Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
It appears that the Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Republicans are not happy with the change that President Obama made to the health care contraceptive coverage requirement for religious employers. The President’s announcement about the change yesterday initially met with a “reserved response” from the bishops who said it was a 
“first step in the right direction.” Hours later, however, the bishops issued a statement “blasting the plan.” Along with others, the bishops are calling for Congressional legislation that would reverse the contraceptive policy.
In a blog post earlier today, Judy Waxman, who is Vice President for Health and Reproductive Right at the National Women’s Law Center, expressed her concern about some of the proposed legislation. Waxman wrote that “opponents of birth control in Congress are still focused on taking away access to contraception introducing extreme legislation that threatens health across the board. The pieces of legislation range from allowing any employer, regardless of whether it is a religious entity, to deny coverage of contraception to giving employers the right to refuse coverage of any health care service they find religiously or morally objectionable.”
Igor Volsky of ThinkProgress echoed Waxman’s concern. He reported that Senator Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican, is expected to introduce an amendment next week “that would permit any employer or insurance plan to exclude any health service, no matter how essential, from coverage if they morally object to it.
Excerpt from Blunt’s proposed amendment:
(6) RESPECTING RIGHTS OF CONSCIENCE WITH REGARD TO SPECIFIC ITEMS OR SERVICES —
“(A) FOR HEALTH PLANS. — A health plan shall not be considered to have failed to provide the essential health benefits package described in subsection (a) (or preventive health services described in section 2713 of the Public Health Services Act), to fail to be a qualified health plan, or to fail to fulfill any other requirement under this title on the basis that it declines to provide coverage of specific items or services because —
“(i) providing coverage (or, in the case of a sponsor of a group health plan, paying for coverage) of such specific items or services is contrary to the religious beliefs or moral convictions of the sponsor, issuer, or other entity offering the plan; or
“(ii) such coverage (in the case of individual coverage) is contrary to the religious beliefs or moral convictions of the purchaser or beneficiary of the coverage.
Waxman also wrote the following in her post:
They are playing politics with women’s health – and it would hurt everyone. Tell your Senators to reject all extreme legislation that would take away women’s access to birth control without a co-pay, and other needed health care.
What would happen if some of these bills became law?
- Any employer could offer a plan that does not cover maternity care for unmarried women in its plan, claiming that such coverage violates its belief that sex and procreation are permissible only within the marital relationship. (Amendment No. 1520 sponsored by Senator Blunt, R-MO, also known as the “Blunt Amendment”/H.R. 1179)
- Any corporation whose CEO opposes contraception based on his “moral convictions” could deny all coverage of contraception or any other service to the company’s employees. Even more disturbing, a CEO’s view of “morality” could potentially include concern for the cost of a particular benefit. (S. 2092, also known as “The Manchin-Rubio Bill” and the “Blunt Amendment”/H.R. 1179)
- Any employer who objects to coverage of vaccines for children could deny this coverage to all employees. (The “Blunt Amendment”/H.R. 1179)
Do you agree with Waxman that some people are playing politics with women’s health? Do you think our Senators should be called upon to reject–what Waxman calls–“extreme” legislation?
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I’d like to note that birth control pills can be used to treat some medical conditions—including endometriosis, polycystic ovary syndrome, adenomyosis, dysmenorrhea, and acne. Birth control pills can also lower a woman’s risk of getting ovarian cancer—as well as some other kinds of cancers—if she takes the pills for more than five years.
FYI: Last December, Alice Park penned an article for Time’s Healthland titled Should Nuns Take the Pill to Prevent Cancer?
Park wrote:
Kara Britt at Monash University and Roger Short of the University of Melbourne, writing in the journal Lancet, argue that the scientific evidence is strong enough to consider whether nuns, who do not bear children — a lifestyle that puts them at higher risk of certain reproductive cancers — could be protected by taking the birth control pill.
The article in the Lancet claimed that Roman Catholic nuns pay a “terrible price for their chastity” because not having children puts them at a higher risk of growing breast, ovarian and, uterine tumors.
SOURCES
GOP Ups The Ante, Introduces Legislation To Allow Any Employer To Deny Any Preventive Health Service (ThinkProgress)
Roy Blunt Amendment (ThinkProgress)
Protect Women’s Health: Tell Your Senators to Reject Extreme Legislation (National Women’s Law Center)
Blunt expected to intro bill on contraception coverage (St. Louis Business Journal)
Senator Blunt’s Response To President Obama’s Remarks On HHS Mandate
GOP Sen. Roy Blunt to introduce bill allowing employers to deny coverage for any health service (Daily Kos)
Groups rail against contraceptive coverage ‘mandate’ despite rule change (My Fox Philly)
Bishops Renew Call to Legislative Action on Religious Liberty (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops)
Should Nuns Take the Pill to Prevent Cancer? (Time/Heathland)
Nuns On Birth Control? Experts Say The Pill May Reduce Health Risks Posed By Chaste Lifestyle (Huffington Post)
Nuns should go on the Pill, says Lancet study: Nuns should go on the Pill to reduce their chances of developing cancer, researchers say (The Telegraph)
Combined oral contraceptive pill (Wkipedia)
Jesus General just loves him the hypocrisy:
http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/2012/02/reproductive-freedom-is-slavery.html
Swarthmore mom,
Romney is deceptive!
Beware of “personhood” legislation that could outlaw many forms of contraception.
*****
Congressional GOP Pushes Zygote Personhood Bills
Mississippi voters rejected a constitutional amendment granting personhood to zygotes—but congressional Republicans want to take the plan national.
—By Nick Baumann
Tue Nov. 8, 2011
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/11/mississippi-personhood-zygote-federal-law
Excerpt:
On Tuesday, voters in Mississippi headed to the polls to vote on an amendment to the state Constitution that would designate inseminated human eggs as legal persons from the “moment of fertilization.” (Updated 9:30PT: The measure failed.) Its backers hoped to set up a challenge to Roe v. Wade and push toward outlawing many forms of birth control. In Mississippi, the proposed amendment created a political firestorm that’s been closely watched by both sides of the national abortion debate. But this fight is not merely a Mississippi matter, and it is far from over: In Washington, House and Senate Republicans are pushing legislation that would do the same thing on the federal level.
The Mississippi amendment alters the state’s Constitution so that “the term ‘person’ or ‘persons’ shall include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof.” Nearly identical language appears in three bills that have been endorsed by scores of Republicans in Congress, including top House committee chairmen Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) and Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and presidential candidate Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.).
Like the Mississippi measure, these bills, which are not constitutional amendments, would extend the rights of legal personhood—including equal protection under the law—to a zygote, the single cell formed when a human sperm fuses with an egg. The national measures are “designed to achieve the same end” as the Mississippi effort, says Sara Rosenbaum, a health law expert and professor at George Washington University who frequently testifies before Congress on reproductive rights issues. “The aim of the bills is to reclassify or to overturn…the fundamental constitutional fact on which Roe v. Wade rests,” she adds. Opponents of abortion rights agree with Rosenbaum’s analysis: The National Pro-Life Alliance, a group that backs all three bills, calls them “a frontal assault on Roe v. Wade” and sees them as a way of “legislatively overturning” the Supreme Court decision.
If the bills become law and zygotes are afforded the protection of legal personhood, abortion would be legally equivalent to murder, as would almost anything that interfered with the zygote’s development. That could include the morning-after pill, which primarily works by preventing fertilization but which anti-abortion activists insist prevents fertilized eggs from implanting in the uterus. (Many scientists disagree.) Intrauterine devices (IUDs), which can prevent implantation, would also be affected by the laws.
“It’s not even abortion, it’s not even pregnancy—that’s how far back this reaches,” says Donna Crane, the policy director for NARAL Pro-Choice America. “It’s possibly the most extreme position you can take on this issue and far to the right of where most right-to-life individuals are.”
Like the Mississippi amendment, none of the personhood bills being considered in Congress contain any exemptions for victims of rape or incest.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57374531-503544/cpac-huckabee-thanks-obama-for-birth-control-firestorm/
Elaine,
You are right about the Church and its beliefs. On one hand we are supposed to believe an Immaculalte Conception occurred, but women can’t go through artificial insemination to have a child and now the all male Bishops are pushing back on anyone having contraception. Not just Catholics!!
Legal Expert David Boies Discusses the ‘Constitutionality’ of The Birth Control Mandate on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
In theory according to this legislation if an employer sees it as immoral or against his own religious beliefs to provide ANY health care they could stop coverage…some people believe that hospitals and doctors are the work of the devil, I know this for a fact, and you can be sure that employers and insurance companies would all convert to that religious belief if they could.
. . . and yes, Elaine, you are right, those “liberal Catholic” dems (and the all purpose moral scold Liberman) have enabled the misperception of this issue too by not framing it as primarily a matter of women’s rights not some ginned up twist on so-called religious freedom
It’s strikes me as odd some of the things that the Catholic Church considers to be immoral:
Single Catholic school teacher fired for ‘grave immoral act’ of having baby through artificial insemination
– Christa Dias, 32, fired after asking for maternity leave while five months pregnant
– Catholic schools said she violated contract, which requires her to adhere to Catholic social teachings
– Dias says she shouldn’t be punished for wanting children
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2079655/Single-Catholic-school-teacher-fired-grave-immoral-act-having-baby-artificial-insemination.html
Excerpt:
There was nothing immaculate about a Catholic school teacher’s conception.
Christa Dias, a former teacher at Holy Family and St. Lawrence Catholic schools in Cincinnati, Ohio, claims she was fired for becoming pregnant using artificial insemination.
Ms Dias was fired in October 2010 when, at five and a half months pregnant, she approached her employer about maternity leave options.
The schools initially fired Ms Dias, 32, for being single and pregnant, Cincinnati.com reports.
When the schools discovered that violated several federal and state anti-discrimination laws, they said she was fired because she became pregnant using artificial insemination.
That, the school said, was in direct violation of her contract.
‘She has a right to her opinion, but she doesn’t have a right to violate her (employment) contract,’ Archdiocese of Cincinnati spokesman Dan Andriacco told the website.
The contract Ms Dias signed called for employees to adhere to Catholic social teachings, including the avowal that having a child without a husband and out of wedlock is a ‘grave immoral’ act.
Ms Dias is still unemployed and now has a ten-month-old daughter for which to care.
Why the dems wouldn’t make this an important issue I have no idea. Since the Catholic bishops, who have virtually zero ethical or moral legs to stand on, and their opportunistic cultural throwbacks in Congress have aggressively raised the profile, it is time to slam back. But, as we know, that is not the style of our accommodation President. At some point, though, the rights of women in our secular nation, the vast majority of whom are being marginalized by downplaying their rights, demand forceful attention.
Attend to the real needs of women. The war on women has gone on far too long. Cowardly politicians should be ashamed.
Though it may have been a shrewd political move to finesse the issue, as the administration has now done, it should never have done so in a way that attributes an equal and level playing field with the forces of ignorance that seek to control and dominate women. It cedes too much by acknowledging merit to the Bishops complaint and not confronting the issue directly.
raff,
There are a lot of folks that should have used contraception…And then again…there a lot of folks that should have been raise in Asia….They could raise there Youth in Asia…..
if they hate the US so much, then maybe they should go somewhere else….All in all…It ain’t such a bad place to be from…We do have some bad actors that think they are God…inside and outside of an elective office…
rafflaw,
We have to put some of the blame on liberals like E. J. Dionne who criticized the Obama Administration on this issue.
*****
Catholic tribalism and the contraceptive flap: Watching liberals defend a church they disagree with showed us that even Catholic insiders can feel like outsiders
By Joan Walsh
http://www.salon.com/2012/02/11/catholic_tribalism_and_the_contraceptive_flap/
Excerpt;
The resolution to the contraception contretemps seems mainly designed to do one thing: mollify the Catholics who defied the U.S. Conference of Bishops to support the Affordable Care Act in 2010. Church leaders are unlikely to officially back this so-called accommodation – the White House isn’t calling it a compromise — just as they continued to oppose the ACA even after President Obama did everything imaginable to insist the new law wouldn’t provide federal funding for abortion.
But the new agreement makes it possible for women’s groups and some liberal Catholic leaders to maintain a truce on hot-button social issues while working together around issues of women’s health and universal access to healthcare. Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America are happy with the solution, and so is Sister Carol Keehan of the Catholic Health Association, who endured withering heat from the bishops and their right-wing allies over the ACA. Kristen Day of Feminists for Life likewise backs the deal. Even New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan called it “a step in the right direction,” though he demanded more time to examine the fine print and suggested “legislation will still be required” to protect the church’s right to discriminate against women.
The bishops and the entire 2012 GOP field will continue to fight their culture wars, but the White House apparently believes the non-compromise will win them the middle ground and make the 24-7 cable news show wailing and hand-wringing – even by some liberals – go away. We’ll see.
But what just happened? Why did we spend 10 days listening to prominent Catholics, including even some liberals and Democrats, insist that the White House had overreached and trampled on “religious freedom” – in this case, the “freedom” of the Catholic hierarchy to impose rules that even most Catholics don’t live by? The great E.J. Dionne led the charge, but Catholic Democrats like Sens. John Kerry and Bob Case and Virginia’s Tim Kaine joined in, and occasionally, liberal TV hosts like MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell and Chris Matthews seemed inclined to depict the controversy as being about the church’s right not to violate its own values. Vice President Joe Biden was said to be the leading voice within the administration warning Obama away from the issue.
Anything can be an issue so long as you make it the issue….I am more concerned that all of the people who voted for the Bankster Bailouts will be what we are still stuck with…..That is more of an issue than right to lifes issue…..They take the improbable and make it the focus and then you get them distracted from the real facts and….You win….Right Karl Rove….It takes strategical thinking to get others to do your bidding….
Sometimes the obvious is not so obvious because it is the obvious….
Dishonest.
Just because someone is not willing to pay for something does not mean that person cannot pay for it themselves. Or find some other way of getting it.
The claim that religious groups are taking away access to contraception is a lie.
When you can’t get what you want, lie or play the race card. It works for some liberals.
Great article Elaine. I am amazed that Americans in the 2012 are still listening to this kind of crap. Do the Republicans realize how many people are using contraception? I agree with Nal. The religious right can only carry them so far. I say the Dems should ride this into November telling the Right to take a hike.
http://www.thegrio.com/specials/perry-on-politics/obama-revises-birth-control-policy-amid-catholic-uproar.php
Arhhhg, I just want to pull my hair out, again. What about MY, the citizen’s, religious freedom/freedom from religion?!
Medicare for all is the only answer.
You are right, Nal, and there are people that don’t like the dems and Obama that are frustrated by the fact that this has become THE issue.
Availability of contraception would make a great issue for Dems this election.