Under the ill-conceived and named Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly known as “ObamaCare,” the country found out this week partly “what’s in it” and just how insidious and onerous this health care bill is. That is precisely why they did not want anyone to have a chance to peruse it carefully before it was passed. The birth control mandate, which was only finalized in January, is just the beginning of more battles to come unless this law is repealed. The birth control mandate, as we learned this week, requires employers to provide female workers with free preventive care services, including contraceptives and the ‘morning after’ pill or other abortifacients (i.e., substances that induce abortion). Even though the original rule included an exemption for churches and houses of worship, it did not exempt religious institutions such as hospitals, universities and charities that may carry the church’s name or carry out the church’s mission. All employers, including religiously affiliated institutions, would be required to provide insurance coverage for contraceptives and birth control procedures, with no deductibles or co-pays paid by the insured employee. Thus, as the story came out we witnessed and responded to the firestorm that erupted this week in the Catholic Church and within the faith community in general.
Effectively, the mandate forced religious schools, charities, and healthcare providers to choose between the moral directives of their faith and the compulsions forced upon them by an all-encompassing federal government. Sensing this was a political loser, the Obama camp offered an “accommodation” that actually is anything but and makes nothing better. A new policy was issued so that religious employers who are opposed to most forms of birth control would no longer be required to directly pay for this coverage in their workers’ insurance policies. The burden was simply shifted to insurance companies, who will now be required to provide contraception at no out-of-pocket cost to women without explicitly charging religious employers or their workers. Thus, the cost has now been shifted to every policyholder in the insurance pool. The problem is that insurers will have to eventually raise premiums, and thus religious employers will still have to pay for birth control, but will just be doing so indirectly through a third party. So in truth, there was no accommodation, but only appeasement.
Now the White House and all manner of liberal commentators argue this is about women’s reproductive rights and equal access to contraceptives, but don’t be fooled by this smokescreen, as women have had ready access to contraception for decades. In fact, what is so appalling about this mandate is that obviously the Obama administration does not believe that women are responsible enough, nor the men that they have sexual relations with, to protect themselves from pregnancy, even though the cost of contraception is hardly exorbitant. If two consenting parties that desire to engage in sexual relations cannot muster the small expense necessary to avoid pregnancy, then providing them with “free” contraception will hardly make them any more responsible. In fact, it will only make them less responsible, because they know that regardless of what happens, the government will always step in no matter how reckless and irresponsible their behavior. This is precisely what is being caught, and it is the reason why we have roughly 1.2 million abortions in the U.S. every year and 50 million abortions since 1973 (the year of the Roe v. Wade decision by the Supreme Court). So even with the wide access to contraception that women have had access to over the past fifty years, we still have an epidemic in human lives lost. You cannot teach responsibility by enabling irresponsibility. Humans just don’t work that way.
This matter is about three simple but profound violations of freedom foisted on an apathetic public. First, this is about respecting the Constitution. We shouldn’t be here in the first place because ObamaCare is distinctly unconstitutional. The federal government has absolutely no role in healthcare (including Social Security and Medicare), other than to promote competition within the industry through a proper use of the commerce clause. Beyond that, they need to stay out of the subject (but I do believe the states do in order to serve the truly indigent). Second, this is about religious freedom as guaranteed by the Constitution. The federal government has no business mandating what healthcare coverage a religious institution must offer, which is a willful erosion of a sacred American tradition. Third, it is about economic freedom. It is unprecedented that once the federal government realizes that it is actually bad policy to trample on religious freedom, they then mandate that a private company must provide a product or service, whether it be for free or otherwise. If the federal government can tell an insurance company that it must provide contraception on the grounds that it is a compelling public health issue, then what can’t the federal government demand of any company? Of course, this too is blatantly unconstitutional, and only demonstrates the lack of respect that both Obama and his cabinet have for our founding document.
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