Contraception & Religious Freedom in America
February 29, 2012 Leave a comment
In an ongoing campaign in the current 2012 primaries, the Republicans (and some other religious conservatives) are out in force about the issue of employers providing contraceptive medicine to their workers, or insurance companies doing it in their stead if they object to it. There’s a few things wrong with this stance.
Firstly, the issue of Women’s Health. Contraceptives like “the pill”, the “morning after pill”, etc etc are medications for Women. I know some take them for serious medical reasons, not just to avoid getting pregnant. How better off would those women be if they were denied access to what essentially boils down to life saving/quality of life preserving medication? Quite the opposite is the answer. There’s also a flow-on effect of trying to “defund” anything related to contraception or abortion, as seen with the recent Planned Parenthood funding debacles. They do much more than that, like STD checks and Cancer screening, which are important to making sure people stay healthy.
But where does the “objection” to medication end? If employers and insurers are able to object to paying for the medication of employees because of their beliefs, does this mean that this will just be limited to contraception? Probably not. Religious organisations could (not saying that they all would) start arguing that because they believe in the “Healing Power of God”, nobody needs any medication if they truly believe. Cancer treatment? Pain medication? Nope, sorry, God can heal you but since you don’t believe that’s your punishment and you’ll just have to deal with it. There could be arguments made against pain medication on the grounds that only weaklings require it, or other equally absurd reasons.
In the end, this comes down to the “Forcing Your Views On Others” subject. For the Republicans, this is the ”Freedom of Religious Speech” bit, which loosely translates as “I want to have my beliefs protected by law and yours can just be ignored. Lets make an example for you. We have two women, A(ngela) and B(arbara). Angela is a devout Catholic, while Barbara is a more liberal non-practising Christian. If the Republicans get their way, neither woman will get access to contraception via their employer or insurance. However, if the Democrat view on the matter goes through, both women have the option of getting contraception. Angela can freely choose to refuse it based on her beliefs, but Barbara can obtain it if she so wishes. In other words, protecting the beliefs of group A does not mean you have to deny the rights of group B.
This is the “problem” with the extreme evangelical religious right in American politics. They think that their policies are the only valid ones around because they were handed down by God, and everyone should obey them. If you go back in time to the 11th Century, you’ll see that idea running around then too. It was called The Crusades. Of course, things are more civilised now. Rather than using swords people use words. There may be a social war going on in the States, and one of the sides may be (extreme) Catholic Religion, but it’s not a war “against” them. It’s more a war started by them, with multiple fronts (contraception, homosexuality, abortion).
Quite often they will get their wires crossed. There’s the silly point that more contraception will result in fewer abortions, because there will be fewer accidental pregnancies. Or the contradiction between the arguments against the contraception mandate because it’s “the government telling us what to do” while they table laws around mandatory vaginal ultrasounds for any woman wanting to get an abortion. These things do not add up, but when you are fanatical enough to attempt to apply your views on everyone else I guess some of these thoughts just never enter into it.
