It would have been hard to miss the storm over President Obama's birth control mandate. You know, the new law that will begin forcing employers to cover contraception costs in their employees' health insurance. So if you didn't miss it, and you don't want to hear my rantings, please just read the following paragraph.
The outrage over the mandate erupted because it ignored any conscience rights of religious institutions, such as Catholic hospitals, who don't want to be forced to provide contraception. After the pressure was put on the Obama administration, they "revised" the mandate, so that instead of the employers paying for the contraception, the insurance companies are forced to provide it for free. Except this doesn't fix anything. Because the employers are still paying for the insurance. They are still paying for their employees' access to contraception. THIS FIXES NOTHING. Don't be fooled by this false revision. Keep the pressure on Washington. You can sign a petition here. (If the petition gets 25,000 signatures by March 12, then Washington has to give an official response!)
The main problem with this mandate is that it violates the first amendment right to freedom of religion. You can't order people to give away carrots to anybody who wants them if carrots violate your religion. This doesn't just go for "religious institutions" either. This goes for all employers who don't like birth control.
Naturally, there is a limit to religious freedom. If, for example, your religion requires you to sacrifice virgins to your god every year, you have to be stopped. Or if your religion requires you to not perform a life-saving heart transplant...too bad. But contraception is not life-saving or necessary. It is not a right. There is no reason to force people to give contraception to others. There's no reason to prevent people from getting contraception either, as long as it isn't an abortifacient. I don't like contraception myself, but I don't mind if you use your privilege to access and use it, so long as it doesn't impede another's right not to provide it or another's right to live.
If, in a very rare (and perhaps bizarre) circumstance, some contraception or abortion is necessary to save someone's life, then their right to life is trumped by another's right to not provide these now life-saving services, as the normal intent for both contraception and abortion (preventing having babies and killing babies) have changed into "preventing dying".
Even if this didn't impede first amendment rights, this doesn't even make sense economically. Forcing insurance companies to provide "free" contraception just makes the price of the insurance in total go up. The employers still have to pay for the insurance, so the employers are spending more on their employees' insurance, which tightens financial strain on the workplace, which, eventually, coupled with other things, leads to laid-off employees. Government mandates forcing themselves into the free market system always have bad results.
Then, President Obama had the gall to say that the birth control was "free" because it costs less than the babies that would result, therefore saving us money. WHAT?!? Since when were human lives worth only as much as the money they require?! Is abortion next, then? What about disabled people? I mean, hey, if it saves us money, why not go around killing people that cost more than they provide? That's called eugenics, and sounds quite a bit like Hitler's euthanasia program. And if it contradicts your religion to provide euthenasia for expensive less-than-worthy people, too bad, because we have a right to kill people over whom we have control.
