No insurance company ever has to pay for an abortion if they don’t cover them.

Actually, that’s not true. Studies show that increased use of contraceptives increases the number of abortions. See this article for an explanation of a recent study: http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/new-study-links-contraception-hike-with-increased-abortions

So really, I think the insurance companies would just be setting themselves up for most costs if they choose to cover contraceptives in such fashion. And that’s not even to mention to inherent health risks associated with the contraceptives themselves.

There does exist a large group of married people who are not celibate but chaste, and would not benefit. They’re not always large families, and they’re not always religious. (There are a lot of non-religious types interested in natural family planning.) That was my inference of what Robert meant.

“It is possible to be both chaste and sexually active.”

Jack Perry,

That was my point; thank you for restating it. While the author says that chaste people will not benefit, I think (or hope at least) that he intended to say that celibate people will not benefit.

Uhhh – that’s how all insurance works.

That would be LOL if you weren’t serious.

My auto insurance doesn’t pay for my oil changes precisely because they are preventative maintenance.

Chemical birth control causes those organs not to be used as intended — they are no longer producing gametes in their normal cycles.

So I think there’s a valid distinction to be made between lack of sexual activity resulting in lack of reproduction, and the actual disabling of the function of the organs.

Pregnancy is not a disease, and birth control is not a medical device – not unless we change the meaning of “medical” to include anything we do to our bodies in order to have more control over our lives.

What medical expenses should the taxpayer subsidize? If you believe that passing the expense of a thing on to “the taxpayer” makes it essentially free, then why not cover birth control (and tattoos too for that matter, and body piercings – hey, self esteem and identity are valid parts of the human condition!)

If, however, you recognize that “free” actually really just means “the costs are still there but obscured”, then you know that there’s no way to get free condoms – it’s really just an expensive fantasy: the condoms will end up costing someone far more than they’re worth.

Even the idea that the “someone” who pays for the condoms will be “someone else” is a fantasy: the same young healthy people who think they will be scoring free condoms might very well be the ones hardest hit by any economic consequences that come around in the form of “unintended consequences”, because policies like this actually make it easier, not harder, for the powerful of the world to pass the costs on to the little guy (who does not protest because he thinks he’s getting something for free, and does not realize how much it is really costing him).