Birth control is going to create more homeless veterans!
Fighting birth control is the Catholic Church's Rosa Parks moment!
Obama is Hitler because he wants health insurance to cover birth control without co-pays!
If women get access to birth control people will have sex outside of procreation!
Yes, real people, real, powerful people, actually said all of those things.
It's 2012 and the biggest controversy in Washington, D.C., is over unemploymentthe foreclosure crisisthe war in Afghanistan
Just hours ago, a committee in the House of Representatives hosted a hearing on birth control where every single person who testified on this issue was a man. And one even likened birth control to a... ham sandwich.
Welcome to your democracy, ladies and gentlemen.
Over the last few weeks there has been an ongoing campaign, led by a minority of wildly out-of-touch bishops, to attack the administration over requiring insurance coverage of birth control. Let's leave aside the fact that 98% of Catholic women have used birth control at some point in their lives, or that 60% of women who use birth control need it to prevent illnesses like ovarian cancer, endometriosis or Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, just to name a few.
Let's focus on the fact that after the administration went out of its way to accommodate their concerns -- in our view, unnecessarily -- Catholic bishops still railed against the policy. It is not enough that they, as religious institutions, don't have to pay for contraception because they find it objectionable -- they want to make it so no one provides women access to birth control. If a bishop wants to leave the church tomorrow and open a Taco Bell, well, he shouldn't have to provide contraception either.
So, now they have exposed themselves. And the Republican leadership is eager to get in on the fringe action.
Is there an economic crisis? Are people struggling in extreme poverty? No matter, the bishops and Republican men in the House and Senate have their priorities: they are committed to gutting women's access to health care. Republicans in Congress have actually gone an extra step -- now they don't just want to repeal the birth control mandate. They're going to vote on ending coverage for mammograms and Type 2 Diabetes too.
Here's what's important to know about all this: They are going to lose.
Firstly, moderate Republicans like Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins actually think the administration's accommodation solves the problem and they support insurance coverage from birth controlbecause, well, it's important to women.
Secondly, every major poll out before and after this decision shows significant majorities of voters support the president's decision and the idea of birth control being covered by insurance.
Thirdly -- and this is important -- the lesson of the last two weeks is that if you attack women and our access to critical preventive health care services, we WILL rise up and we will win.
The best and most recent example of that reality was the massive response to the Susan G. Komen foundation's attempt to defund Planned Parenthood -- a direct extension of a Republican strategy in Congress to delegitimize Planned Parenthood as a service provider.
The responses by literally millions of women and men across the country over one institution's attempt to play politics with women's lives made it clear: Americans will fight for women's access to the health care they need.
If Republican leadership thinks this is a smart fight, by all means pick it. They will lose their own supporters, sane members of their own caucuses and expose themselves to the American public as hell bent on making the lives of women harder.
And they will grow the ranks of progressive institutions that fight for women and their health.
Take for example our experience organizing around this issue in the last two weeks: We have grown tremendously since this issue was introduced -- to more than a quarter million people nationwide. In the last few days alone, 73,000 people have signed a petition to Speaker Boehner telling him not to repeal Obama's rule. And yesterday over 10,000 people picked up the phone and called their members of Congress to deliver the same message.
Why is the response this tremendous? Because these are real people's lives they're messing with. And Americans fundamentally understand that. The stories emerging from our members help paint this picture.
Ashley from Indiana told us, "I use birth control to help with my ovarian cysts and endometriosis, so that when I'm ready to have children, my body will be ready and willing too. All women should have the RIGHT to affordable health coverage."
And Erika from Minnesota wrote in, "I'm a single mom and I just can't afford birth control. The one time I was on the pill it cost me $140 for a three-month supply. As the birth control pill is used as more than simply avoiding pregnancy (it can be used as treatment for a number of different issues) it makes sense to me that at least some form of birth control should be available to the public at a reasonable cost to the consumer."
If Republicans want to go down this road, we welcome the fight.
If you want to join us, add your name to this petition to Congress to oppose any legislation that would overturn the President's mandate to make contraception available to all employees through their insurer.
http://act.weareultraviolet.
Follow Nita Chaudhary on Twitter: www.twitter.com/UltraViolet
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Only one group (teachers) got ED drugs covered via taxpayer insurance companies, and they've since been outlawed by so many different authorities. You need to advance beyond the Huffington Post for your Science, Legal, and Medical enhancements and advancements.
I've always maintained their are vast specific differences for our pay scale disparities, and properly understanding and knowing the facts tend to justify those disparages
I'm in Amazement this is such a Hugh win for this President, but his pole numbers are dropping since public disclosure, and the HP censorship police are on massive over time NOT posting opposing opinions.
I suspect come 2012 everyone will agree, free drugs for millionaires and billionaires doesn't support accessibility, or defend his arguments, other than class warfare divided mentalities. I also look forward to his legal defense taxing churches as part of Obama Cares..
How many men it takes to impregnate one woman in alleged female College educated minds?
The GOP is doing an off-Broadway production of The Handmaid's Tale while President Obama is taking victory laps at GM.
I'm liking his chances more every day.
One gets the impression that the Republican'ts are doing everything they can to lose the election. Or to re-elect President Obama.
So I guess it's true that teadupes have no clue whatr is up and what is down. And yet they never ask directions.
Today's woman demands every male, Corporation, and Business in America needs paying them for their personal choices to engage in sexual activity. Pregnancy isn't a disease last I checked the CBC, although without Question Progressive woman might be.
Even those rich 1% woman, gets this free service under FULL PENALTY OF LAW. Welcome to progressive values.
If this Law substantially raises the cost of hiring woman over males, Could one legally limit the amount of woman it hires as a cost cutting measure? We're Not discriminating against woman rights/activities, we're simply hiring cheaper employee, I Smell Special Class woman's exemption in terminations decreed next.
Once again We're spending our way toward prosperity redistributing wealth toward Genitalia, deadbeat Children with no father listed on their birth certificate, and political ideology. Every American homeowner needs demanding a $25,000-50,000 REBATE CHECK for paying their mortgages on time as their fair share of Obama Care. We deserve it.
Corporations need demand OUTLAWING Sexual harassment laws/claims; Why criminalize attempted usage, of the very products they paid for in full?
Businesses/Corporations need RIGHTS telling woman when pregnancies are convenient for them, being their now paying for the entire privilege
Where precisely in our Constitution is this Special Breeders Class Clause?
For starters -- and Mommy should have explained to you -- it takes "males" to create a pregnancy, as well as females. It's complicated. We'll just leave it at that and skip the details. Secondly, engaging in sexual activity is -- to emotionally healthy people -- a powerful and important part of what makes for a stable relationship. Third, you are positively drowning in misogyny and it's sad to watch. Seek help.
IT'S NONE OF YOUR GAWDDAMNED BUSINESS!!
This has nothing to do with access ... its totally about creating a law that somebody else must pay for it.
I'm absolutely positive at least one of my daughters used BCP, she just had the excellent Good Taste, NOT to discuss it publicly, and or with her parents.
Some young girls, actually grow up to become real woman, and cut off needing their Parents, and the community supporting them
-- Boston's Cardinal Cushing
http://www.suntimes.com/news/steinberg/10687663-452/everything-old-is-new-again-alas.html
Under today's New Medical Tech we no longer need depend on these Old tech pills, we can insert specific devices for superior regulation "tighter" control if one is willing to pay for the higher technology
Newsflash for the seriously inept: one doesn't need birth control after these medical procedures
governorships and state legislatures.
That is made clear by the even more extreme Republican't effort to empower employers to deny YOU health coverage wherever your employer has a "moral" objection to it.
Further, the church and its supporters on this issue must extend advocacy to Jews, Muslims, and any other conscientious objector to government policy carried out through expenditure of fungible tax dollars.
I hope you can realize that calling this an accounting gimmick opens up a large can of worms in a debate about withholding funding for things a segment of society finds objectionable.