Ashley Pierce is a political science freshman and Mustang Daily conservative columnist.
It was only a matter of time until Sandra Fluke waltzed right into one of my articles. Fortunately for the reader, she has taken a back seat to larger issues — thank God, or this article would have been way too long.
The White House issued a statement Friday that the contraception coverage ruling, part of “Obamacare,” would have exceptions for churches and non-profit religious organizations. These institutions would instead have the insurer directly pay for employees’ birth control.
However, what about businesses that don’t fall into the category of non-profits or churches? They will not be receiving the exemption and are still expected to cover employees’ birth control. This means even if a CEO is morally against birth control, he or she will still have to pay for it, such as Hobby Lobby CEO David Green, who has taken Obama’s mandate to court.
According to Fluke (she is just such a loving and tolerant woman), “Some of the folks who are continuing to object to this policy are actually worried about employers who are private companies, not religiously affiliated employers in any way, but the boss has a particular religious concern and they want to be able to deny their employees particular types of health care.”
That’s right Ms. Fluke — and do you know why the boss can “deny” his employees certain kinds of healthcare? Because they have the option of working for him. If the employees at Hobby Lobby want their contraception covered they can quit and find another job. Contraception is not a natural right, for that matter neither is healthcare but that’s an argument for another time.
How dare the government tell a business owner they have to cover anything for an employee and especially something they believe is wrong. That should be the business owner’s choice and no one else’s.
Now I’m not saying contraception is some evil item. Heck, I don’t want kids until I’m 30 — darn straight birth control will be my best friend those first few years of marriage — but if someone does believe birth control is a sin, who is the government to tell them to supply it for their employees? The guilt that would come with that, I imagine, would be sickening. That’s like telling someone who is pro-life they have to pay for their employees’ abortions (don’t worry folks, I’m sure that law will be coming soon).
For the record, Hobby Lobby more specifically objects to supplying employees with emergency contraceptives, which follow along the lines of morning-after pills, which some people do equate with abortions. Whether that’s true or not doesn’t matter — if that’s how someone feels, they shouldn’t have to pay for someone else to have access to the pills.
It doesn’t matter, however, if it’s emergency contraceptives or regular ol’ birth control — heck, it could be candy that a CEO morally objects to — they shouldn’t have to cover it (though if the government is setting a mandate that candy must be covered by health insurance we have a whole new set of problems).
The government has simply crossed the line of becoming too involved with businesses by telling them how to run it and what they must cover. Besides the argument of the healthcare bill infringing on religious freedom, it infringes on the individual rights of all business owners in America.
It’s not as if Hobby Lobby forbids their employees from buying contraceptives or even emergency contraceptives. For heaven’s sake, no one is losing their right to buy birth control (contrary to how Ms. Fluke likes to make it sound). If anyone is losing rights, it’s business owners — their rights to have morals and values, let alone run a business as they see fit.
And so Ms. Fluke can sit at Obama’s right hand and smile at what a change she’s made in the world, bringing such wonderful empowerment for women (what ever would women do without the government paying for our pills? *Gasp* Actually support ourselves?!), but in reality she has set about the motion of individual freedoms being lost and the continuing degradation of American society.
Good luck, David Green of Hobby Lobby. Our future freedoms will be decided by the precedence your case sets. Win it. Win it big.
Ms. Pierce, it’s rather disappointing that you don’t see this issue for what it really is: a way to prevent a massive, potentially dangerous legal loophole in healthcare.
Put simply: If an employer can deny contraception because that person doesn’t believe in it, what other medical treatments could they possibly deny their employees because they don’t “believe” in it?
I can understand the religious reasons, if the employees were all of the same religion as the employer, but it’s something that could easily be abused by any employer looking to save a few bucks on an expensive medical treatment that their employee could not afford on their own.
Then what? You have someone who has to choose between their own life (or quality of life) or poverty.
You say that they could just change employers, but it is NOT that easy. In fact, as a freshman, I doubt you’ve ever had to struggle to just get a job. Which is the only reason why you could possibly say such a thing so lightly: you have no idea what it’s like not to be able to get a job with the skills you have. What if the person cannot easily find another job? Then what? Again we face a choice between quality of life and poverty, just because an employer makes decisions about your private life for you.
I’ll give a passing mention that contraceptives, no matter how religious people feel about them, can be used to treat legitimate illnesses. Be lucky you don’t have one, if you did you’d realize how terrible your argument sounds when it would means massive amounts of pain without contraceptives.
Oh, right, that bit about emergency contraceptives… That really just brings us right back to before: why does anyone have the right to deny any person a safe medical treatment they desire to pursue? And what about the Hobby Lobby employees who do not share the same religious beliefs as Mr. Green? Why does he get to impose his religion on them? That doesn’t sound much like freedom of religion. It sounds like one person’s religion getting power over other peoples’ religion(s).
So really, this isn’t about Ms. Fluke or just contraceptives, this is about who gets the right to choose what medical treatments they take. Ultimately, and in every case, it should be the person seeking medical treatment in the first place. This mandate seeks to establish that precedent, so I see no sensible reason why you oppose it.
You just used candy in a discussion about birth control. What a horrible, misinformed way to prevent your opinion.
Maybe when you realize A) How hard it will be to find a job and simply quitting if your birth control is not covered is hardly an option and B) How expensive birth control is without coverage – you will realize how insensitive your article is.
As a woman, it shocks me that you are more concerned with the “religious rights” of private companies than the rights of all the women you know. If you are so against abortion, you should be grateful that women have the option to take birth control, and even more grateful that the ones who might have foregone taking it due to cost now have the opportunity. The government may have implemented a lot of policies you don’t like, but to single out the one policy that contributes to women’s health is ignorant, inconsiderate and just plain embarrassing.
Hobby Lobby’s CEO will never have as little money as the vast majority of women and he will never notice a difference in his bank account once this mandate is put into place. On the other hand, the difference it will make for millions of American women is a truly incredible and I’m proud to be American because of it.
Let me say, additionally, that you should never become a lawyer, doctor, politician, or writer because your reasoning is weak, your position is biased and you are not smart enough to realize the difference between a beneficial policy and a useless one.
Julia,
Last time I checked birth control is not a “right”. It’s a product available to the public for purchase. A luxury.
You are not entitled to birth control. Be a self sufficient strong woman and pay for it yourself instead of complaining that the government has to take care of you. That’s not feminism. To me it’s “embarrassing” that women today are asking for the government to take care of their needs. That doesn’t make us equal to men. It makes us weak and unable to provide for ourselves.
Lastly, thank you so much for your lovely advice and your tolerance for others opinions. It touched me deeply.