Providing Contraception Protects Religious Freedom and Human Life

Religious-affiliated businesses are not exempt from the Health Care Reform laws requirement that health insurance plans cover contraceptives.  Both Michigan Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak and House Speaker John Boehner oppose this requirement.  Speaker Boehner even went as far as to accuse the President of attacking religious freedom.  Both of these politicians are clearly wrong.  The law does not prohibit the free exercise of any religion as required by the U.S. Constitution (there isn’t any biblical (Christian) admonition against the use of birth control).  Also, some Hindus, believe producing more children than can be supported is a violation of the Ahimsa (nonviolent rule of conduct).  The church is not being required to provide this insurance and the people are not being forced to take the contraception. This ruling is about public hospitals and universities that are required to hire without discrimination and should be required to provide insurance without discrimination. This is not about religion unless these institutions only served Catholics.  If they hire a single non Catholic, or admit a single non Catholic, then they are public and subject to public standards.  Taxpayer money shouldn’t go to any religious run healthcare facility that doesn’t provide contraception which is part of the reason they receive government funding. The contraception requirement is in fact Constitutional (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”)

The birth control requirement protects human life and prevents abortions.  The lifetime risk of dying from an unsafe abortion in the developed world is 1 in 3,700 procedures.  Numerous studies show that use of effective modern contraception reduces unintended pregnancies and abortions.  The abortion rate in the United States dropped 8 percent between 2000 and 2008, while rising nearly 18 percent among the country's poorest women.  Of the more than 1.2 million legal abortions reported in 2008, women whose family income fell below the national poverty level accounted for 42 percent of them.  "…it's possible women have reduced access to contraception and have more unintended pregnancies," says Rachel Jones, senior research associate at New York City's Guttmacher Institute and lead author of the report published Monday in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.