Conservative Perspective

Someone forgot that separation of church and state goes both ways

Last week, an announcement was made by Health and Human Services that required all religious institutions such as hospitals and universities to provide contraception to employees free of cost.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced Friday that faith-based entities like hospitals and universities will have until August 1, 2013 to provide employees with free birth control as part of their insurance packages. The mandate will also force such groups to pay for sterilizations and, because the FDA has approved abortifacient drugs such as Ella as “contraception.”

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/obama-admin-birth-control-mandate-is-final-bishops-vow-to-fight/

This is apart of that dastardly health care reform law from 2010.

I have two problems with this.

1. Contraception is elective. It is not as if you need it like you need blood pressure medication. Now, as a user of birth control for health reasons, I know that not all people on birth control use it to not get pregnant. But, contraception to avoid or stop pregnancy are ELECTIVE. Just like a boob job is elective. And if an insurance company isn’t going to give you new boobs for free (although they don’t actually help at all with elective surgery because it is elective), why should they give you birth control for free? I use birth control for health reasons and I still have to pay for it even with insurance. And my insurance comes from the Danish shipping company my dad works for and not from a religious organization.

2. This is a blatant disregard for the separation of church and state. People seem to forget that it goes both way. People are so concerned with making sure religion stays out of the government, that they don’t care if the government stays out of religion. It goes against the entire basis of our country to force a religious organization to do something.

And let’s be honest, a vast majority of the time, people who work for the Catholic Church, are Catholics themselves. It’s not like employees of the Catholic Church are outside the churches on strike because they want their employer to pay for birth control.

I feel like when you chose to work for an institution run by the Catholic Church, you know what you’re getting into.

My school is actually suing the Feds over this law. You can read about it on it’s Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belmont_abbey_college

So I really think the Federal government is overstepping it’s power here over something that isn’t necessary. If it’s an ELECTIVE drug that goes against a religious institution’s doctrine, it’s unconstitutional to force them to provide it.

I should also point out that this year I have the school provided insurance as backup in case my dad’s company gets sold and the new company’s insurance is different and I am perfectly fine with birth control not being provided by that insurance. I would gladly pay the entire cost of birth control out of pocket to get the health benefits I get from it.