The good folks at the Pew Research Center recently released the results of a survey that gives us some insight into the public reaction to the contraceptive mandate.
Conservatives are more likely to think that religious organizations should be exempted, while liberals favor requiring contraceptive coverage. No surprise there. Religious people are more likely to support an exemption, the non-religious less so. Again, no surprise.
One interesting piece of data: the supposed concession announced on Friday has not changed very many minds. “The survey shows,” we read in the overview, “little difference in opinions among people interviewed before the administration’s proposed modification on Feb. 10 and those interviewed afterwards.”
In other words, the Obama administration still has a problem. Among those who have heard about the controversy, 73% of Republicans think an exemption should be given. Democrats go the other way, with only 29% wanting an exemption. Independents are split, 46% favoring an exemption, 48% supporting the contraceptive mandate.
As I said, that’s not surprising. But no matter how you slice the data, it’s bad politics for Obama. His decision has created a controversial issue where there had been no issue. What, one wonders, would have been the fall-out of allowing a broad exemption for religious organizations from the outset? I don’t think anybody but the most engaged (and reliable) liberals would notice or care. By contrast, the intransigence of the administration has generated a high level of reaction from his adversaries, a split in independents, and unhappiness in nearly a third of his usual supporters.
I find myself puzzled. Why make any voters angry over this issue? An imperative of justice? We’re talking about middle class women who have employer provided health insurance, not the poor. And the pill costs about as much as one diet Pepsi per day. Preventive health? Why not free red wine for middle-aged men, a habit that researchers have shown is very, very effective in reducing heart attacks?
My intuition is that the politically counter-productive (sic) contraceptive mandate reflects a deep and perhaps not fully articulate commitment to sexual freedom among elite liberals. (Inarticulate because many really do believe all the rhetoric about “women’s health,” which makes no sense unless undergirded by a commitment to sexual freedom as a key element of mental health.)
And the media calls social conservatives extremists?
February 15th, 2012 | 11:07 am
(Inarticulate because many really do believe all the rhetoric about “women’s health,” which makes no sense unless undergirded by a commitment to sexual freedom as a key element of mental health.)
I am not quite sure what this means. If you read the pertinent section (beginning on page 102) of the IOM Report, there is nothing about “sexual freedom as a key element of mental health.” There is solid information about why women who have unintended pregnancies—49% of all pregnancies are unintended, and 42% of those end in abortion—either are at risk of poorer health themselves or have babies (if they do not abort them) at risk of poorer health.
I don’t get the scare quotes around “women’s health.” It seems to me it is a very real issue.
I don’t understand why it is not a worthy goal to reduce the rate of unintended pregnancies, and I don’t understand why this shouldn’t include making contraceptives available to women who have no objections to using them.
There is an issue involving religious liberty and how contraceptives are made available, and that I take seriously. But I really don’t understand people who sneer at very real women’s health issues.
February 15th, 2012 | 11:37 am
Natural law has to do with things we can’t not know, so it seems to me that the insistence on free universal contraceptives has to do with a residual background sense that there are problems with sexual freedom and the technological separation of sex from fertility.
The issue touches people close to home, so they’re sensitive on the point and have to suppress their concerns. The result is that sexual freedom and contraception have to get the most favorable treatment possible in every setting as a matter of course. They have to be treated as super-OK to keep the thought that they might not be OK at all from returning.
February 15th, 2012 | 11:38 am
It all depends on how you define “health.” Rendering a healthy and properly functioning reproductive system inoperative seems like the opposite of health.
If we were to develop a process to stop the digestive system from performing its function by making it impossible to assimilate nutrients, such a pill might be welcomed by bulemic individuals, but most people would see that it is not advancing “health.” Furthermore, it would quite likely create a very unhealthy attitude toward food and eating (at least until one died of starvation).
February 15th, 2012 | 11:43 am
“Why not free red wine for middle-aged men, a habit that researchers have shown is very, very effective in reducing heart attacks?”
Best news I’ve heard in a while. Gotta get to Trader Joe’s…
David, I think the idea would be that contraceptives are often bad for a woman’s health (see “Ten Reasons the Pill Sucks“, written by a rather witty freshman).
Apart from the research, I know a lot of my female friends have had minor and major issues because of it. As far as abortion and contraception, while it’s obviously true any successfully contracepted act of intercourse can’t result in an abortion, culturally the contraceptive mentality leads to the abortive mentality, in that contraception severs sex from its natural end, pregnancy and children, and thus abortion becomes a backup plan. Many women who have abortions were using contraception when they became pregnant.
February 15th, 2012 | 11:57 am
David,
The idea that problems around pregnancy will go away if only the pregnancy went away, is, at best, simplistic. Unfortunately, we humans are complex beyond our understanding.
For example, left out of your numbers are the number of women with the problems who were using contraception. Also left out is that contraceptives are already available. Given the simplistic assumption above, the marginal improvement available if contraceptives become free seems relatively small.
Oversimplify the problem. Provide a simplistic if marginal solution. Nope, that doesn’t work for me. I have a great deal of difficulty here not suspecting that there is a hidden agenda in play. Reno’s suggestion is as good as any and better than most, particularly as no one is trying to hide the agenda. There actually are a large number of people that believe that sex is an unending good and have difficulty imagining a different viewpoint.
February 15th, 2012 | 12:09 pm
Prof. Reno, I agree with you about the substance of this issue—I think the mandate is a violation of religious liberty—however I’m not sure your political analysis is correct. Let’s not forget we’re in the Republican primary season. Politicizing the mandate strengthens not just any opposition to Obama, but Santorum in particular, who faces a much more difficult path in the general election than someone like Romney, who evidently has similar problems with the contraceptive mandate in Massachusetts. In other words, if this tilts the nomination towards Santorum, it’s not clear that Obama is being politically counter-productive.
I’m also curious how Catholic conservatives would respond if, instead of establishing this mandate through employer-provided insurance, liberals were to, via the democratic process, fight for and win the mandate through a federal, tax-funded program. It seems that Catholics would then be in the position of Anabaptists—forced to pay taxes that fund activities (in the latter case, killing, in the former case, contraception) that are held to be in direct contradiction of their religious faith. Should Catholics concerned about religious liberty in the case of the contraception mandate be fighting for the rights of Anabaptists to refuse to pay that portion of their taxes used for state-sanctioned killing?
February 15th, 2012 | 12:14 pm
If we were to develop a process to stop the digestive system from performing its function by making it impossible to assimilate nutrients, such a pill might be welcomed by bulemic individuals, but most people would see that it is not advancing “health.”
sallyr,
We already have such a pill. It’s called Alli, and it’s available over the counter. It prevents the absorption of some of the fat in the diet. We also have bariatric surgery to shrink people’s stomachs. We also have artificial sweeteners so people can drink sweet beverages without consuming calories, and we even have the artificial fat Olestra, although it is not very popular.
February 15th, 2012 | 12:20 pm
It’s important to recognize that if Obama could take such a step now, when it probably hurts him more than it helps, he will take a thousand such steps if he is reelected and does not have to worry about his popularity with the voters. The Obamacare legislation makes it possible for the government to do just about anything it can connect to health or saving money. Limit families to two children? Better for the planet! Kill off unhealthy 80-year-olds? Better for the treasury! Outlaw motorcycles, cigarettes, and cheeseburgers? Lower healthcare costs! Close down First Things? Better for national unity under the reign of His Excellency.
February 15th, 2012 | 12:29 pm
David,
A 2002 study by the Guttmacher Institute found that of 5,000 sexually active women not using contraception, only 12% cited cost or availability as the reason they weren’t using them.
If contraceptives, rather than restrictions on abortion, are the way to reduce abortion, why do states with generous public health programs and ‘comprehensive’ sex education have much higher abortion rates than states without these things, but with restrictions on abortion?
February 15th, 2012 | 12:30 pm
No one that I know of, and certainly not the Catholic Church, is opposed to people taking control of their own fertility. While I do understand the difference between using, say, the pill and using NFP, to a lot of people, they both seem like “birth control,” and people don’t understand why one is any different from another. (I understand the arguments. I don’t necessarily buy them.) If contraception is bad for a woman’s health (and it is very bad for, say, smokers) the woman should consult a doctor she trusts and, if she is sexually active and doesn’t want to get pregnant (and I am including married women here) she and her doctor should decide how she should avoid pregnancy. No one is forcing women to use the pill. There are other methods available, all of which—including Natural Family Planning—could be covered by insurance.
I don’t know why in the world Catholic organizations don’t see this as an opportunity to promote Natural Family Planning. No employer would be in any way prohibited from promoting NFP to its employees.
This is not (just) about “the pill.” I am not sure why people are so obsessed with denouncing the pill, when actually sterilization is used by considerably more people than the pill. People seem to have “a thing” about oral contraceptives!
February 15th, 2012 | 12:36 pm
David – you know as well as I do that none of those processes you describe have the effect of rendering the digestive system completey non-functional, as is the goal in contraception. Nor are they very effective even at the lesser goal of eliminating the weight problems of Americans. Furthermore, bariatric surgery has the effect of forcing people to eat less – a function that would be more akin to chastity belts than to contraceptives.
February 15th, 2012 | 12:38 pm
In other words, if this tilts the nomination towards Santorum, it’s not clear that Obama is being politically counter-productive.
Charlie Collier,
Just to add a thought to what you say, Joe Scarborough on Meet the Press said that the Republicans who are taking up this issue in congress should be extremely careful. If it is perceived as a women’s health issue rather than a religious liberty issue, the Republicans may get themselves in very hot water. Remember the recent firestorm over Susan G. Komen for the Cure and its dropping of funding for Planned Parenthood. A very recent Pew poll shows that the American people (at least the ones who have heard about the issue) favor the mandate 48 to 44.
February 15th, 2012 | 1:05 pm
“Should Catholics concerned about religious liberty in the case of the contraception mandate be fighting for the rights of Anabaptists to refuse to pay that portion of their taxes used for state-sanctioned killing?”
No, we should be making sure the offensive legislation does not get passed.
February 15th, 2012 | 1:08 pm
I do not think it is “bad politics” for Obama. I think it’s just a high-risk gamble – but, then, he hasn’t been looking too re-electable lately anyway (a point that may not seem too obvious until you remember that right now Republicans are attacking each other – but as soon as a candidate is selected, they will all focus on attacking Obama).
He has two generations of public school educated citizens – raised on socialistic expectations, ignorant of civics. He has a cooperative media . And all this fuss over birth control coincides with a lot of fuss over whether our Constitution is obsolete.
All of which sounds to me like he’s betting his reelection on a promise (call it “hope & change”): if he is reelected, he will end the old, bad America with its obsolete Constitution, and will give us a bright, shiny new America, where those old useless freedoms are replaced with promises.
He has already given his faithful voters free cell phones to go with those free contraceptives. Just imagine what goodies he’ll be free to hand out if he gets past this reelection problem.
Obama had to do this, because he needs an enemy to run against. He’s got several months to manipulate the outrage. I don’t think this is a blunder: I think it is a strategy.
February 15th, 2012 | 1:47 pm
He has already given his faithful voters free cell phones to go with those free contraceptives. Just imagine what goodies he’ll be free to hand out if he gets past this reelection problem.
Blake,
It might be wise to actually read what’s on a website before you link to it:
February 15th, 2012 | 2:02 pm
“We’re talking about middle class women who have employer provided health insurance, not the poor.”
No, I think this is wrong. We’re talking about the woman who crawls around the emergency room all day, wiping up blood and brains for $12/hour.
Is she “poor?” Well, the word “poor” is a bit of an anachronism. No American ever says “I’m poor.” He (or she) says, “I have a lousy job.” or “I can’t find a job.” In modern, standard English, “poor” means “pitiable” and no sane person wants to be thought pitiable. But that woman crawling around on the floor has a genuinely lousy job. In other words, yes, she’s “poor.”
She already three children and she doesn’t want more. The third pregnancy was difficult and a fourth will likely be even more difficult. Maybe she’s already old enough that the risk of having a severely disabled child is non-negligible. She can’t afford to quit her job and taking care of three children plus the job has her stretched to the limit.
But her husband doesn’t want to stop having sex until she’s post-menopausal. (She’s ambivalent. She thinks sex is pleasurable, but six hours of uninterrupted sleep would be pure ecstasy.) So what should they do?
“Live as brother and sister, take cold showers and pray a lot,” intones the Church confidently. OK, that’s a fine answer if you believe in God. But for secular people, it’s pure nonsense.
That’s why the mandate seems so reasonable to secular people. It’s not just about hedonistic, libertines having consequence-free sex.
February 15th, 2012 | 2:22 pm
David – you know as well as I do that none of those processes you describe have the effect of rendering the digestive system completey non-functional, as is the goal in contraception.
sally rogers,
I know of no contraceptive method that renders the male or female reproductive systems completely nonfunctional. I can think of a lot of products, procedures, or drugs that strongly inhibit perfectly natural functions—antiperspirants, antihistamines, proton pump inhibitors, anesthesia, pain killers, immunosuppressants, to name a few. If medical science ever discovers how to stop the perfectly natural process of aging, I might very well take advantage of that.
I am not quite sure why so many people insist on arguing about issues other than the one of religious liberty. Most health insurance already covers contraception. The current issue is whether religious organizations are being roped in to supporting contraception. If all religious organizations are exempted, most people will still have insurance for contraception, and contraceptives will not change at all.
February 15th, 2012 | 3:04 pm
Regarding your new list of “medical procedures” that suppress bodily functions are being used to treat disorders – except anti-perspirants (which I do not believe most people would consider to be a “health”: treatment. All of the others are used to correct a disease or to allow for treatments of underlying disorder or injury.
Pregnancy is not a disease, disorder or injury. It is the physical end or goal toward which the entire reproductive system is ordered.
February 15th, 2012 | 3:10 pm
“I am not quite sure why so many people insist on arguing about issues other than the one of religious liberty.”
It is pretty well accepted that religious liberty guarantees the right to wear unusual head-coverings while working as a police officer. It is also pretty well accepted that religious liberty does not guarantee the right to commit human sacrifice. The general principle is that religious liberty can only be invoked to claim a right to do something which is not unreasonably dangerous or anti-social. (Funny clothes, no co-ed swimming, horse-drawn vehicles on the highway – OK. Polygamy, pot-smoking, human sacrifice, draft-dodging – not OK.)
Therefore, to lay claim to a religious liberty exemption, one must establish that the thing one wishes to do is not unreasonably dangerous or anti-social. It’s the same issue.
February 15th, 2012 | 3:13 pm
“Pregnancy is not a disease, disorder or injury. It is the physical end or goal toward which the entire reproductive system is ordered.”
I disagree. The end toward which the reproductive system is ordered is the propagation of the species. Most pregnancies are conducive to this goal. Some (those which endanger the organism’s ability to care for prior offspring) are not.
February 15th, 2012 | 3:33 pm
It is amazing to me to see these discussions diving into the weeds of contraception, pregnancy, whether Catholics actually follow Church teaching, etc. What an exercise in missing the forest for the trees.
I could care less what the Church teaching at issue is here. The government has no more of a right to mandate Catholic schools or hospitals to offer coverage that pays for contraception than it does to mandate the Amish to take drivers ed or buy big-screen TVs or to mandate Muslim grocers and restaurant owners to sell pork and alcohol. If the government can mandate groups to do things that offend their conscience or religious teachings without a clear and compelling reason to do so (i.e., the prevention of human sacrifice to save innocent lives), then what exactly is the limit of governmental authority? Where is the line that it cannot cross?
That is the issue – everything else is white noise.
February 15th, 2012 | 4:10 pm
LIFELINE/SAFELINK FACT SHEET
There is no “Obama phone” or other newly created federal program to provide free cell phones.
Why on Earth would Obama be putting out that he is giving out free phones if he isn’t?
February 15th, 2012 | 4:20 pm
David, I think the idea would be that contraceptives are often bad for a woman’s health (see “Ten Reasons the Pill Sucks“, written by a rather witty freshman).
Yes, it’s classed as a carcinogen, and is linked to breast cancer. There are many other concerns about hormones where we just don’t have any information.
This is not to say that the pill does not also have medicinal uses. But there is a difference between prescribing something for a medical reason vs. prescribing it to women who just want to engage in high-risk activities.
We should not be subsidizing or providing extra benefits to encourage high risk behavior.
February 15th, 2012 | 4:29 pm
The program was enhanced under Telecommunications Act of 1996, which was supported on a broadly bipartisan basis in Congress.
By the way, I came close enough to qualifying as low income in 1996 that I looked into free and reduced utility programs, and there were no cell phones being given away.
I don’t even think they existed back then – if they did, they resembled bricks and weighed about as much.
I am not talking about reduced cost utility programs – we all know that these freebie giveaways originated with the “Great Society” rhetoric of Lyndon Johnson (though exact programs may have come into existence later, it is this concept that first really expanded the original FDR idea that the way to get rid of poverty is by paying people to go into poverty and stay there).
I am talking about cell phones – I am talking about giving poor people more than just what they need to get by: I am talking about graft-style handouts, the exchange of goodies for votes.
Whether Obama started the program or not, he is taking credit for them.
And the only reason it matters is because it’s part of a larger pattern – a pattern that includes free contraceptives, free food, free free free free.
February 15th, 2012 | 8:32 pm
We should not be subsidizing or providing extra benefits to encourage high risk behavior.
Blake,
Read the message of 2:02 pm. Felapton says everything that needs to be said.
February 15th, 2012 | 9:10 pm
I wrote a post on this topic at my blog at http://www.secularthinker.com/2012/02/war-on-birth-control.html
I think what is important to keep in mind that the public’s opinion of a topic does/should not necessarily determine how the government handles that issue. Especially when it comes to matters of law, popularity should not be taken into account. Our Constitution expressly puts a wall of separation between church and state, and if the government allows certain exemptions to businesses/organizations based on religious reasons, that is a direct breach of the Constitutional concept.
February 15th, 2012 | 9:56 pm
I was all for a religious exemption from the contraceptive mandate until someone raised the point about end-of-life care. If someone has signed a legal document specifying exactly what measures can and cannot be taken to prolong life, can a religious hospital refuse to honor the document by citing conscience?
February 15th, 2012 | 10:08 pm
@Felapton, David,
Re the hypothetical poor woman with three children she cannot afford due to an abusive husband who does not contribute. How many are out there and where? Does _everyone_ have to provide free contraceptives to meet that perceived need? Why not try to address that directly? And do you really believe that free contraceptives will solve her problems? By your own description, the situation is a bit more complicated than free drugs will cure.
This is what is called a straw man. They can be invented to support any argument. Underneath each is one or more assumptions that are simply unsupportable. Here, the biggest is that everyone must pay to solve this. This one is particularly sad as it depends mainly on an emotional appeal.
February 15th, 2012 | 10:18 pm
Where? All I can find is where it says that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …” It sounds like the “wall” is to keep the state out of the church’s business, not the reverse.
February 15th, 2012 | 11:12 pm
Read the message of 2:02 pm. Felapton says everything that needs to be said.
If pregnancy is inappropriate – a health concern – then sex is inappropriate. Encouraging you to have sex is irresponsible.
Even if you could prove that pregnancy could theoretically be a health issue, it does not follow that subsidizing inappropriate sexual activity is the correct way to respond to it.
And, of course, even if the above were all true, it remains the case that freedom of religion is explicitly protected by the Constitution, whereas freedom to receive goodies from the government (in exchange for votes) is not only not a right, but is actually considered a form of corruption (specifically, “graft”).
February 16th, 2012 | 7:12 am
If pregnancy is inappropriate – a health concern – then sex is inappropriate. Encouraging you to have sex is irresponsible.
Blake,
That doesn’t seem to be what you thought a week ago:
February 16th, 2012 | 9:21 am
@Mike Melendez (10:08 p.m.)
The husband is not abusive and he does contribute. He earns $12/hour too. (Maybe he’s a security guard at the hospital.) Have you ever tried to support three kids on two $12/hour paychecks?
They’re not straw men. I know a lot of people like this. Some of them are my neighbors. Some ride the bus to work with me. Some go to mass at my parish. They exist.
February 16th, 2012 | 9:42 am
This is what is called a straw man.
Mike Melendez,
I believe creating a straw man would require making your argument, but making it disingenuously in such a way that it would then be easy to refute. So there is no straw man.
Does _everyone_ have to provide free contraceptives to meet that perceived need?
No one is talking about providing “free” contraceptives. People who receive employer-provided insurance work for it. It is a part of their compensation.
The study with the 98% figure that was criticized in another thread took the reproductive age of women to be 15-44. That’s 30 years. The average woman in the United States has 2.1 children. Even assuming women abstain from sex until marriage, the average age for marriage for women is 26.5. That’s still 17.5 years of fertility in marriage during which women are having (and according to surveys, women want to have) 2 children. It is difficult to conclude anything other than that contraception is a basic part of the lives of the majority of women. It makes sense to have a broadly inclusive policy of coverage of contraception as a part of medical care. Indeed this is the case already, since most insurance includes contraception. Exactly how involved religious organizations ought to be involved in providing insurance coverage for contraception is a perfectly legitimate issue, but the question of whether broad insurance coverage of contraception is reasonable has already been answered. It is already the status quo. If you want to argue that insurance coverage of contraception is illegitimate, and that too many employers offer coverage of contraception, then go right ahead. You will be arguing for taking away what the majority of insured women already have. It will be a great political issue for the upcoming presidential campaign.
Check out this:
Those who oppose the contraceptive mandate are outnumbered, but I think they still have a chance of prevailing. However, if this is perceived by the American people as a fight against contraception itself, the vast majority of the American people will not be on the anti-contraception side.
February 16th, 2012 | 10:18 am
” … freedom to receive goodies from the government (in exchange for votes) is not only not a right, but is actually considered a form of corruption”
I disagree. Freedom to convince the democratically elected government that using taxpayers’ money to do something that is in your interest, on the grounds that it is also in the public interest, is not corruption.
Huge, strong people do not need the police to lock up muggers; they don’t often get mugged. Small, weak, and infirm people have convinced the government to spend taxpayers’ money on police. That’s not corruption.
Vegetarians do not need the government to mandate and enforce meat safety standards. Meat-eaters have convinced the government to spend taxpayers’ money on meat safety enforcement.
Most people do not need the government to provide public housing. Advocates for the poor have convinced a majority that this is a sensible way to spend taxpayers’ money.
The ACA is not really different. A substantial majority has decided that making health care (including contraception) available to low income people is a prudent use of taxpayers’ money. A rich, powerful minority don’t like having their money spent that way. Well, that’s life in a democracy. Not liking what the majority decides does not give them a right to opt out of the law.
Arguing the contraception mandate is a violation of religious liberty makes sense. Arguing that the ACA is not prudent public policy makes sense. Arguing that the ACA is illegitimate corruption does not make sense.
February 16th, 2012 | 11:20 am
“Live as brother and sister, take cold showers and pray a lot,” intones the Church confidently. OK, that’s a fine answer if you believe in God. But for secular people, it’s pure nonsense.
Not sure what you’re point is here. I’m already aware that secular people think that much of what the Church says is pure nonsense – Jesus and St. Paul said as much 20 centuries ago.
(BTW, it would help your argument if you didn’t misrepresent the Church’s position.)
February 16th, 2012 | 12:10 pm
Sam Schmitt,
It is not just “secular people” who do not agree with the Catholic Church’s condemnation of contraception. It is many (most?) other Christian denominations and most other world religions. Islam and Judaism, for example, do not oppose contraception.
(BTW, it would help your argument if you didn’t misrepresent the Church’s position.)
How was the Church’s position misrepresented?
February 16th, 2012 | 1:39 pm
HOWEVER . . .
In spite of all of my defenses of the “accommodation,” there remains the problem of the self-insured. This is from the New York Times:
It seems to me the whole thing falls apart if a way cannot be found to (a) get coverage for women working for self-insured religious organizations and (b) do so in a way that the self-insured organizations don’t have to pay for it. And it may be rather clunky to have two different schemes—one for organizations that buy insurance and another for those who self-insure. And if they do come up with an “accommodation” for the self-insured that is more attractive than the one for those who buy their insurance, certainly the latter can reasonably push to get the same deal as the self-insured.
It is going to take some fancy footwork from the Obama administration to pull this off. I suppose they could simply exempt the self-insured, but that falls short of achieving the goals of the mandate.
There is, of course, a year for this all to be worked out.
February 17th, 2012 | 1:27 pm
” … freedom to receive goodies from the government (in exchange for votes) is not only not a right, but is actually considered a form of corruption”
I disagree. Freedom to convince the democratically elected government that using taxpayers’ money to do something that is in your interest, on the grounds that it is also in the public interest, is not corruption.
So you’re saying that when we voted for Obamacare, we were voting to redistribute health care money to subsidize sex?
Because that’s not what I remember hearing.
Nobody elected anyone on the promise of free birth control. This isn’t a case where voters demanded it – it is a case where the politician is offering free beers (except in this case, it’s free sex) to people who neither needed nor asked for it.
You’re welcome to think Boss Tweed was an American hero, but I continue to hold that if you have to lie about your real goals, what you are doing is not legitimate democratic governance.
February 17th, 2012 | 1:29 pm
You’re welcome to think Boss Tweed was an American hero, but I continue to hold that if you have to lie about your real goals, what you are doing is not legitimate democratic governance.
By the way, the “free marketplace of ideas” works pretty much the same as any other free market: it relies on accurate information, and fails when sellers are able to misrepresent their goods.
February 17th, 2012 | 5:37 pm
“But the administration announced the compromise plan before it had figured out how to address one conspicuous point: Like most large employers, many religiously affiliated organizations choose to insure themselves rather than hire an outside company to assume the risk.”
So much of this HHS mandate smacks of a sloppy and hastily-assembled job, despite the high stakes involved. If they had consulted with the bishops or the insurance companies, maybe they would have noticed the issue of self-insurance. But they didn’t, and that impresses me with its presumption and arrogance.
“The administration has remained mostly silent on how self-insured institutions will be treated, other than to say that the details will be worked out in meetings with religious leaders in the days and weeks to come.”
In other words, they will put it off until after the election. So this is largely political calculation. I am not surprised, but I despise this. Religious people and First Amendments supporters are being jerked around and frightened, and liberals are being manipulated like puppets.
Is it possible that IF self-insurers gain exemption to this HHS diktat once the administration deigns to decide the issue, other conscientious objectors will be able to change to self-insurance as well?
February 18th, 2012 | 10:23 pm
Felapton — that poor woman, and many like her, are somehow surviving now. She has choices to make with her money — is her employer also responsible for her gas or bus pass, her rent, her utility bills? Does the fact that the lack of it is tough for her create an obligation on some other specific party’s part?
That we feel compassion for her situation and hope that there is a way that her family will be able to sustain itself, whether by limiting future births or by some other means, does not discard the First Amendment rights of *anyone* in this country, no matter what aspect of their free exercise is endangered. That even goes for Catholic hospitals, aid agencies, or anyone else.
And I realize it’s a minor detail, but if you’re going to paint a picture for effect, please at least admit that hospitals do issue mops to their housekeeping staff. And keep in mind that right alongside her are well-paid doctors, nurses, administrators and others — she represents a certain percentage of those affected, but she is by no means the quintessential face of those who some feel are entitled to be handed their contraception free of any out of pocket cost “just because.”
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