Contraception mandate is not just a “Catholic Thing”

Let’s put aside the issues surrounding religious freedom for a moment and get down to the issues surrounding the contraception accommodation the Obama administration thinks is a good idea.

The progressive movement was able to turn women’s heads and make this issue a “women’s health” issue.  I’m a woman and is it because I am not a progressive or liberal N.O.W. lover that I actually get it?  I am not surprised that the progressive women’s movement was loud – heck, they figured out how to bully the rest of the country.  Here’s what we need to know to combat their rhetoric.  It’s simple and it’s called the truth about health insurance.

Health insurance is a risk product, nothing more, nothing less.  A health insurance company prices its products based on risk assessment.  A large group may be priced lower than a small group (higher costs are absorbed in larger groups).   Healthcare is apart and separate from health insurance and is the system and/or actual act of prevention, treatment and management of an illness.  Insurance and healthcare are two completely different things but the leftists continue to blur these distinctions to make people believe they are one in the same.  They are not.

The same is happening to the usage of contraception – they are blurring the distinction between women’s health and contraception used for contraceptive purposes.  It is not the same thing.  I can say this because I am a woman and I do know the difference.

Contraception when prescribed for a medical condition is already a covered expense by insurance companies, even if contraception for birth control purposes is not covered by an employer’s insurance contract.  If a medical condition exists where contraceptive pharmaceuticals are prescribed, the physician documents this in the medical records to prove to the insurance company that they are not prescribed for birth control and the cost is reimbursable, or more accurately, is applied as a covered expense. 

What is being argued by women is that birth spacing to improve maternal and child health has been deemed an important women’s health issue which was derived from evidence based research.  Without getting into too much detail, infant mortality rates are affected when babies are spaced too closely together by women.  Women’s health is affected because their bodies must be healthy to carry a child to have maximum outcomes for that baby and mother.  Infant mortality is an indicator to the world how healthy a country is; mother mortality during birth and shortly thereafter is also an indicator.  And folks, there’s a boatload of public money associated with infant and mother health issues.  Here’s a story on it:  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44333054/ns/health-childrens_health/t/u...

What these loud progressive women are doing is blurring the truth.  Yes, we want American children to have healthy births and mothers to take care of them.  Infant mortality rates are basically correlated with the advancement of healthcare in a country.  The United States does not want to be embarrassed by its infant mortality rate.  That’s understandable. 

The real issue is morality.  It is acceptable for a teenager to be pregnant.  There are women who use drugs during pregnancies, women who do not gain access to doctors during the first trimester of pregnancy and women who don’t eat right during pregnancy.  How can a woman profess to love their unborn child when they don’t see this baby as a living human being dependent upon a mother’s choices?  When a woman becomes pregnant, it appears that everyone else is responsible for that baby except the mother.   When a woman becomes pregnant and wants to keep the child, it is the MOTHER’S responsibility to care for that baby in utero.  Birth control in the form of women’s contraception is touted as the answer to these social problems. 

Women’s groups should be more focused on why women should have to ingest hormones with serious side effects including stroke to avoid pregnancy when condoms are readily available and free at the public health department. 

Is this really a women’s issue or is it laziness and control over a vulnerable population?  Why haven’t women figured out that contraception is a method of controlling healthcare costs associated with underweight babies in Prenatal ICU units?  Are the risks associated with hormone therapy to stave off pregnancy less than the pregnancy itself?  Can this “right” be considered forced medication of a vulnerable population? 

Taking contraception is a choice of a woman.  A woman has the right to utilize it or not.  A woman’s body is her own and ingesting birth control pills as a sole method of controlling pregnancy is a choice.  The choice itself is a right.  The cost to the rest of the population will rise for “free” contraception on insurance contracts, but that’s another story. 

Contraception is a choice – I’ll say it again.  Women’s groups have it wrong.  There are other ways and methods such as education that will help women.  Making contraception available for the sake of birth control is not a healthcare issue because there is more than one way to keep a pregnancy from occurring – less expensively too.  The risk to a woman’s health due to hormone contraception is not something I want to do to keep myself “healthy”.    Here is WebMD’s statement on health risks: http://www.webmd.com/sex/birth-control/birth-control-pills?page=3.  Another side effect that is deadly is an ectopic pregnancy and it happens more often than you think.  Yes, women can still get pregnant on the pill. 

The question is whether women have been programmed to think that ingesting another health risk is healthier for a woman than a naturally occurring process such as pregnancy?  Have women been manipulated into thinking that contraception is more important than the underlying reasons behind it such as cost control, especially for indigent women who rely solely upon “free” OB/GYN services?  Doesn’t it appear that the availability to free contraception is a method of manipulation of women?  Where’s the outcry for vasectomies or condoms?  In my mind, a healthier woman is one who does not need to ingest additional hormones to avoid pregnancy, yet women’s groups including Planned Parenthood, are pushing for this as a women’s healthcare issue.    

It goes back to the original statements about choice and why everyone must pay for other’s choices.  We shouldn’t.  And the Catholic Church’s reasons are different but very valid.  Forcing us to pay for contraception for the sake of birth control should be against our own civil rights, period.  What’s next?  Paying for condoms, plastic surgery, Lasik?  Contraception is no longer expensive, but the drug companies will keep the prices high – why not if they are “covered” by a mandate?

The Obama Administration got this terribly wrong.  As a woman, I am agitated that I must listen to the progressives speak on my behalf.  I am agitated that these women’s groups are not doing enough to educate women on infant and maternal health risks.  I am angered that somehow I must pay for another woman’s choice when I have made good ones.  This is not fairness as I see it.  What’s fair is when women are held to their own choices and women must live with them. 

The Catholic Church?  Well, they are 100% correct.  The Catholic Church, as an employer, makes the choices for its healthcare insurance coverage.  If women who work under the mission statement of the Catholic Church want contraception, then they need to find another place to work or simply buy it themselves.  The woman has the choice of employers, do they not?  If you have a person working for a company/nonprofit who does not adhere to the mission statement and overall theological reasons for the existence of the organization, then they are not an effective employee, so spare me the whining.  It’s like asking Chik-Fil-A to sell cow hamburgers because people want the right to choose hamburger!  Take the choice of insurance coverage away from employers and you get the nanny state. 

So, it is up to women to get smart on the real health issues – one of which is a health risk of using contraceptive pills.  Women have access now to contraceptive pills and for those women who choose it, they should pay for it.  A decision for a company to cover contraception is a choice made by the employer, not the individual woman.  Women need to stand up for themselves in a different way – it’s always the woman who has to have Norplant inserted into her arm, ingest additional hormones, and suffer birth complications.  Women should get smarter – can anyone imagine a man getting a hormone inserted into his body as a contraception measure?  Women’s bodies are different, of course, but maybe we are the targets of an extremely well organized agenda.