The Birth Control Debate Summed Up
When they came for the Catholic Church over contraception rights issues I didn’t speak up, because they were completely wrong and besides nobody was actually coming for them in the “persecution, torture, and then murdered in a death camp” sense.
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February 14th, 2012 at 5:46 pm
I just enjoyed on the news seeing them do all they could to derail the reporter who actually was staying on topic.
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February 15th, 2012 at 1:50 pm
So its ok to force people to directly fund something they find morally offensive, but only if you think they are wrong.
Ok i guess we dont need that “free exercise there of” part of the 1st any more right?
And how can you say not in the “torture and then murdered” sense when the Feds are in fact forcing them to fund, at first directly, then forced funding of insurance, that will fund and bring about the torture and murder of the un-born(and in more then a few states that allow late-term abortions) the direct murder of kids? How is piercing the skull of a child that is out of the birth canal and vacuuming out the brain after beating it with a metal rod not at least murder, if not torture followed by murder?
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skippy reply on February 15th, 2012 2:18 pm:
” So its ok to force people to directly fund something they find morally offensive, but only if you think they are wrong.”
No, but it’s okay to make the law apply equally to all people and not allow special exceptions for folks based on religion. Sort of like how Muslims and some Mormon sects can’t have multiple wives, Mesoamericans can’t perform human sacrifice, Catholics can’t legally protect child rapists, Native Americans can’t mix peyote and security clearance, Jews can’t murder people with rocks for working on a Saturday or wearing poly cotton blends, need we go on or do you get the idea?
Not only does the first amendment not amount to a “get out of following any law you don’t like” pass, but it specifically prohibits granting special privileges to any religion.
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Andrew reply on February 21st, 2012 9:04 pm:
Whoa dude…
I see nowhere in the law where it states late term abortion is a forced option (And last time I checked it is ILLEGAL per federal law!).
The law specifically states that EMERGENCY CONTRACEPTIVES (A.K.A. The morning after pill) as well as certain forms of birth control would HAVE to be a option covered by one of the employing companies insurance coverage companies. They didn’t say that they HAD to force everyone to take those specific coverages.
Once again, at a time when the Christian/Catholic church is trying to butt its nose into the business of government and force its views down everyones throat (think gay marriage and the current GOP campaigns), the moment the government passes a law that even remotely infringes on a portion of the FOR PROFIT areas of the church they start screaming bloody murder and First Ammendment violation!
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SCWillD reply on February 23rd, 2012 8:33 am:
Dagamore, you just got owned by Skippy and Andrew. Feel proud.
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February 16th, 2012 at 7:01 pm
Wow – when my wife was on the Pill all those years, I had no idea that she was dragging unborn fetuses out of her own birth canal and bludgeoning them to death every month.
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Psychlycan reply on February 16th, 2012 8:40 pm:
So your wife owns Fetus Hut, they have the best unborn fetuses!
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February 20th, 2012 at 11:46 pm
Big difference between saying you may not do something your religion prefers because it is morally wrong and saying you must do something your religion prohibits because we think it’s a good idea.
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Jo reply on February 21st, 2012 8:00 am:
A) One could argue that forcing a woman to become a walking talking incubator, to gestate and give birth to something that she considers a violation, is morally wrong. Even if your religion prefers you to do so you may not do this in our society.
B) We force people to do things their religions prohibit all the time. We force Jehovahs witnesses to allow their children to have blood transfusions when it is medically necessary. We force religious fundamentalists to educate their children. We force religious fundamentalists to let their children pick their own partners (marital or otherwise) and to do so in their own time. When religion demands that the religious actively take freedoms from other people or demean others we compel them not to do so.
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February 21st, 2012 at 8:21 am
Wow.
A) Perhaps I missed where the Catholic church forcibly prevents anyone from having an abortion. Could you show me that?
B) That’s what I said. We prevent people from doing things that are morally wrong, we don’t force them to do things they consider morally wrong because we think it’s a good idea. Perhaps you missed the distinction.
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Jo reply on February 21st, 2012 12:53 pm:
A) Denying woman access to contraception in effect forces them to have the child. If they can’t abort the fetus they don’t have any option. It’s in there, growing. There have certainly been many cases where women have been forced either into desperate attempts to self abort or into carrying a fetus to term because they had no access to abortion facilities or could not afford the procedure. Everyone should have access to this and to all other necessary medical care regardless of who they work for. If you worked for a Jehovah’s Witness you would still expect to have access to blood transfusions. If you worked for a Scientologist you would still expect to have access to mental health care. If you worked for a Christian Scientist you would still expect to have access to, well, all medicine. Why should women who work for Catholics forfeit their right to control their reproductive organs?
B) I got the distinction. To be clear: Jehovah’s Witnesses consider blood transfusions to be morally wrong. Their religion prohibits them. Even though they consider blood transfusions to be morally wrong children within the religion are forced to receive them when necessary, the procedure is done no matter what the parents or the child have to say about it. The government forces them to do this even though their religion states that it is morally wrong because we think not letting the kids die is a good idea. This is one of many cases in which people are forced to do things their religion prohibits.
This is getting a little off topic. What I’m trying to say is that ultimately human rights are more important than religious preference.
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Dave reply on February 22nd, 2012 5:52 am:
A) Refusing to provide contraception is not the same as denying access. I’m disappointed to have to point this out.
B) Dealing with children is different. You don’t see them forcing blood transfusions on adults, do you?
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Jo reply on February 22nd, 2012 10:14 am:
A) The whole point of health insurance is to make healthcare accessible and affordable. Unless you think every woman can afford contraception without any aid, excluding contraception from health insurance does deny vulnerable women access to contraception. I would say I’m disappointed to have to point this out, but this is an argument on the internet and I’m not really that emotionally invested …
B) Okay, fair point. We don’t force adults to take blood transfusions. But we do force them to allow their children to have blood transfusions when they feel it is their duty not to, to educate their children when they feel it is their duty not to, to give their children freedoms when they feel it is their duty not to. We force adults to take actions they may consider immoral if the alternative is allowing them to impinge on the rights or well-being of others.
Dave reply on February 22nd, 2012 10:39 am:
A) Wrong. Refusing to provide something is no more than refusing to provide something. If the effect is that you can’t get it anywhere else (Planned Parenthood provides it for free, and condoms are ridiculously cheap, but I’ll stipulate), that does not equate to your having been denied it.
B)I’m still not sure who you’re claiming feels it’s their duty not to educate their children. And you’re still equating refraining from action (“to allow,” “to give their children freedoms”) with action.
February 21st, 2012 at 11:38 am
I think the 13th Amendment is more relevant here than the 1st.
Requiring a woman to continue an unwanted pregnancy is up to 9 months of involuntary servitude, a clear violation of section 1.
Also Section 2 allows Congress to pass a law that requires providing birth control to enforce this protection.
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.[2]
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Dave reply on February 22nd, 2012 5:55 am:
No-one is requiring a woman to continue an unwanted pregnancy. They’re simply declining to help her end it. Please point out the coercion.
Section 2 does nothing of the sort. Since no-one is telling our hypothetical woman she can’t have it, there is nothing even related to involuntary servitude anywhere in what the Catholic church is trying to do.
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February 21st, 2012 at 11:41 am
… providing birth control and abortion …
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February 22nd, 2012 at 10:33 am
Dave, you seem to be of the “let them pay for it themselves” camp. I would like to educate you just a little on that. I used to work for a hospital who’s health insurance did not cover birth control. True that there were employees who could afford to buy it themselves, but (believe it or not) most hospital employees are not actually medical personnel, but low-paid support staff such as admitting, housekeeping, security, nutrition services ect ect. Most of those staff do not make enough money to afford birth control. Most of those staff are also married, and already have children (so your “they should just keep their legs closed” argument is invalid as well). Birth control pills cost $75 a month, or more.
Later on, the hospital got a new CEO and began paying for birth control through their health insurance. It actually saved the hospital millions of dollars per year because they had less pregnancies, which meant less employees taking time off, which in turn meant less temp-staff (which are more expensive).
And, for the record, there are a million reasons why a woman can need birth control, and not all of them are about reproduction. I was on birth control even when my husband was deployed because I could not afford to spend two days a month curled up in bed around a heating pad. I know women who would probably die if they got pregnant again due to complications and women who have a high risk of passing serious genetic illness on to their offspring. Who are YOU to tell myself and these other women that they should play Russian roulette with their bodies and the lives of their potential offspring just because you find birth control “wrong”?
On a side note, I think that until men start being the ones who have to be pregnant they should have NO say in birth control or abortion arguments. I have never told a man what he should or should not be doing with his reproductive organs, I’d appreciate it if men stopped trying to tell me how to manage mine.
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Dave reply on February 22nd, 2012 10:48 am:
You’re fucking kidding, right? You’ve ascribed no less than three positions to me that I have not taken.
I’m not trying to tell anyone what to do. There are plenty of insurance programs out there, and if you want birth control to be covered by yours, find one that covers it. Who the hell are YOU to tell those people they must provide something they find morally repugnant?
And this is NOT a birth control or abortion argument, no matter how hard you try to make it one. If you go back and try reading for comprehension, you’ll see that at no point did I make any argument for or against contraception (pre- or post-conception).
This is one of the major problems with modern society. You seem to think that the right to have something equates to the right to coerce someone else into making it cheaper or more convenient for you.
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kat reply on February 22nd, 2012 12:28 pm:
And, if I have a job that provides health insurance, why should I have to shell out extra money, which I may or may not even have, in order to cover basic health. And yes, no matter what you think, birth control IS basic health care.
Also, I want to know why, exactly, is birth control “morally repugnant” in the first place. No one has actually been able to answer that beyond, “it’s just bad” Please tell me what is bad about birth control.
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Squab reply on February 25th, 2012 5:10 pm:
Birth control is bad in some people’s eyes because their interpretation of the bible says birth control is bad. You could look further into it, but I think that’s just a pointless waste of time.
jmireles reply on March 13th, 2012 10:45 am:
1) Somewhere in Genesis is a verse in which God commands Adam and Eve to “be fruitful and multiply”. While most of the world tends to take a rather commonsense, let’s be smart about this, approach, there are some who take it quite literally. Despite the fact that the world population is rapidly climbing, and what that growth can do to the global resources, some believe that preventing pregnancy actually violates God’s command to multiply.
2) I read some of the anti-abortion literature once. That was all it took. With the exception of condoms, which most (not the catholic church)are ok with, the rest are seen as nothing more than a chemical abortion. All through the literature, I saw how the contraceptive prevented the fertilized egg from implanting, thereby causing it’s death. So, to their thinking, not only does it violate the earlier mentioned command from God, but it also violates the Commandment against killing.
3) The people who believe this stuff can be found almost anywhere. Hell, turn on your tv, and watch the Duggers. Nineteen freaking kids. The most recent one died, and nearly took Mom with it. But, they’ll try again because they believe the Bible commands it. Ron White was right, “You can’t fix stupid.”
February 23rd, 2012 at 2:02 pm
Why do you think you have a right to force someone else to pay for something they find morally repugnant just so that it’s cheaper or more convenient for you?
As for your last question, I haven’t said there’s anything wrong with it at all. My opinion of birth control is as irrelevant as yours. The payer wants nothing to do with it. Why can’t you leave them alone?
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kat reply on February 25th, 2012 5:27 pm:
I find viagra and plastic surgery morally repugnant. If I own a business can I stipulate that my insurance does not pay for these things?
What if I were a Christian Scientist, should I be able to refuse to pay for insurance for all my employees just because my religion says that I should refuse healthcare?
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Dave reply on February 25th, 2012 5:33 pm:
Yes. Why the hell not? Is it so difficult for you to understand the concept of people choosing what to do and what not to do with their own money?
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kat reply on February 26th, 2012 8:54 am:
And why is it so difficult for you to understand that the same rules apply to everyone, regardless of whatever fairy in the sky you pray to?
February 25th, 2012 at 5:10 pm
Someone mind telling me what in the hell this is about? Youtube vid to it maybe? I feel quite lost ;-;
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February 26th, 2012 at 4:50 pm
Kat, it just so happens I don’t pray to anyone at all. That, however, is completely irrelevant, as is your religion or lack thereof.
The same rules apply to everyone, sure – and those rules cannot (ethically) include making anyone pay for services they find to be morally wrong.
I notice you’ve fallen back to the authoritarian’s standard position of “rule of law” (also frequently stated as “just following orders”) because all your other points have been shown to be invalid. Nice.
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Klaste reply on February 26th, 2012 7:51 pm:
“The same rules apply to everyone, sure – and those rules cannot (ethically) include making anyone pay for services they find to be morally wrong.”
This is a contradictory statement. You might as well have just said “The same rules apply to everyone, except for those they don’t apply to.”
Those rules can and do make people pay for services they find to be morally wrong. Parents do have to provide healthcare to their children even if they don’t agree with it, because what they find to be ethical is unethical in the eyes of the law. In a case where an employer must offer basic health care to employees, they are not allowed to define what basic health care is – this is defined by the government, regardless of how the employer feels about it.
Here’s a question: If an employer found it unethical to pay women an equal amount of money as men, because their religion teaches them that men are supposed to be the ones to provide for their families (and women should stay home), do you think that should be legal?
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