their bodies??
Conservatives are so intent on keeping government out of their lives and venerate the Constitution so much but they insist on making the rules according to their doctrine even as it totally contradicts those tenets.
I will never understand this dissonance and hypocrisy. For this group of autocrats, it's always tales we win; heads you lose.
26
The Republican attack on women’s reproductive rights is nothing short of a takeover of government by fanatical religious extremists who desire to reduce American women to a livestock version of compulsive reproduction.
But their influence in government goes well beyond their efforts to make America safe for patrimony again. In order to maintain the internal logic of their Bronze Age worldview, they must also be in opposition to the disciplines of anthropology, paleontology, and evolutionary biology – and to science itself.
The feigned religiosity of this movement is a reflection of the reptilian brain of the southern states they hold in thrall. Their vision of ethical behavior has nothing to do with honesty or moral accountability. They distinguish themselves by the degree to which they embrace racial hatred, anti-intellectualism, and the fetishization of guns.
This is today’s Republican Party.
Well, boys and girls, I hope you enjoyed the chemistry class; be ready for alchemy when you come back from lunch. Betsy DeVos
24
So, let's say I am an employer who believes that overpopulation is a real problem. I have, or I claim to have, a moral objection to financing the production of more human beings. As such, do I then have the option of covering my employees for birth control, sterilization, and abortion but NOT covering pregnancy and childbirth or infant care? I also refuse to cover any of my employee's children. I wonder if that is OK with SCOTUS? After all, I have a moral objection to aiding and abetting overpopulation so, according to their pretzel-like logic, I shouldn't have to cover any of those things even given the fact that health insurance is part of my employees' duly earned compensation and thus it is their money and not mine.
And, given that covering birth control, abortion, and sterilization is no doubt far cheaper than covering pregnancy, childbirth, and children just how long do you think it will take for businesses to suddenly develop "moral objections" like this one to anything that will cut their costs?
Those who support these ridiculous "religious freedom" ideas operate on the flawed assumption that their views will always prevail -- no company will ever decide to pay for abortion but not childbirth and their tax dollars will never go to a Muslim charter school or to pay for playground materials for a mosque. It's all about "religious freedom" as long as the religion in question is Christianity. And that's hardly religious "freedom." Sounds more like oppression to me.
42
I am pro-contraceptive, don't think much of Donald Trump and thought Hobby Lobby was wrongly decided. Yet, I couldn't disagree more with this partisan and anti 1st amendment column.
Over and over again, since the day he won the election (and I agree, he's unsuitable for the office) the level of hysteria surrounding Trump is astonishing. It is disconcerting hat a professional of Ms. Greenhouse's experience (although at this point she is really more like a lobbyist for the left) could state seriously: "[I]t's not much of a stretch to see in the rules issued by the Trump administration last week the fraying of civil society as the United States has known it." I may not like a lot of Trump's policies, but the fraying of civil society has come from attempts to federalize everything, to rioters protesting Trump or preventing people from speaking, Dem. congressmen taking over the floor of congress, shooting congress or police and the legitimatizing of weaponized protesters attacking marchers (whether we like the marchers or not). Somehow I doubt preventing one ACA mandate is going to fray civil society as it has only existed a few years. Ironically, she quotes Scalia for support.
As bad, she attacks including people with moral views to those with religious causes in the rules. Including those with moral but non-religious beliefs has always been promoted by the left. I suppose it is only if they agree with the opinion. I doubt very much she'd like to apply it many other issues.
8
Regulations of fertility put forward through health insurance coverage mandates must apply equally to men and women.
I have both moral and religious objections to my health insurance premiums paying for erectile dysfunction treatment and medication. It is natural for older males to experience loss of sexual function. E.d. is not a medical malfuction of the male body that impacts overall health.
E.d. does, however, act as a natural birth control, preventing the older male, with diminished quality of sperm, from creating offspring that are more likely to be unhealthy.
21
This is sexist, ant-evidence and immoral. In perfect line with our government and religion.
11
What hyperbole. If you don't want to have children, don't have intercourse (free). Or, if that doesn't suit, use condoms. How much are they? $1 each? So, if you are having sex twice a week, that's about $100/year. Plus, they are available for free in many public health programs.
Mandating no deductible coverage of any kind of birth control was a policy decision, guided by certain priorities, and similarly with ending the mandate. Contraception coverage is not an obvious part of health insurance, the primary function of which is to pay for treatment and prevention of illness.
Also, I suspect that the vast majority of private employers will continue to provide this coverage, as will most government programs, so it is only going to effect a small fragment of the population.
And finally, why not accept that resistance to this mandate is actually fueled by what those behind it are saying, that they are morally opposed to contraception, and they don't want their organizations to be funding it.
9
They seem to have no trouble funding coverage for Viagra. And I, as a woman, will never have a need for it. However, my insurance covers it.
23
Your last paragraph says it all. It is about empowering women, which terrifies these individuals, including and especially the trump. Look at the position of women in the doctrine of most of these religious groups that oppose contraception. Women are reduced to subservient "helpers" completely devoid of any autonomy. They exacerbate this by engaging in double-speak, claiming that the "handmaiden"role is actually one of honor. We should take our example from the women who finally came forward to confront men like Cosby and Weinstein and let those who would keep us down that enough is enough. Support Planned Parenthood, get out the vote for those who would let us live our lives the way we choose. Resist.
19
The photo is wonderful and I only wish as a lay person I could have stood in soladarity with these fine nuns. The Irish nuns at my Catholic girls college in Florida were some of the nicest human beings I have ever encountered. They made learning fun and I excelled in their presence because of their kindness and caring. I am indebted to them forever.
People are criticizing the nuns and the Catholic Church but I must defend both. The Little Sisters of the Poor are just one order that devotes their entire life to helping others. Where would these poor people be without them? You also find them in hospitals and to a lesser degree today schools. They get paid a pittance and work very hard tending to people who are in need.
I support these nuns in their determination not to include birth control in their healthcare plans and am praying they will win this battle. With the help of excellent lawyers and the Almighty, they will succeed and be warriors.
4
The notice this morning that insurance companies may offer barebones health insurance plans coupled with birth control no longer being a benefit leads inexorably more unwanted pregnancies, a lack of any or minimal prenatal care and then to the delivery often of a premature infant requiring well over one hundred thousand dollars of NICU care. That care is either covered by MediCal (in California) or another states equivalent coverage for the uninsured. Thousands for the premie but nothing for birth control or prenatal care. How insensitive or truly evil is this president?
17
Linda, employee provided birth control is not a right - it never has been.
5
It is not church over state.
It is misogynist values over female choice. Don't dis religion unnecessarily, as there are so many sources of reactionary hatred of women's freedom. Stay on point.
6
I just can't believe that we're actually fighting about birth control, & that this is actually impacting police.
The USA is an extremely backward, ignorant, repressive, suffocating society of ignorant people if this is how they allow themselves to be governed by fanatics who don't represent even a sliver of society.
Birth control? Seriously??
Brought to you by the very same sort of backward ancient control-freak patriarchal scripturlists who persecuted Galileo & would stone a woman for kissing in public.
America the Exceptional, still run by 17th c. Puritans, 15th c. Catholics & 13th c. biblicalists.
But this is the fundamentalist Christian nanny-state Americans seem to want.
If they didn't want this, they'd do something about it-- the people do have the power in the USA, & they gave it away to a bunch of backward, cultist zealots.
25
What ought to happen is for a female owned company to file a lawsuit to say she has a “moral objection” to using Viagra and refuse to have her company’s insurance pay for it. That should get the attention of the old white guys in Congress. (Oh dear, am I being sexist, ageist and racist? I guess I am.)
21
Men and ignorant women making decisions for women with a religious flag. Doesn't that just beat how low they can go. I'm afraid, along with rubbish health care insurance policies, we are doomed. We need to oust these ignoramuses so get out and vote people. That is our only recourse for putting religion above state.
10
I’m not judging but, if you’re having sex other than for procreation that to me, is recreation. Why should your employer be expected to pay for your fun time?
6
The same reason we don't turn people away from the hospital when they break their legs skiing. Or scrape out some fat old man's aorta when all he eats is friend chicken. We let them use insurance to pay for that.
Also, how sad for you that you reduce and dismiss the very normal, healthy and reasonable need to form romantic partnerships with a life partner as "fun time."
Also maybe in your spare time you can google how insurance works and that should completely resolve the issue for you.
27
Why should women who have dedicated their ovaries to God dictate the fate of their peers' reproductive systems?
18
you dont know if Pence and his wife only had sex twice and Sessions three times their entire life. Of course it would be too immoral for them to have sex after the age of fertility.
12
"It's hard to understand how these employers justify giving their employees a paycheck that might be used to buy birth control, but I guess that's a private matter." It may be a private matter for the time being, but as a point of law, I don't see any difference in the employer having the power to dictate the terms between an employee and her insurance company versus the power to dictate the terms between an employee and her pharmacy. If the public policy is determined by the religious scruples invoked by the employer, then surely, if consistency under the law is valued, the employer should have the right to fire an employee who purchases a birth control device from any venue using the employer's money. It mortifies the conscience of Hobby Lobby's owners for them to know that any of their money in the form of a salary benefit supports an insurance plan that covers birth control. The mortification must be just as severe if they know that the salary itself is used to buy that birth control over the counter. Clearly, in the name of the kind of principle that the Supreme Court recognizes, such owners should have the right to stamp each paycheck "Not to be used for the purchase of birth control devices," and to have the right to terminate those employees who violate the agreement. If it seems preposterous that it could ever come to this, remember that many other things that seemed preposterous a few years ago have come about. Religious fanatics never rest on their successes.
13
Thank you, Ms. Greenhouse, for your wonderful analyses of Supreme Court and Presidential actions.
12
What better could you expect from an administration characterized by pictures of sour faced men in which there is the rare woman displayed with all the importance of a potted plant.
The entire philosophy of this administration is contrafactual. it's not surprising that in pursuit of their political goals they allow no competent voice from the social sciences, public health or medicine.
11
I have no doubt in my mind that the next step in this farce will be denial of abortion rights by the Supreme Court within 5 years and then there will be an attack on contraception itself..
9
Do these same policies refuse to cover vasectomies? Tubal Ligation? Both are forms of birth control.
9
I was educated in Catholic schools, often by nuns, through college. By the end of college I fled the Catholic church. I know many fine people who are Catholics, and even a few fine people who are nuns. However, most of the "clergy" I found to be people of little imaginative scope and essentially mean-spirited. The first amendment says that the Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion. These new orders violate that provision. As a citizen of the United States, I expect to have freedom from religion. And I expect the clergy and religious institutions to follow the law.
19
Someone explain to me why "nuns" have more say than "Nones"?
Then explain to me, why a microscopic fraction of of females who have made the "CHOICE" to be sexless, celibate, childless and single - NONE of which has/had ever been a "CHOICE" that I would have/did make, have the right to dictate MY life, MY choices, MY anatomy or what I am doing or not doing with MY uterus!
They made the CHOICE they wanted - and it even came to them tax-exempt, on their body and mind - AND the very buildings they live in!
I have no tax-exemption, not on my body, my mind nor my building.
Why do they get it and I don't?
Why are they glorified on being sexless?
Why are they given a pat on the back for sexlessness?
Why is it that the very fact of their CHILDLESSNESS being given a status superior to a woman who has a child?
And, why is that 'superiority' being used to force other women to be pregnant?
Nuns?
Really?
Nuns are the moving force on forcing other women to be force-bred?
That's just plain evil.
20
There will be more unplanned and unwanted children. Anyone fussing about the cost of family planning and birth control, should consider they will be paying for many of these kids who were unintentionally born, possibly for the rest of their life.
15
Can someone tell me how this decision prevents anyone from obtaining birth control? It's a sad state of affairs when government mandates that employers pay for something they may find morally repugnant.
What's next - perhaps a government edict that pharmaceutical companies produce the drugs necessary for an execution?
2
Young people are not blind to the counterproductive hypocrisy of these policies - anti-abortion, anti-sex education, anti-birth control. With church attendance at an all-time low and falling, American Christian leaders choose to double down on the most obvious foolishness in their dogma. They'll only succeed in driving more young people toward agnosticism and atheism.
13
These stories are linked: Trump and contraceptives, and Weinstein and sexual abuse of women.
We have men in positions of power in this country who feel that they--and only they-- have the right to legislate what women do and don't do with their bodies.
It's a form of coercion and control. And it's an abuse of the poor. Because, of course, Tiffany and Ivanka will continue to use whatever kind of birth control method they like. But others will not.
Persons who would like to take away women's control of their bodies have an agenda that goes beyond simply sexual coercion: they do not want women in the workplace or in positions of power. Taking women's right to choose whether or not to have children away from them is part of this agenda.
And, after all, it is not as though these white men (odd, how it is always white men) have any interest in taking care of children when they are born: they're not interested in feeding and clothing them, or providing adequate education or health care.
This is simply about abusing women. And that picture of the nuns: let's not forget the extraordinary abuse of young pregnant women at the hands of nuns, here and in Ireland. Women were starved, forced into heavy labor, and their children were often taken from them and even killed. This is about judgement and puritanical abuse and censure.
10
Why are these nuns protesting women obtaining birth control?? If they do not want abortions then they should be overjoyed that free/affordable birth control prevents pregnancies. Colorado has offered free birth control and their rate of unwanted pregnancies and abortions decreased by 40-42% respectively.
http://www.snopes.com/colorado-birth-control-facts/
Meanwhile, where are the protests about Viagra or vasectomies, still being covered? Where are the protests about cutting health care for poor children once they are brought into this world? Why do we not see protests about recent changes to EPA regulations that allow our environment to pass on more toxins to our children?
The hypocrisy is astounding.
13
The government should be encouraging birth control for the health of society and the future of the planet, and confronting religion for its absurd strictures against it. The notion that people should not be having sex unless they want to create children is infantile, out of touch with reality, and highly immoral and irresponsible.
12
According to the Guttmacher Institute, "“Data shows that 98 percent of sexually experienced women of child-bearing age and who identify themselves as Catholic have used a method of contraception other than natural family planning at some point in their lives.” So, rather than use traditional Catholic spiritual strategies for improving Catholic women's compliance with their church's ban on birth control (prayer, fasting, education, etc.), the Catholic Church instead turns to the government as their enforcer of last resort. Oh ye of little faith! The Church may profess BELIEF in the grace of God but what it really has FAITH in is Donald Trump's pathetically transparent, maniacal vendetta against Barack Obama's legacy. The Church is apparently quite happy to piggyback on this insanity. Who knew that Jesus needed federal goons to effect salvation? This is almost as hypocritical as the Church's lawyers defending a Catholic hospital (St. Thomas More Hospital in Cañon City, Colorado) against malpractice in the death of two foetuses by arguing that a foetus is not a person! Yes, even bible-belt Mississippi voted down a law declaring foetal personhood, but that is the whole foundation for the Church's attempts to control women's bodies. This whole "complicity" argument, as Ms. Greenhouse observes, can be quickly taken to its absurd extreme. I am waiting for priests to begin to withhold communion from prominent Catholic politicians with small families. They're obviously using !
8
I am curious. Will women with polycystic ovary syndrome or dysmenorrhea be denied access to a prescription to address their health issues because a side effect of the "protocol" is birth control? Is there an additional process or form their physician will need to complete for a woman to qualify for treatment?
How is asking a woman or her physician to fill out additional paperwork not an invasion of their privacy or free speech when the Little Sisters fought successfully against filling out the form the Obama Administration gave them as a work around? I am really curious as how I a tax payer have fewer rights than a religious cult that pays nothing.
13
How about this - in lieu of birth control coverage, every female insured gets a check for $1500 on January 1. Every year. Problem solved. No one is paying for something they find morally wrong.
5
Linda Greenhouse is back again -- this time peddling a lurid conspiracy theory about how the proposed rule exempting religious and moral objectors from the ACAs' contraceptive mandate is "really" about keeping uppity women down.
It's nothing of the sort. Greenhouse says that all are expected to abide by rules that apply to all. But she glosses over our nation's longstanding tradition of exempting "conscientious objectors" -- including those who object on "moral" rather than religious grounds -- from having to, say, fight in our wars or to perform sterilizations if those things are repugnant to their consciences.
Why is this an issue at all? If a person with sincerely held objections to contraception (surely a tiny fraction of the population) starts a business and makes known to all prospective employees that the business will not finance contraception, and job applicants take jobs with the business on those terms, then why should Greenhouse (or Obama for that matter) punish that business owner for following the dictates of his or her conscience?
Let's be clear, it is Greenhouse who wants to deprive others of their rights, by using government to force them to act against their beliefs, not the other way around.
4
I am a pretty liberal guy and I want equal access to healthcare for all Americans but I am hard pressed to explain why employers should be forced to pay for contraception.
3
That's because you're a guy.
15
If my religion doesn't believe in a minimum wage, can I start a business and pay my employees $1/hour? After all, the Supreme Court and the Trump administration seem to think religious beliefs override the law.
10
A commenter below said this already, but it bears reiterating. My health insurance is part of my compensation package. It no more of my employer's business what I do with my health care than it is what I do with my salary. It is not them paying for my health care, it is them paying me for my services.
Of course, since I'm a man and I work for a progressive institution, my vasectomy was covered without question, but it's still none of their business.
13
The proud land of the constitution is distorting democracy. We the people are having to cope with a regressive, radical govt in order to assert our basic rights that any modern nation should guarantee. And most other democracies do guarantee.
We have separation of church and state, but so what? European countries do not let religion influence their politics as much, yet they were the ones who once had official state religions in past history, that strongly America rejected.
European countries had not too long ago explicit class systems. America rejected monarchs and dukes and inherited power/wealth. Today the US has more wealth concentration at the top, driving our politics, and more inequality and class stratification than many countries that were past monarchies. See international OECD rankings and Gini scores.
America has vocal political forces that reject science about climate change. Fringe? No, even a NYT columnist supports them. They are now in our govt and making policy. Contrast with modern Europe that accepts science and takes forward steps toward green energy.
No accident that the US lags the modern world in still millions without access to health care in the 21st century.
Recently in some EU countries their rw got more votes than before, but still got only a small number or were rejected. But right wing regressive radicals now dominate America’s 3 branches of govt. Do we have the means to free ourselves and reach modern standards of other countries?
5
Trump obviously does not care a wit about contraception, unless it prevented the creation of his own unwanted child.
It's easy to throw this bone to the religious far right and Roman Catholics, which form a huge part of Trump's base. Again, what does Trump care whether it's actually bad policy or not.
Trump and the GOP need this base of support to gain and keep power, so they can pursue their true passion: Making the wealthy wealthier.
The irony, of course, is that less access to contraception will lead to more abortions, or more kids in foster care - a further drain on government resources that conservatives love to document as wasteful spending.
And, as to making the wealthy wealthier - such policies only increase the misery index for people with lower incomes. Something the "true believers" should find problematic.
So, while the GOP establishment (yes, including Trump) and the religious right both get what they want, they, and all of us, actually pay a huge price.
Happy times!
6
I don't understand why anti-abortionists are celebrating these new rules given that reduced birth control coverage lead to MORE abortions? If their primary goal is to end abortion, shouldn't they be promoting the most effective means of preventing unwanted pregnancies among people having sex? It seems entirely hypocritical to me to celebrate something that will inevitably lead to more abortions, leading me to question how deeply all these folks really believe their anti-abortion rhetoric. Or is this about something else entirely?
13
I do not think that anyone has a "right" to employer provided anything, other than a wage for work. An employer can pay a tax penalty in lieu of providing health care.
5
Mr. Brewster, this is about employers who are providing health insurance. Its not about employers who choose not to cover health insurance and compete for workers without offering that benefit. Once they are providing the insurance, employers should cover women's medical needs as much as men's. Women pay the same premiums as their male coworkers, whose prostate treatment and viagra is covered, therefore the women's health needs should be covered as well.
17
Well, my only partly cynical response is that somehow we decided that (backed into?) employers would offer insurance, beginning with surgical and hospitalization insurance and then adding major medical, as an incentive to attract workers, and then later did away with community rating in favor eventually of employer self-funded coverage, to lower costs to corporations. (I pause to allow the. din from employers insisting that this incentivizes employer-provided wellness incentives to die down.) The effect of this is to make individual insurance -and medications- unaffordable to a large segment of the non-poor and near-poor population.
And the real problem is that instead of giving ownership of their insurance benefits to the employee, we now have corporations or owners dictating their own (disputable) values to employees who themselves may have well thought out and moral objections to their employer's dictates concerning their private rights.
As a 73 year old primary care specialist I have the regret that I likely may not be around in a few years to see the tide reverse.
3
This Executive Order is another example of Trump’s incompetence which I predict will not survive judicial scrutiny even on procedural grounds. It also amounts to pandering to a base composed of Christian fundamentalists whose votes he wishes to ensure on the backs of poor women trying to control their own destinies. Just more evidence of failure to execute faithfully the laws of the US.
16
Would various medically necessary hormone regulating pills that might have a birth control side effect be allowed by these groups? It might be possible to work around this. Not the best solution but it's time to solve the problem.
3
Time for the masters of creation to remember that they are obligated to support unwanted children too. No sex if they can't afford to pay child-support, no sex if they don't contribute to the costs of contraceptives.
Human sexuality is a luxury only the wealthy and powerful like Trump and Weinstein are entitled to. For them it is a tool to humiliate women, nothing else.
The Catholic Church demands married couple live celibate if they can't afford more children or if the woman for health reasons should not get pregnant.
MHO the celibate man and women in the church have no understanding about human sexuality at all, part of the reason why they have such problems with child-molesters. Religious fanatics do have issues they should take care of first before meddling in other peoples lives.
14
Really ironic that an organization known for child abuse and pedophlia is lecturing sectarian companies on "religious" dogma. thesis of course the church , not the corrupt congress so recently highlighting hypocrisy by one its its right to lifers insisting his adulating mistress have an abortion to hide there affair. Yet another shining example of GOP lies and arrogance. But we have Trump seeing a low. NO SURPRISE THERE.
11
On moral grounds, I now object to the Federal income tax because I am paying for the destruction of our environment, health care, and national reputation. I think I have a much more compelling case than anyone opting out of funding birth control.
30
The supposed "free speech" argument for these conscience-wavers misses an important point when they try to force their views onto co-workers.
The owner of a company isn't producing the money that goes to insurance. The owner isn't even producing anything, usually, just getting paid (more than others) to run a company or organization where a much larger number of people work to produce the goods or services that generates income (or attracts donations, for charities).
Why can the Supreme Court pretend that one employee's moral thinking is bigger than that of other employees, especially when it extends to taking away benefits that the other employees are legally entitled to?
We need to do away with the "Do what the man in the CEO office says because he's the head of the household" mentality in corporations - and in the mind of the right wing of the Supreme Court, unfortunately. As for religious organizations, your faith can't be extended to others whose effort you require.
14
If the exercise of religion is not strictly voluntary, it isn't free.
2
Unbelievable. A right to contraception does not mean a right to have someone else pay for it. It's that simple.
5
@Jon W.: No, it's not that simple. If people have families, do we not all pay for maternal care and delivery, and then the costs of raising said children? Why shouldn't birth control be covered? If that is part of my compensation at work, what business is it of yours? I pay for it.
5
Following your "logic," one could argue that no drugs need be covered by insurance, much less any class of drugs that does not treat an actual "disease" — such as Viagra and similar erectile dysfunction drugs that most plans cover, and cost FAR more than contraceptives (which are often used therapeutically — NOT recreationally).
6
Paying for insurance premiums, as I do, should give me the right to demand equal coverage for my medical needs as my male coworkers. I'm not asking for anything for free. If we work for the same employer, I'm paying for your viagra, your prostate treatment. You should pay for my medication to help me avoid a risky or unwanted pregnancy and avoid having to get an abortion, not to mention reduce my horrendously painful menstrual cramps and clear up my acne, two important benefits of the birth control pills I took for awhile.
7
How very ironic that men and women who have chosen to opt out of normal human relationships and thereby render themselves sterile, get such a say in what everybody else does with their romantic and family life.
16
Since employer provided health insurance is a part of employee compensation, and an employer now has the right to determine what is and is not compensated in the coverage, perhaps they should also have the right to demand that the employee not spend any part of their salary on things the employer objects to. The arrogance of religious bigots is breath taking.
18
But, note: None of these folk are demanding gun control - just no birth control.
2
The accommodation was always a joke. The employer notified the insurer or the government that they weren't paying for contraceptives and Plan B and the insurer was to: notify employees that they could have a free additional policy to cover contraceptives and elective sterilizations, issue the policies upon request, provide the services at no cost to the employees. And they were not going to pass on the cost of the administration, drugs, devices and physician services onto the employer as an overhead cost. The insurer was going to absorb the costs.
Anyone who believes that probably already owns the Brooklyn Bridge.
3
Contraception as a benefit actually pays for itself, so yes, the insurance companies are in a position to afford to support this. Figure out. for yourself, if you have had anything like the requisite experience, what the cost of contraception at $30 a month to maybe $50 per month over let's say the first three years is, compared to the cost of prenatal care, hospitalization and childbirth, and medical benefits for the first 3 years of life is.
2
Clearly the rule represents an intrusion of faith into the doings of the state, or secular politics. One might say that granting Conscientious Objector status to Quakers is also an intrusion of faith into the doings of the state. And then again one could maintain that allowing for exceptions on the grounds of conscience should allow Quakers and Witnesses to no longer pay that portion of the income tax used to conduct wars.
4
CO status was granted -or refused - on an individual case. The individual had to argue their position as one person alone to be deferred by the United States government.
Their employer had no status in that.
CO status was not exclusively "religious". "Ethics" and "firmness of belief" were factored in on the decisions. The Quakers were the most widely known, but they were not the only ones.
This is different because it is "religion" being legally favored.
The Quaker was not forcing his religion down our throat. It was never argued that the US must become Quaker.
This situation is a blanket command by religionists to force their beliefs on the larger group.
They are indifferent on the beliefs of others, including persons of no belief.
Worse, they are using a person's employment as the means to get their way.
"Congress shall pass no law ...." concerning religion.
That's the law.
Yet here we have religions demanding laws to be passed.
There was no prohibition on a Quaker individual applying for CO status.
There is a restriction on Congress passing laws laws for or against religion.
They never should have been granted tax-exemption or given hard cash to fix their playgrounds.
But this is worse. They are demanding the right to determine a woman's reproduction.
Frankly, if they want that right they should have a child themselves - rather than forcing someone else to do their bidding.
1
How far do they want to go. Can employers who are Jehova's Witnesses prevent their employees health insurance from providing blood transfusions? This illustrates that this is a conflict of rights. Of course employers can decide not to provide medical insurance altogether, but will have to pay a penalty.
I don't think that employers who provide strictly commercial jobs should be allowed to impose their religious practices on their employees or discriminate against people for employment on the basis of religion.
9
And what of employers who are Christian Scientists?
1
The corporation (and the LLC and the limited partnership) are creations of the secular law. They are legal structures that business owners use to make the business a separate entity, legally distinct from any human shareholder, to reduce taxes and to shield themselves from personal liability for the debts of the enterprise.
Why should a business be entitled to behave as a separate secular entity when it benefits them, and at the same time behave as indistinguishable from its human shareholders in order to control the lives of its employees?
In my opinion, the First Amendment would not be impinged by limiting religious exemptions to providing contraception coverage to (a) sole proprietorships, and (b) the limited subset of situations where religious nonprofits are permitted under existing law to impose a religious qualification on certain positions.
9
"The problem they have is with what birth control signifies: empowering women — in school, on the job, in the home — to determine their life course."
I'm impressed with Ms. Greenhouse's skill in mind reading. Strange (or maybe not) that a law professor like Ms. Greenhouse would make a statement that no judge would ever sustain as legitimate testimony under oath. From my perspective as a conservative the real objection is that if a society believes all women should have free access to birth control, let that society pay for it. The real moral objection here is asking one person, or a group of people constituting a business, to take on the responsibility of society as a whole. An employer should be obligated to provide a safe workplace free from harassment. Wages and hours should be decided by the parties (including labor union collective bargaining). What's important is not a minimum wage, but a minimum income. If an individual employee lacks bargaining power with an employer, let the people through their elected representatives appropriate funds to guarantee whatever minimum income is thought necessary.
Truth be told, Congress lacks the sand to put the people's money where its mouth is - and so the laws unduly limit what Ms. Greenhouse considers a social responsibility (to pay for birth control) to some citizens, allowing others to go scot free all the while crowing about their moral superiority.
2
Yes, The whole package of public health benefits should be funded by value added taxation, so that everyone pays the same percentage of their spending for it, and taxes on specific products, like guns, that add to its costs.
2
They earn it through working at their job. I thought that that was the way conservatives wanted health care to work.
1
Perhaps it's time for American women to stage a Lysistrata protest.
So long as all the men strive to legislate women's sex lives, no nookie for them.
16
I can't even look at - let alone read about - this group of radicals.
These people are a bigger threat to this country than any Islamic group.
Welcome to the Dark Ages.
19
They dance with Hecate.
1
Trump has armed the Faith Militant.
7
Another insipid tome form the SCOTUS “expert”.
Yeah, it’s a real travesty to have people pay that $8 a month for their contraception. How will they ever survive?
5
Ms. Greenhouse has, as always, eoquently laid out the case for abuse of the Supreme Court at the hands of venal actors. And this time she alludes to a couple of realities. She mentions that the conservatives played the Court for chumps in Hobby Lobby - just as the Republicans played Kennedy for a chump in Citizen's United. Remember his justification for unfettered money in politics? Transparency would keep it in check....except that McConnell, who once touted transparency as the alternative to McCain-Feingold, has blocked every attempt to bring dark money into the light.
And McConnell played SCOTUS for chumps when he seated the obnoxious and arrogant Gorsuch*. The other justices should have refused to be on the bench with him. He should have been shunned. But then again, his behavior may end up having that effect anyway.
And finally, let's discuss religious freedom in today's context and the RFRA - a law passed to grant religious freedom to Native Americans. Religious freedom, like so much else, has been perverted by the political religious right to mean "freedom to impose our narrow perverted interpretation of the Old Testament on you in the name of Jesus, who would hate us and we would hate if he returned and saw what is going on".
11
We need MORE birth control - not less!
18
America is a secular society where personal religious beliefs are tolerated in the privacy of one's home or in the obscene monuments to wealth these beliefs engender. We are not a theocracy. Nuns hold a quaint position in history. and an unwanted control of other women's vaginas.
14
I had trouble even finishing this article. There are a lot of words to describe the efforts to turn the U.S. into a dictatorship.
15
I just don't get this intrusion into my bedroom. When they cut off funding for Viagra, maybe we would be on equal footing!
10
One question- is Viagra covered?
7
Im sorry but its not church over state.
No where in the bible does it mention contraception which was practiced by jews at the time of Christ.
No this is merely some people trying to tell other people what their lives should be like.
16
Yes it is and always has been about men keeping their boot heels on the necks of women. By all means ensure that women stay bare foot and pregnant.
9
These "regulations" seem to be clearly unconstitutional, just as the hobby lobby decision was clearly wrong. We now have a semi theocracy presided over by a bunch of crooks and enabled by a bunch of catholics on the supreme court. The country is in trouble.
13
Sinclair Lewis - When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.
22
Voltaire - Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
2
The nonprofits took the Obama administration to court and lost almost everywhere.
That says it all Obama over reached and lost. The only good thing to do is wipe out all of Obama's policies
2
they are so afraid of us...proves women have power and must persist and resist!
6
The writer is correct. This is completely about controlling the choices women might have in life about controlling their fertility and thereby ordering their lives. No Agency for women, sorry. Well, no, not sorry.
Religion is the greatest plague that the human race must suffer. Not simply Catholicism or Christian Fundamentalism but all of them. Without exception.
11
The "Children of Darkness" are alive and well in the Republican Party.
4
Brought to you by the Keep 'em Barefoot and Pregnant wing of the so-called Republican Party. Pretty soon places like Saudi Arabia will be looking progressive.
11
Seems to me the Catholic Church puts a lot more energy into restricting access to birth control than they do protecting the children entrusted to their care from the pedophile priests they employ.
At the very time they proclaim the "sin" of using birth control they do everything in their power to project their priests and bishops from the consequences of their relentless sexual assault of children.
19
Nothing "Christian" about this. All a legacy of old white men making up religious myths to control women.
Jesus is weeping at this ungodly display of cruelty against the most vulnerable in our society.
This country needs a lot less religion -- and a lot more spiritually.
12
To the Catholic Church: Sell the billions of dollars in artworks, palaces and jewels and give the proceeds to the impoverished women and children who live in poverty because they lack access to birth control.
11
Let me get this straight: the party that wants goverment out of American lives also, on 'freedom of religiion groudns' wants government inside America's wombs? My head is spinning.
14
That photograph, (with caption) ...priceless!
3
Anytime the holy sacrament of abortion or birth control gets threatened or limited, the crazed feminist leftists throw a hissy fit. I suggest Ms. Greenhouse read the first amendment, especially the clause out religion. Google the words "freedom of religion." See what Wikipededia has to say about that. I know she is not an attorney, but the words are rather plain and simple to understand. I am also "pro choice" Women who work for employers that do not want to subsidize their sexual behavior should "choose" to purchase their own birth control. What a novel idea.
3
Indeed, with this tragic presidency our nation may well be on its way to hades.
4
Yet we abhor sharia law in Muslim countries. Cannot believe we are fighting over access to affordable birth control in the 21st centure.
8
Fascism is no longer creeping. It has strutted into the room and seated it's grandiose butt at the head of the table, removing and burning all other chairs. Learn to use a gun, ride a horse, and raise a garden--you're going to need it.
6
Why not just tattoo a scarlet letter on the face of any couples who ever used birth control and do "God's" work for him, which appears to be the self-anointed conceit, anyway?
6
Trump signs executive orders and issues mandates that hurt millions of people, both men AND women when it comes to birth control. The Republicans fiddle while California burns, and the rest of the country becomes 3rd world.
I shudder to think what a job millennials have in front of them to undo the obscene damage done to the country by the Tea Party, Mitch McConnell , and most of all, Donald Trump, our very own carnival barking con man.
9
In the seventies, a city negotiated for a BCP for their clinics. The price was $0.65/package. The company that won didn't even own the patent. They paid another company, who let them buy the right to sell the pill under their own label. Today it is common for the cost of a 28 day package of bcp cost up to $50. One pill is listed for #96 or more. Web sites claim, with their discount, it can be purchased for about $30. That means that the same bcp can cost between $360 to $1,152 a year in the States. Yesterday a friend in Ecuador went to a pharmacy and asked the price there: $12. That's $120 a year. Insurances don't care what it cost. They just add something for themselves and pass it along in the cost of premiums. Generics cost for drugs that have been around for decades have skyrocketed. This rise in cost is shameful. But there is another culprit besides the drug and insurance companies. Our elected representatives in congress. They haven't done anything to keep these costs down. It is simple. Our boarders could be opened so we can purchase medicines from other countries. But politicians are like those who said nothing about Weinstein when, as the NYT said, the information was "out there to hear." Both he and the insurance companies had the power and money to pass along to those who wanted to be elected. Both Medicare and Medicaid control hospital cost like a joint replacement that can cost over $100,000 only receives 10% of that. But drugs are unleashed.
2
So the right to free exercise of religion collides with...something that is not even a right. Why should there even be a question here?
So, as the headline puts it succinctly, "It's Church Over State". Fair enough. But whose church?
What if my church required copulation on the altar as a sacrament with the use of contraception to prevent unwanted births? What if it also felt "artificial" means of stimulating erections (i.e. PD5I's like Viagra) were the work of the devil and should be exorcised? What if men were denied the right to be priests of this religion?
Piffle, you say? Perhaps. But no religion, however harebrained, should be given authority beyond its moral suasion to its own adherents. They may expand the reach of their institutions to other activities like hospitals and NGO's and even regular businesses but upon hiring non-adherent workers, these workers must not be held to the artificially determined and arbitrary moral yardsticks of their employers in their personal lives.
3
Turnabout is fair play, Linda. Now you know how the pro-life people feel when you and the pro-abortionist insist on an absolute freedom to have an abortion, even at the end of the term.
2
If Birth-control should not be covered then Viagra shouldn't either
5
We have changed from "you have the right to practice your religion" to "Your religion trumps my civil rights" -- a dangerous path
5
Letting the Christians call the shots in Rome destroyed progress in ancient Rome. Their advent to power was the actual start of the dark ages when Roman Christians burned all the books written in Greek and killed their scientists off.
3
Once again, zealots are trying to ram their religion down everyone else's throats. I don't think it's really about contraception. It's about sex. The pious ones believe that sex for pleasure, without the objective of procreation, is dirty.
5
Does it not occur to these "opt out" organizations or to the Trump Administration that they are cutting their noses to spite their faces? Sure, you can deny birth control access to women by refusing to pay for it as part of an insurance plan.
But absent putting Saudi-style sex police in place, men and women will do what they have always done. Thus, there will be more unwanted pregnancies. These entities might want to think about the cost of those, not to mention the costs of ongoing health care for the children that the parents never intended to have. Those are going to drive up the cost of health insurance for everyone.
Those unintended pregnancies will lead to more parents--primarily women--at home. That means reduced family income coupled with increased family expenditures, thus leading to more economic stress, including among the working-class white families who Mr. Trump said were going to do nothing but win while he is in office. And of course, when women spend years at home, their earning capacities are reduced, leading to even more economic struggles.
And when unwanted pregnancies occur, many women--and men--become desperate to terminate them (see Murphy, Rep. Tim, R-Penn). Thus abortions--both legal and illegal--will increase. A rise in what many of these policies' supporters see as the greatest moral outrage in our society will ensue.
All because of petulance by these organizations and an administration devoted to placating them.
7
What is becoming more and more evident is we have to come to terms with a few issues.
I will start with that the faithful need to understand to be a "true" Christian is not to prosper in business, sports but to put God first wherever that may take you. Period. If that means you have a job that asks you to perform things that are against your faith, you need to quit. Being a true Christian means you know life is not fair. Somehow this is lost among many believers. Daniel went into the lion's den, and Jesus told people to render on to Caesar what is due to Caesar's and to God what is God's. Jesus did not attempt to legislate faith ... he could have done many things but it was the heart. Sinners were present then and now. We are called to love the Sinner and hate the sin. So, if you are a "true"believer you should not "force" the "good news" but share respectfully as you are commanded.
Second, to be a "true" Christian is to love the Lord with all your heart, all your mind and all your soul. And then love your neighbor. This means we are called to social justice. It means that the Kingdom of God doesn't recognize man made lines drawn on maps and some people are lessor than others due to what side of a line they were born on.
Man made institutions eventually lose focus and that is true today as it was 2,000 years ago and earlier.
Unfortunately many, too many call themselves Christians. And that reflects poorly on true Christians. It is not an identity but a way of life.
3
I guess I need to buy a new Constitution. The old one I have still says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ..." I'd better run right down to the corner "Official Government Documents, Books and Publications" store and pick up the most recent iteration.
It's difficult keep up with things, as the Supreme Court continues to not make laws at a breakneck pace.
3
This is an excellent review and provides a window to the soulless nature of the morally sure. Perhaps Pence and Sessions use the Ford birth control method. It has been said that when asked, Betty Ford revealed that all she needed to do was give Jerry a stick of gum.
3
It would to have some freedom FROM religion.
4
I think it is unconscionable that nuns, especially the ones in the picture accompanying this article, are being forced to use birth control. How can it be right that celibate women are being wrestled to the ground and force fed contraceptive pills at breakfast!
Wait, what? They're not? ............ nevermind
(In memoriam Emily Litella)
7
The use of contraception by women not only reduces the abortion rate (both safe, legal abortion and illegal, back-alley butchery), it opens the path to women's equal participation in the political, economic, and cultural life of the nation.
That is why the availability of contraception for women is opposed by hyper-moralistic power-seekers as well as genuinely devout Christians.
It traces back to the last half of the 19th Century when early arguments against abortion were frankly stated as including the prevention of illicit sexual activity by single women, as well as the preservation of a social order based upon male dominion and a concept of "woman's nature and role."
The Victorian era put (some) women on a pedestal and all women inside a cage. The Trump administration and its allies on the Christian right seem intent on putting women back in the cage, and on making the world safe for hypocrites like Donald Trump.
5
Birth control doesn’t need to be free but it should be available like any other legal prescription or medical procedure on most medical plans
Allowing employers to pick and choose whole categories of medicines allowable gives employers power over our privacy
This is a free speech and autonomy issue
What’s next-denying insulin to type 2 diabetics because the employer thinks they should go through a weight loss program first? No one would tolerate that so why do we tolerate limits on female health?
2
The First Amendment, in the "establishment clause" ("Congress shall make no law respecting religion,..."), GUARANTEES citizens the freedom FROM religion.
The move by the traitor's administration to limit the access of women to employer-provided birth control is, therefore, UNCONSTITUTIONAL.
4
Medieval ridiculousness is never too far away when it comes to the right or those who believe that religion trumps the constitution of our country. The old adage "If you don't like abortion or birth control then don't have one or take it" seems to be a very workable solution unless one feels the need to impose their beliefs on everyone else. That imposition and desire to mandate their brand of religiosity is merely a front. That front is what men hide behind, with the help of some women, to tell women what they will or will not do with their own bodies and lives. We need more women in government!
2
Fraying?
With Catholics, Evangelicals of the ugliest kind, of the most un-Christian political kind seizing power in courts and Congress?
With militant faux-Christian fakers spewing condemnation?
With religion wielded by irreligious people as threat and cudgel?
We're well past fraying. Past religious freedom to the assertion of Church, God, and Christ as fonts of exclusion, domination, and unconstitutional restriction of freedom by smug anti-spiritual people hauling their Gods through the halls of Congress.
A cold, custom Christ is at the head of Nazis' and white supremacists' intolerant conservatism, and illicit orthodoxy of ideologues like Douthat, factions of religion that, like Republicans, tear their public hair over every nanometer of change from their mythical past to plain denial of the concept 'Pope'.
The unadulterated personal ugliness that is Franklin Graham, Mike Pence, Rusty Reno, Opus dei, Church Militant proclaim a retreat from mankind and Jesus to vile politics and dogma.
The surest sign of deceit in faddist religions and their obsession with a dark Christian past is the glee with which they take their knee before Donald Trump.
These men have little to say regarding religion, no tolerance for dialog or growth; they cling with a death grip to power, refusing every entreaty to discourse or concern for their fellow humans.
The Church, the country, are embarked on evil days with the figure of Trump substituting for God, Christ, and human kindness.
3
That picture of nuns, busying themselves in matters that do not pertain to them, sets me off!
Is there anything more unnatural, more contrary to "God's plan" than a bunch of celibate women, who are not mothers, not wives, not lovers, not great thinkers, on occasion perhaps, good teachers or nurses, but wholly outside the community of life, and wholly insulated from the trials and joys of mankind?
Who told them to adopt such a lifestyle? A bunch of celibate old men in Rome, of course! And what inspired such an aberration? Certainly not the teachings of the Namesake of their religion, certainly not some phrase of Holy Scripture!
Actually, nuns are a vestige of old Roman paganism. They are the Vestal Virgins of the Popes, the successors to the Roman Emperors!
So, why do they celibrate a miscarriage of justice that imposes inconvenience and financial burden on the women who engage in human intercourse, satisfy lovers, bear and raise children, strive to fulfill their family obligations, and contribute their diligence and intellect to the betterment of the community?
Oh, can it be a sincere attempt to save mankind from the cardinal sins of contraception and abortion? Funny, those sins were never once denounced by Christ or mentioned anywhere in the Holy Bible.
7
I love your post AND your screen name! You go, girl!
What what is that sound? It’s the chipping away of all of the progress we’ve made in the past 60 years. Let’s take the long view. Trump is shoring up support from the religious right. To state the obvious he chose Pence and Gorsuch for the very same reason. Interesting that the Sisters are up for a photo op with the grabber in Chief. Either they are very forgiving souls or don’t consume media. The Sisters run nursing homes. We know that nursing home workers are some of the most poorly paid workers. How will they get birth control if their employer won’t provide it? Maybe they could go to Planned Parenthood? Oh wait, they’re trying to defund that, must put the rights of the fertilized embryo above the woman who can’t catch a well-to-do husband, yet insists on having sex. Where does this intrusion end? What if one of their employees is on life support and the family wants to remove that support, would the Sisters have the right to oppose that? Trump also wants to loosen the Johnson amendment. That would put even more money into the insane campaign financing pool to support causes of the religious right. As he packs the Supreme Court with ultra conservatives we get closer to a country controlled by the religious right, which is ok by some folks. The founders are rolling over in their graves. A quote from the famous ecumenical leader, Father Guido Sarducci, “You no playa da game you no makea da rules.” His humor would not be allowed in today’s climate.
4
How did employers get so much power over individual people? Is everyone a slave?
8
This is what happens when you let the "every sperm is sacred" crowd run the show.
5
What kills me is the the prohibition on birth control is a uniquely *Catholic* restriction. The Evangelicals screaming loudest about birth control coverage have no theology opposing it. It is all about controlling women.
Any couple with fewer than 7 kids has likely used contraception. I don't see anyone in this chorus of white male voices who has that many. They're all hypocrites of the worst kind.
The Catholic religious orders really should remember that these same people don't actually think they're Christians and not be used as patsies.
7
America's next Civil War (which we could now be well on the road toward) may in large part be over state-supported — and sponsored — religious zealots attempting to impose their Bronze Age "deeply-held beliefs" on twenty-first century rationalists whose world views, lives (and "beliefs") are predicated on evidence-based reality (and which will likely result in the country splitting into [at least] two separate nations).
Sic transit gloria mundi — or at least that of the United States of America (for as long as she lasts).
2
Nuns have the right to demonstrate "against the Affordable Care Act’s birth control mandate". However, they are not convincing in their opposition as they likely have never had children or raised them on a very low income or without the father's support.
4
only fertile women in congress should be allowed to vote on birth control issues.
6
The list is not big enough. It needs to include organizations that can refuse covering contraceptive care without giving *any* reason, or if forced to give one, allow plain DUMB as allowable.
Tax-funded free contraceptives don’t exist anywhere in the modern world. Obamacare’s including it was not just blatant bribery to the electorate at large, but also highly inappropriate government encouragement of unlimited, irresponsible sex. It has no place in America. The faster we get rid of it across-the-board, the better.
Private organization of the cry-rivers variety are welcome to pick-up the slack, but of course they won’t. Try stopping a wealthy-looking person on the street and say “I’m taking your money for free contraceptives, unlimited, and forever, hope that’s OK with you.”. Unless it’s Harvey Weinstein, they’ll call the cops on you. Bah.
1
Ms. Greenhouse reflects the enormous naivety and insular nature of today's media elite. Newsflash: The American Christian Taliban is mainstream; not a fringe element.
For thirty years I have witnessed personally, the many avatars of religion (organized religion, religious right) collectively have delivered lasting republican victories in just about everything local, regional, and state; and elected into power, a dangerous person who by his own party's reckoning - is bringing us close to WWIII.
Virtually nothing galvanizes the religious segment of America, nearly a majority, more than the misogyny labeled "right to life.' When coupled with religious and racial bigotry (now firmly anti-immigration and immigrant), this is a tough coalition from whom the center and left takes repeated beating. In almost every instance, their candidate is dimmer, less worthy, more smarmy, more corrupt - and easily sinks a highly qualified democrat contender.
And Linda, you still think that this is a fringe group?
Wake up and smell the incense; the American Christian Taliban went mainstream while you were sitting around a table, likely discussing Dostoevsky and sipping Merlot in some salon, and mocking the country hicks and the religious right.
Kalidan
3
You make a lot of assumptions, probably all false about Ms. Greenhouse. If the left doesn't keep raising these issues, nothing will change. For a conservative, one would think birth control would be encouraged. Too many unwanted children end up being a large burden on the budgets of all levels of government.
Eventually the conservative movement will lose it's luster once they start attacking Social Security and Medicare. The old white folks really won't like that, and they vote. The Democratic party needs to wake up and start pushing this fact.
2
Given that Trump was elected by a minority of Americans and gun rights fanatics proudly declare their 3% of the electorate, what statistic do you use to base your belief that the Christian Right is a “near majority,” rather than vengeful fringe with outsized power and a muddled middle who aren’t paying attention? Save your ire for the elected political Right running the federal government, who are destroying our democracy.
4
At the end of the year, if we have any money leftover for charities, let's give it all to Planned Parenthood. What else can we do? Protesting won't help.
5
The next step - criminalizing all sex outside of marriage. The first person prosecuted should be Donald Trump.
6
If the US ever grows up, its public policy will seek to motivate people to have fewer healthier and better educated children.
9
The only logical extension would be to allow people to ignore any secular law or to discriminate in any way they desire as long as they claim a religious basis. You can bet your bottom dollar that Fake Justice Gorsuch has this end in mind.
4
shocking to see the aptly-named little sisters of the poor dismantle the ACA
8
Linda, I found your last paragraph interesting.
I, too, have noticed - and noted - the discrepancy between what the Conservative/Religious Right SAY (Birth control is "sin") and what they DO (limit their Family Planning to 2 or 3).
Their mental gymnastics are mind-boggling.
But here's the rub.
Catholics, specifically because it is dogma, have been quiet hypocrites. They talk the talk - but they don't walk the walk. 15 children may have been a glorious 'gift' for their grandmothers to make, but they will take the Pill, thank you very much.
Ditto, for the Evangelicals. No "15" for them. They, like the Catholic women, need to work. They need the money to survive. God understands, right?
Now they are finding their Just Reward: I guess Rush Limbaugh or their pastor, never warned them that that "War On Women" included THEM. Their womb is fair-game, too. The uber-Cons have figured out that the simplest and most effective way to get women out of the public sphere is to keep them home tending their "gifts".
I suspect that these women just assumed that those "liberal" women would stop these men before it ever happened.
Well, surprise!
No one is going to rescue them - and no one is going to rescue you, either.
Your wombs are now open for business.
All these years that Con-women have been pushing for no birth control and no abortion finally pays off.
You will get what you wanted.
Total biological enslavement.
Maybe you should have thought a little longer on all of this.
7
Time to reword the Declaration of Independence: "One White nation, under a Christian God, with unequal justice."
4
"American women are losing the right to employer-provided birth control"
How can anybody, let alone a nationally known journalist, make such a statement? It's wrong on its face. Nobody has a right to employer-provided anything other than fair wages. Medical insurance was a perk. Making it obligatory for employers was and is odious. It's the gun of state control held to every employer's head. It's the coward's way out. Adding the contraception requirement was and is a sop to a certain lobby. Hey if you have the power, why not? Except it was always just an executive diktat, reversed by a different executive.
2
Men have the monopoly on power. There has never been a truer statement. This just infuriates me. I am a clinic escort at an abortion clinic. Every day there are anywhere to a handful of protesters to Saturdays' when there are hundreds condemning women as they go into the clinic. Yet these so called "pro lifers" refuse to invest in the one thing that could lessen abortion. They are all such hypocrites. How different things would have been if Hillary Clinton were elected.
6
What makes it “modern” to demand that someone else pay for your birth control?
The Obama Administration went out of its way to deliberately provoke a backlash by involving other people in what should be a private determination. Birth control is – and should be – readily available. It has been championed by people who contend it is encompassed by the “right to privacy” – whatever that is. But “private” and “public” are essentially antonyms. If you want something “private”, why are you demanding the that “public” pay for it?
Birth control is, by any reasonable measure, cheap. (If you can’t afford a condom or a scrip for the pill, you can’t afford to have sex) As BHO said, in one of his rare lucid moments, people have to prioritize. If the choice comes down to that new I-phone (and don't even THINK of saying that poor folk don't get them) or long term reversible birth control, choose the latter. And if poor women can’t afford it, perhaps they should look at their SO for a little support in return for companionship.
Consider, too, how many such devices could be purchased if Planned Parenthood didn’t spend $32 million a year on politics, $800K in just one congressional election! PP should put its money were its private parts (and principles?) are.
And there is, of course, a 100% guaranteed way to limit the size of one’s family. But, naturally, expecting any such restraint would be asking too much.
1
But whole states are trying to shut down PP.
Greenhouse is excellent, as always. But I disagree with her conclusion about the motives of, e.g. Pence and Sessions. It's not that they don't want to "empower women". I think they couldn't care less one way or the other. Nor can Trump. (Does anyone think that Trump is anxious about the religious or "moral" aspects of anything - let alone birth control?) No, they care about appearing to care, in order to appeal to the right-wing fringe. The issue is not ideological at all for these politicians, but merely electoral. Trump could "change his mind" tomorrow. Call the nuns radicals if you wish, but the pols are just cynics. Like so much in American politics today, the real "issue" is bad faith.
2
This is very worrying! Even from a religious point of view, there is much debate on what is sinful and not sinful. Is smoking not a sin? If it is, then you should be hysterical about this as well and forbid cigarettes. Yet we do not react with the same hysteria here, because we are assuming that God will judge people in their totality and take their whole character and all their actions into consideration, not just one or two. God is a better judge than a bigot who is just looking for offence and sins and cannot see beyond that. St Paul even killed people, what about that? There is a great lack of modesty in all these moral vigilantes. They will also be judged eventually, their day will come.
3
Psst! Gregory: You're not supposed to mention that St. Paul thing!
1
Does a closely held for-profit entity owned by Jehovah’s Witnesses have to allow employee insurance to pay for blood transfusions?
2
No one has ever answered that question, M.
Keep asking.
1
Ms. Greenwood is, as always, cogent and timely. One observation: Conservatives are insatiably conflicted about sex and what people do in their bedrooms! Contraception should be a no-brainer for the pro-life crowd, but the "small government" folks still want to control our most intimate lives. Isn't that the ultimate hypocrisy?
5
Yes, Bob: great hypocrisy.
But it's not YOUR anatomy that they wish to "control". It is only a FEMALE'S anatomy. Now, does that make it a "greater hypocrisy" or a "lesser hypocrisy"?
And, I say, no male gets to rule on any of this if they cannot produce the 15 children that their wife/wives popped out.
There may not be a Constitutional Test on "religion" but there must be one for "hypocrisy".
Whoops! And that means no Republican male gets a say on this!
Not Mitch.
Not Ryan. Not Trump.
And I'll even throw in the Nuns.
They made their "CHOICE".
They can stay out of mine!
3
I have a moral objection to paying for Viagra for over the hill men who can well afford it. And vasectomies for young men who can also afford to pay for them. I'm a woman. Why do I have to pay for prostate cancer treatments? Or testosterone for male menopause sufferers. I have a moral objection to paying for any treatment that is tipped in favor of men by virtue of their genes, hormones, or lifestyle. I am a woman. Why should I have to pay for your gender related health issues? I am childless. Why should I have to pay for the pediatric services your child secures? I am old. Why should I cover any health condition for anyone who is younger than me? I am Christian. Why should I pay to cover the health conditions of Muslims or Jews or any other human soul who does not mirror me? I am anti-vax. There go your vaccinations and flu shots. I am anti-science. There goes your whole claim to medicine. See you in the grave.
13
This kind of hyperventilating rehash of every fear-mongering tactic of the narrow-minded left has become intolerable.
Linda Greenhouse and people of her ilk, havent had a new, orignial thought in over 40 years.
OK, Ms. Greenhouse, try to follow along without interrupting this time....try listening for once. You dont have to agree...just LISTEN and understand.
1. By dropping a require that EVERY single health care provider also provide abortions and birth control....we are NOT outlawing abortion and/or birth control. Is that clear? If one hospital gets haughty and religious and refuses to perform abortion...no problem...the next hospital down the way is probably more than happy to do it. Dang.
2. You've still got health insurance confused with health care. They are not one and the same. Insurance makes no attempt to control costs(or whatever the narrow-minded left's goal is).....Insurance is designed to spread whatever the cost is amoung as many risk takers(in the case of health care...all humans) as possible!
3. When we make Insurance mandatory...we create the classic inelastic demand curve which GUARANTEES that health care costs will go up...not down, as lying politicians LIED to us about...as expected.
4. Nobody is suggesting taking away public support for people who cannot afford it.
1
"The Trump administration has enabled a radical fringe of the Republican Party to all but eliminate the right to employer-provided birth control."
So it's a constitutional right to demand your employer - who doesn't have to employ you in the first place - pay for your lifestyle choices? This is why the left continues to spin into oblivion.
Can you say sharia law? This is full on assault to women whether they are low income or not. It heartens back to 1978 when insurance companies had a provision in their health insurance contract that they would not cover maternity and birth related costs to unmarried women. For those families who do not or cannot afford more children this is a hijacking of their rights. Wake up America
2
If you believe we face a bleak future, just imagine what Pence would do with Church over State.......
3
I met an old lady in the 1975 who was infatuated with Reagan's candidacy but was hesitant his piety was simply a fraud, saying religious cheats are the worst. Evangelicals who rallied behind Trump, a cad who brags about molesting women, gleefully stiffs small business suppliers and students, and kept his properties all white until the Court balked at the silver spoon his daddy gave him simply proves her sage advice.
5
Uffda. Comparing the right to drive to getting birth control.
My..how far we've fallen as a society where we ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.
1
The GOP War on Women continues, this time with a dollop of imposing one set of religious beliefs on everyone else. 14th century, here we come!
These ideas and actions are terrible for all of us. But truly, any woman who votes for these folks ought to have her head examined.
4
And the plagues are coming to Puerto Rico, abetted by the president who wants to cut off disaster relief.
The second any religious group attempts to impose their superstition upon the general public is the second they forfeit their tax-exempt status. Ensuring individual religious liberty does not include imposing that religion on the general public.
Taliban. That's what this reminds me of- the Taliban. Just because they claim to be working for Jesus doesn't mean it's any less horrifying than any other theocratic nightmare.
4
The idea that Trump really cares about this is maddening. The man has been married 3 times, and had who knows how many women in his past. None of them used Birth Control?? Not one had an abortion??? He's using this, as he uses everything, to fawn to his "base". He could care less about anything or anyone but himself. And the right wing "Christian" religious fanatics are thrilled. He needs to be thrown out of office. And we need single payer or Medicare for all.
4
This (from the piece)...
The problem they have is with what birth control signifies: empowering women — in school, on the job, in the home — to determine their life course.
...is spot-on!
4
Power in its various forms, levels, qualities and temporalities is not the only relevant issue, or problem.Whose? There is the critical issue of organization as well. And temporal expression. The reality that there is no Constitutional right, or rite, to birth control can easily be trumped by there being no original, or even much later, right to sc......THE PEOPLE. Of whatever gender and/or identification.The "faithful," diverse in many ways and nuanced in their practice, including those followers of "in-name-only," who may, or may not, be surveyed by PEW, are adept at organizing. Their people. Systems. Contacts, and their associated powers. The "other side," also representing diverse people, ideas, needs, and types of relevant and irrelevant powers,seem to be having a problem organizing adequately. Words and not effective, necessary, known, helpful, actions seem to be their/our choice.Perhaps assuring the availability, and accessibility, to passive condoms, IUDs, and other of God's-gifts- as with all else he was, and IS, the Grand-Creator-Enabler giving each of US the choice, and right, to violate "the other," in endless ways-selected,targeted, actions can limit our ongoing ummenschlich WE-THEY lack of mutual respect, trust, help and civility.While considering what goes into the uterus, there is great need to be sensitive to all humans once all of US successfully exit in a non-competitive slide. At times helped by strangers representing a range of beliefs. Faith's. Ways.
Don't you just love how the Party that rails so much about government intrusion into people's lives is the Party that intrudes so much in people's lives?
1
The psychological concept of projection is strong among the American right.
1
Would someone please explain to me why we prioritize non-viable fetusess over every single living human being? How in the world is that religious?
This is all about sex without consequences or hedonism in denial of a basic biological truth that women bear the next generation of humans.
Fully believe in the original mandate, but we should stop acting like it says in the constitution that there is a right to employee provided birth control.
1
So what's next...if they find out an employee is using birth control (at their own expense) they will insist they have a right not to employ such person on the basis of some perverse "complicity" argument?
1
Please explain to me how not covering 'birth control' in your health plan when a woman is of child bearing age is good for your company, religious or not. Many women use BC Pills as a way to regulate what might otherwise be a horrible menstrual cycle. Oh and it is much more cost effective to include coverage for birth control than cover pre-natal, birth and post natal care when a woman is pregnant. But I get this isn't about birth control at all but being able to dictate to women how to live their lives.
2
Anytime, anyone talks of morals, I am only reminded of the part on "middle class morality" from Pygmalion. This whole thing only affects the middle and working class, neither the rich nor the poor.
Capitalist business owners can deny their workers precautionary medical intervention. It really isn't because Jesus was a capitalist, but because the owners of firms can reduce their costs by restricting the breadth of coverage. Religion, not the flag, is the last refuge of scoundrels.
Before any discussion of religious or moral views of employers, we must decide that employers have a right to dictate how an employee uses her employment benefits. Employers do not have that right. The employer may pay for it, but the health insurance benefit belongs to the employee, just as her wages, vacation time, and holidays are hers. The employee decides how her benefits are used. No employer - religious or irreligious, moral or immoral - can decide how an employee spends her wages, where she goes on vacation, or how she celebrates holidays. Similarly, no employer should have a say in how an employee uses her heath insurance benefit.
4
It boggles the mind that people who oppose a woman's right to reproductive freedom would also oppose contraception which minimizes unintended pregnancies. The US has its lowest abortion rate since Roe v. Wade in 1973, despite the head-in-the-sand attitude of Michael & other anti-abortion simpletons.
The SCOTUS has aided & abetted religious extremists, using religious dogma instead of legal precedent to determine the reproductive rights of American women. The GOP Evangelicals and other religious zealots wish to establish Christianity as America's National Religion, much like Iran & Saudi Arabia did with Islam. I would hasten to point out the fact that no Muslim-majority nation completely bans abortion, nor does Israel.
Neither men, nor the governments run by them, should subjugate women as "conservative Christians" & the Catholic majority of the SCOTUS have done for the last 40+ years. They have forgotten the Constitution is the basis of America, not someone's translation & interpretation of religious scripture.
The cognitive dissonance of the GOP & the President has become deafening.
Where are the moral objections to funding the killing of civilians in the numerous wars we have recently fought ? Extending the logic of Trump's birth control ruling, conscientious objectors to war should not have to pay their share of taxes that fund such activities. Where is the fundamentalist support for this ? Nowhere, that's where. For people who hate abortions, birth control should be their best friend. But lets get down to the nitty gritty here: this whole argument is not about religious freedom or morality, it is about SEX. Religious fanatics don't want anyone to have sex that is purely for enjoyment. They want it to always have consequences, because sex, except for procreation, is DIRTY and even then a necessary evil to keep the population growing and the coffers filled.
3
I regularly offend my religious friends by pointing out that opposition to birth control is diametrically opposed and counter productive to their opposition to a woman's Constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy. If someone was honestly opposed, on religious or moral grounds, to abortion that person should be insisting that free contraception be available to all women. More than anything these policies are a direct attack on the equal rights of women.
3
Why are my rights truncated because I don't believe in religion? Where's my ability for moral objection to things I find repugnant? If they can object to funding birth control, surely I can stop my tax dollars from funding a larger military, oil and coal exploration, and Trump's secret service protection. And what about my sincerely held belief that smoking marijuana after 7pm is done to honor our Earth Mother? How about my sincerely held belief that my dogs are people and therefore entitle me to a tax credit?
This is simply so unbelievable, and so unAmerican, it defies all attempts at rational argument. The standards are so hypocritical and self-serving, even a conservative SCOTUS should strike down such absurd reasoning. And if they don't, then it's time for liberals to start using the same logic. I want to be able to invent, pick and choose my religious freedoms too.
4
It's more like church, state, employers over women. Yet again.
3
Freedom from religion is as important as freedom of religion. If your religion wants a say in my life, then I want a say in your region. We can start by having churches and religious nonprofits start paying taxes. As an atheist, I’m sick and tied of subsidizing, the racism, bigotry, homophobia and misogyny that passes for religion, especially Evangelical Christianity, these days.
1
Thanks for this wonderful and insightful commentary, Ms. Greenhouse. I live around Detroit and we have an extremely diverse population, which is fabulous! I'm just waiting to see how the religion right reacts when businesses and institutions begin banning unaccompanied women from being served or don't allow women without head coverings, etc.
When "religious freedom" infringes on other people's individual rights, the slippery slope could be extreme.
3
When all 5 Conservative Justices are devout Catholics (despite Clarence Thomas being divorced and re-married), and male, is it any surprise they are more than willing to find ways to allow both birth control and abortion to be limited? Both are strictly forbidden by the Church even when both the mother and baby will die.
Since Trump's "religion" has apparently only 2 tenets: Donald Trump's ego and pandering to his thralls, it's no wonder he's quick to butter up both.
1
It really is amazing what impositions these people make on others for the lie that doing so will make them better off after death.
Why just birth control? It is against Jehovah's Witnesses' religion to donate blood or receive blood transfusions. Should someone employed by a Jehovah's Witness be prohibited from receiving a blood transfusion if the employer provides his health insurance? What if your employer is a Christian Scientist & doesn't believe in medical care?
The slippery slope goes on & on. The Founding Fathers were wise to insist on a separation of Church & State.
3
I don't think this has anything to do with religion. It's just a loophole that big corporations can use to limit their insurance premiums. Publicly owned corporations have no minds and therefore no "religious objections" about birth control.
1
Religious organizations are first in line to fill out all the IRS paperwork to claim tax exemptions and a free ride at society's expense. But when it comes to checking the opt-out box because it is a sin! Really?!
Money used for healthcare is NOT THE EMPLOYER'S MONEY - its the employee's. We just have a perverse system in which health coverage goes through the employer. I've already experienced my former employer intruding and interfering into my health care while I was hospitalized because he was the one paying for the health insurance!!!
If only women would suddenly have a moral objection to sex with men, then perhaps the men looking to impose religious control on them will back down. It's all about control, by infringing on another's right to be free from another's religion. Worse, these are the same fake-pious people who behind closed doors have sinful sex, use contraception, have secret abortions and think their almighty will not notice - until 60 Minutes exposes them.
What's next? Banning vaccines (HPV) and medical treatment based on dogma? Banning all science like evolution? Can't we restrict religious types to freely practice and impose their dogma amongst themselves and leave the rest of us out of it?
Sin of contraception? How about the sin of another unwanted child and abandoned mother in a world that could careless leaving them starving, homeless, no education or healthcare, except to be used as a profit center to be exploited for labor and lifelong debt.
5
This isn't about controlling access to contraception, it's about controlling women.
5
Why only Birth Control, why not Prostate Cancer, Liver Decease, or Lobotomy.
I, being an entity, am morally and ethically opposed to lobotomies will henceforth not provide it to any of my employees. Thus absolving myself from any guilt related to the behavior of one Donald J. Trump.
The notion that the Supreme Court is now an arm of the right wing of the Republican party is increasingly clear. These five faux "jurists" are in the employ of those shamelessly partisan politicians who appointed them. This constitutes a most dangerous, and underreported, dagger at the heart of our democracy.
1
Two points:
I am Catholic and I know these religious orders like Little Sisters of The Poor. They are very conservative and out of touch with Catholic mothers today. Why do they need a law? They cannot convince Catholics to follow "their" desired protocol of using no birth control so they must force them by law. I say "their" because many priests and nuns have no problem with Catholics using birth control. Truth be told - either does Pope Francis.
Second Point: The goal of Trump and his white mostly male administration is to undo anything by the "black" president who was so much wiser and was admired by so many around the world for his leadership.
3
Since when do women get pregnant by themselves? Never. Why should they be the only ones paying not to get pregnant?
4
Can we STOP saying that women were receiving these “free”? Women WORKED to EARN their preventative medical coverage. The Trump administration just reduced PAY of women all across the country and now allows bosses to interfere with the medical needs of ONLY their female workers. So many women use birth control to manage impacts of having a period every month. Can you IMAGINE if a muslim insisted that their non-muslim employees not be allowed to buy pork with the money they earn? Of course, no such law disallowing men from having erectile dysfunction meds. So the GOP is promoting the religious views of one narrow part of our society at the expense of all others. Isn’t that very close to establishing a religion? We are the ONLY developed nation that tolerates this type of anti-science, anti-best public health policy to interfere with WOMEN’s reproductive health. As a result, we have some of the WORST reproductive health outcomes in the developed world.
This is a political party that makes up laws against Sharia, while allowing employers to have “moral” objections to the reproductive health needs of their female employees. Remember this is the same political party that just rewrote rules so that financial planners aren’t required to advise their clients in the best interest of their clients because “morals.”
Why aren’t we on the streets protesting? For shame. That this administration did this. For shame that this hasn’t brought the country to a standstill.
4
Perhaps comments could stick to the point, the constitutionality of requiring employers to violate their religious convictions.
I love this argument. Keep your religion in church, get out of our bedrooms, but be sure to leave your wallet with us.
2
Attorneys ought to know better than to confuse a collectively bargained or company-provided benefit with a right; and those who purposely conflate this in order to create, in effect, "fake news" are nothing more than the typical ambulance-chaser torturing logic to get a payday. Deplorable? Nah. Despicable? At least. Duplistic? Always!
1
I'll never understand how birth control and other deeply personal decisions are so controversial in American politics. My philosophy is, if it's not harming anyone else, any choice or lifestyle should be left up to the individual. The government should simply provide the legal means by which we can all individually decide how we want to live. Our employers should have no decision making power over our lives that's not directly related to our jobs. Churches need to stay out of our lives entirely unless we choose to attend them.
Why can't the government, companies, and churches just leave us alone already?? I'm tired of 'moral objectors' inserting themselves into other people's business, as if they somehow have a right to direct lives based on their 'moral authority'. This #1 reason our ancestors left Europe hundreds of years ago - there were too many powerful institutions telling them how they should live.
77
Democracy 101. Govts elected by we the people have the duty to protect us from exploitation by fundamentalist religion and corprorate power. The Gop alligns with both to wield power. A contradiction to modernity and the purpose of having a democracy. Duh.
1
This is not a question of religious freedom but instead of whose religious opinion should be followed. If employer and employee have different views of the morality of birth control, the employer prevails.
Let's flip the script. It's much more expensive to provide prenatal care than birth control. Why should the employer pay higher premiums due to the fecundity of his employees? If this is truly an issue of "forcing the employer to pay" against his moral feelings, shouldn't the employer be able to require workers to use birth control? Or to deny prenatal benefits on religious grounds?
I do not believe there is any "right" to any specific drug or medical choice, but I do believe that if an employer makes health benefits in any way part of an employee compensation package then employees should be free to choose or not choose what's in it. This is an issue I had with the ACA mandates. I am not sure what the best options are for allowing those who need/want certain things to be able to get them at a reasonable rate - that's the key issue. That insurance policies to have a child would cost upwards of 10k is ludicrous. Everyone is born so this cost should be widely spread in my view. . But the only way to reduce it is to spread the cost among many more (as the ACA proposed) or allow the employee a menu each year on their plan to cover all or any of the "knowable" costs - one year I could choose birth control, another year maternity coverage - clearly at a different price point. However, nowhere in this discussion does my employer get to make a moral choice on what elective medical services I can pick from. That's where this all goes wrong.
1
I'm curious to know if health insurance policies that do not include contraception cost more that those that do. I ask this because childbirth and dependent health coverage are generally covered in employer-provided health plans. The differential between the cost of contraceptives and the total cost of childbirth, as well as potentially twenty-six years of dependent health care, is enormous. Do insurance rate reflect this cost or hasn't it hit the rate sheets yet?
6
Those Little Sisters of the Poor, what a bunch of haters. They need to be made to get in line and do as they're told. Imagine a group of old ladies with some moral convictions, how outrageous. But I do wonder if Mr. Jefferson understood that his Constitution would be used to require employers to buy health insurance for their employees and control what that insurance would cover when he and the other Founders wrote the document?
2
I think that in matters of sexuality, the privacy and freedom afforded by government not being involved is the best for everyone. Yes, the Catholics are different. Work, even in the secular world, is sacred and the idea that Catholic owned businesses would be required to pay for contraceptive devices is viewed as requiring those who are trying to live a Christian life to pay for tools to frustrate God's will instantiated in the procreative aspect of human life.
Not only Catholics are different. Scientologists don't believe in mental health care, Jehovah's Witnesses don't believe in blood transfusions, and Christian Scientists believe prayer should be the only form of healthcare. I don't see anyone bowing to their beliefs. Why not? Oh that's right, contraceptives give women the ability to plan their lives.
2
The real public health issue is why have our elected leaders chosen to keep birth control a prescription? The easy solution to this issue is to end the Byzantine idea that women can't think for themselves.
I hope everyone gets out to vote in 2018 and vote against those who support tearing our country apart.
4
Birth control pills are prescription medications because they need to be adjusted or changed (monitored by a medical professional) to ensure that they are working as expected and changed if they aren't or the side effects are very bad.
This can mean switching to a different type, dosage, or brand.
1
Think on this. The FDA approved the combined oral contraceptive pill in 1960 at a time when religious objections to contraception were fairly well known. HHS didn't require employer-provided birth control until 2012. During the years in between, religious objections became even better known and better presented (Humanae Vitae, Theology of the Body, etc). So why did the 2012 requirement not make room for these objections? We're acting like it's a time-honored right, even though we were apparently fine with no requirement for 52 years.
1
For the decision-makers, religion and someone’s sense of “morals” has nothing to do with making these decision on birth control. When Ms. Greenhouse outlines the tortured history of the legislation, it’s obvious that women’s health and empowerment have been placed behind the thinnest, most political veil of legal interpretation.
I ask myself on an almost daily basis now: Is this really happening? Am I now living in the USA under a President whose incompetence is recognized all over the world—and who makes major decisions based on repealing, at any chance, the legislation and practice of President Obama? We not only have such a President, but a voter base and a complicit Republican Congress that turn a blind eye to the destruction of America’s true values. Today’s example of the obvious, calculated intrusion of the religious fringe over the common practice of even the Trump supporters is the scary reality.
We are not living in a dream. We need only a few Republicans in Congress to show the slightest profile in courage to stop this slide. They can make America great again by serving the people, rather than turning their back on the absurdity this Administration has become.
7
I know of no constitutional right to free. employer provided contraception. I must have over slept in college the day that was discussed in the constitutional law course.
2
the right to earn and retain a drivers license is not enshrined in the constitution either. interpretation over time grant that freedom and allows for regulations and fees related to same. certainly, access to contraception is covered in the preamble-- promote the general welfare.
1
When the SCOTUS decided the Hobby-Lobby case it provided all the ammunition necessary for the Right to deny any kind of medical insurance to anyone based on the “sincerely held religious belief”of the owner of a business. Next step is denying the services of a bakery to same sex couples (Service at a lunch counter, anyone?)
And after that they will decide that the “personhood” of the corporation is more equal than the personhood of a human being. And where have we read that before? Authoritarians are everywhere in the Republican Party and the ranks of those who claim that the individual is most important— except when the individual is a woman or elderly or, dare we say it: Puerto Rican.
7
How is more than 1/3 if the country (perhaps much more) a radical fringe?
Because that third have also said they've SEEN a ghost.
In the seventies, a city negotiated for a BCP for their clinics. The price was $0.65/package. The company that won didn't even own the patent. They paid another company, who let them buy the right to sell the pill under their own label, Today it is common for the cost of a 28 day package tocoste up to $50. One pill is listed for #96 or more. Web sites claim, with their discount,it can be purchased for about $30. That means that the same bcp can cost between $360 to $1,152 a year in the States. Yesterday a friend in Ecuador went to a pharmacy and asked the price there:$12. That's $120 a year. Insurances don't care what it cost. They just add something for themselves and pass it along in the cost of premiums. Generics cost for drugs that have been around for decades have skyrocketed. This rise in cost is shameful. But there is another culprit besides the drug and insurance companies. Our elected representatives in congress. They haven't done anything to keep these cost down. It is simple. Our boarders could be opened so we can purchase medicines from other countries. But politicians are like those who said nothing about Weinstine when, as the NYT said, the information was "out there to hear." Both he and the insurance companies had the power and money to pass along to those who wanted to be elected. Both Medicare and Medicaid control hospital cost like a joint replacement that can cost over $100,000 only receives 10% of that. But drugs are unleashed.
I'm a pro-life person, but that is only for my conscience. I do not have the right, as so many believe they do, to enforce my religious beliefs on others. There are many things that I wish I could change about so many others' religious beliefs, but we have (or, have had in the past?!!) a separation of church and state in the US. But with the crazy people now running our government, it could all go to pot.
3
There are also opponents of the ACA who do not want to pay for maternity coverage. Ms. Greenhouse is correct to point out how anti-contraceptive males and their constituencies often limit the size of their own families. I would point out that many conservative religious authorities teach that the male is the head of the household. Linda Greenhouse is correct in asserting that excluding contraceptive and birth control coverage in health care policies keeps women powerless over their own bodies in many, many cases. And, in the VP debate, Pence proudly proclaimed his state of Indiana's success in "counseling" single mothers to provide babies to a system geared toward "building families for childless couples." That sounds like human trafficking to me.
4
Could ultra-wealthy liberal philanthropists possibly donate a sufficiently large endowment to cover at least some reproductive services? Perhaps this contentious issue needs to be taken out of the hands of government.
The argument that those who oppose the contraception "mandate" is that it violates their moral principles and therefore they should be exempt from paying for contraception. Would these same people support those of us who have a moral opposition to our taxes going for a war machine? Everyone probably has a moral opposition to any number of mandates, ranging from subsidizing the dairy and meat industries to being vaccinated to contraception, to war, etc. in our society we pay our taxes and hope the government and the people do the right thing.
5
I am amazed at Ms Greenhouse's contempt for and infantilization of women who are left incapable of obtaining birth control unless their employer provides it. I'm also certain she opposes republican proposals to make them OTC. For many women having to get a medical providers permission is an equal barrier. But that's ok with her - women need her experts approval to do the right thing.
Wow - what a misreading of Greenhouse's piece. Try again - she isn't saying or even alluding to any of what you say. And who are the Republicans proposing to make birth control available over the the counter (OTC)? Name them. I imagine that a proposal of this sort would get lots of Democratic support. Docs might not like it but making BC available OTC is not something opposed by the left.
Absent wider availability why shouldn't BC be part of one's regular prescription plan? I can "obtain" BC even if my employer doesn't cover it but why should my male partner/husband have his vasectomy covered while the method I choose to control my fertility is not? The issue is one of fairness.
2
How would making contraceptives available OTC make them more affordable for women? There are many medications now OTC that cost far more than a bottle of Tylenol. Whether a woman pays for pills because her insurance won't or because she buys them at a pharmacy at retail price, in either case her budget is affected and she is not getting a benefit that is part of her compensation package. And don't for a minute think that her employer's savings in dropping this coverage will be passed on to her, so she can purchase them with the extra money in her paycheck!
2
This no surprise. This is what Americans voted for when they elected Trump. His Vice President choice and his courting of Evangelicals was no coincidence, he intended to give them all they wanted as a reward. It costs him nothing to undo decades of advancement in civil rights to continue to hear the cheers of his supporters. Those who did not vote for HRC, this is what you reap.
5
Liberals, Democrats, and feminists have completely dropped the ball when it comes to contraceptive and abortion rights.
These rights have been attacked and undermined daily by radical right wingers, both secular and religious, for decades, and we have let them get away with it.
Employers are getting away with refusing to include coverage for contraception in their employee health insurance plans and states are getting away with closing clinics that perform abortions, all over the country.
We have managed to prevent them from completely defunding Planned Parenthood, but in general, women's reproductive rights are woefully underdefended and if we don't want to see them disappear, all who care about women's rights had better get off their duffs and do more to fight for them.
2
This is not only an issue of sexism, but class. Ms. Greenhouse made good use of the Thurgood Marshall story because the class divide is key. Children cost money, but that does not matter to the rich religious right. Contraception is a simple and cost effective way to keep the poor from becoming poorer. The rich religious right say, "well, just don't have sex." How many of those people, including Trump who is on their side, have controlled themselves?
3
This may start with birth control, but where is it going to end? To what extent is the state going to force religion into my life? Freedom of religion also means freedom FROM religion.
6
I don't think it's a radical fringe of the GOP. It's just the GOP.
3
Radical fringe? You mean the whole Republican Party. If there’s a fringe it would be the moderate fringe, which doesn’t have a voice nor influence of any kind.
3
Don't employees pay into their health insurance plans? And so, aren't they already paying for their prescriptions? And so, "purchase your own" is a ridiculous stance, because they already are? If an employer wants to pick up the total cost of employees health insurance, it would be understandable that it could pick and choose which benefits to provide. But, when an employee is also sharing the cost, as she is in nearly every situation, then the employer no longer has that discretion.
6
The policy is extremely patronizing to American workers and their families.
4
“little evidence that increasing the use of contraception reduces the unintended pregnancy rate.” Reality, what a concept for the religious right. And those Republicans that have limited the size of their families (Pence and Sessions) are millionaires. This edict means nothing to them and their ilk. This is also about making the poor poorer to punish them for being poor. That's what their "we don't care" health plan was about, and the tax cut plan as well. Seems obvious to me, but then I'm a hated liberal.
3
Let’s turn this frown upside down and use this to push for a public option payable by a tax on employers and employees.
Companies that don’t support a woman’s right to healthcare can pay a tax per head, and get out of the healthcare business.
1
How did we get to this? How is it not a violation of my religious freedom when my employer, a public company, imposes his belief system on all his employees, regardless of their religious beliefs. Appalling.
2
Way back when, Loretta Lynn came out with a song that was an ode to the recent legality of "The Pill," and how this was going to change her life. Listening to that song even ten years ago felt nearly comical--can you imagine that birth control wasn't legal, lol? But I'll make a prediction that as men face pregnant partners and child support judgments, the pendulum may well swing back.
Dear Ms. Greenhouse and NYT editors - thanks for memorializing the profound depths of your contempt for people of faith. If we were any other minority - even a trendy, largely made-up one - you would be clucking your disapproval of whatever form oppression we happened to claim. But, since we believe that living according to ancient, divinely revealed truth is the only avenue to personal and societal peace, you somehow claim we have no rights or protections under the First Amendment. Thanks, too, for leading the story wit a photo of women religious - so your readers can see the mortal threat they pose to civil society.
Because even proponents of the rhythm method as birth control know it really does not work well, what opponents of contraceptives (now helped by the Trump administration) really want to do is what they had not been able to do for decades - stop people from having sex. Of course, such is a folly because that will not be the case. Instead, we may see an increase on abortions. So much for the professed love to the rights of the unborn.
Ms Greenhouse wrote about this in prior years stating the facts that it wasn't aborion but women's autonomy that the lunatic religious fringe wanted to abolish.
How sad to see it come true.
Where are the "progressives" in the Democratic Party that should be speaking out?
Even Sanders seems to get wobbly in talking about women's reproductive freedom.
A good number of comments today. Usually news from the Supreme Court generates yawns, as if it's irrelevant what 1/3 of OUR government does.
"The problem they have is with what birth control signifies: empowering women — in school, on the job, in the home — to determine their life course." This is nonsense. No Republican is against birth control. We just want people to buy their own. And Republicans wanted to make them cheaper, by allowing them over the counter. The Democrats said no. Why? Were the Democrats against empowering women by allowing them to buy their contraceptives over the counter? Do they not trust women?
All religions have done their best to mistreat women. The current flap over birth control is just another in a long line of policies by religions to denigrate the status of women. seeing nuns protesting against the ACA is disgusting. I was always taught that those who were members of a religious order had a mission to help the poor and the underprivileged. Part of economic stability is to bring the size of one family under control. The world is heading for a population disaster due to overpopulation and the environmental degradation that comes along with an overpopulated planet. Over the past two millennia more people have been hurt by religion than helped. We have separation of church and state for a serious reason. Government must make decisions that are best for ALL citizens without the influence of myths, legends and superstitions which all religions are based on.
80
While I agree with you in terms of what religion is, it has many benefits for society. It provides much charity, gives comfort to the poor and something to believe in and perhaps make someone a better person.
Two ideas from the religious pro-life people enter into this debate.
1) If access to birth control is limited and expensive, women will stop having sex outside of marriage which will lead to fewer conceptions.
2) Many conservative Christians are concerned about declining church membership and think the answer is to have larger families (only among married people). So if you limit access to contraception and preach to your adherents that it is against God's dictates, you have more kids to fill the pews.
Simplistic answers to complex issues, but that is where we are.
4
I suspect many if not more women using birth control are sexually active within marriage, and trying to keep that marriage happy and healthy by not having more children than their family unit can handle successfully and responsibly. The whole argument of discouraging sex outside of marriage is a red herring. I remember hearing through the bedroom wall my mother crying, during her fourth pregnancy - and we were not poor. She had a tubal ligation with that last childbirth, but when the pill became available and legal a year or two later, I was aware as a 12 year old that she was very supportive.
Having sex, unless it's for the purpose of procreation, is viewed as immoral by many churches and religious groups. Employees of those groups would have no need for contraception since they'd only be having sex in order to produce children.
Employees who are having sex and don't want children would be disobeying their employers' rules and would be subject to dismissal. It would be within the rights of the employer to terminate any employee who disagrees with those moral and religious requirements. Employers would further argue that they are not liable to pay Unemployment Benefits for a terminated employee if they are terminated on moral and religious grounds. Employees who are thought to be having sex in ways that cannot lead to pregnancy would be terminated. A new registry would be made public, listing the names of those employees who committed or advocated the commission of acts that were in conflict with a particular employer's view or with a religion's official doctrine. Even a middle manager who is not authorized to enforce moral and religious standards would be able to terminate an employee and list "dishonesty" as a reason. Good sex, righteous sex, produces good children who are wanted, loved, and cared for. Bad sex, done for the wrong reasons, produces poor and evil children. Believe me, I know. I am one.
6
The proper place to decide whether to use contraception is at the individual level, not the employer. It is up to the employees to decide whether to use their income in "proper" or "sinful" ways. The nuns don't have to use the contraception benefit. No employer restricts the cash component of compensation just because the employee might spend it immorally.
11
@Pax Goodson: While it's true that employers should not be able to deny health coverage on religious grounds, the new rules also open the door to widespread abuse of the so-called moral objection. Any employer, even one motivated by cost cutting, can refuse coverage simply by claiming moral opposition to birth control. In essence the new rules wipe out entirely the mandate to comply with the federal contraception mandate.
1
You;'re right, which is why FSA $ cover the cost of contraception.
FSA $ are nothing more than paying out of pocket before taxes; there is no employer contribution. Why should prescription birth control, which may be medically necessary, be moved from a health insurance benefit to the same reimbursement method as contact lens solution?
Yes, the Trump rule disempowers women. But more important, it disempowers a democratic Republic by putting cultural norms and belief systems over citizen decision making. It lets one religious view dominate the behavior of publicly chartered and protected corporations and all citizens. Religious liberty meant not only freedom for religions to be practiced voluntarily. It also meant freedom from religion determining the shape of the public sector and making rules that coerced citizens to adopt a cultural norm or behavior. The Trump rule is against the constition of a democratic Republic in principle no matter how our Tory-selected Supreme Court decides.
11
Same old problem. The state doesn't have a vote, but the church does. Another way of saying the Supreme Court isn't doing its job.
15
The poor are such a burden on society. They demand lower taxes and more services, they don't even earn enough to pay for their own healthcare. Surely the government should want to discourage them from breeding: preventative medicine ...
But seriously, from a financial perspective, if an insurance company is liable for the cost of maternity care and child healthcare does it not reduce overall costs by providing contraception to reduce the incidence of pregnancy?
7
Yes. Free contraception more than pays for itself in savings from avoiding other medical repercussions.
This problem has been going on for many years. I have no idea how to combat it except for local governments to intervene.
People should be much more concerned with the introduction of a "moral" component to this than with religious stuff, which was already pretty much decided on. All companies with investors or shareholders have something akin to a moral obligation to cut overhead costs wherever they can. The justification? Plain old capitalism. If profits can be increased, they must. The law has suddenly been changed to permit companies to reduce their overhead costs in this particular way--it's deregulation that (no surprise) penalizes women.
There is no such thing as truly ethical capitalism, but there is a moral code of capitalism.
2
As a Christian, I support contraception- it allows women to make better decisions about their health and bodies. It should be up to each woman individually to make these decisions- not to the state or someone else.
9
Yet you want to force someone else to pay for it? The employee gets to make her decision without interference but the employer doesn’t? How does that square with the self-determination you seem to advocate?
Is it right to force an employer to pay for prostrate examinations? Yes - that is how the healthcare is organized - the government mandates a level of care to be provided through employment. If you don't like it - then push for single payer.
If you believe that everyone should have the privilege to receive free contraceptives, then you should support them being handed out free by the government and paid for by taxes generally. But no such law has yet been passed by Congress. And that is not even the law that Obama unilaterally created by presidential dictate. Instead Obama unilaterally dictated that employers must pay for contraceptives to be handed out free to its employees and paid for by the employer. Now, Trump has unilaterally dictated an exception to Obama's dictate.
1
Employers are not paying for contraception per se. They are paying for a comprehensive insurance package that includes contraception.
The only employers who object to this are the ones run by religious bigots. That's who you are defending.
The ACA is a law that was passed by Congress. It is not a "dictate" issued by anyone.
As noted earlier, employers should not determine private health decisions.
10
They’re not. Employees are free to do whatever they want. They just can’t force employers to pay for their decisions.
Abortion is legal; but the cost of the pill is not a tax shelter under this new system of church over state. Currently, the cost of the insurance is not taxable to you; should the cost of the pill be taxable as income? should those not on the pill pay to subsidize those on the pill? Is the day after pill the answer? Is the two year implanted pill the answer? Many options, no answers.
Health insurance is a great tax haven; the premiums are not earned income. So, here the employer excludes this benefit and it is up to the individual to pay for it herself, or for the potential father to consider the cost of the pill as a cost of doing business.
Gosh, Bob, I suppose that the answers are the same for Viagra. Are they?
1
There is no constitutional right to having birth control provided by your employer. However if an employer wants to provide it fully or partially like not providing abortions than it's their moral choice.
3
Not only is there no constitutional right, there is no ethical right at all.
I've seen those "morals" for the last 70 years.
Those "morals" made me an atheist.
I'll stick to "ethics".
1
I hope the upshot of Republican's framing this as forcing a company to give its worker's something for free is that we move away from employer provided healthcare altogether--if employers don't want interference in defining what health care consists of, let the government provide the social safety net directly.
The government is not forcing anyone to give away free stuff--it is defining what constitutes minimum health care coverage; and yes, in our system of employer provide healthcare, the government can require that companies provide full-time employees healthcare, just like they can mandate a minimum wage.
It is cynical to always argue that a private entity should provide a service rather than the government (relief, charity, healthcare etc.) and get hysterical when the government sets standards for that service. This is the social safety net, not 1984. If we privatize airports and bridges, will we say air and road travel shouldn't be regulated? Should companies provide rural phone, cable and internet service?
7
I don't think birth control being paid for by your employer is a fundamental right. And I don't think it helps to claim it is a right.
I do think that claiming religion is a valid reason to oppose paying for it is not only wrong, but absurd. What if your employer didn't believe in vaccinations? Could they refuse to pay for that? How about blood transfusions?
What if your employer thought mental health providers were fakes? Could they refuse to pay for that?
I do not think that employer beliefs about the validity or benefit of any routinely recognized health expense should effect the coverage of employes.
20
Whether the provision of birth control really is "a fundamental right" is beside the point. It's a statutory right under the ACA.
There is a right of access to birth control that is not at question. The only point here is that there is no inherent right to have birth control devices and drugs that the individual does not pay for. Currently, there is only an existing entitlement and mandate that requires a third party to pay for these items and services as part of overall health care that is provided by that third party. Rolling that mandate and entitlement back, for those and only those who are morally opposed to it, is hardly any attack on the fundamental right to manage a person's own body with the person's own resources.
5
Your reasoning can be applied to any public service.
You have the right to put out your own fires and to pave your own road.
That's why what you say is absurd. Many laws are based not on inherent right, but on what is best for society.
Including birth control in insurance policies saves society billions of dollars in unwanted pregnancies and abortions, as well as other, more expensive subsidies for the poor.
Uh..... my health insurance is compensation that is paid to me as a part of my employee benefits package. All we're asking for is that we're able to use our compensation to pay for the healthcare that we need- i.e., using *our* resources to manage our own bodies.
Why can my employer forbid me from using my health insurance to access birth control, but not from using my salary to access birth control? Really, what's the difference?
2
Soon the Churches will be battling over whose "leaders" should rule....there will never be enough money or power to share amongst them. There never is. That is really bad for humans and women in particular. Women are the preferred targets of "religious" leaders. It is an appalling state of affairs that the USA is now joining many other countries in a march back to medieval times when women were chattel and most humans have no rights at all.
Those nuns in the picture have no idea what they are really supporting and it's hardly Christian. Theocracy is dangerous to all humans regardless of what they believe..
26
Yes.
Nuns, who have chosen celibacy, want to extend their self-imposed limitations forcibly on every other woman.
Religion is a dictatorship.
1
What this ruling does is raise the bar and hold people accountable for their actions. And finally, we no longer have an administration which is constantly persecuting the Catholic Church. In this country, many talk about the rights of the few and often neglect or even recognize the rights of tens of millions.
4
Actually, it seems as if the Catholic Church is persecuting everyone, regardless of their religious affiliation, by insisting on total autonomy over the lives of all people within their purview. If you don't believe what the 'religious' oppressors believe, well, too bad for you. They are in charge.
3
Ha, ha, ha! This ruling does nothing to make anyone accountable! It inappropriately discriminates against women when it comes to a prescription medicene with which the Church disagrees. I not the Churchndiesnt disagree with covering Viagra! I'm sick and tired of the Catholic Church crying discrimination and oppression. It's a billion dollar corporations whose leaders fly around in private planes and live in luxury housing. Our Catholic Bishops attack the Pope when he suggests that compassion might be a better way for them to proceed but then they want to be seen as put upon.
There should be no religious exemptions from the law...any law including tax law. End religious tax exemption.
1
You know, Mark, I've been saying that for decades, ever since Ronnie Reagan and the "Moral Majority" killed the Equal Rights Amendment. That didn't effect merely "tens of millions" - that impacted 51 PERCENT of the total population.
If I remember correctly - and I do - the Catholic Church was doing backflips it was so delighted that women were not granted Constitutional inclusion.
Your Catholic Church has proven for decades that it is the enemy of all women and all children.
I hope you have 15 children, Mark, or I might think there is a dite of hypocrisy in your comment.
1
The entity with the right to make a moral decision is the woman, not the business.
21
In the early 1960's I worked as a summer intern in Connecticut for Procter & Gamble. My job was to visit all the states' drug stores and exchange their old Prell for new Prell. In doing so, I visited the stock rooms and to my surprise in Catholic Connecticut with its Comstock law prohibiting the sale of contraceptives I discovered shelves full of condoms, spermicides and other such illegal devices. About a year later the Supreme Court in Griswold v. Connecticut ruled 7-2 that the Comstock law violated privacy and was unconstitutional. So, what the Trump administration is doing amounts to preventing poor people from engaging in their Constitutional right to have contraception. As in Connecticut a half century ago, all those who could afford it had access to birth control. It's hypocrisy and it's another skirmish in "class warfare"--this time mainly against poor women.
30
This is a terrible precedent. If employers can deny coverage of contraception based on religious views, what is to stop them from taking this further. Say, for example, sex out of wedlock is against their religion (not a far stretch), scan they also deny coverage for treatment of STDs for unmarried people?
12
Yes, L A. But as long as they keep shelling out for Viagra, the men won't complain.
1
According to the administration "many forms of contraception are available for around $50 a month". That's great, Trumps tax cut should just about cover that. Remodeling the kitchen will have to wait for another tax cut.
14
There is no valid religious objection to birth control. The Bible does not weigh in on this issue one way or the other. In fact, what the Bible does say is that life begins at first breath, ie at birth. Nowhere does the Bible say life begins at conception.
So, those claiming to base their objection to birth control, and abortion, on religious grounds are either misreading or misrepresenting their scripture.
The real issue here is the one in the article's final paragraph. Those who oppose birth control do so because they want to put women back in their place, to disempower them, to have men as the exclusive deciders.
And, while we're on this subject, how long will it be before the Christian Right resurrects Biblical justification for racial discrimination? The Bible very clearly instructs slave owners how to humanely take care of their slaves. So if the Christian Right really does want to make a literal reading of the Bible the litmus rest for all laws and morality, then they should want to re-fight the Civil War to change the outcome to one supported by the Bible.
17
Not all Christian denominations (most notably Catholics) view the Bible as the only source of truth. Simply arguing that the Bible doesn't mention something is hardly enough to convince those groups because they aren't claiming that the Bible told them this.
Oh, Pat, that is soooo weak of them. It's bad enough that they let that monstrous crime of wearing linsey-woolsie go by, which IS written in the OT, and even more of a travesty that they add what is NOT there!
And they wonder why their membership numbers are crashing!
1
It's not clear to me why I am forced to pay taxes for development and deployment of nuclear weapons, useful only to kill civilians. I am morally opposed to the use of such weapons, so the Trump administration should exempt me from having to pay taxes for them.
My religion, by the way, is often called Secular Humanism, not for anyone to question.
43
One difference is that nuclear weapons as a deterrent are a public good. If that “service” is provided to some it is provided to all. The government can’t provide the service to only those that choose to pay for it.
I hereby grant you an exemption, Jim, of paying 50% of your taxes, the amount that is spent on the military.
My religion is Atheism - the blunt, hard-nose reply that warns anyone that the discussion is closed and tred further at your own risk.
But then, I'm ancient. And female.
I no longer have to suffer any fools.
2
"American women are loosing their right to employer-provided birth control".
Did I read that right? Thats a right? Its in the constitution that women MUST be provided free birth control at somebody elses expense even if that violates the very core principles they live a very peaceful, generous, giving life with?
I find it alarming that we now define the right to make one citizen pay for another citizens services. Birth control is a choice - it is not a life threatening health issue. Nobody is denied access to birth control, they shouldn't have the ability to make somebody else pay for it.
If free birth control is a critical condition to accepting employment - don't take a job with the Catholic Church. Its not complex.
6
Birth control is prescribed for a wide variety of conditions, including but not limited to endometriosis and Fallopian cysts. Women also use it because they have periods which are so painful or heavy that they become debilitating. Why do you or their employer have any right to pry into what the prescription is for, or whether or not it should be available to a woman like any other prescription?
I find it alarming that childless me, must pay for someone else's choice of having children and expecting free education for them, courtesy of me and other childless taxpayers. Same difference.
1
You’ve hit the nail on the head. We’ve now come to the point in our society where it is viewed as a right to forcibly have some people provide something to others.
It does seem bizarre that with the increasing population overwhelming the resources of the earth, evangelicals and Catholics still oppose birth control. They take literally the Genesis imperative to "subdue" the earth, I guess. Still, I never had birth control covered by my health insurance and I never worked for religious companies. The argument isn't about women's rights in my view. The argument is about where secularism holds the power and where Christianity in its varied forms still holds the power. In the beginning America kind of shared the same moral universe, at least a core enough set of Protestant values that (aside from slavery) held us together. The more interesting question to me is, is secularism a religion? In its quest to eliminate religious privilege from public life, is it in violation of the constitution's establishment clause?
Anyone thinking that the removal of Trump from office would enable this "Church over State" rule to be overturned by his successor needs to remember that a President Pence not only would keep this one on the books -- he'd try to meld Church & State even more.
6
A large percentage of women, perhaps as high as 20% are prescribed contraceptives for medical reasons such as protecting against fallopian cysts. Their use of the drug is consequential to their overall health and not necessarily used for sex. Why should their employer determine whether or not their prescription should be treated like any other prescription?
16
Because Laparoscopy and Laparotomy can take care of cysts. Perhaps you’re fudging the issue at least 20% of the time? Not necessarily huh? Hmmm.
1
Um...FWIW, the Catholic Church has no objection to non-contraceptive uses of the pill, and has said so. I've never heard of an employer refusing to pay for such drugs for non-contraceptive reasons.
I have a moral objection to war. I don't like my taxes going to pay for war. Does that mean I don't have to pay taxes? I also have a moral objection to high powered assault weapons and large ammunition clips. Does that mean I can just decide to outlaw those things. Wish it was that easy.
Should not the same standard apply to private companies paying for birth control? Do they get to decide what they are going to pay for? I guess so.
6
I think a (slightly) more fair comparison would be: Should you, or a business you run, be forced to provide assault weapons free of charge? There is a constitutional right to own guns (as currently interpreted by the SCOTUS), people are also saying that there is a right to birth control. The right is saying that you have a right to be able to purchase birth control, the left is saying that you have a right to free access to birth control. If we were to apply the same logic to weapons, the right would be saying we have a right to free access to guns and the left would be okay with the status quo (the former, I'll admit, doesn't sound like it's out of the realm of possibility, but I'm sure the left would vigorously oppose it).
1
Birth control is a public benefit, helping to avoid unwanted pregnancies and unwanted children, which in the first instance drive up insurance premiums and in the second drive up taxes to pay for social programs.
No such benefit is attached to guns. The comparison is ridiculous.
A little perspective goes a long way, unlike glib analogies that only touch the surface.
2
Pat in Tennessee: There is no "free access to birth control". It's paid for by the group insured and almost always includes a co-pay. This idea that women are freeloaders and more so than the men that get viagra through the very same methods is absolutely wrong and must be confronted and corrected every time it comes up. Women's access through insurance to FDA approved pharmaceuticals is and must remain the same as men's access.
1
The author states: "It’s hard to overstate the radical nature of what has just happened"
What just happened is the mirror image to what Obama did several years ago when he unilaterally created the law that required employers to provide the particular insurance coverage. If you think what Trump did was radical, then you should also think what Obama did was radical.
I think both were radical and that neither should have been possible. The left cheered when Obama acted like a dictator to unilaterally create law by presidential dictate. Now the religious right cheers as Trump acts like a dictator to unilaterally create law by presidential dictate. Both presidents by their actions demonstrate the threat to our freedom posed when such power in the hands of a single person. That is why the authors of the Constitution carefully placed the power to make laws in the hands of the Congress and not the president.
4
Errol
And that is why, though Trump is tragedy enough, the real cataclysm is the abandonment of patriotism, social awareness, morality, honesty, and compassion by a Congress that cares only about staying in Congress.
Both presidents had the legal power to do what they did.
The difference is that Obama's mandate benefitted society and everyone in it, and Trump's is harming society and, yes, everyone in it — except the crackpot religious fringe, with whom I include the venal and hypocritical Catholic Church.
1
There is so much wrong with this horrendous action. Thank you Ms. Greenhouse for summing so much of it up in your column.
My main pet peeve is the singling out of women. If these folks are so concerned about "morals" and birth control why are VIAGRA and VASECTOMIES not on their list?!
As well, birth control pills are used for medical issues. Does this mean that women with irregular or heavy menstrual periods, menstrual cramps, acne, PMS, Primary Ovarian Insufficiency (POI) or endometriosis - all treatable with the Pill - are no longer to be covered for this treatment?
14
Viagra and vasectomies ARE on the list. There is no requirement for employers to pay for these.
If the religion one practices thinks that a contraception is a "sin," then a member of that religion should feel free not to practice contraception. However they should mind their own business and not tell other citizens how to live their lives.
It is just possible that some citizens have the intelligence to decide for themselves how many children they want.
11
Any chance that you feel the same for employers? That employees should mind their own business and not force employers to pay for things on behalf of employees, and that instead the employees should pay for those things themselves?
While I am saddened by Trump's decision to effectively eliminate contraception from healthcare plans I don't think it's right to place to blame on a religious fringe
This decision was expected. It is in the spirit of what he ran on and really anything different would have been a surprise
So for the majority of white men and women whose voters who selected Trump - this is on you.
2
Me again. As for Hobby Lobby, it is hard to believe the owner has religious objections. He tried to smuggle antiquities into this country by labeling them as products to sell in his stores. I think this act proves his real objection to providing health insurance for birth control is purely to avoid the extra expense it might cost him. Religiosity convictions? I don't think so.
15
Hobby Lobby was perpetrating a scam. They are despicable.
But far greater guilt belongs to the five conservative Justices, who turned a blind eye to that obvious scam, using the case to impose their own prejudice in favor of religious privilege against the rest of us.
Employers should not be providing birth control nor should they provide health insurance- it should be public, universal, not for profit, single payer.
13
Of course you are right.
But "should" is not a solution to the immediate problem.
Given what exists now, women deserve the maximum benefit available.
2
If the nuns truly cared about the sanctity of life they would also protest vasectomies and request not to pay for them. As always the birth control battle is about power; religion is patriarchal and men don't like it when women are empowered over their own bodies. This is why healthcare needs to be separated from employers and managed at the federal level. Separation of church and state means that the state protects me from religion and their misguided beliefs that I don't share.
11
Vasectomies are also banned by Catholicism and are considered just another form of contraception. So when the nuns are protesting paying for contraceptives, they're including vasectomies. Also, given that they're female nuns, I strongly suspect that the insurance they were buying was never going to cover male vasectomies to begin with.
1
To the best of my knowledge, there's no federal mandate requiring payments for vasectomies.
Have you been asleep during this debate? Nuns already have the right to deny coverage for vasectomies. They’re simply trying to get the same right for other forms of birth control.
Fear the Supreme Court, especially if Trump gets another pick.
Gorsuch, the "originalist" will play games, swearing whatever he believes in IN the constitution, like MAGIC. Thomas too. Alito will just sneer. Don't count on right wing Roberts or Kennedy for anything.
Then no more separation of church and state.
Michigan, Pa., Wisconsin, and Bernie, happy now?
2
From its first hyperbolic sentence to the end, this article in spirit, form, and language expresses perfectly the inanity of the Left, its inability to think and act rationally about political issues and its unremitting demand that we not only conform to its view of the world, but we actually pay for it as well. That this author cannot and will not see the error of anyone demanding that someone else, let alone Nuns, give up their deeply held faith and practice in order to satisfy the whims of the narcissistic Left, whims which will change and become more intense and extreme with every "victory", is all the evidence you need to become convinced of the "totalizing", authoritarian nature of "progressives".
5
Public support for birth control is not a "whim of the Left."
It benefits society as a whole, even you.
It costs far less for insurance companies to pay for birth control than for unwanted pregancies, which drive up your premiums.
And unwanted children cost you more for welfare and other social programs that exist to keep people from starving.
Opposing measures that are essential to a civilized society is a poor decision.
114
And if you exchange Left and Right in your comment, you will see you have made the same argument, except that the Right is demanding the right to control everyone else because, as you have said, they are 'right'.
3
If the public is so much in favor of birth control, the public can pay for it. Via taxes would be one way. Why instead are employers being forced to pay for it?
It is about time that the Supreme Court start defending Seperation of Church and State. And while they are at it call this move by the Trump Administration what it really is. Discrimination against Women. Trump once declared that "he really loved women". He has a weird way of showing it
6
How is this discrimination against women? It’s simply gives some employers the same right to not have to pay for women’s birth control as all employers have to not pay for men’s birth control. This is a step towards more equality between the sexes.
Employers shouldn't be in the business of providing health care anyhow. There were always going to be consequences to requiring private companies guarantee a fundamental right rather than just guaranteeing it directly. Now more than ever, we can see why the ACA should have included a public option and why single payer is the best path forward to ensuring all women have all the health care they need.
3
Why does no one mention the women who take birth control for reasons other than contraception?
As one of millions of such women, it's very frustrating to have the argument be only about women choosing not to get pregnant? What about those of us who go on birth control to treat extremely heavy, painful, and unpredictable menstrual cycles? Those with hormonal imbalances easily corrected by myriad forms of birth control?
When I was a poor college student 10 years ago, my birth control cost me $75 a month. I was too old for my parents' plan, and there was zero coverage of birth control through my university. There was no generic version. I needed an extremely low dose to avoid adverse side effects (because I am very sensitive to hormones, which is the fundamental problem my doctor and I were trying to resolve). But I either paid that or missed class because I bled through the "super max" tampons in 45 minutes, and could barely move. I can assure you, the side effect of not being able to conceive was the bottom of my list of things I wanted from that medication.
Does that make you uncomfortable to hear? Good. Don't take away coverage of birth control from women who need it.
16
The fact that employers are now free of their alleged obligation to provide "free" birth control does not mean that women are relegated to a lower status. Men also use birth control. Women can purchase birth control devices or pills with their own money, empowering themselves. Depending on an employer to provide you with benefits is not empowerment, it is dependence. Women, and men as well, should reject this form of dependence and provide for themselves what they need and want.
8
Birth control coverage should be included as part of a health insurance benefit. To exclude it out of "moral" objections is no different than excluding, say, mammograms or prostrate tests, or emergency appendectomies for that matter. Why do men never want to admit that this is about health care for women? The answer is as Greenhouse noted: oppression of women.
10
Paying for things with your own money is empowering? Then why do we have ANY health insurance scheme?
Spending "your very own" money only feels empowering if you have the mentality of a five year old standing in front of a gumball machine. For thinking adults, money is a tool and we don't have a problem using it for taxes to subsidize civil society--a vision which includes preventing unwanted pregnancies.
10
I agree. But what's ironic is that most of those women who are demanding birth control from their employers are feminists.
Two thoughts -
- birth control pills are also used for other medical issues not just for birth control.
- why are one groups religious rights allowed over another's? If their employer won't provide birth control, then the women should be able to seamlessly get the birth control from another outlet. They have rights and beliefs too. And this brings up a another huge issue: many of these new evangelicals, while saying that they are the arbitrators of what Christians are and believe, they are changing it big time. Much of what they say is not what I, as a lifelong active member of a main stream Protestant church, have learned, believed, read, and been taught about being a Christian. There is a major power play going on that is using deference to Christianity to forward non Christian positions.
6
"Conservatives, even the publicly pious ones, don’t seem to have a problem with limiting the size of their families. (Vice President Mike Pence has two children, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions has three. Need I say more?) The problem they have is with what birth control signifies: empowering women — in school, on the job, in the home — to determine their life course."
The concept of women's role in American society has been fought for decades, with significant progress up to now. With this rule, which I'm sure Donald Trump gives two figs about in his own personal life, he president is throwing the religious side of his base a huge bone.
The real reason that conservatives have twisted themselves into knots over birth control is that they don't want women to even have sex, let alone enjoy the freedoms such medications allow in terms of family planning.
And yet: the utter hypocrisy of those preach one thing for America but live their lives entirely differently--actually in accordance with the separation of church and state--becomes totally relevant to this case.
People like Phyllis Shafly in the 70s killed the ERA because of her antiquated notions of women's place in American society.
The religious right would keep women barefoot and pregnant if they could. Or better yet, no sex at all.
15
I can only believe that this is another Trumpian effort to intensify the culture wars to his advantage. It's another "tough stand" against the educated opposition. And certainly his base does not waiver in their support when his administration takes decisions that inflame the opposition.
Yet when I consider the actual economic impact on an employer
for not providing contraception in their health plan I will be surprised if many employer do so. The cost of pregnancy care, the risk of complications such as a neo-natal intervention for premature birth, time off for delivery etc. far outweighs that of contraception. Those employers who do opt out of contraception coverage would be doing so for some significant belief on their part, religious or otherwise.
11
The nuns have no objection to anyone using contraception but just do not want it to be part of their healthcare policy. They have a certain moral compass that they must follow due to their principles which is their personal right. It is so refreshing today to see people following their convictions and not giving in to society's standards.
Obama refused to give these nuns an exemption and they decided to fight this mandate in court. Do not underestimate the tenacity of these sisters. They will win this battle one way or the other. They will not agree to providing a service which goes against their consciences. They would rather discontinue working in their nursing homes than agree to something that they feel is wrong. I say good for them.
15
That's not true. The nuns could have had an exemption, but see even the filling out of the notification required, so their their employees could obtain coverage elsewhere, as participation in providing birth control, and refused to do it. They simply do not want their employees to have that benefit - from ANY source.
15
Do you agree that employers who find blood transfusions, psychiatric drugs or viagra, or paying for drug/alcohol rehab objectionable due to religious or moral reasons should be able to refuse to cover them? The list goes on and on.
3
So he hasn't mentioned providing coverage for vasectomies. I wonder why that never seems to come up? I bet if we think real hard we'd find the answer although I'm betting there isn't a woman alive doesn't already know the answer.
3
Whenever I come in contact with somebody who is wearing their religion on their sleeve (EG wearing a not well hidden crucifix), the thought that runs through my mind (I keep it to myself) is "this person standing before me literally or at least metaphorically believes a virgin gave birth to god's baby 2,000 years ago". How on earth can I have any kind of intelligent conversation with this person?
Conversations related to women's reproductive issues with such persons is simply a bridge too far.
Often separation of church and state is cast as believers versus atheists. The first amendment anti-establishment clause is not about believers versus atheists, it was all about belief flavor-A versus belief flavor-B versus belief flavor-C, etc. Each of the 13 original colonies had their own state religion. The federal government was not allowed to pick a favorite flavor. We need to keep all the various flavors of religion out of government and public policy (IE government needs to be secular).
70
We need the government out of all the various religions.
Wow, a is a text book definition of bigotry. Apply the MLK test, are you judging people by the color of their skin or the content of their character. The vast majority Christians have no issue with contraception;not in your world though. As bigots will do, you limit the 1st amendment to the establishment clause and ignore the the free exercise clause. It is the free exercise clause that the Nuns sued under and won, all the way to the Supreme Court.
1
In addition to take-home pay, health insurance offered by employers is part of an employee's pay package. What an employee spends his or her take-home pay on is not subject to the opinions of their company: should an employee only buy groceries that are allowed by a certain religion? Why is it then that health insurance benefits should be dictated by a company? What if someone works for a company with ownership that believes blood transfusions are forbidden? Or has a stance on circumcision? When viewed from a perspective of employee pay, so long as the medical profession considers reproduction to be subject to health care, then how an employee spends his or her health care benefits should not be subject to the opinions of an employer.
63
You're right...the employer has no business in mandating how an employee should spend his/her money...just as the government should have no business in telling an employer how to spend its money and what benefits it does or does not offer. I'm really hard-pressed to see how or why birth control should be a zero cost entitlement for anyone who is employed. Why birth control but not insulin? Why birth control but not over-the-counter medications? What about condoms? Why aren't they free?
1
Easy.
Pay for your own health insurance.
Work someplace else.
Endure.
Compromise.
Revolt.
But stop whining and do something.
1
Radical Fanatical Fringe? How does such name calling differ from snowflake, buttercup or even libtard so casually and offensively thrown around by the conservatives? To opponents of contraception the author of this article is the true radical, and most definitely the obsessed fanatic.
"Fringe" denotes a narrow minority. I doubt many of last November's Trump voters are ardent supporters of contraception rights. Argue all you please about the significance of the "3 million votes" but the only opinion pole that matters, last November's election, registered an enormous number of Americans in favor of these types of pre-WWII values, far beyond any pool of voters who deserve to be dismissively treated as a mere "fringe."
The polls say Americans overwhelmingly approve of women's reproductive rights. But face it, basically the same polls also said Hillary would win in a walk. You can't hear the voice of the turtle through the clamor in the feminist echo chamber. Americans are suspicious of modern anarchic women's culture.
But you do enjoy the unquestioned right to drive.
5
Since when is birth control "modern anarchic women's culture"?! Do you consider consider condoms to be anarchic men's culture? No? Its the same thing!
And I personally know Trump voters and they do NOT favor pre-WWII values nor did they vote for removing birth control coverage from covered medical care. Many are experiencing growing buyers' remorse in voting for Trump. So, crow all you want about the turtle but he's in the increasing minority and will eventually be left behind.
2
I agree with one thing - the word "fringe" no longer applies. The radical right is now mainstream in America, though not yet the actual majority.
3
Are you suggesting that women should not have reproductive rights?
Employers' religious objections to birth control are irrelevant. Insurance premiums are part of the employees' compensation, not a gift from the employer who has no right to force his religious (and mistaken) beliefs on his employees. Typical and hypocritical conservative sophistry.
83
When birthrates rise in minority, lower income sectors, will this administration shoulder the added cost of housing, schools, food assistance, healthcare? Anyone? Anyone? Crickets. Just as I thought.
37
Of course not.
Nor do they have any obligation to do so.
1
OK - so lets be realistic here. How many women are affected by this ruling? 1000? 10,000? 100,00? 500,000? Do you even know? I don't. And of those who might be affected how many object? 5%, 25% . . . ???? Me either.
So all this silliness is about a very small number of women, a few of whom decided to make a national issue out of this. This isn't about women - its about power. Its about a lobby that won't give an inch no matter how common sense that inch is.
Sounds like another powerful lobby I know. NRA???
So, Don, you're one of those jolly souls who look forward with glee at the prospect of stepping over bodies in the street?
Good fellow.
Moral position? Contraception must be the cornerstone of any future human civilization. On this overpopulated planet, that is apparent. Religions must promote contraception if they want to continue to expect that there is a future for humans. They must promote the welfare of the planet, without which there is no future, by promoting a reduction of human numbers. An intelligent species wanting to become a long-lived species must take the obvious steps in order to achieve that.
18
Someone can fact check this - I remember in the 1960s, when Africa was roiling with revolutions and insurgencies and civil wars, and the missionary nuns were frequent victims of assault and rape, the church put them en masses on birth control pills.
22
The opposite is true.
Rapine and mayhem have always been a part of war and life, and the phenomenon is not unique to Africa.
However, the open handed mercy and protection of life, particularly the poor and sick, is not commonplace, and resides primarily in the hearts and hands of individuals, most commonly amoung women religiious
1
Urban legend. Theologic discussions, no papal decree and no evidence of implementation. But what difference , a smear is a smear.
Also, are you implying that American women are at such a high risk of rape that nuns need to provide their birth control?
The reason Trump was elected was that voters were unhappy that the Immigration and Reform Act of 1986, which was supposed to bring an end to illegal immigration, was not enforced. In fact, Democrats pushed to make some cities sanctuary cities in defiance of immigration laws.
But why was immigration a problem? The reason was population growth. The population of the US grew by 82 million during the period 1980-2010, and now many parts of the country are severely overpopulated. For example, Los Angeles is chronically congested, and the State of California has run out of water. That is not surprising because Southern California is a desert. The cities of Miami, New Orleans and Houston are congested and the hurricanes that may become more frequent with global warming may flood the homes of millions along the coasts.
Why was population growth a problem? The reason is that people have the instinct to create more people than needed. In the remote past this helped the species survive.
Now overpopulation threatens the planet. This means that along with a stop with illegal immigration, President Trump needs to be pushing for access to birth control. This in fact is the mechanism whereby immigration pressure can be mitigated.
Thus Trump undercuts his signature issue by restricting access to contraception.
In fact, it is a human rights abuse to deny Americans (or Mexicans) to family planning.
Immigrations is destroying the US because Mexico fails at family planning.
2
I was raised in a moderate Republican family. It was considered responsible, mature behavior to use birth control to limit the size of your family to a number you can take good care of. Who are these crazy people? Against abortion, but also against the best defense against abortion - modern medicine, in the form of birth control. I can't fathom this. The constitution guarantees freedom of religion - individual conscience. It does NOT guarantee the right of a wealthy individual who happens to hold a powerful position in their business to force their personal religious views on others. Religious people who don't want to use birth control don't have to, but they have NO right to deny modern medicine and health care to others. It's insane. Never in a million years would I have thought that the USA would go back to the 1920s regarding family planning. It's hard to believe this is real.
134
These people are the quiverfull movement. Look it up
The principal of Trump's policy is abhorrent. Keep in mind that birth control rights are different from abortion. Lots of Americans have reservations about abortions, but only a tiny percentage oppose birth control, and I would call them the lunatic fringe.
As an optimist in this area, I would point out that the lunatic fringe can only do so much damage. Mother Jones has estimated that there are about 70 companies nationwide that are likely to exercise the option of discontinuing birth control coverage. Planned Parenthood, alone, probably has the resources to provide birth control to all the women affected. If they take this on, you and I can defeat Trump's hateful policy. If we donate to causes that protect birth control rights, we should easily be able to defeat Trump's initiative. Meanwhile, we have the power to pay for wedding cakes for LGBT couples. Unjust government policies can be overcome by the people. When we mobilize for justice, there is no greater force in the world than the American people.
14
You do, of course, have an inalienable right to choose.
What don’t have is the right to make anyone else pay for your choices.
2
Unlike abortion, no one is (seriously) arguing to restrict birth control. What is being contested is whether an employer should be forced to pay for their employees' birth control and whether that is now the new entitlement (beyond any and all other medications).
2
I believe the correct use of the English language is to refer to employer-provided birth control as a 'privilege' instead of a 'right'. Of course, from a propaganda perspective the impact of taking away a 'right' sounds worse than a 'privilege'.
12
If you'll check the constitution, I believe you'll find no guarantee of the right to vote. I guess that's a privilege.
Is healthcare a privilege? It's part of a person's compensation. Is a paycheck a privilege too, then? No, you have a right to be compensated for your work, else slavery would be legal. Health insurance is compensation for work. Ergo it is a right.
1
Birth control isn't a privilege, it's basic healthcare for women. And healthcare isn't a privilege. Do you think your insurance covered Viagra is a privilege?
Actually it should be called COMPENSATION or PAY. You earn your healthcare benefits for performing your job. The Trump administration just took away PAY from solely their female employees.
Would someone please point out to the citizenry that this means a Jehovah's Witness employer could refuse to pay for blood that an employee needs! Stop the madness of people dictating other people's medical care!
41
...but I wonder if those religions that have objections regarding blood transfusions, organ transplants, and other procedures would step up and ask for relief. After all, men need these treatments/procedures also.
12
Pitiful.
You think that your medical choices are up to your employer? You are free to make your own choice!
Your complaint is you want to make your own choice and make someone else pay for it.
Use your own resources to make your own choices. Nobody cares what choices you make, nor should they.
As go the way of many prescription medications, perhaps it is time to consider making birth control an over-the-counter item thus negating this entire conversation. I am not a doctor so I do not know all the implications. I am, however, a Catholic who used birth control my entire fertile life to not only prevent pregnancy but to be able to live through my monthly cycle without taking 2 -3 days off each month due to the pain and hemorrhaging involved. How about it AMA and Pharma? You can be the hero here.
19
Birth control without doctor involvement would likely be dangerous. Depending on your family genetics, some options can be more dangerous than others (e.g. can easily cause blood clots) and some people have to go through trying different birth control to find the right dosage and hormones that works without causing adverse side effects. I think having a medical professional involved in prescribing it is important in a) counseling women on proper usage of their birth control and b) making sure they're using a product that doesn't put them at risk or make them unnecessarily miserable. I would also have to think it would always be a good idea to have a doctor involved for instances of using birth control to manage medical issues beyond unwanted pregnancies.
7
B.L. - Visiting a doctor to review birth control and having it available over the counter are not mutually exclusive. You can do both...of course, you would have more difficulty in having the government force an employer to pay for it. As it stands, there are already over the counter birth control methods available.
1
Why not apply this same over the counter requirement for diabetic medicine, pain medicine, high blood pressure medicine, etc. That way insurance won't pay for anybody's life choices.
1
Catholics are not a "fanatical fringe of the Republican base". Catholics and many non-Catholics believe that the government simply has no place either promoting or discouraging pregnancy - even in public schools.
There is no right to expect government to pay for every medical procedure, even if it is a legal one. You have a right to own a gun but no right to expect the government to pay for the bullets.
It is good for adults to take responsibility in all areas of family economics. The subject of buying birth control, or not using it, is a good discussion to have with your mate. If you can't afford birth control you mate needs to know.
Pregnancy is not a disease that needs to be treated. Pregnancy is considered unwanted or unplanned only to the most selfish in society. Adoption and/or nine months of hard labor should be the penalty for people who practice irresponsibility in the bed room.
4
I believe you mean 'for women' who practice irresponsible behavior since the man does nothing for the 9 months of gestation. Also, the last time I checked, having a child was a lifelong commitment, not a 9 month affair.
Children should not be used as a punishment and certainly not for only 1/2 of the parties responsible.
5
You do understand that health insurance is EARNED COMPENSATION for work?You do understand that most females will have a period from about age 12 to about age 52. Most US women give birth 2 to 3 times at most in their lifetimes. This also means that women have to break doctor/patient confidentiality to receive necessary medical care if they have painful periods or acne or other things that are treated by hormone therapies. This is a HUGE invasion of privacy and limits women’s right to access to legal healthcare under the law.
We WORK to pay for the preventative care we need. This represents a huge pay cut for poorer women. You advocate denying women the right to BE responsible. I’m Jewish. We consider making love a Mitzvah. This idea that employers have the right to interfere with the health and well-being of their employees through the imposition of the boss’s morality is offensive. Are we chattel of our employers now where they force their religions upon us?
There is a high cost for a society for women to be pregnant continually or to forego the love, touch and intimacy of their partners to enforce one narrow moral belief system on the whole.The government actually has a public health policy role. Countries where women have access to free or very low cost birth control tend to be more productive, higher earning and healthier. Contraceptive care is a public health policy best practice in all other developed nations.
1
"Pregnancy is considered unwanted ... only by the most selfish."
Let's just say I'm glad most Americans disagree. In fact, practically the whole world does: globally, female literacy correlates strongly with small families. Given a choice, women choose to have fewer children. You're essentially calling women (and men) everywhere selfish. I guess that's one way to think of it.
My question, though, is this: however strongly you may believe you know best how people should behave, why do you feel free to impose that belief on others? More specifically, why privilege employers to impose that belief on your behalf, on people you've never met and never will?
Please don't tell me it's about money. The cost to you for someone else's birth control is minuscule. It's dwarfed by payments you get in reverse, sooner or later, the older you get.
Please don't tell me it's about choice, that pregnancy isn't a disease. We all benefit from modern medical technology, and we benefit differently. Some of us are more prone to heart disease; some of us are more prone to pregnancy. We all deserve to live our lives by our own lights, as fruitfully as possible, while we have days to spend.
1
incredibly belittling to American workers and their families.
11
I note the significant number of men in these comments who say that women should just shut their legs and abstain from sex if they don't want to get pregnant. For them it's an acceptable price for women to pay in order to have their health and careers.I wonder how many of them would be willing to live with partners who did just that? I also note that health care insurance policies will continue to pay for the Viagra type drugs that many men take so that they can have a satisfying sex life and impregnate their female partners, no moral objections there. Hypocrisy is alive and well, as it always is, when it comes to women's health.
78
Married women need affordable birth control too!
No one is being prevented from buying birth control. It is readily available to anyone who wants to purchase it. There are just some people who do not want to have to cover the cost under their healthcare plans. That is their choice and decision to make. If birth control is so important to them, they will find the money to obtain it. This sense of entitlement that was created under Obamacare must come to an end. How many things do we get for free? Zero.
8
Not everyone can "find money" for an extra expense. There are a lot of people who barely make their bills and have the money left over for groceries. And before you say something along the lines of "well they should clearly be making better financial decisions," there's a whole host of events a person has no control over that could lead to this (a death in the family, a cancer diagnosis, a child born with expensive medical condition, etc.). And if you want birth control to actually be "readily available" for everyone, you need to advocate for educating people on birth control (there's a very sad amount of young, rural, and poor people who don't even know their range of options or where to go for affordable access to them) and making sure organizations that offer family planning like Planned Parenthood remain operational and readily available in communities.
5
How many Republicans use contraception?
What is wrong with people.
They will inflict unwanted babies on poor people.
The mothers will suffer. The children will suffer.
And the Republicans and all of us will pay for Welfare and prison.
And many of the people doing this are college educated.
13
The Little Sisters were NOT asked to pay for contraception.
They were simply asked to fill out a form.
How does that requirement impinge on their religious beliefs.
38
It's not about who pays for what. It's about going against conscience.
Would you fill out a form asking you to allow a violent murderous crime? Forced sterilization? Enslavement?
1
No one can force a business or institution to cover a product that they find objectionable as we are witnessing from the nuns refusal to include contraception in their healthcare plans. They will resist and refuse and do not care what the government or Obamacare requires them to do. They have excellent lawyers taking up their cause and divine intervention on their side. It is an open and shut case and the nuns will be triumphant.
3
By your logic, anyone who has a "moral" objection to any law can disobey it.
38
Mancuroc,
Obama was asking the nuns to go against a "law" of the Catholic Church which does not allow birth control. He was forcing these nuns to provide a product that violates their consciences. You may not agree with this tenet of the Church, but it is an important one for these nuns. It should not have been forced upon them and so they are fighting it which is their right.
Would Obama have forced another religion to break their "law?" No. He would have given them an exemption which should have occurred here.
3
So let's say I have a moral objection to anyone who does not use birth control? And anyone with more than one child (very costly in calculating my corporate insurance)? And anyone who takes off Christmas and Easter or Yom Kappur or you name it? How about anyone who went to a school run by nuns?
Those nuns will die out and their male masters are experiencing thinning ranks. Perhaps there is another form of intervention going on. The emptying of religious institutions that fail to serve the people.
1
Religion is a choice. Is obeying the law a choice now as well, equally arbitrary and corruptible?
18
Of course it is. In fact law has no force at all without the consent if the governed.
It is the sum of individual arbitrary and corruptible choices that make our form of union so powerful, so volatile, so agile, and so successful.
It is revealing, that whenever you probe a progressive, you find totalitarian.
1
A number of commenters have said "There is no right to employer provided birth control"; well, there is no right to employer provided health insurance, either, but many employers provide it. And coverage is required under law.
Birth control is, however, one of 10 essential benefits required to be covered under the ACA. These benefits include hospitalization, emergency services, mental health/substance abuse, and Rx drugs. Contraceptives are covered under preventive and wellness services, along with STD and cancer screenings, blood pressure, cholesterol, and colon cancer screening, immunizations, and more: https://www.healthcare.gov/coverage/preventive-care-benefits/
It may not be a 'right', but it is required under law. And I believe it falls under "promote the general welfare" as stated in the U.S. Constitution.
29
People keep saying "free contraception."
But nobody says "free doctor's visit" or "free blood work up" or "free CT scan" which are also just things covered by our insurance.
If we are lucky enough to have insurance.
30
This and Gorsuch and much else were promises to Pence to bring him and his supporters (that is, their votes and especially money) to the campaign.
8
Could you explain where the right to have employer paid birth control derives from? It is the right thing to do, but is it a right?
5
It's one of the ACA essential preventive services along with certain screenings, immunization and other benefits. These services have been found to improve health while reducing overall long term costs.
16
I am waiting to hear that some employer who is a Christian Scientist decides that his employ are not permitted to take any medication, see a doctor, go to a hospital, or have surgery because the boss finds all of those to be objectionable under his religious beliefs.
What court will support that position?
Let the lawsuits begin.
35
The author's final paragraph states the true problem here: empowerment of women.
On another note: if birth control will not be covered by health care, will viagra be covered? I suspect the answer is yes, in this male dominated country.
I have a family member that needs birth control for medical reasons. No sex or fear of pregnancy involved. I guess that won't be covered now.
What a surprise in a country governed by old white men.
18
Such hypocrisy! Employers can stop covering birth control for their employees, but still cover Viagra. Most employers do not cover a paid maternity leave. This certainly perpetuates their notion of a subservient class (woman). Get women out of the workplace and back in the kitchen mentality.
14
The one area I wish authors like this would get straight is the difference between a "right" and an "option". Rights in the US are understood in the US to be those in the bill of rights in the US Constitution. People aren't losing the right. They are losing the option. But as we all know, people have all kinds of options and if ones employer doesn't provide the benefits they desire then they will seek employment with one that does. It's not the end of the world.
4
Am I missing something.
No one is asking groups opposed to contraception to pay for contraception.
They simply had to fill out a form.
But this was unacceptable to them.
What these anti contraception groups want is to force their religious beliefs on others. They want to deny other others the right to use contraceptives.
In their view sex is dirty and is ONLY for procreation.
Trump has been married 3 times.
He doesn't care about religious freedom or contraception.
He is pandering to the religious right whose support he will need to defend against the crimes Mueller's investigation will uncover.
24
Interesting to read Linda providing an unambiguous social argument, as opposed to wrapping it in constitutional legal construction. Several years ago, Tom Edsall, who up until that point had clothed his liberalism in graphs and studies, basically “came out” by throwing concerns about ideological balance to the winds; and I welcomed it in this forum. You may be right, you may be wrong, you may be somewhere in-between, but at least start by being who you are. Now, there’s never been any ambiguity about how Linda blows in the wind ideologically, but if you believe something strongly I support just putting it out there despite the absence of even a legal fig leaf.
The current mess with regard to free contraception (which isn’t, of course, free – someone is paying for it) owes to the over-reliance the left places on judicial decisions and regulatory compulsion when they hold the whip. But legal decisions while Trump is naming the judges and policy when he’s naming the regulators and the Executive arbiters of law won’t be coming down on the side of Kumbaya. Personally, I don’t support that on social policy, but there didn’t seem to be another way of rolling back excessive regulation and taxes, obtaining more balanced trade and environmental policy, and putting aside empty and failed political correctness with the Persians, “Rocket Man” and others. It was a close call for me.
1
Democrats need to rely more on legislation and less on ideologically sympathetic judges and regulators. If you can’t get the legislation you want, America may not be ready for it, or you may need to fire your members of Congress and hire more effective ones. You might consider starting with Nancy Pelosi.
It might have made more sense to find another way to get birth control funded than grafting it onto an ACA that the most excessive on the religious right regard as a moral obligation to Yahweh to repeal.
I congratulate the Saudis on finally entering the 20th century by allowing their women to drive. Now, if we could only coax them into the 21st century, we’d be cooking with gas. Our own religious aberrations aren’t as intense – it’s been ages since we stoned a woman for adultery or a man for apostasy – but the Rev. Billy Sol Hargis nevertheless is alive and well in Amurka; and if we want social Kumbaya in the Age of Trump, we’ll need to deal with that.
It’s about time. The true War On Women is the abortion of female fetuses.
3
Abortion is NOT birth control. Birth control helps limit abortions.
15
This is one place science and the church agree.
"Saudi women are gaining the right to drive. American women are losing the right to employer-provided birth control."
In other words, "sexism" is not a word Saudi and American women can use respectively and mean the same thing.
1
I really think it's more about having more white babies. The white men are beginning to get worried that they will be in the minority.
15
Bingo.
8
"American women are losing the right to employer-provided birth control."
The "right..."? Really? Employer-provided birth control is a "right"?
Someone needs a refresher course on 'rights' ?
9
Does the Catholic Church have the same problem with vasectomies? I know quite a few men who could have really benefited from one. No mas machismo. Lo siento.
9
Yes the Catholic Church has exactly the same problem with vasectomies.
You imply near the end of your piece that Pence must use birth control because he only has two children. Not necessarily. It is possible that he and his wife have only had sex twice.
22
Or that they never had sex. There are other ways to get pregnant, which many insurances do pay for.
4
I have a moral and religious objection to wars that are not in defense of the homeland under direct attack. Do I get an exemption on my taxes so I don't have to pay for those wars? Didn't think so. Just birth control.
28
No contraception? Really? Women ought to tell all these people saying this to go [have sexual relations with] themselves. For real.
10
Buy your own contraception. Government has no role in this issue. Move on
9
So what medical coverage SHOULD the government have a say in? Any?
3
No role! Ha! That's rich considering the GOP is all up in everyone's bedroom business! And BTW, Viagra is still covered. When men buy their own happy pill, THEN we can talk!
7
Geez pete, women wouln't have to worry about unplanned pregnancies if men could just control themselves.
10
What about freedom FROM religion!
20
Bravo Linda. You are 100% correct. This is most certainly a War on Women. Nothing less.
13
Ah the dizzying glory of hearing voices in your head and being powerful enough to force others to live by them! A.k.a. “religious freedom” in this age of national insanity... You ain’t seen nothing yet: wait till Pence is president in a year or two.
13
The picture of these nuns celebrating: they should be carrying babies too!
12
Pretty disgusting. On the other hand, readers, did you bother to get off your couch and vote last year? If not, you bear some responsibility for the continuing parade of similar actions. So, next time, whaddeyah gonna do?
7
I am solidly pro-choice, but there is no such thing as the "right" to contraception. We, on the center-left, must not behave like the NRA. There are people in this country that firmly believe that abortion is murder, and contraception is against God's will. We cannot irradicate this thinking. To force institutions to offer contraception only inflames the issue and we lose focus on what is really important; protecting Planned Parenthood and the right of women to a safe choice for terminating an unwanted pregnancy. There are other ways to provide women with free or low-cost contraception, but no other way to protect a woman's right to chose once abortion is illegal and Planned Parenthood funding is eliminated.
7
Equally deplorable, in Sept. the Trump administration changed verbiage in their strategic plan at HHS to say that life begins at conception. That is personhood legislation for an embryo, an intention to reduce the civil and legal rights of a pregnant woman to those of a fertilized egg. The state will act on behalf of the embryo -- not sure who fights for the woman's legal rights. The ACLU and Planned Parenthood I guess. Utah state govt passed a law in 2010 on personhood, making every miscarriage legally required to be investigated by the state. The Republican governor vetoed the bill, but a woman could be jailed on manslaughter for slipping and falling on a rainy day, having a miscarriage and be found guilty of not wearing rubber soled shoes -- thus killing her fetus. and yes. every abortion would be investigated by the state. Handmaid's Tale much?
16
Just a thought: can someone be fired for using birth control? I searched the internet and couldn't find evidence one way or the other. And it makes me think that this is the next step here, that companies will have the power to hire and fire on the basis of how women make the decision to use birth control. I suspect a test case will come to the court soon, especially if Anthony Kennedy retires, paving the way for a hard right justice as his replacement.
6
Is this religious issue only about contraception? Could a business owned by a Jehova's witness refuse to provide insurance covered blood transfusion? What about refusing to allow insurance to cover child vaccinations? Just wondering.
16
Thank you Ms. Greenhouse. Your clarity is, as always, refreshing.
3
So if under Trump it is "Church Over State" on contraception, then presumably Ms. Greenhouse would admit that under Obama it was "State Over Church" which isn't exactly fair either.
Maybe women could simply pay for their own contraception?
3
Maybe men could pay for their wonen’s contraception if they want to have sex with the women. Why is is always “make the woman pay” when you can’t procreate without SPERM?
21
Actually men have been paying. The Women's Law Center concluded that Obamacare transferred $1 billion a year in medical insurance costs from women to men.
To add insult to injury, Obamacare deliberately excluded vasectomies from no-deductible, no-copay coverage, despite covering IUDs, which cost about the same, on that "zero charge to the patient" basis and included a provision legalizing such sex discrimination against men. A number of private health insurers, to their credit, refused to participate in this sex discrimination against men.
Maybe men should have a choice of safe, effective, reversible birth control. Plenty of surveys have found men are eager for it.
And it's not condoms. Condoms fail 17% of the time in ordinary use as instructed.
"Maybe women could simply pay for their own contraception?"
That's what we're trying to do. Use our employer-sponsored heath insurance, which is a benefit we receive as a part of our compensation package for the work we perform for our employer (i.e., consideration) to purchase the things we need.
Riddle me this. I am a healthy, fit, 30 year old single woman. I use my health insurance for very little. Really, the only thing I regularly need is well-woman exams and contraceptives. My employer and I still pay thousands of dollars a year for me to have this health insurance that I rarely use. Why should I be asked to spend THOUSANDS of dollars on health insurance when it doesn't even cover the one thing that I need? Don't you get it? All we are asking is to ensure that we CAN use our compensation to pay for our contraception.
Why should I be forced to subsidize all of the old men I work with who need lipator and diabetes meds and hip replacements? Basically, you're just using me as a cash cow and then saying that I need to go "buy my own" medication. Huh? What sense does that make? None.
Why don't you do a modicum of research on this issue, or even educate yourself on *what insurance is* before you start issuing proclamations to ANYONE else. Men's hubris astounds me.
202
Most of the rest of the world thinks it is strange that this is an employer-employee issue. They just deal with (and buy) any birth control they need.
1
At 4.2% unemployment rate, those who can quit an employer who opts for this discrimination and go elsewhere should do so. Women in a part of the country where there's competition for workers just might have an advantage. It may not be easy, but it certainly sends a message to those employers who think they can run female workers' life choices.
1
Is it inconceivable that someone might oppose artificial birth control for a reason other than slapping women down? For example, the Catholic Church's teaching on artificial birth control is rooted in her concept of marriage. It is a clearly reasoned argument. Why can't people resist reducing complex issues to simplistic ones? Ms. Greenhouse falls into the trap of deciding that people who oppose having to pay for someone else's birth control must therefore want to disempower women. Take an honest look at the whole variety of reasons why people oppose mandatory coverage for birth control. Admit that some of those reasons, even though one might personally disagree with them, have clearly delineated and explained rationales are not based on negative attitudes about women.
3
I cannot name a single Medication my employer has the right to deny a single gender except for birth control
Why is their speech more important than mine?
My healthcare is part of my pay. My company tells me they spend $15k per employee per year in healthcare
Here is a proposal, implement a public option for women whose company does not want to pay for their birth control
We women can buy the public option and the corporation can receive the $15k bill from the government
Sounds fair to me
13
The more fair approach would be for companies that refuse to cover birth control to have to have especially generous maternity leave policies for employees who are mothers. What were the Berniecrats looking for? 12 weeks of paid family leave? If they want to avoid paying for birth control, make them provide that.
.
Of course I don't expect Pro Birth politicians on the Right to go for it.
3
I usually find Greenhouse's writing to be on spot a joy to read. This opinion was much the same, except she apparently is not seeing the truth of the matter, or perhaps is afraid to speak it: there are many who want nothing more than a Christian-based theocratic USA.
No government but God. No law but God's. No rules but whatever the local Church in Power can strong arm on the populace within its reach.
Trump speaks to that mentality simply because it is akin to the bullying mentality. Belief in one's self (or god); belief in one's superiority (by the grace of God); belief in righteousness (with god's blessing, I know best, because I am a Christian - yes, without circular reasoning...well, let's not digress into philosophy).
Put another way, Greenhouse is not seeing the sanctimony that so many find near and dear to their heart. Without it, they would be lost. It is their meat.
5
The photo of nuns in front of the Supreme Court is disheartening. As a Catholic Christian, I suggest one follow the activities of Sister Simone Campbell and the women here and abroad who truly live the Gospel. Those cheering are clueless that women of their denomination use contraception, and have been doing so since it became safe and effective. The Catholic bishops, hooked up with the far right, helped bring us trump. Hopefully, trump's failure to follow the law in promulgating this ridiculous rule will cause its demise.
4
It's not only the Catholic church that welcomes Trump's ban on contraception funded by government health insurance. The Orthodox Union, the rabbinical organization of Orthodox Jews, also supports the ban. And in Iran, the Shi-ite government supports birth control.
Separation of church and state is no longer a tenet of the United States. We are becoming like the Middle East, where the majority of countries are ruled by dictators, where the wealthy have too much political power, and where religion functions is a public institution that controls peoples' lives.
I think that if I ever have a business where I'll hire employees, I won't let them eat meat or fish on the premises. It's against my religion to kill animals. Good thing that this contraception ban exists. It sets a precedent for employers to prohibit their employees from engaging in acts that go against the employers' religion.
7
It's high time to separate employers from health care. Like fish and bicycles, there's no relationship!
7
This is ludicrous on its face. What exactly is the "right to employer-provided birth control"? From where does this "right" emanate? Why is there no right to employer-provided contact lenses? Or acupuncture? Or dental care? The Obama administration chose, (controversially, as other equally preventive services were not chosen) to include contraception as a fully covered preventive service. This is not the same as a "right" to employer provided birth control.
Another issue is the perpetuation of the idea that health care costs should be paid by someone else. Make the employers pay for it, then it's free, like magic. We would be better off if people recognized that health care costs are their responsibility, like food and shelter, and can be insured for excessive expenses incurred.
With all the melodrama in the editorial one almost forgets that prior to the ACA many if not most employers included contraception in their employer provided health insurance. Nothing is stopping them from continuing to provide it if they believe it truly is as preventive service or that it is important to their employees. If they don't, it still will be available at less than the cost of a cell phone. What this is really about is the belief that it is unfair that women should bear this cost. Maybe it is. Most people understand that life is not always fair.
The author should be embarrassed by her histrionics.
3
I read that Benjamin Franklin's lightning rods were challenged because they thwarted God's intention of shooting that lighting bolt at those buildings. Franklin responded with the idea that umbrellas also thwart God's intentions that rain should fall on peoples' heads. But those objectors do indeed use umbrellas. A contraceptive is, for the most part an umbrella. What could be wrong about that. Even better, you have some fun holding it! But, alas, this is not an article about why any sane person would object to contraception on religious grounds. It just assumes such objections exists, regardless of sanity, and they are of a religious origin.
3
Would health care plans be required to provide free umbrellas? Does research show this would reduce colds and flu?
Only in liberal la la land is forcing nuns to violate their beliefs somehow acceptable.
4
Yup... nothing like celibate women lording it over the rest of us.
15
The nuns have no right to say anything about birth control. They may be celibate, other women arent.
12
But where do the feds get the power to order employers to provide health insurance to their employees. The federal government supposedly has only those powers specifically granted to it by the Constitution. Where does it say that the federal government can order employers to provide health insurance to their employees? SCOTUS held that the federal government can not order Americans to buy insurance but upheld the individual mandate in the ACA on the grounds that the feds weren't really serious, that the penalty imposed by the ACA for failure to buy insurance was not sufficient to force anyone to do it, so the penalty was merely a tax, and the mandate was constitutional because it was not real. But the feds are serious about the employer mandate so the only defense, it is argued, is a religious or moral objection. I suggest that it would be more consistent with the original intent of the Constitution if SCOTUS simply said that the feds have no power to impose the mandate and be done with it.
I note that Alexander Hamilton opposed the Bill of Rights. arguing that at best they were superfluous in that they sought to preclude the feds from doing what it had no power to do anyway and were dangerous because they would suggest to some, as is being argued here, that the feds can do anything that is not precluded by the Bill of Rights and therefore could be used by the unscrupulous to expand the power of the feds rather than limit it..
1
Abortion and contraception are not mentioned in the Old Testament, the New Testament, or the gospels. The anti-abortion and anti-contraception stance, claimed to be religion-based, is an invention. Throughout history it has been about men forcing women to have their children against women’s will. Nothing more.
34
Forgive me here - but the too many comments here convey a belief that "contraception" is an option for everyone. Contraception is a vital medical resource for many medical conditions. Yes contraception empowers women by enabling them to take control of their body's reproductive functions - but this means to live a healthier life rather than one endures the constant risks inherent to pregnancy. Why is it that Conservative always forget that simple fact: that a woman could easily die either in pregnancy or childbirth complications?
26
Facts are anathema to ideologues, and a lot of people are too lazy to think for themselves. I've also noticed that "conservatives" - most of whom are not conservative at all, but reactionary - don't care at all if people suffer and die because of the policies they support. Maternal and infant mortality is much higher in the US than in civilized countries. Republican reactionaries could not care less.
8
"Easily die"? Since no contraceptive method is 100% dependable, if the odds are so unfavorable that the woman could "easily die", then i think the men (like me) should forego the pleasures of sex. It would be such a callous, unloving, mean act to implant sperm in a woman (assuming the contraceptive fails) if it might cause her to die! I think men need to be more caring, and more aware. Just say no!
1
The GOP: The Every-Sperm-Is-Sacred Party.
13
It's really hard to express how sickening I find this.
25
Hopefully a powerful and angry backlash will arise against theocrats of all types- roman, evangelical, mohammedan, haredi, etc. all are a menace to human decency. their gods do not have jurisdiction outside of their little worlds and the rest of us should be left alone.
21
Excerpt from a health care forum : "This entire page is incorrect. I am 42m with BCBS-TX. I was prescribed Cialis for ED and this medication, as well as all ED meds, are not covered. If I want any ED drug, I pay cash. Blue Cross Blue Shield does not cover any ED drug for ED.
Let me repeat – actually let me quote verbatim from BCBS’ benefits book I hold for my coverage – Under section ‘Pharmacy Benefits – Limitations and exclusions – #18 – Drugs to treat sexual dysfunction including but not limited to sildenafil cirate, phentolamine, apomorphine, and alprostadil in oral and topical form.’
Understood? Not included are ED drugs."
3
Must be new. I used to get both, at different times, thru them. Not too long ago.
"Included but not limited to" [a list of drugs] does not mean that other unspecified drugs are excluded. It is a stock legal phrase that means that the drugs mentioned are examples of drugs related to dysfunction, but other drugs that do the same thing are also covered. To exclude a drug, you'd have to show that it does not treat dysfunction.
If your doctor says that the drug is for something other than ED you can get it.
Very interesting that when JFK was running for president, the major argument against him was that he was Catholic, and therefore likely to allow the country to be run by the Pope. Trump is not Catholic, nor protestant, nor, as far as I can see, religious in any way, yet he is helping our country be run by religion. I think it very unlikely that the Little Sisters would ever have had to pay for contraception, and their insistence that they should not be forced to is ingenuous.
15
Otherwise known as the tail wagging the dog.
7
As a corporation is a creature of a State, it can be dissolved by a State for technical reasons, such as, not fililing annual reports. A human being cannot be "dissolved" for technical reasons. Thus a human being can have religious beliefs. I have no idea what it means for a publicly held corporation to have religious beliefs. How can a corporation "believe" or not "believe" in a god?
The Trump administration's addition of publicly held companies makes a mockery of all religious "belief." It may well not be constitutional, even given Hobby Lobby, which was a narrow holding about closely held private corporations and the religious beliefs of their control shareholders.
7
Fact: Hobby Lobby IS NOT publicly traded.
Why should ANY boss have a say in how their employees use their health care benefits? Those benefits are earned compensation, not gifts bestowed by benevolent employers. And unlike salaries (which Hobby Lobby and other "religious" employers have no issue with their employees using to buy birth control) health benefits earn the employers who provide them a tax break. So these "religious" employers get to enjoy a tax break while stripping their employers of their earned compensation. This is NOT a Trump policy. It is a GOP policy. Don't want your boss deciding on your health care? Don't vote Republican.
34
Employers get to determine what that compensation encompasses. Some companies, even in the same industries and/or markets pay substantially different wages. Some willingly have generous time off policies while others don't offer paid tome off. And so it is too for health insurance. They may pay all, some, little or none of the premiums. They may offer a singer plan or a menu of options. What they do offer may include huge deductibles. They might allow employees to donate their unused sick days to co-workers experiencing severe illness. Since they're paying for it, they get to call the shots.
"Since they're paying for it, they get to call the shots."
No, they don't. Do you think that because they're paying for my health insurance, they also get to force me to take a medication or go to the doctor? After all, they're calling the shots. Can the employer dictate other aspects of my medical care? After all, they're calling the shots. The simple fact is that health insurance is a part of the compensation I am provided in consideration for the work I perform.
Does my employer get to decide how I use my salary just because they're providing it?
No.
"They may pay all, some, little or none of the premiums. They may offer a singer plan or a menu of options. What they do offer may include huge deductibles"
None of these variables go to what the employees can *use* that health insurance for. Basic analytical reasoning, people. Keep up.
They could save more than key strokes. Now anytime a female employee is offered a job they should know to ask for post-tax compensation equivalent to the out of pocket cost of birth control if the employer is a "moral" objector. The same is true for any male employee with female dependents too actually. Someone should add a section to Richard Bolles' old job search guide. Seriously. Are you out there "What Color is Your Parachute" editors?
If certain employers refuse to provide a certain health care benefits on moral grounds, you're entitled to ask for more pay. If they don't like it, goodbye talent. Imagine how awkward and uncomfortable that hiring process becomes for the employer. Personally, I have no pity. Businesses shouldn't use specious exemptions to deny health care rights to anyone. If you didn't want to have the conversation, you should have stayed out of peoples' business. Contraception is none of their business in the first place.
16
When you force somebody else to pay for it, you are infringing on their rights. Nobody has taken the right to contraception away from women in this country. Comparing the United States to Saudi Arabia, as you do in the first three paragraphs, is hyperbole at best, and dishonest at worst.
Hobby Lobby pays for employee birth control by the way; they pay for a total of sixteen types of contraception. However, they do not pay for the so-called "morning after pill", viewing it as a form of abortion and contrary to the Sixth Commandment.
The smear against Mr. Pence and Mr. Sessions is uncalled for. Not once have they come out against birth control. They have come out against forcing others to pay for it against their beliefs, although I guess that the New York Times believes it is the final arbiter of religious belief.
By the way, I am Protestant, not Catholic, and belong to a denomination that does not prohibit birth control. But I respect the beliefs of others.
6
Thanks for mansplaining. I respect the beliefs of others, for their OWN life. For mine, it's not their business. And never will be.
5
I respect the belief of others as well. I would never force any person to do anything against their religious beliefs. If a religious person does not believe in birth control, I would never force them to take birth control measures. I see no reason why anyone should use their religious belief to interfere with my ability to run my life just because I work for them.
Birth control isn't a religious issue for the vast majority of people, it's a health issue and a personal issue. My employer should have no right to involve themselves in my health or personal choices.
The whole thing is stupid. Our country was not created to be a religious theocracy.
10
Thank you Ron Wilson, I could not have said it better.
1
When the office becomes a theocracy affecting the civil liberties of its employees, the constitutional right to freedom of religion becomes meaningless.
14
Trump and the GOP don't care a whit about women's physical and mental health, the economic plight of middle-class families, general public opinion, mainstream America, or the future of this country.
This GOP and Trump administration are the most cynical, intentionally unfair, mean-spirited, and destructive bunch of men and women ever to run our government. Their mission is to destabilize and destroy the values of the Enlightenment on which this country was founded, and to roll back human progress.
It's church over state, authoritarianism over democracy, party over country, men over women, and whites over everyone else. It is all about kowtowing to the rich and special interests (whites, Christians, gun lovers, the fossil fuel industry, Wall Street, etc.), and winning elections by any means necessary (gerrymandering, voter ID, lying, Russian help, etc.).
Trump got 81% of the white evangelical vote, 58% of the Protestant vote, and 60% of the white Catholic vote in 2016. Although there are more registered Democrats than Republicans, voting these days is all about getting your party's voters to the polls, and you do that by giving your base what it wants, so it is motivated to vote. And Trump supporters are beyond motivated, they are addicted to Trump, no mater what he says or does.
Trump & the GOP no longer even pretend to govern this entire country and pull people together. They will win by pleasing their base and punishing those with democratic progressive values.
17
Thank God ! Trump punish the liberals and hard. Pay them back for eight years of Obama.
How absurd that a bunch of men and women who have (supposedly) never had sex should decide issues of sex and reproduction for all women. What an appalling and grotesque wielding of personal belief. What a hypocritical and cynical perception of women. Shame on all of them.
19
The world might be a better place if quite a few more people never had sex.
2
I can completely understand religious conservatives reluctance to pay for contraception if they can understand my reluctance to pay for the Iraq War, and other militaristic blunders that they enthusiastically supported.
Moreover, Jesus doesn't say a word about women using contraception - not a word - but he says quite a bit about killing, and about loving both your neighbor and your enemy.
I get that the historical Jesus set an impossible standard for conservative Christians to uphold, inasmuch as the only reason that many of them claim to follow Him is so they can feel superior to everyone else. But we see the hypocrites for who they really are - and will refuse to allow them the vanity of their self-righteousness.
If you call Donald Trump your leader, then do understand whatever religious pretensions you espouse are as disgusting to us as the sight of our crazy emperor without his clothes.
Finally, religious liberty can only entail the right to follow your wholly subjective convictions in so far as they apply to you; however, what you call liberty become tyranny when you attempt to impose these wholly subjective convictions on others. And make no mistake: what these conservative seek is not liberty, but tyranny.
700
Superb!
2
"Christian, n.- One who believes the New Testament is a divinely inspired book, admirably suited to the needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin". -- Ambrose Bierce
2
Since the religious liberty folks have become so politically active in pushing their agendas it is past time to take all their tax exemptions away. I suggest that everyone--especially the "originalists" on the Supreme Court read Virginia's Statute on Religious Freedom--something Madison and Jefferson felt very strongly about--in fact Jefferson considered it one of his greatest accomplishments.
2
Take your anger and frustration out in the voting booth. Show up and vote in every election, every time. Drive a few people to the polls. Drive someone to get their ID.
Stand up and be counted.
62
Free contraception? Why doesn't government make everything free? Free food. Free cars. Free phones. Free houses. Why advantage birth control over everything else. Can we get this in place before Oct. 27? I need to order my new iPhone.
36
it is not at all free. The government supplies contraceptives to people who need them. The people then don't have un-wanted (and not affordable) children so they can finish school and/or work at better and better paying jobs. the people make money that is taxed by the government. The taxes pay for the roads you and I drive on, the fire and police, emergency medical the defense of the country, just a whole bunch of things that you and I take advantage of. So not free at all but a really good investment.
32
While we're at it let's get rid of the subsidy for religion too. We can no longer afford this luxury. Everyone should pay their fair share of taxes. If religion wants to get involved in politics then they should pay their own way.
170
Your flippancy shows an utter lack of understanding about the implications and importance of contraception in the contexts of both public health and women’s rights.
272
Ever since the Christian Church became the official religion of Rome it has found it easy to dismiss as insignificant people's suffering in life if it was certain that their immortal souls would be saved. It's that old source of endless bad acts done without remorse, that the end justifies the means.
10
"The right to employer provided birth control." I have never heard of the existence of such a right before. So we have the right to obligate our employer to have a role in our sexual and reproductive activities? Sounds like quite a reach to me.
14
No, not the right to employer provided birth control; the right to birth control covered by your insurance plan.
14
Given your position, I assume you consent to the removal of male sexual aids and medications from employer provided healthcare. After all, subsidizing only the male side of the equation would not be fair, right? And the fact that many of the medications lumped in the general category of contraception are also used by women to treat real medical issues other than the prevention of pregancy is not relevant to your argument. Since sexual activity is for the purpose of procreation, I guess you don't want to have any sex at all except to make babies.
7
Name one commonly available health care plan that routinely pays for ED and other male enhancement medications.
I think this is about empowering women in the sense that it's about sex. Letting women have control over their sexual lives. Lots of people think sex is sinful - for women. Not so much for men.
29
What's absolutely amazing is that Trump (Trump circa 2017, not pre-2017 Trump), Republicans, and the institutions seeking "religious freedom" all desperately oppose abortion. By removing birth control, they are diminishing one of the keys to curbing abortions. Do they not understand that?
They prove yet again that they aren't pro-life; they are pro-birth, and nothing more.
21
It has been said by others, but is it not common sense to provide contraception to prevent the need for abortion. The republicans politicize everything to the determinant of the people they are representing. How did contraception become an a problem for the loons on the right ?
10
Even though I am not Roman Catholic, I am still ashamed that it was the nuns who pushed for this. They may be religious, they may be celibate, but they are still women, and surely many of them work with poor women. Can they not see how women are shackled, in ways that men cannot even understand, by their fertility? This is not guidance that comes from heaven, this is subjugation of women.
513
If those nuns can swear themselves to a life of celibacy, why can't others, both male and female? We've become so self-indulgent that we feel no one can deny us anything.
1
What do women who live sheltered, sexless lives know about the lives of women in the real world live.
The answer to the problem is more government intervention.
There would be more male protection being used if the states started mandating that every baby leaving the hospital had both a mother and father's name on the birth certificate. No more baby mama's.
The father could appeal through a DNA test, but until we put the responsibility on both parties to practice safe sex, nothing will change.
Seriously, other than personal responsibility, what motive does a birth father have putting his name down as father on a birth certificate if the mother is minority and poor?
This is merely a civil war issue revisited.
Rather than states nullifying Federal legislation and regulations
it is now claimed to be a personal privilege.
Why apply personal religious nullification to contraception?
Can a restaurant operator claim a religious exemption from health and safety regulations?
Or racially restrict who eats in their restaurant over biblical racism?
How about minimum wages or child labor laws and regulation?
Hobby Lobby has set the stage for individual nullification.
And the originalist rat wing of the Supreme Court will continue to validate and expand this "right",
10
As stated in Ms. Greenhouse's article:
"But a group of religiously affiliated nonprofits, .... refused to accept it. Not good enough, they said, claiming that they would still be complicit in the sin of contraception, even if the employees’ receipt of the benefit required no action on the employer’s part beyond notifying the government that it was opting out."
Imagine if the Amish were to take this exact same position:
"Our religion forbids the use of automobiles. Therefore we object to paying any portion of our taxes (for major highways, the DMV, NHTSA, traffic law enforcement, etc.) which makes us complicit in the blasphemous use of automobiles."
Ridiculous, right? But no more ridiculous than this latest vile travesty against the fundamental right of American women to be solely in control of their reproductive capacity, regardless of wealth or other mitigating circumstances.
Hey, Luddite misogynists! Don't like contraception? Don't use it.
But the Rest of Us here in the 21st century rely on "modern" conveniences like cars, phones, e-mail, vaccines and yes, safe and reliable contraception. We will never return to the Dark Ages when virtually all heterosexual activity was a Russian Roulette gamble with our evolutionary level of fecundity - which is now a thousand times more potent than required over the previous half-million years to merely "propagate the species".
"The Handmaid's Tale" is no longer dystopian fiction - but rather all too close to prophecy.
RESIST!
26
There are in Christian religious thought the notion that the body is constantly distracting the spirit from it's proper inclinations to become one with God and so anything to which the body reacts with pleasure is inherently harmful to the soul. This is the source of the belief that sex apart from procreation and love that is focused upon a holy union is a bad thing which should be discouraged for the sake of people's immortal spirits. Nowhere in Jesus' teachings does he describe any opinion about enjoying life and it's pleasures, so it's a belief that churchmen inferred from their understanding of religious texts, and it might be totally wrong.
5
I am willing to bet that everyone clamoring for others to pay for their contraception has a smart phone with a data plan.
3
Said the guy...wow. So do lots of people on welfare.
3
It shocks me that someone who obviously has access to the internet doesn't understand how *health insurance* works.
Stop showing me these demonstrating nuns. As a older woman raised a Catholic, these pictures make me sick. We were once a country that separated Church and State. The nuns were the first ones to teach us that we should stay out of the religious lives of others so they would, in turn, stay out of ours. Those were the old days. I guess those days are gone.
The only reason birth control of any sort, whether it's the "rhythm method," condoms, or feminine birth control pills and medical devices, violates Catholic beliefs is because Catholic women are supposed to produce more Catholics, period. That's the sin of contraception: you're not producing enough Catholics.
Revoke their 501(c)(3) tax exemption.
63
The rhythm method and NFP don't violate Catholic beliefs. Other methods of birth control do. To summarize a very complex topic, the Catholic church is against the use of artificial contraceptives largely because it takes a human being, decides that the way they were made was wrong and inconvenient, and then changes that person's bodily functions to be more convenient. I doubt that many here will agree with that stance, but setting up a strawman (and just factually incorrect) argument isn't the way to debate these kinds of issues.
"The problem they have is with what birth control signifies: empowering women — in school, on the job, in the home — to determine their life course. That’s what they don’t want to normalize." That's why all of Trump's retinue of women are caricatures of the late Hefner's definition, while Pence's is the soul of Grant Wood's American Gothic. Their counter-reformation is odious, but it is fatally split between the exaltation of falsehood, and the falsifying of servility.
8
I suppose that pacifists will now be refunded the portion of their taxes that otherwise would have gone toward military spending?
5
"The RIGHT to employer-provided birth control"??? What kind of right is that? Should it be an unalienable right like life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness? Maybe birth control is involved in all three,maybe it should be a right, but certainly not as employer provided.
In fact, why are employers involved in their employees' health care? When did that weird practice start?
The ability to pay for required (single payer) health insurance should be covered by an acceptable minimum wage rate. If there is anyone you ought to fear more than the government it is your employer.
2
The "right" to employer provided contraception was an Obama administration right made up out of thin air. There is no such right. BC pills are available for $9 per month at 1000s of Targets and Walmarts. Guess women will just have pay their own way for a change.
3
Who ever decided that government-provided birth control is a "right"? I'm as pro-choice and anti-religious as it gets but the government is not here for that.
The government doesn't provide me with new tires for my car, toothpaste, or laundry soap. Why in the world should they have to provide (taxpayer funded) birth control? I don't want the government involved in every aspect of my life.
6
Who ever decided prostrate coverage was a right? Who ever decided vasectomy coverage was a right? Who ever decided a broken leg repair was a right? Who ever decided contraception was a right. Who ever decided a hysterectomy was a right. Its how insurance works buddy J.
1
Every law that pertains to a woman's body was put in place by male legislative bodies - this goes back to when only men had the vote. Men simply cannot understand the effects any of those laws have on women. Period. All such laws should be reexamined by women-only Congressional committees and legislative bodies at the state and national level. Only then can the legislative process regarding such laws be fairly decided. Any male that disagrees with this...please start at the beginning of this comment again.
19
I surmise one of the real reason conservatives want to ban wide-spread availability of free contraception is precisely so women will need more abortions. After all, were it to lead to fewer and fewer abortions, the right could lose one of its most effective wedge issues that they can exploit in order to con and divide voters.
10
Since when is there a right to employer-provided contraceptives? I’ve never heard of that right. If that right was so important, why hasn’t it existed for almost all of American history? Why isn’t it in the Bill of Rights? Laws can be changed
3
ACA defined what healthcare insurance is to cover at a minimum level. That minimum includes reproductive healthcare, which includes contraception, abortion, prenatal and birth coverage. Why? Because you, me, our neighbors, and our country all benefit from the reproductive health of over 50% of our fellow citizens.
3
Every time the Trump Republicans make an advance like this, they create enemies and provoke a response. It's hard to say what the endgame of it all really is; it's inexplicable that they behave as though these actions are irreversible. This has to impact the companies and families that the GOP needs for its long term future. This has to cost them votes and voters they need. Only the truest True Believers could mistake the relentless pursuit of Pyrrhic victories for a strategy. Let's make the backlash fierce and permanent.
5
"moral" objections to federal law are appealing if they can be applied to any law one finds morally objectionable. If the time comes when there is a federal ban on late term abortions, it will be comforting that medical providers who find it morally objectionable to prevent women from making the choices that are best for them, will be able to bypass that law. Or if abortions are outlawed altogether, abortion providers will still be able to provide safe abortions in clean facilities because they will be able to state their strong moral objection to laws banning abortion. This may be quite helpful in the current supreme court configuration in which Merrick Garland is not a member.
6
Jim Austin: An interesting line of thought. Am I entitled to a moral objection to paying for warfare I disapprove of on moral grounds (such as that we are the aggressor)? Am I entitled to a moral objection to following the law that tracks, arrests, confines, abuses, and deports illegal immigrants? Am I entitled to a moral refusal to cooperate with a justice system that is racist, pro-wealthy, anti-poor, pro-business (big), anti-people (and small business), and abusive?
6
Linda, your contraceptives should be on your dime, not mine. Just like the life-saving drugs I take to prevent me from dying are on my dime, not yours.
You're just another thief, who cheered when Obama gave her something for nothing, by making everyone else pay for it.
7
KarlosTJ,
I didn't realize that you and Ms Greenhouse worked for the same organization. Do you also pay on your dime for your own prostate and testicular exams? Women make up more than fifty percent of the US population and contraceptives are an important part of their healthcare. It's healthcare and providing it through insurance is one of the ways that employers pay their employees. You think they should pay for it on their own dime? Fine, do you also think that employers who refuse to cover their policies - and thus probably incur less expense - should therefore raise their employees salaries to match their loss? Because, as an employee they are effectively losing salary due to this. Nobody is a thief, and Obama didn't give anyone anything for nothing. Do you participate in insurance at all, or do you just pay for everything out of pocket? If you do participate in insurance for all, you pool your risk with others. Would you like to have a line item veto for the things that you don't think you should pay for on your dime, or the things you think that people are just getting for nothing?
16
Medicare is paying for the drugs saving my life.
Just another liberal freebee.
I was happy to pay taxes till 65 to be my brother's keeper via Medicare/Medicaid.
4
No one is getting anything for free. If your life saving drugs are paid for by insurance, then they are not just on your dime either. Everyone in the insurance pool is paying for them through their premiums, which is exactly the same for contraceptives, prostate cancer treatment and Viagra under Obamacare. None of this is about getting something for free. It's about the right to equal treatment under the law. It's apparent that is the primary "moral objection" of Conservatives opposed to the mandate.
5
We've seen this kind of administration before, in not-too-distant history. I think the slogan re women's role in society was "kinder küche kirche."
17
Children, kitchen, church has now morphed into Facebook, Fox and Frail. As in, needing the " protection", and permission, of a MALE.
1
Not to paraphrase Cassius, but the fault dear Brendas is not in the stars, but in all of you white woman who made Donald Trump president. Congrats.
16
It is truly a shame that the Catholic Church has never viewed the sin of child abuse by their own priests with the same horror with which they view the "sin" of birth control.
86
And these are the people who presume to teach the rest of us morals. Good grief.
6
The issue I see is that, nobody thinks that one night stand should translate to an automatic lifetime commitment, but hey, let's make birth control less available, and, at the same time, let's make abortion difficult, and let women deal with the consequences, and for the guys, no accountability (just free Viagra). This is adding insult to injury. We need to vote this nonsense out of sight.
37
Are federally-mandated employer-provided health insurance benefits to include coverage for pre-existing conditions (e. g., pregnancy)?
5
Maybe it's time for women to boycott men.
31
That would eliminate the need for contraceptives, would it not?
It is time for women to RESIST by boycotting sex with men
Its all about keeping women down. Some say that its not taking away BC, its just making women pay for it. But that's how it starts.....this slow erosion of rights. In 20 years, if Republicans have their way, we'll be wearing burkas and be uneducated. It can happen. I'm hoping it won't. But it is scary!
22
Slow erosion of rights???? What about my right not to pay for your birth control? Pay for it yourself.
2
To reader: and when you have a coronary, stroke, or cancer, why should I pay for it?
2
What do you think health insurance is? I pay premiums that cover all sorts of other healthcare I don't use. You think it's fair that I should pay thousands of dollars/year so some fat old man can get his aorta cleaned out because he eats a diet of only red meat and soda, but I can't get the one relatively cheap health care item I actually need? My using my health insurance *is* paying for it myself.
Pay for your healthcare yourself.
Where do the nuns stand on Viagra? I am serious. If intercouse is meant for procreation only why is there no outrage over this product?
The hypocrisy is astounding!
72
I wonder if the same reasoning could be applied to a Christian Scientist business owner whose sincerely held religious beliefs led him to exclude coverage for blood transfusions from his employees' health plans. or if an Orthodox Jewish or Muslim business owner could, for his religious beliefs, ban pig products from his company's lunchroom. after all, what's good for the goose. . .
31
Last I heard, it takes two people to make a baby through the sinful sexual act that runs rampant when women are allowed birth control, a man as well as a woman. Perhaps it should be made into law that men abstain from any sex with any woman unless they are specifically seeking to make a baby with their one and only wife (a certificate to this effect to be presented to your employed sponsored health care provider -- no more than 2.1 babies allowed. No more than ten sinful sexual acts for each baby. Special dispensation if there is need for a couple more to achieve the desired pregnancy.): I think the women would be the beneficiaries of this abstention. No need to revert to the infamous 'not tonight, dear, I have a headache' of yore. If a man is caught with his pants down attempting sex beyond these occasions, any woman is obliged to photograph him and go to the specially set up 'sex police', until men find that the pressure not to have sex is such that they can't get it up after all. In fact, why not introduce the chastity belt once again? That would be fun!
33
So if a Jehovah Witness owns a business, can he decline to cover blood transfusions in his employee health plan? What about Christian Scientists? Can they offer no health insurance to their employees because they don't believe in medical intervention?
Unrelated but how ironic that a bunch of virgins are dictating a birth control policy.
75
Republicans are a far greater threat to women (indeed, to everyone) than ISIS. If women turn out in droves in 2018 and vote for Democratic candidates, this Republican assault will be addressed.
54
SCALITO, Handmaiden to the late ungreat diva, Scalia, has abused his position of responsibility by acting as the extremist activitist judge that he is, legislating from the bench. His lack of empathy and remorse, while perhaps not in the same league with Trump, aren't far off. Scalito's disdain for the rule of law and the strong wall of separation between church and state is destructive and vile. He blithely disregards the beliefs of the Founders that separation between church and state is one of the foundations of our democracy. Indeed, Scalito has moved the US closer toward a theocracy by exempting all businesses who are so inclined to easily dismiss their duty to provide an equal level of medical care for women and well as for men. As things stand now, men will be covered for medication for erectile dysfunction, while women will be denied coverage for birth control. Gee, that's a real hard one to understand! The ACLU and Planned Parenthood will, I'm certain, have suits lined up. Meanwhile, the women of the US and those who care about equal rights, are outraged by Scalito's enabling of the Trumpenstein monster. It matters not what the Trumptee Dumptee adminstration wrote. They were enable a posteriori by Scalito's legislation from the bench.
10
Umm, before you defame Justice Scalia, did you read the article? It was Justice Scalia who wrote the Supreme Court opinion, Employment Division v. Smith, which held that religious beliefs do not exempt people from neutral laws of general applicability. He understood that to grant exemptions from laws based solely on religious belief would, as Greenhouse notes, "court anarchy." Unfortunately, liberals didn't heed Justice Scalia's sound logic and strongly supported the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which privileged religious beliefs and practices. Now it has come back to haunt liberals. I didn't agree with Justice Scalia a lot of the time, but he was dead right on this subject.
I want someone to start actively discriminating against conservative religious fanatics. See how they like it. Tell them your "sincerely held religious beliefs" allow you to deny them service because you don't like their morality, you object to their lifestyle, and there's nothing they can do about it. They would try to sue you faster than if you had burned down their house.
16
Glad to see a photograph of nuns accompanying the article: they are the only Catholics in American who don't use birth control.
77
Actually as with so much of the Trump "agenda?", seeking anything for any reason deeper than Trumps obsessive hatred of all things Obama is unnecessary. The particularly malevolent bacterium, masquerading as a human, will continue thusly to try prove his importance, since he is unable to even imagine doing any kind of good, he will continue to destroy, until some grownups will take away his hammer.
8
If corporations are people, then the corporations don't have to use contraception when they have intercourse with other corporations. Their conscience will be preserved, and their little spin-offs will, I'm sure, be brought up in a loving way, since corporate mergers never end up in disarray.
As for the staffs of these corporations, they are different people, so should not be forced to share the supposed consciences of what is effectively just a co-worker at their job.
Regarding the column's "The Trump administration’s rescission of the government’s birth control mandate, not only for these organizations but also for others that never even got around to asking for it, is thus a reward for intransigence matched only by the Senate’s blockade of the Supreme Court vacancy intended for Merrick Garland that it eventually handed to Neil Gorsuch." --- I'd also suggest the latest health care debacle where they want to shift money from states that increased coverage to their citizens, and drop that money as block grants to the states that do a lousy job of proving insurance, like Texas.
5
The Republicans yap about freedom, but the false freedom here is that your employer can now tell you how to behave in your own bedroom. Little Sisters of the Poor sounds so kind and wonderful but the Catholic Church and the right wing evangelical churches are not about freedom and kindness; they are about controlling women's sexuality. They are welcome to not engage in sex; they are welcome to advocate for whatever garbage they believe in about contraception. In a free country they would not be allowed to keep women away from contraception.
20
"a radical fringe" is being polite, it is the Republican party as a whole, misogynist policies have long been ingrained in its platform and actions.
13
So...grab your wallet and MOBILIZE !
Any organization which denies women essential medical service should be sought out and publicly dressed down. Businesses which retail direct to customer should be boycotted and picketed. For wholesalers or product suppliers--the focus should be on the end users: find another supplier; subcontractor, etc.. or we're coming after you!
These are for-profit companies--even the small family enterprises.
Money talks--boycotts work.
25
Hard to believe it's the 21st century and we're still being controlled by those who believe in sky fairies. When will people start to think for themselves and reject organized 'religion'? It's nothing but a way to control the masses.
All presidents and supreme court nominees should be free-thinkers and respect the separation of church and state.
16
“There are multiple federal, state, and local programs that provide free or subsidized contraceptives for low-income women,” the administration explained airily"
Planned Parenthood, one of the main sources for many women, is under siege by this very administration.
But the menfolk shouldn't worry; they can still get their Viagra and Cialis covered by insurance!
This is all about controlling women via their reproduction.
55
The resistance to birth control is simply that there is a vocal minority who do not want people to have sex... at least not outside of marriage sex.
The goal is to restrict women and keep them from having the ability to have a sexual relationship that precludes children, in the pipe dream that it will keep people from relationships outside of marriage. Without the threat of children, there is nothing to restrain people. So the minority places the entire moral burden on women.
I have no problem with the Litthe Sisters of the Poor deciding to avoid sexual relationships. They are within their rights. I have a lot of problem with them starting the precedent that will make my daughter pay out of pocket for medication that will prevent pain and most likely because of a medical codition, cancer.
How did we get to a point where churches are now gynecologists and lawmakers?
56
There is no right to contraception anywhere in US constitution. The right question to ask is why contraceptive pills and IUDs cost 100s to 1000 dollars here, whereras you can buy these over the counter in India for pennies. Providing items of regular use via insurance is a flawed idea to begin with, it just adds the cost of administering insurance to the price of that item. Allow free importation of these off patent generics and no one will need insurance
6
why contraceptive pills and IUDs cost 100s to 1000 dollars here, whereras you can buy these over the counter in India for pennies.
Because we in the US pay for all the R&D.
2
There is no right to healthcare anywhere in US constitution but as a society we have decided it is a right. Now a few religious funds want to not deny that right to 1/2 the population but they also want to hold the poorer and least powerful half of the population exclusively responsible for an act that requires 100% of the population.
1
Well said.
Conservatives just want to disempower women. Contraception, abortion, etc. all lead to the same conclusion. In short, they want "The Handmaid's Tale."
16
Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex.
Now more than ever, we need the ERA. Contraceptives are medications and should be covered. It is time we took insurance out of the hands of employers. The US government is forbidden to favor a particular religion. Thus: single payor for all
13
Well, if you deny free contraceptives to everyone, how is there discrimination based on sex? Seriously, I want to know if men and woman are both denied the same exact thing, how is one sex discriminated against?
Because only females are the ones who bear children so any barrier to obtaining birth control, especially as an employee who pays a premium for her insurance, will affect their lives more. Research how much children cost, the impact to the mother's career due to pregnancy & parenthood, and the 20 plus years of attention kids need, then maybe you might see the imbalance. Birth control can also reduce the pain or discomfort of monthly cycles that only women have. Unless women have reproductive freedoms, and until access to birth control is looked at as necessary preventative care, they will not be able to participate fully in life because of their unique ability to give birth. This is the point of all these assaults, limiting freedom. One issue that seems to be missing in this shaming of the use of birth control as promoting "risky behavior" is that there are meds that cause birth defects and women must not be pregnant or get pregnant while taking them. The level-headed need to be in charge and they aren't.
4
So when a woman is pregnant will she be able to continue her job without being discriminated against? Then given paid maternal leave? Then given her job back? And allowed flextime to manage her child? If not, then why force a woman to bear a child? There is so little, if any, support for working women today.
And it is not the mother who suffers alone. The children do too.
17
I'm a huge proponent of contraception ....but have always wondered why on earth it would be covered by health insurance? Insurance is to help you out in the event the unexpected occurs (broken bones, cancer), not to cover basics of daily living in the modern era (soap, toilet paper, contraception, shoes).
4
What an illogical argument, how can you group contraception with those other items? The ability to stay not pregnant and enjoy the life positive human experience of a healthy sex life is one of the greatest things.
3
No, Mr. Man.
3
Where does the employer's moral policing stop? If one of their male employees has a mistress or girl friend with whom he has sex out of wedlock, shouldn't they dock the male employee's salary because he might be spending some of the money on his mistress or girl friend?
What about employees who drink? Why should an employer have to risk paying for an employee's alcohol, to which the employer could very well have a moral or religious objection???
Why single out contraception, an issue that makes the most difference in the day-to-day life of women? This whole moral policing thing makes no sense and would be ludicrous if it did not have so much potential to ruin lives.
If the companies can't see their way clear on "moral" or "religious" grounds to pay for health insurance that some of their employees might use to cover birth control, then they should be required to pay the financial costs of raising any children born as a result of employees losing access to birth control coverage.
17
It's discouraging that the antics of Trump invite many hundreds of reader comments but women's issues, not so much.
Women may be offered health insurance by their employers, but they pay for that insurance in their compensation package. Now, women will have to pay for insurance that discriminates against their gender and denies them contraception as part of their health care.
I am outraged and scared.
21
And how long until state and federal governments claim a 'moral' objection and remove coverage from their health plans? Feds did it for abortion (except rape, incest, life of mother). I can see someone claiming that they have a religious/moral objection to using tax dollars for contraception. And does this order or rule apply to use of some contraceptives (the pill/hormonal treatment) to other gynecological conditions?
Could the insurance companies offer contraceptives at a discounted price through the pharmacy benefit provider? Another barrier, but it's something.
And as the author and others have said, this isn't about birth control, it's about taking control and power away from women.
13
The courts have preferred the desires of business to the needs of employees.
I blame in particular the Catholic church which has sided with business over workers. They know what their preferences have done.
5
For us, today, the idea that people should refuse to terminate a late term pregnancy to avoid delivering a child who would be born ill and suffer a short and agonizing life, or to save the life of the mother, or to use contraception to avoid a pregnancy that would likely lead to an abortion seem irresponsibly callous. They reflect a mentality that experienced an entirely different world where women regularly died from childbearing, and it was truly believed that everyone's fates were beyond the ability of man to affect, that everything was a result of God's will. Now we live in an age where man does have responsible to use the knowledge and skills in their possession to relieve suffering and to maximize the good as they can. These are the ethics of our secular civic culture and we need to follow them in the area of responsibility we have defined for our secular government.
10
Frankly, I'm ready to give up battling with all of these pious know-it-alls. Let the markets teach them a lesson. Their insurance rates should go up by 40%.
If a corporation or religious organization wants to deny their employees then the insurance companies that underwrite those company or organization health plans must be allowed to price in the costs associated with increased expectation of births.
7
On the one hand, we fear "death panels", administrators who could restrict classes of treatment based on an undefined medical or actuarial standard. Yet, the Trump administration has now interposed itself, along with "moral arbiters", between patients and medications prescribed by their physicians (and as many have described, birth control is integral to women's heath in many different ways). It is not an exaggeration to say that birth control can be absolutely essential for women suffering from some medical conditions. Is this not the sharp end of the spear for those who fear government intrusion in health providers' options for their patients? Who exactly gets to decide what prescription medicines are necessary for us? I hope it isn't Donald Trump.
11
As an active Catholic for many years, I can tell you that all the clergy that I have known, those down in the trenches, do not even question the common sense and morality of making birth control available. I have never heard any teaching against birth control, regardless of the official doctrine. Conservative Catholics who want to deny women control over their reproductive rights are hardly representative of the majority of Catholics who are focusing on other issues being promoted by the current Pope like taking care of the environment and social injustices.
10
Please watch your language...it's not "employer-provided birth control." Employers provide *health insurance* as part of a compensation package of wages and benefits. The real question is whether we as a nation will require all employers to provide the same coverage to all employees or whether employers will be able to decide medical procedures or medications will be covered and which will not. I, along with many others, believe that employers should not be making those decisions. Other believe that employers should be free to provide whatever benefits they wish to. The best solution to this problem is to remove the employer from equation and either have single-payer health insurance where everyone would have the same benefits, or go back to free market and let everyone purchase whatever health insurance they want or can afford. But to repeat: Employers do not provide "birth control", they provide "health insurance."
29
Women of experience know that you pay attention to what they do; not what they assure you about how much they care and value you.
If it talks like a misogynist; if it uses its power both physically, and mentally through ideological dogma, like a misogynist; if it legislates like a misogynist ...
If any women still believe the Trump people care about the ability of women to pursue life liberty and happiness they are going to find that there will be few open roads to get there.
13
If employers can choose not to pay for birth control based on their "religious" or "moral" beliefs, why should they have to hire people who do not conform to their beliefs? Maybe Sessions' DOJ will now announce that refusing to hire people because your religion labels them heathens is okay.
16
Can any employer which wants to opt out of providing coverage for any treatment that aids fertility for women or couples? Can it refuse coverage for viagra-like products?
What if I have a strong moral belief that 7.6 billion people are too many, causing the destruction of mother Earth -- leading to civil wars and refugee problems that threaten every one of its "God-given" species? How will government policy accommodate that belief? Restore my religious freedom!
14
What compensation, other than a paycheck, is an employer required by law (not custom) to provide? Benefits vary widely; for example, one employer may offer a pension plan or dental insurance, while another does not. If it is a matter of law that an employer must provide health insurance (regardless of specific coverages), what is the statute that mandates it?
3
Yes, that is why Americans deserve and need Universal Healthcare as other advanced countries, like NOW!
1
Well Gee most of those drugs are cheap, so paying for them should not be an issue. Their visit to the doctor is still covered. This is just politics, somewhat dirty politics.
No, they're not all cheap - not at all.
In fact, some of the most effective means of contraception - contraceptive hormonal drugs (i.e., "birth control pills), long-lasting hormonal shots and implants, and IUDS - are quite expensive. And all require doctor visits - which may not be covered if contraception isn't covered.
The pills can cost up to $50-$100 per month - a big expense for a low-wage worker who's just getting by. The shots can cost up to $250 for the first shot, and $150 for subsequent shots. IUDs can cost over $1,000.
Condoms are relatively inexpensive - less than $1 each. But these are only effective if the man is willing to use them - and uses them consistently and correctly. Big "ifs."
The "dirty politics" here are all on the conservative side - which prefers to punish poor people who seek to limit their family size.
Or is it just about punishing women? I don't see any conservatives objecting to insurance paying for Viagra, for example.
17
You mean "less than the price of a movie ticket"? You're obviously better off than a lot of women, for whom a movie ticket would be a real luxury and another child would be a disaster. See Marshall, Thurgood.
4
My oh my, what a dysfunctional health care set up we have. (It's not a system.)
6
In 2017 A.D., why can't women just be treated as whole human beings instead of just ovaries and uteruses?
37
Another nail in the coffin that is organized religion.
If they are insisting upon being political and forcing others to live by their rules, they can/should pay taxes just as everyone else does.
May karma pay them a visit, and a pox upon their religion too
Reap what you sow ladies.
16
More churches are seeking and getting money for upkeep for their buildings and repairs, as Pence, DeVos, and Trump's favorite, theocrat Franklin Graham, keep pushing the demolishing the Wall of Separation between church and
state. But a backlash has begun. Clergy housing discounts are the way out, and the many obscenely wealthy televangelists, who incessantly meddle with US policy, are eyed for government scrutiny. As the number of cars, jet planes, and houses these hucksters own climb, more financial abuses are revealed.
Tax the churches!! Cities and towns need that money to rebuild aging Public schools and pay for teachers. A local shine was "angry" when called on to pay property taxes on land not used for its "mission." Meanwhile no one knows how many millions they pull in every year. Too many churches are out for all they can get and boldly seek to dip into the public till.
All those smiling faces of nuns make me furious. A host of sanctimonious tyrants squat behind them, as the Catholic hierarchy, (Timothy Dolan at the Al Smith Dinner sitting between then candidates HRC and DJT) play kingmaker.
These same men failed to stop the rape and molestations of hundreds of thousands of children worldwide. It was as bad as racketeering and organized crime. Even now, nothing is being done since these criminals are so insulated by powerful politicians who coddle the religious right.
Shut down this money grab! www.au.org/
3
Many cultural conservatives still believe that access to birth control for non-married women results in increased sexual activity. They use the same rationale for refusing the HPV vaccine for their daughters. This dovetails with purity culture and these creepy father-daughter dances and dates that people nowadays find so cute. These latter examples are less extreme but flow from the same old dogma of women needing to be controlled by men. Non-thinking but well-meaning evangelical Christians have embraced many of these ideas thinking them virtuous and holy when in reality they are just designed to put the brakes on empowering women. And of course a lot of women still prefer to define themselves by their role as wife. Remember the show on Lifetime ("TV for women") called Army Wives?? Can you imagine a show called Doctors' Husbands? Sounds ridiculous. Women will never be liberated until they stop defining themselves in terms of men.
17
You are forgetting the Eleventh Commandment "Thou shalt non have any pleasure without the direst punishment".
12
One of the important issues raised in this Handmaid's Tale rule is whether contraceptives are allowable *at all*.
Think that banning the pill is impossible?
Consult the Roman Catholic Church and have another think.
And I'm Catholic.
12
Religious persecutions in the old country accelerated the influx of immigrants towards the promised land, and a salutary separation of a secular state from religion (and dogma) instituted. Most unfortunately, and to this date, religion continues to try to dictate its rules to all, religious or not, a clear abuse of the constitution. And now, to add insult to injury, Trump and the republican party that claim to abhor abortions, want to deny the very move to avoid such, by way of contraception. This is patent hypocrisy and cruelty added, given that this resolution to remove insurance companies' obligation to cover BC pills has been concocted by men, not women, accusing women of a condition (pregnancy) they (men) are more than eager to contribute...and hide their hand (responsibility) thereafter. Trump is a cruel sexual predator, somehow vengeful since his depravity was uncovered by his taped confession. Depriving healthcare coverage for millions of women for no good reason is a most heinous move, supposedly to save a few bucks (while Trump wastes 'our' millions for himself) and for some nuns to save face for any reasonable, and lawful, method they willfully ignore and condemn. Can't we stop this nonsense, and let women decide what's best?
12
Thank you for wading through the smoke & verbiage of this; and making us see the real evil within: "The problem they have is with what birth control signifies: empowering women — in school, on the job, in the home — to determine their life course. That’s what they don’t want to normalize." Again: Thank You!
16
What happened to Doctor - Patient Confidentiality? What about the right to privacy of women let alone their right to determine what happens to their own bodies?
13
Once you allow an insurance company or a government to evaluate and pay medical bills, the patient has waived any right to absolute doctor-patient privilege.
The Religious Right is against birth control for several reasons: 1) allowing a woman to make birth control decisions violates the RR's position that a woman's religious function is to have children, 2) that giving women the right to use birth control means that they are not subservient to their male masters, and 30 limiting birth reduces the children available for military service and the death chamber. Ant-birth control and abortion religious fanatics are invariably for a large military and the death penalty.
11
I don't see most of the religious folks I know caring about you using birth control, now some don't like it. Now abortion is an entirely different thing and I believe that birth control in this arena includes abortion, I could be incorrect.
You're incorrect.
1
Maybe it's time for churches to lose their tax exempt status.
70
Birth control meds should be in the water and too few abortions are done.
1
Those who are trying to link reproductive behavior to religious doctrines forget that there is nothing about this in the foundation document of monotheism -- Ten Commandments (except for the article on undefined "adultery").
4
This is simply another stop along the road to misogyny by men who dishonor women. Many religions have a long history of persecution and few include women as equals within their ranks. Too many religions believe that women are unequal, period. So why care about health care? Discrimination starts with something as simple as unequal treatment and disrespect, and ends with powerful men demanding sexual favors at work.
13
Feminine hygiene products should also be covered by insurance.
3
It's called Sharia law--when church doctrine is considered more important that state and/or federal law. I really don't care who's church we're talking about. If there was some Muslim rule that said employers couldn't provide toilets, how would the same people praising this contraception ruling feel about finding the bathrooms at their workplaces padlocked?
18
Every American woman did not take vows to become a Little Sister of the Poor. Healthcare is not about religion: it is about reproductive health. As is well-known, contraceptives are prescribed for a wide range of diseases, and the control of the timing of a pregnancy may have critical consequences for a woman's health.
Trump is a sexual abuser who bragged about groping women, and against whom there are still lawsuits pending. I fully expect that he paid for one or more abortions that will someday surface.
The pretense that someone else's religious beliefs can be forced on every woman in the nation means that women no longer have equal rights. Their health will suffer, and they do not have autonomy over the own healthcare. Women employees pay considerable amounts every year for their coverage: usually hundreds of dollars each month. This is their money, and is part of their employment benefits.
Contraceptives come in a range of prices, and have individual prescriptions since women are not identical. They require doctor's visits, various tests, and check ups later. These add to the overall expense.
The war on women is cruel, but this is an administration and Republican Party that just let insurance expire for 9 million poor children, many of whom need it critically and will die or suffer.
38
Reproductive health corner stone is abortion.
1
White American males are the problem. Everyone else is a victim.
No! We are not all Catholics and even those of that are do not approve of any ban on contraception since that is a woman's personal choice not some nun. Many women use contraception for agonizing menstrual pain.
19
And they can easily pay for it themselves.
No, Vulcanalex, they can't.
5
Really? Many women live on the edge and even small expenses are a burden. Many would not consider $50 per month something they can "easily" pay for. Should poor women, who don't believe in radical right dogmas, be discriminated against? Should they get abortions instead of using birth control in the first place? Whose rights are being trampled in this scenario?
3
Linda Greenhouse hits the nail on the head. Conservatives don't want women to be empowered to determine their own lives. If women can't control when and if they have children, they won't be a force in the workplace and the public space and instead will be relegated to the home.
11
Nothing could be further from the truth, after all there are many females who are conservatives. And they work outside the home too.
1
Right, we all know that internalized sexism is a big problem.
Don't need you to point that out.
BTW, "female" is an adjective used to describe livestock and electronic parts. The word you're searching for is "women."
In a country where the majority can't save $1000 to cover minor emergencies, where people wind up in bankruptcy courts because of overwhelming medical bills, where Viagra has not one time come under the scrutiny of encouraging male promiscuity and insurance companies don't fight to exclude it, where childcare costs more than tuition at a local college, where some women have to leave their children in apark because their jobs don't pay enough to cover babysitting costs, please continue telling women who can't afford a $1 cup of coffee they can afford a $1000 IUD.
24
Come now it is not that they can't, it is they don't. And poor people can be assisted by say Planned parenthood.
1
These are the same people that want to close down Planned Parenthood.
4
The $20.00 for contraception can feed 2 people 3 meals cooked at home. The $50.00 for contraception can pay a water bill or cell service for a month. The $1,000.00 for an IUD can be a months rent or 3 car payments.
When you have a limited income, contraception is expensive.
To visit Planned Parenthood, you need to have an office that is not 100 miles away, (ever hear of Texas? Miles of miles of miles) and have to run the gauntlet of anti-choice activists whose concern for zygotes ends at birth.
The comments above are obviously made by someone that has never had to make those choices.
11
The Framers, a few of which were Enlightment agnostics, intended freedom FROM religion as much, if not more, than the modern emphasis on "of." This is more than an important distinction, and anyone who disputes this: A) at the very least has never taken Am Poli Sci 101, and B) at the very most obviously has no idea why earlier generations of their families came here.
Maybe time to get this part of the American Revolution right? How bout waaaay past time. The vast majority of us have had more than enough of this Theocracy.
6
What a joke, the constitution was made to prevent an official state religion as many countries in Europe had. And you really don't understand a theocracy either.
OK vulcanalex, how about you tell us about the Constitution?? The founders were mostly non believers, check your history. You are correct, they did not want a state religion. More importantly, the wanted a strict separation between the church and state. But the "right" is doing a creepy crawly by giving all kinds of exceptions to businesses who find the law not to their religious liking. Hobby Lobby. Cake decorators. Betsy deVos wants to bring Jesus into the classroom. Unconstitutional by anyone's standards. And very, very scary to those of us who are neither christian nor believers. And the poor can be assisted "by say Planned Parenthood" which is constantly under attact by the republicans. Oh, and that definition of theocracy please?
8
Add Citizen's United to the list of Supreme Court cases that were keystones to this archway that holds up a structure to the past. As states come to terms with taking down statues to fallen heroes of the past, the federal government and court decides that corporations are citizens, like individuals individuals, entities whose "moral beliefs" trump those of real people. It's good to know that cases are being filed with the federal courts on the constitutional issues shrieking out from the precedents of Roe and Casey and the like, but given the recent appointee to SCOTUS, that branch of government could also declare that its halls are a temple and that is has its own morals. I never thought a theocracy, even a fake one, would even be a possibility in this country, but as the saying goes, anything actually is possible.
4
No corporations and other such organizations are made up of humans so some of the rights of those humans can be executed through their organization. Like say a labor union for example. Nobody gives a corporation the right to vote for example, their owners already have that right as individuals.
Ms. Greenhouse needs to take one step further back so as to see the forest and not just the immediate trees. It's not about" what birth control signifies: empowering women — in school, on the job, in the home — to determine their life course." It's much more basic than that. It's about the deep cultural Puritanism that structures our social norms. We can not even bear to use the correct word in discussions about sex and drugs even though it is the key to these experiences. That word is "pleasure". Until we can have frank guilt -free conversations about the centrality of pleasure to motivating human behavior, and about the extreme difficulty of our our admitting that pleasure plays a huge part of "The Pursuit of Happiness" in our political discourse, we will continue to avoid the elephant in the room.
6
Freedom of religion is part of the plain text of the U.S. Constitution. The right to contraception is not. Sorry, Ms. Greenhouse, in court you're gonna lose the argument on this any day of the week and twice on Sunday. If you want to change the Constitution, amend it. I know it's difficult to amend it, but I think that's the point.
2
the right to an appendectomy isn't in the constitution either.
4
"But it’s not much of a stretch to see in the rules issued by the Trump administration last week the fraying of civil society as the United States has known it."
Hyperbole, much?
Or do you own stock in a company that manufacturers contraceptives?
1
If you're going to take the side of 'right to life' then at the very least, you should support programs that help the children and families born of unwanted children. But we all know that isn't the case. The level of hypocrisy and self-righteousness (NOT to be confused with righteousness) of the far right is a product of their beliefs. But just like the Pharisees 2000+ years ago, they were making their own rules to please themselves in service of their own skewed version of what God wanted. Most, not all, of these folks act in a similar way. They think they can be the moral judge and jury and hide behind religion. But instead, they've taken humanity, decency, and LOVE FOR THY NEIGHBOR out of society and replaced it with their own narrow views. One thing's for certain: it's a lot easier to place blame, pass judgment, and call out sins of others than it is to look in the mirror. Didn't Jesus say 'whoever is above sin, cast the first stone'? Yes, and every single person walked away. Until these hard-right religious groups take a look a humble look at themselves in the mirror, nothing will change. And sadly, despite Jesus' vehement disgust with self-righteousness, nothing will change.
10
Although a minority government is in control, thanks to Citizens United and gerrymandering, they are now on their long-sought goal of a privatized government at all levels and biblical law. Trump and the hyperbolic partisin divisions by their propaganda machine are the sideshow and behind the curtain, the destruction of our liberal democracy is systematically proceeding.
3
You actually think that state boundaries were gerrymandered? The electoral college runs almost entirely by state. And we are a republic not a liberal democracy as well.
State boundries have nothing to do with gerrymandering, but it clearly effects the electorial college process. Without democracy there is no republic, unless you believe it's OK that some votes are more equal than others.
2
The attitudes of the Administration and Republicans in these matters is always pathetic. However, the merits of whether birth control should be essentially offered for free is an open question. How about subsidizing my gym membership or my purchases of broccoli while you're at it? The Obama administration knew they were entering a minefield with the birth control mandate. They took a decision to side with Women's advocacy groups since the Religious Right wasn't going to vote for him.
Since it will now be the employer's option to offer it, I think most will. They will want a stable female work force as opposed to one that could potentially being having unplanned pregnancies and dealing with all the disruption around that.
I still can't get my mind around Trump--who has for decades bragged about his promiscuity, made salacious sexual exploits part of his public persona, who pimped out his wife to pose nude for GQ on his plane, who appeared (clothed, thank God) in Playboy videos of nude women--championing extreme prohibitions on--wait for it--contraceptive insurance coverage. Surreal.
Also, how did evangelical Protestants and Catholics unite on this issue? Conservative Protestants never thought birth control "sinful." Within marriage, of course. Small families are never questioned. I think it was not only the common liberal enemy that united these groups, but also fear that some contraceptives might act on a fertilized egg.
I'm glad the writer contrasted this with Saudi Arabia's restrictions because our growing misogyny, the obsession with controlling women and our bodies, singling out women as sinners for being responsible enough to plan pregnancies, is a similar onslaught against modernity.
Much has been said about erectile drugs still being covered, but what about vasectomy? Are there restrictions against employer health insurance covering this as well?
6
I have a moral objection to war. I don't want the fact that I pay my income taxes to make me to be complicit in death and destruction. Where is my opt out?
Opposition to birth control has nothing to do with religious conviction. To interfere in equal protection under the law this way and to claim you are doing it for God is akin to taking the lord's name in vain (but maybe these folks aren't familiar with the 10 commandments?).
6
Isn't this a case of an employer forcing their religious beliefs on their employees? How is this even legal?
4
Try reading the supreme court decision related to Hobby Lobby. And nothing prevents them from getting birth control, just paying for it.
Do these religious objections include other health issues? Jehovah's Witnesses are morally against blood transfusions. Will a Witness employer be able to deny coverage for that?
4
So instead of spending $600-1000 on one year of bc, these companies will be spending tens of thousands on prenatal care, births, and adding another human being to their insurance policies and the loss in productivity from maternity leaves not to mention every time a child gets sick and mom has to stay home. Great thinking.
6
Even Catholics like me are opposed to any ban on contraception medicine. Many women need this medicine to prevent the agony of excessive bleeding. Who are these old men and dotty nuns to decide a woman's heath? Besides Congress is only using this ruse to glean votes. They do not care if women agonize over
Endometriosis. They care about votes. Well they can forget my vote and any woman I can talk to.
3
Unless I am mistaken, before Obamacare birth control was not a mandated item to be covered by health plans. Is this measure by the current administration not just returning to the state of play pre-Obama care?
If so, Linda's histrionics seem overwrought.
3
In the same week as the Trump administration made it possible for employers to deny coverage to women for birth control, the EPA removed requirements to keep our air safe, declared everything was hunky dory in Puerto Rico, comforted the NRA after the mass killing in Las Vegas--not the victims--and threatened to pull NBC's broadcasting license while at the same time announced he would pull the tax credits for NFL teams if any of the players dared to exercise their First Amendment rights. It's been only ten months since the Trump nightmare has officially begun and look at the frightening damage the no-nothings have already done. How much more evidence do die hard Trump supporters need before they admit that this man and his (white) men are not qualified to be leading the country. That photo of the nuns in front of the Supreme Court is both ironic and frightening.
1
Many of your assertions are incorrect. You don't understand the president, no surprise there.
I hope it gets tripped up on the lack of notice and comment period- seems to me to be an 'arbitrary and capricious' decision.
1
Always remember Donald Trump's words as he spoke of his concern and support for women; "I cherish women".
1
As an OB/GYN, the continued overreach of government plays a large role in the care my patients receive. This is frustrating as we have made such great strides with the coverage of effective, long acting reversible contraception options like intrauterine devices and implants for women with implementation of the ACA. There is evidence in a study by the Guttmacher Institute that suggests that the availability of contraception has played a role in the decline in abortion rates in the U.S of 13% between 2008-2011. Even in states where abortion access has increased, rates of abortion have decreased between 2008 and 2011. Let's just use common sense. Abstinence teaching doesn't really work (rates of abortion among Catholics are similar to the general population). Conservatives need to meet in the middle. Contraception coverage decreases unintended pregnancies which will decrease abortion rates.
Another argument, if conservatives have issues paying for contraception as it goes against what they believe in, we could go further into that logic (i.e. vasectomies, viagra, psychotropic meds as previously mentioned). However, doesn't the Bible preach against gluttony, sloth, drunkardness? Proverbs, anyone? It's interesting how Conservatives pick and chose from the Bible. I'd expect arguments about dropping coverage for alcoholic cirrhosis, Type 2 Diabetes, and other processes that often originate/complicated by poor life choices.
Wonder why they just want to bother us women?
21
A cautionary tale for those Berniecrats who are demanding Single Payer government-designed healthcare "for all". If they get their way on that, there is no way that such Single Payer plans will include abortion coverage and - we can be pretty certain now - contraception or family planning coverage.
1
We still suffer the antics of those who think religious freedom is for themselves alone, and that it includes a right to deny religious freedom to others. I grew up with that attitude. The constitution of the Irish Republic still starts "In the Name of the Most Blessed Trinity..." So much for agnostics and Zoroastrians and all sorts in between, such as Jews, Hindus, Muslims, and Unitarians. Still, the Irish constitution has changed a lot since the 1970s. So long as the people there keep on plugging! But here, we know that Ireland, as well as Italy and Spain, exported religious intolerance to America. So too did England, Scotland, and Wales--intolerance of a different and even more toxic variety. We need more young, modern Irish people here!
4
Now that some companies have the 'privilege' of sabotagin g healthcare for women, we can respond by major public disapproval - not buying their products, watching them closely for tax evasion and so on.
4
The Conservative war on contraception and the "pro-life" movement have nothing to do with a desire to save babies' lives. It has everything to do with limited women's access to school and work. A woman who cannot control her childbearing cannot plan her life. They want us to stay poor, barefoot, and pregnant.
12
If people or companies wish to buy policies with provisions that pay for birth control, they certainly will be able to under the new rules. If people or companies wish to buy policies without such provision, they will be able to as well. So it's not all one way, good. We are a diverse people. The extreme left, as this paper certainly represents on a daily basis, will not have the monopoly they envisioned.
2
Linda Greenhouse writes, "Now the Trump administration has played the Supreme Court justices for chumps." Well said. The Hobby Lobby decision assumes the administration can "work around" an unconstitutional intrusion of religion into law. Religious freedom is not something the government should have to work around. The Supreme Court should enforce principals. By asserting that religious freedom didn't matter much in the Hobby Lobby Case, they made it matter a lot.
1
Why are employers' religious and moral views being given power over the religious and moral views of their employees? Apparently religious freedom applies to only a few in this country.
6
The mandate to spread the cost of birth control for a subset of women who chose to use birth control from individual pay to payment by the community of workers is not a loss of a right but a shifting of an expense. This change does not prevent a person from paying for the product themselves as has been the practice up until Obamacare's passage. The comparison to Saudi women's right to drive is nothing more than a false equivalence
"The Trump administration has enabled a radical fringe of the Republican Party to all but eliminate the right to employer-provided birth control. "
Gee..little did I know that a new "right" had been added to the Constitution. I worked for major corporations all my life with excellent insurance benefits and had to pay for my own birth control. I had to pay for my own yearly exams required to GET the birth control as well. (Exams were only covered if I had to see the doctor for a medical problem.) I paid for those with the salary the company was paying me.
Health insurance is simply an untaxed benefit of employment. With the (minimum) 15% tax on the many thousands of dollars of the employer portion of the cost of insurance that you save, you can buy your own birth control.
1
"I had to pay for my own yearly exams required to GET the birth control as well."
Please, that's really terrible insurance. You got fleeced by those major corporations, but please continue to pay yourself on the back.
You admit that health insurance is simply a benefit of employment. Then tell me why an employer should be able to limit what I spend my compensation on?
When I use health insurance to obtain birth control, then I AM using my compensation to buy my own birth control.
So, Jersey, it sounds like you're perfectly happy excluding the millions and millions of women who are in uninsured jobs, who are sick, who are unemployed.
And, being the personally responsible, actualized, and fulfilled woman you are, no doubt enamored of the free market (so called), you seem strangely willing to deny that, over time, insurance has become more comprehensive in response to market conditions and that the norm, today, is that such things as birth control are routinely included in coverage.
In fact it has to be, because any insurance company with a brain recognizes the piles of money it saves by supplying birth control instead of paying for repeated births and all the attendant medical issues that arise.
But that's not actually your point, is it?
Your point is you just plain don't want these women to make this decision. The economy, the flag, God, and your vastly superior personal approach to life are just cover.
By the way, you dismissively call insurance a benefit, implying these women should take what they get and be glad.
In fact, business chose to offer insurance as a means to attract and retain employees. They expanded coverage for the same reason. The lucky women who have such policies get them as part of their compensation. There is no hand-out here; you are seeking to rob these people for your own bizarre reasons.
The tax break you refer to is a benefit for the employer, not the employed.
Let the market sort this out. Women will know which firms do not pay for birth control and avoid them. The firms can avoid paying for birth control but not for maternity benefits. Just wait until those bills start rolling in.
1
How exactly is this "Church over State" when, as the author clearly notes, religious organizations are exempt from the mandate? Are you suggesting religious groups are determining decisions that they are already exempt from? Not sure how that makes any sense. Religious people, of any persuasion, are not part of a "radical fringe" but a regular part of everyday life (hey, we even read the NY Times.) Maybe stop pandering to the "radical left" by stereotyping people of faith, and using outdated photos (see left) to get your point across. Is Trump et al pandering to his followers? Probably - but if that's true - don't give the whole thing more credence than it's worth - the bottom line is birth control is widely accessible and affordable and has been for decades.
This is just one more step to erase the Obama enhancements for many American families, not just one religious group that Trump is trying to appease. Let's hope this new immediate rule change can be stopped.
Thanks again to Linda Greenhouse who keeps us educated on many fronts but especially on women's reproductive rights!
3
We should prohibit all group insurance - employer, government (with the possible exception of insurance for those unable to make the transition), union. Make it truly market based, give us choices over our own health care, make the true costs visible - and then our citizens would quickly vote for single payer!
1
One aspect of this issue I have not seen addressed, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). The act's privacy rule prevents employers from accessing their employees individual health claim records under a company plan. They can learn the overall cost and claims categories, but not whether Jane Doe is obtaining contraceptives through the plan. Presumably devout and moral employers do not hire sinful harlots. If their "sin-dar" raises suspicions then the problem is correctable at the Human Resources Department, just hire only persons of superior moral fiber; that is, men. But then they'd have to pay them more.
6
I don't understand why there is a right to employer funded contraception but no right for unemployed women to have contraception. Do we have right to employer funded justice system? Employer funded voting rights? Employer funded right to education? If the right to contraception exists, it certainly cannot be limited to just the people who work.
2
The Dems should pack the Supreme Court with as many Justices as needed to reverse the inevitable decision exempting religion from the law. Mitch McConnell has correctly noted that nothing in the Constitution sets the number of Justices. He correctly pointed out that the number of Justices has changed in the past, from 5 to 7 to 9. Eight is enough, he said. Even if it were to continue for 8 years.
Fine. If eight is enough, 11 is better. The right started this with blockading Obama's nominee Garland from even having a hearing. The Dems must show him they can play the numbers game when they take charge.
3
I couldn't care less about the religious aspect, but from a public policy perspective it is absurd to require employers to provide contraception as part of health insurance. It is not the purpose of health insurance to pay nominal, recurring costs such as birth control, but to insure you against catastrophic costs that could bankrupt you. If you are truly unable to pay the $9 per month for the pill offered by some plans (less than the co-pay on most treatments), then go on Medicaid. Or go to a free clinic. Or have billionaire philanthropists fund it for people. But stop making this part of health insurance; it's why health insurance premiums are rising.
2
Wow, you really don't understand. Birth control per month costs can be way more than $9. And if plans pay for weekly, monthly Viagra prescriptions that should be taken off too. Men can go to a free clinic or have a billionaire fund their Viagra.
First, the insertion of an IUD or other LARC is not a "nominal, recurring cost."
Secondly, group health insurance has long covered "nominal, recurring costs," including inexpensive generic medications that require a prescription. This isn't about shifting from reducing employer-provided health insurance to only catastrophic coverage, but selectively eliminating one type of medication and treatment because an employer finds it morally offensive.
Lastly, you write about "the $9 per month for the pill offered by some plans."
Whether you can participate in one of those plans depends upon your employer - who, thanks to the Trump administration, can decide not to offer it as part of the benefits package.
Lol, what?
"But stop making this part of health insurance; it's why health insurance premiums are rising."
What do you think is cheaper- BCPs or a pregnancy? Which one do you think drives up premiums more? Good god. Please get back to us once you've taken the time you need to figure that out.
PS- the cost is only "nominal" when it's covered by health insurance.
Linda Greenhouse hits the nail on the head in the closing paragraph. This decision is not really about religious freedom - that's merely the excuse and the justification to veil the real reason for "Religious Freedom Restoration Act". The real reason for the act is to maintain male, institutionalized power over females and female fertility. Trump's decision effectively disempowers women from managing their own fertility and reproductive choice. Oh yes, women can still buy contraception on their own. Tell that to the low-income mother working at Hobby Lobby who has to choose between paying out of pocket for her oral birth control prescription or paying the gas bill or putting food on the table. Obama's mandate empowered women by giving more women easier access to affordable birth control. Obama's mandate empowered women by giving even the low-income woman the ability to manage her fertility, space her pregnancies and thereby continue to work outside of the home and not rely on public assistance.
I'm sorry but why do people with "moral objections" or "religious objections" to birth control have the prerogative to disempower women? This is a human rights issue, not merely a women's rights issue.
16
This right to prevent the use of employee compensation in the form of benefits for a particular health care, if reasonable, could form the basis for the employer to object paying any compensation to an employee who uses it for any purpose with which the employer has a moral objection. For example, an Orthodox Jewish or Muslim employer could require that employees near buy bacon or pork products with their salaries. A Quaker might deduct the portion of taxes that are due according to the contribution of those taxes to military forces. At some point this whole exercise simply becomes a silly exercise. As long as an employee is earning a salary and benefits with faithful service, the compensation becomes the employee's to use as that employee's conscience determines.
7
Is there ANY law that someone can refuse to obey if they claim that obeying the law causes them to violate their religious principle.
7
I avoid Chick Fil A, Hobby Lobby and a few others.
4
I hope that lists are published of the companies, charities and businesses that take advantage of this exemption, so the rest of us know where not to do business.
356
And where not to seek employment.
3
absolutely. I do not want to buy any goods or services from any organisation that treats its workers as appallingly as this
Thank you Linda Greenhouse for your efforts to enlighten a nation to the dark corners of the law.
Our founding fathers built a wall of separation between Church & State.
Sadly, the Republicans have made an unholy alliance with those who are tearing down this wall brick by brick.
As your article makes clear it’s hard to understand how these employers justify giving their employees a paycheck that might be used to buy birth control, but the employees' receipt of benefit which requires no action of the part of the employer is a sin.
The answer is Medicare for All.
Medicare for All makes economic, legal and political sense.
American citizens should no longer be at the mercy of business and religion for their health care needs.
52
This is not an issue that requires women to take birth control pills. It is a health issue that enables those who choose to do so to have adequate coverage for contraception.
As I learned in school, this country was innovative in its SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE. And most churches do not even pay taxes at all. Who gave them the right to determine our health coverage. I'm outraged to see this as a religious victory over our independent rights as a nation.
239
This decision denies legal and useful health care upon one person to satisfy the belief by another person that that person has no such right to that health care. It is presented as saving the second person from having to commit a moral transgression by providing this health care. In fact the second person is not providing that care but paying for the overall health care of the first person, and has no responsibility for the health care provided to that person. If such a responsibility existed, any employer would be responsible for the health care provided for which it paid. That is something no employer would accept. Furthermore, the employee is provided the care as part of the compensation package provided in exchange for that employee's services. If the employer has the right to decide which health care services can be provided, the employer has the right to decide which goods and services any employee might buy with his/her salary or benefits.
20
It does not deny health care, only does not force a party to pay for a particular healthcare item for its employees. Employee is free to go get birth control on their own.
1
How does the employer find guilt in paying for a health care service but not feel guilty for paying a salary from which contraception is purchased? Is it not intended to discourage the employee from doing so by forcing them to pay a lot more for the service?
4
It does deny health care. Employers aren't "paying for a healthcare item" for their employees. You don't understand how insurance works. Employers, and their employees, are paying premiums to an insurance company. The employees would like to have health insurance that *covers* birth control- meaning that they can obtain it at reduced rates by using their insurance. No employer is paying for or providing anything. I should be permitted to use my health insurance- which is part of my compensation that I receive from my employer as consideration for doing my job-- to purchase the healthcare that I need. Why should I be prohibited from using my compensation to buy what I want? Just 'cause some nuns somewhere are upset that I'm having sex? Please.
You can't even write in complete sentences, so I'm not sure why we should listen to what you have to say.
It is a fluke of history that the US has a health care system in which most people receive (or used to receive), health insurance through employment. This evolved during World War II when wage controls were in place. Employers began offering health insurance and other benefits in place of wage increases, which were illegal, in order to attract and retain employees. This is why the US has more uninsured people than other developed countries, and it's a perilous anachronism in an age in which there are fewer and fewer "real" jobs with benefits.
In this context, or even without it, I've never understood why the Justices see health insurance as "belonging to" the employer any more than wages. This seems like a feudal view of the employer/employee relationship.
60
" Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote a stinging dissent that accused the majority of having no understanding of how poor people actually live. “The desperately poor almost never go to see a movie, which the majority seems to believe is an almost weekly activity,” he wrote"
Yes and this decision of Trump's ranks right up there with the Kras decision. What's even worse is that the monthly premiums for health insurance coupled with the deductibles, co-pays, and whatever else insurers refuse to cover will put easy access to contraception out of reach for many more woman than the GOP or the religious right realize.
As someone who was an unwanted child I still wish even now that my parents had not had me. Their lives would have been better because they would have divorced and gone on to have happier marriages or lives. By forcing women and families to have children they cannot afford or do not want politicians and religious organizations are contributing to child abuse, murder, emotional disturbances, and unhappy lives. But when women and families can choose it makes for a better society which is more desirable than one where we're forced to have children we don't want. A fetus is not a person and cannot live outside of the woman's body. And children have the right to grow up loved, cherished, and wanted.
Keep your religion in your temples, churches, and wherever you worship. Don't lay your religious issues with sex or abortion on my ovaries or uterus.
232
It is misleading to say that women are losing the “right” to receive employer provided birth control. It is not one of the unalienable rights described in the Declaration of Independence. Women are not losing the right to life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness, nor are they losing a constitutionally protected civil right.
They are losing money.
They have every right to purchase birth control on their own, and they certainly have the right to demand that their employer give them more money to make up for the money that they lost.
21
Life is one of those essential rights, and so is liberty. Women have a right to healthcare since this directly impacts their lives and health. There are various diseases and conditions that require contraceptives to be prescribed.
Women have a right that is equal to men's to the same quality of healthcare. This is no more about money than any healthcare. Men have numerous health conditions that they are prone to, but women do not get to deny them coverage.
All men are created equal, but women and children aren't?
10
Totally agree, and I am an Obama democrat.
I think the reason Trump was elected is that we trampled over the sensibilities of large numbers of Americans.
If we want to take the WH back, Democrats are going to have to get in touch with the way many people in red states think and live their lives.
1
The Declaration of Independence is not part of the Constitution. But then again, a woman's right to vote is not in either document, nor is the freedom of slaves. Let's forget "original intent"--that would keep us in the Dark Ages.
5
When the heck did we become a nation of cowards? Let's call it out: Religion has NO PLACE in public life.
Since when can your boss impose their version of morality on employees? Especially since they can only do it on birth control - not on, for example, cursing or eating pork or premarital sex, which also occur in the privacy of your home.
America can become a bizarre theocracy - with the most irreligious president ever.
911
So the civil rights movement of the 60s was heavily backed by religious leaders and believers. Against that?
1
i grew up with no animus toward the catholic church, or evangelicals for that matter, but i am learning to acquire it. if they want freedom, they better grant it to others or they are no better than the wahabbi's. theocracy is always oppressive. I have begun avoiding all businesses who emit the odor of religion.
5
You miss the point. You're right that a boss should not impose his/her morality on others, but he/she does not have to pay for others' version of morality. Buy what YOU want. Do what YOU want. But don't demand others - who do not share YOUR "morality" or extreme lack thereof - pay for it or in any way facilitate it.
1
Many years ago, after fathering four children, I had a vasectomy. No one objected. No evangelical organization took me to court. No one marched in front of the Supreme Court, or my house, for that matter. I had practiced birth control, and my insurance covered the procedure.
Now, the Trump Follies ha struck a blow against women who might want to limit their pregnancies.This would include thousands, if not millions, of Catholic women who secretly want to have some control over their lives.
Welcome to the 19th Century.
861
I have some exciting news! A recent discovery has been made, detailing explicitly a new drug that thousands, even millions of Catholic women who secretly want to have some control over their lives, can take to prevent pregnancy. In fact, this drug is available to all religions, even atheists can take it. It's 100% effective. There are no side effects, no one is allergic to this drug. And best of all: It's 100% free.
It's called "Abstinence", and it's not patented.
But wait, there's ANOTHER drug, just as powerful, just as free. It's actually a process, called "Keeping your legs together and your clothes on." But it's maybe not for everyone - you actually have to be able to think rationally in order to use this drug. And you should avoid taking alcohol while using this drug because sometimes alcohol can interfere with the actions of this drug, rendering it worthless.
Welcome to the 21st century.
3
Many, if not most, Catholic women use birth control. It’s a matter for their consciences not the government’s mandate.
5
KarlosTJ, your contributions to this thread that I've seen have not been notably sensible. Here's an even better drug, almost completely free: it's called "suicide" and it absolutely guarantees you won't suffer any pregnancy and you won't be unhappy because of suppressing an important and natural biological activity. I hope you can see that this is a more humane "drug" in that it eliminates much unhappiness.
3
It troubles me that our Constitution is being interpreted so narrowly. Its as if the extreme conservative right's views are the only views that matter any more.....in reality, they are a minority percentage of all Americans. How tragic.
88
Agreed Margaret, but the real tragedy is that the rest of us continually let them get away with it. This is nothing new. And as long as religious orgs get to influence public policy without having to contribute to the bottom line, well we might all just want to take a deep breath, and accept ourselves for the Theocracy that we are....and always have been.
3
This is a cheap, albeit cruel play to the religious supporters of Trump. Trump and the GOP cannot find enough ways to punish half of our population for being female. If a religion hates women and their ability to make choices, so be it. But our government has no role in such actions. Should a company decide to act upon this order, they will find out just how much more expensive it is to accommodate their pregnant employees than it was to 'pay for' birth control. That doesn't seem to be a very smart business decision, should a business decide to move forward in implementing this order.
47
many women haters are women. many of these far right religious women not only think they should limit our sex lives, they do not want us getting good educations or advancing in the workplace either.
I suggest that thousands of women who have been planning to have a baby soon should all go get jobs at Hobby Lobby (or other employer who takes advantage of this "out"). Let those employers enjoy paying for lots and lots of prenatal care and deliveries....
33
Its more State over Public. Carlin otherwise said it nicely: We need more live babies, to make more dead soldiers.
19
Matt--mind your own business. Couples and women are free to make their own decisions.
So not forcing people to pay for your birth control is "losing the right" to birth control? Nobody is taking it away from you. You can get all the birth control you want by buying it. If you don't like your employers policy then go get a job with a company that shares your birth control values.
Because nowhere in the Constitution does it say the Federal Government has the right to force people to do something that violate their religious beliefs.
12
Mr. McMasters, it is important to understand what insurance is: it is risk sharing. If we are insured by the same company, I don't get to say that I don't want to pay for any injuries that you sustain in an automobile accident because I think cars pollute the environment and you should have taken public transportation, or that I won't pay for your heart disease treatment because you ate meat and I think it's wrong to eat other living beings. And you don't get to tell me I should look for another job because you don't want to pay for birth control.
14
So you'd agree that prostate cancer treatments should not be covered, since one's ability to father children is affected by surgery & radiation? Oh wait, I forgot, all of these 'religious values' are only relevant for women!
7
You miss the point. It is part of an overall health care approach. Carving out this piece of women's health because it's "immoral" is conceding it to the fanatics. What about an employer with an anti-vaccination "moral" objection? Of course, his employees could pay for their children to get the vaccinations. But it's part of comprehensive care.
6
It just shows what the so-called "pro-life" movement is all about. It is not about "babies in the womb" ( I always thought that anybody who seriously believes that an embryo the size of a Lima bean is the same thing as a child needs to have their heads examined). It is about the queasiness they feel when thinking that women have sex for pleasure. They regard abortion (correctly) as a form of contraception; and contraception is what has enabled women to work, love and choose our lives the way we want them rather than following the supposed divine mandate of breeding like animals and dying young. Fight against abortion is just the first step toward the Handmaid's Tale-style theocracy. Too bad that many women, ignorant of biology and susceptible to religious propaganda, refuse to see this.
169
You need a refresher course in human biology. The fertilized zygote has utterly the same DNA at conception as that person will have at death after decades...and it's not either parents' DNA.
1
MIke, you might possibly need a refresher course in reading comprehension, re Mor's comment. DNA has nothing to do with the question at issue. If preserving DNA were the issue, you could be jailed for having a nocturnal emission.
6
Since when personhood is a matter of DNA? We share 40 percent of our DNA with cabbage. Should it get 40 percent of human rights? Are identical twins who have the same DNA legally the same person? Personhood is a legal and moral, not biological, category. What makes a born human a person is self-awareness, intelligence and capacity to interact with other human beings. There have been many cultures that actually denied personhood to newborns but none that believed that fetuses are people.
8
Trump cares about contraception no more than he does about climate change, court appointments, gun control, healthcare reform, international trade agreements etcetera, which is to say he doesn't care at all. He is letting ideologues in his administration and leaders among his base determine his policies with a malign indifference so long as they are happy. Note that none of his "accomplishments" has required congressional approval aside from appointments to the federal judiciary (and in the case of Gorsuch, the biggest plum, it required the Senate to replace its need for a 60-vote consent with a simple majority). It has all been by executive order or administrative actions, which, I hope, will be challenged and defeated in the courts. The White House is occupied by an ignorant puppet. The farce is that he depicts himself as the puppet master.
36
What should be empowering to women is to purchase birth control on their own. It costs less per month than going to a movie or buying a couple Starbucks pumpkin spice lattes.
43
Is that what you do? I have- and it cost more than a movie or a couple of fancy coffees. I didn't find it empowering; it was another item on the shopping list.
37
I don’t know where you get your birth control, but I’m a pharmacist and from what I’ve seen your sweeping generalization is patently false. The cash price on most is $50 or greater, even more if it is a brand name.
92
Obviously you don't know what reliable birth control costs. The only method that may be close to the price of a latte are condoms and you have to get the man to use them. Oral Contraceptives cost $30-$50 per month plus the cost of a doctor visit which will run you about $350 if insurance does not cover. Long acting reversible contraceptives like IUDs, Implanon, and Depo- Provera range from hundreds to a thousand dollars plus the bill for medical visits.
70
"...cynical bow to the forces of reaction against modernity."
Were it just the contraception issue, I might agree with you. But as Viagara, et al. are still similiarly available for men I suggest banning birth control is just part of aeons old struggle between males & females which is all about power.
104
Sure, Hap, but they are together on this one. ("They": reaction and male supremacy.)
Okay, I'm someone that's furious about this latest Trump idiocy (and, as much as I generally admire the Little Sisters of the Poor, I think they are seriously wrong on this issue). However, let's be clear that there is no mandate that Viagra or other ED drugs be included in insurance policies. Some policies do cover it but actually many do not--and the government is silent on the issue.
1
Yet another argument for Medicare for All. Get employers out of the business of providing health coverage for employees. No aspect of anyone's health care or health insurance coverage should be subject to anyone else's "morals."
142
Do you really think that conservatives wouldn't insist on excluding birth control from a medicare-for-all plan? And the democrats would trade women's reproductive healthcare for the republican votes.
Don't get me wrong. I think medicare*for*all would be wonderful, but I'm under no illusion that medicare*for*all will translate into comprehensive healthcare for women.
2
Medusa, that's Democrats, not democrats. They have overlap, but that's all. More seriously, do you really think all Democrats would do that trade? I don't.
2
If my nonprofit organization had moral standards against the use of fossil fuels could we refuse service to oil companies and others who use oil?
Could we pick among our customers as to whom we think might be using or oil?
Not sure of what Is in Pandora’s Box!
22
Isn't it cheaper to pay for birth control than to pay for medical coverage for a pregnancy and then all the medical bills for a child? It doesn't make sense that a company would deny birth control and pay for a pregnancy. My insurance has always paid for my birth control and they are happy to do it. However, I would never expect a Catholic Institution to pay. I do have some humility!
23
Humility has nothing to do with it. The Catholic church has no business imposing their beliefs on other people.
172
I worked for a Catholic-run healthcare agency, and my insurance covered my birth control pills. This "we can't even have insurance pay for contraception" is very recent, and very clearly aimed at controlling women.
22
Have you ever seen the Vatican in Rome? I have and the treasure there could pay for plenty. The Catholic Church is rich. I would expect them to pay for it and if they continue to involve themselves in politics this way I think that their tax exemption should be pulled. After all, it takes money to raise a child, to receive prenatal care, to deal with the aftereffects of child abuse, and to provide decent lives for children who are born unable to provide for themselves.
13
The Religious Freedom Restoration Act was seen by many at the time Clinton signed it as a disaster . It has changed the rules on zoning of religious buildings [which can not be taxed ].It has change the rules on clergy [ you can now get a one day right to perform weddings ]. It has changed numerous medical rules which allows companies to drop coverage of many more procedures and medications. These are just a few of the religious freedoms that have now been restored.
Why did Clinton sign it :
A. his legal advisers were ignorant of it future uses or
B. the christian right and their business advisers were smatter or
C. Clinton wanted their votes so he could have a second term.
Clinton got his second term and the " RESTORATION " just grows and grows with no end in sight.
2
@Gerry - funny you act as if all of this was done by Clinton by himself. A Clinton initiative done purely for Clinton selfish political reasons. No evidence of any Republicans involved. We all know that's a very dishonest take on all of this.
12
@gerry: If I read the article correctly, Clinton signed the act because he had no choice. The Congressional vote showed that a veto would have been overridden easily. Do you not see that in the article? -- it makes your question unnecessary.
5
It would also help to remember that this law was very popular with the public generally. We tend not to remember the advice to be careful what you wish for since you just might get it--along with unanticipated results that might not be what you actually want.
2
The Religious Right simply cannot tolerate behavior that contradicts their dogma, and they foam at the mouth when the Constitution prevents them from imposing their conception of religious rules on others.
Unless, of course, one is speaking of Donald Trump.
55
OR...The secular left simply cannot tolerate behavior that contradicts their dogma, and they foam at the mouth when the Constitution prevents them from imposing their concept of secular rules on others.
Unless. of course, one is speaking of Obama or other progressives.
See. This works both ways.
1
@Parkbench, thanks for the entertaining example of vacuous wordplay. If I didn't already know, I would find out from this essay what it means to say what Shar wrote, and I would see the evidence, i.e., the facts (f-a-c-t-s). Is there any fact behind your wordplay? Please give examples of "secular rules" imposed on others that are not part of living in a secular nation. Not being able to impose your religious beliefs on others is not a valid example; it is the very reason we have a secular nation.
11
Yet another despicable act against women that continues to be perpetrated by this misadministration. I wonder how all of those Women for Trump feel about all of the "winning" that is going on for them, and the rest of us who have to suffer through these humiliations despite not voting for him. I'm looking at you, Ann EW Stone, who was such a big fan of Trump "and all of the wonderful things he has planned for us women, He's very pro-women." Yeah, uh-huh, okay, right.
75
When you think it can't possibly get worse... it does.
88
You could probably post this comment every day!
7
These evil men came to power through a legitimate, democratic process, elected by men and women alike. The administration is loved by their fascist, misogynistic, homophobic base, which makes up of 40 per cent of our country's population. Trump's approval rate keeps climbing. It's time to face the facts. We must get the vote out, or we will see much worse than limits on birth control.
21
You are wrong about his approval rate climbing. Au contraire ...
6
The argument that employers "shouldn't have to pay for" birth control is strange. Health insurance is a fringe benefit, part of employee compensation, the cost borne by the employee. The cost is relevant to the employer to the extent it means a reduction in wages.
139
Exactly right! Health insurance is given in lieu of an increased salary. Why would employees like that? Because of the enormous cost benefits of being in a larger risk pool versus buying insurance on your own.
Suppose an employer whose religion bans drinking alcohol discovers that some of his employees routinely visit the bar down the street on pay day. Does this make him complicit in their sin? They are using money he put in their pocket! So, does he have the right to stop them?
93
This development should encourage at least some voters to reconsider advocating for a single-payer system. Decades ago, employers offered health benefits as a perk for employees. Now, the largest employers and health insurance companies directly negotiate rates that most people can't even access as "consumers". It's time to remove employers' control over what health care benefits their employees get. My prescription should cost the same regardless of where (or whether) I'm employed.
120
Why just contraceptives? Employers have religious and/or moral objections to all sorts of things, including Viagra, psychiatric drugs and blood transfusions, to name just a few.
215
The government wants to take away easy access to birth control, also wants to outlaw abortion, and also wants to cut funding for social services. How is anyone other than the wealthy supposed to survive in this country?
264
That's the whole idea. Turn back the clock to the days of peonage and keep the serfs down on the manor doing the menial work while the aristocracy gets to ruin the place, keep us superstitious, and has all the wealth. Sharing is not what the GOP or the Catholic Church do well unless it's hardship. That they are perfectly willing to inflict upon everyone.
15
They're not.
7
This is ridiculous. The right screams about abortion, but the surest way to reduce the number of abortions is to provide free or low cost birth control.
Duh!
453
Sharon,
You are making the mistake of assuming that the right's anti-abortion status is (as they claim) "pro-life." All becomes clear once you realize that they aren't pro-life - they are simply anti-woman.
8
The opposition to birth control is different from the opposition to abortion. The anti-abortion lobby is huge and powerful and has a good number of supporters. Those who oppose birth control are few and far between, and constitute a lunatic fringe.
All sane people favor birth control. And while all reproductive rights need protection, it's important not to get sidetracked by lunatics. The right to abortion remains, by far, the most important reproductive right. If you donate, that's the cause that matters most. If you demonstrate, the same is true. And even if your activism is limited to comments, keep your eve on the prize.
1
It isn't about abortion. It's about controlling women, and about hating and fearing female sexuality.
I blame Augustine, badly misnamed as a "saint".
1
I think it's important to keep reminding people that Supreme Court Justices can be impeached. And with a majority in Congress, a lot of this garbage can be rolled back. We've got to be as ruthless as the enemy is. We are the majority, we just don't vote in big enough numbers.
239
I genuinely did not know you can impeach justices. Your post has given me the first glimmer of hope I've had in about 9 months.
2
We have an interesting problem here. The Constitution speaks of separating
the practice of religion and the laws of the land. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" which leaves us atheists no protection. The Republican Party, by allowing for moral objections, actually is proposing to broaden the First Amendment protections, putting the Left in an awkward position.
18
They are not broadening First Amendment protections. Trump is privileging religion. The contraception mandate is neutral and in no way prohibits free exercise of religion.
17
Eric, you have to interpret 'establishment' in a more particular meaning than 'setting up.'
'Establishment of religion' means creating a State religion, giving (effectively) lawmaking power to a church of that religion. This is what the first amendment is intended to prevent.
But the second clause gives balance: 'or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.'
That's the rub. Where does 'free exercise' end? At the end of your swinging arm or my nose?
Google 'establishment of religion.' It directs to State Religion.
State Religion goes back to 'the divine right of kings,' under which a king must be a king because he is blessed by his god to be so.
The Church of England is an established religion, 'established' by Henry VIII when he broke from the Roman Catholic Church, which until then pretty much had a monopoly on overseeing (and often overiding) the kingdoms of Europe.
The Obama administration often used administrative rule making or executive orders to accomplish its desired goals. There is little to nothing to stop a subsequent administration from using the same tools to achieve its desired goals--that is the democratic process, for better or worse. Thus, regardless of whether Trump complied with the APA notice and comment requirements, there is little to stop him from achieving his goal. The appropriate remedies are to (1) elect a different president or (2) enact a law that administrative action can't overcome. The lawsuits filed by attorneys general et al., however, aren't good approaches. If they succeed, they'll turn considerable power over to unelected judges with lifetime tenure. Of course, the current administration is quickly filling dozens and dozens of judicial openings. Be careful what you wish for when you file suit.
2
James's argument was a bit off-base until it got to the part about unelected judges, when it went way off-base.
Saying that people shouldn't sue the administration because of the risk of winning is ridiculous.
The spectacle of nuns protesting birth control is bizarre to me. Are there not enough neglected, abused, unwanted, impoverished children in the world? And why on earth do they have any say whatsoever in anyone's health and life but their own?
1064
People in this country do have a right to demonstrate, providing they comply with the law.
3
They are not "protesting birth control" they are protesting the government forcing them to pay for your birth control.
Do you not understand the difference?
7
Yes, nuns have a right to protest. But their personal religious beliefs should carry absolutely no weight whatsoever over public policy that affects others.
69
What does not make sense is that employees have to depend on their employers to micromanage their health care, deciding what medications thaty can get and what doctors they can see. And if they lose thier job, they lose it all. Employer provided healthcare allows every employer to blackmail every employee. If Americans have any rights regarding health care, it should be available universally, independant of employment. There is a simple answer, and it costs much less to boot. Medicare for All.
1130
Actually you used to be able to buy any insurance policy you wanted at any time.
The PPACA ended that.
Now you can only buy a government approved policy during the very short enrollment period.
This is what you get when government gets involved.
4
Yes, and that's precisely the reason Republicans oppose universal health care. If we all had such healthcare, employees would be much more difficult to control.
Imagine us thinking we had a right to change jobs or start a business of our own.
16
As a primary care physician, I tell each and every one of my patients that Medicare for all is a much better gig for me- I don't have to spend time hassling with insurance coverage of procedures/drugs/radiology exams- I can be a doctor and practice in the 21st century.
13
Yes, this new ruling does indeed relegate women to a lower status than men. However, taking away women's access to birth control in order to be able to determine their life course hurts everyone, not just women.
What's even worse is denying coverage for birth control disproportional affects minority, low-income, underemployed and medically underserved women. Not only does this new ruling normalize dis-empowering women, it normalizes poor dis-empowered women. Or, simply: acceptance of poor women of color as second class citizens.
538
This is patently silly - like many of Ms. Greenhouse's causes. Susan, since we are talking about employers being able to determine for themselves whether or not they should cover birth control, can we at least stipulate that all of the impacted employees actually have jobs and likely able to afford their birth control? How can they be "medically underserved" if they are already covered in a plan (that now may take away free birth control).
If anything, this puts birth control on a level playing field with all other maintenance medications like high blood pressure medicine, insulin, heart burn medications, etc. What about epipens? Should they be free also. Let's be clear - birth control is generally very affordable (comparable to many over the counter and prescription medicines). I'm not really sure what the issue is asking someone - who by definition is employed - to pay for birth control like every other medicine.
3
Many working people are poorly paid. At minimum wage, forty hours a week, 52 weeks a year with no time off for vacations or holidays would result in an income of just over $15,000. Take out of that income FICA and possible state or local taxes and a working person is not left with a huge amount of money. A monthly bill of $50 for birth control is a lot for someone who is low income.
5
I agree with everything you wrote and would add that attacking birth control rights and making it even harder for women to control the size of their families negatively affects the children they already have too. This is an attack on families.
3
It doesn't seem to bother any of these moral or religious objectors that vasectomies are perfectly legal and paid for by insurance, as well as Viagra. This is nothing more than an attempt to put women in their place, which in their minds is barefoot in the kitchen.
599
False equivalency inasmuch as tubal ligation is covered under all insurance plans and Viagra isn't birth control.
2
INSURANCE DOES NOT PAY FOR VIAGRA, at least get this one fact correct, please!
2
Vasectomies and tubal ligations at CURRENTLY covered under all insurance plans because of the ACA ruling. Before the ACA, Catholic institutions did not offer insurance that any family planning treatments, including sterilization.
And it's obvious that Viagra isn't birth control. The relationship between sex and pregnancy should be equally obvious.
5