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<p>You are always able to make this decision for yourself. No one is stopping you from going to another provider. Would you ask the Jewish center to provide you with a pork sandwich or enter a Mosque with shorts and a tank top?</p>
<p>pug: in reference to my not seeing the problem
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<p>Could it be you see something which is not there?</p>
<p>3bm103,</p>
<p>You have every right to take whatever birth control you like. You don’t have the right to expect a Catholic institution to pick up the tab. Why is that so hard to understand? If you want your employer or university to pay for your birth control, then don’t choose to work for or attend a Catholic institution that adopts policies consistent with Catholic teaching.</p>
<p>"I still think the media is missing the BIG story - how, well prior to this, hundreds of Catholic institutions - colleges, universities, hospitals, health systems, charities, chaplaincies, and, yes, churches, have defied Pope, bishop, priests, and official pronouncements, to provide contraceptive coverage to hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of students and employees - both Catholics and not - all across the country. And how Catholics - both church-going and not - readily availed themselves of this benefit. "</p>
<p>Bravo, mini.</p>
<p>Dietz- it doesn’t matter. Stop treating birth control pills as though they are something distinct from any other health care treatment / medication. They aren’t. They are just part of basic health care delivery – used by women for menstrual problems, mood disorders, endometriosis, acne control, migraines, and yes, pregnancy prevention. They aren’t something super-de-super special and different. They are as basic to women’s health care as, say, a run of the mill antibiotic or cough medicine.</p>
<p>“You have every right to take whatever birth control you like. You don’t have the right to expect a Catholic institution to pick up the tab.”</p>
<p>According to Catholic Supreme Court Justice Scalia, I sure do.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl: I agree with that statement. DD’s student health service does not cover or dispense any ADHD meds. Nor do they dispense medical marijuana. These are however easily available at other very local dispensaries. So, is there a problem at DD’s university which we need the federal administration to address?</p>
<p>"(Laws)are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices. . . . Can a man excuse his practices to the contrary because of his religious belief? To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself."</p>
<p>But there are exceptions to this, true? No one has answered the questions as to where the lines should be drawn…</p>
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Oh I think it matters very much, because our politicians are trying to accommodate the hierarchy even though most Catholics ignore it on these key issues.</p>
<p>mini,
You, like many, are confusing “access” with “free.” </p>
<p>There is plenty of “access” to contraception in this country. It is readily available at very reasonable costs.</p>
<p>Birth control pills ARE different from other medications, in that their primary function is to suppress a natural and healthy bodily function, not to prevent or treat a pathology. Pregnancy is not a disease.</p>
<p>Well, obviously a topic about which people of good will disagree. In the end, the little package of pills so hotly under debate is cheaply available and easily accessible. Personally, I am proud and relieved that I’ve raised a DD who would have the no problem finding the logical skills, emotional fortitude and common sense needed to work around what in the end is just a minor inconvenience. </p>
<p>We are a society of drive through fast food, on-line shopping with packages delivered to our door, instant access to any and all information etc. We’ve raised a generation that wants it NOW, wants FREE and feels absolutely without a doubt ENTITLED to IT. And the list it ITS keeps growing.</p>
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<p>They did bring the case in New York. The New York appellate court ruled against the church and the Supreme Court let it stand. The New York court relied on the majority opinion of Justice Scalia in Employment Division v Smith.</p>
<p>This political correctness thing is getting out of hand. The government should stay out of religion. If people don’t want to work for a Catholic organization because the benefits don’t suit their needs than find another job. I am Catholic and have used birth control but I would never expect a Cathic employer to pay for those benefits. I can’t imagine too many non Catholics understanding this but it really is simple.</p>
<p>dietz - do you have an inkling that what is cheap and easy for your daughter may not be for others? Is that your version of the “let them eat cake” argument. What your daughter can and can’t do is absolutely irrelevant. This ruling did not have affluent, privileged kids in mind. It’s a shame so many only consider them.</p>
<p>Again, a young college woman who finds the obstacles to obtaining contraception to be insurmountable should not be having sex in the first place. Or, she can ask the parents who raised her to regard premarital sex as acceptable to help her obtain birth control pills. </p>
<p>In any event, so far as I can tell, the mandate didn’t have ANY “kids” in mind, privileged or otherwise. It is aimed at adults whose health insurance is provided by their employers, not at the services provided to students by university health centers.</p>
<p>And claremarie, to respond to your post some pages back, I struggle with my Catholic upbringing every day. I think that the church is so out of touch with the average Catholic, and certainly out of touch with women. If my husband had not converted, I would absolutely walk away…</p>
<p>Someone asked about this pages and pages ago: The Catholic Church and Catholic owned hospitals have a (cough) flexible position on birth control, and sterilization services performed within its own walls. </p>
<p>In areas where there are more than one hospital available, the Catholic affiliated hospital will refuse to allow tubal ligations, vasectomies, etc. performed within its buildings. </p>
<p>In areas where the Catholic affiliated hospital is the only one available, the Catholic hospital will allow those services to be performed within their buildings.</p>
<p>Here’s a fun fact: in one hospital (the only one in a particular town, but there is a non-Catholic hospital in a town 10 miles away) the gynecologists and urologists wanted to set up an off site surgicenter to allow them to take care of those proceedures. Our Sisters of the Bottom Line nixed that, and instead set up a surgicenter, within the hospital, but reached through a separate set of doors, with a completely separate billing system. All to keep that money within its own healthcare system.</p>
<p>(Long back story involving the clinic/hospital being recently purchased by a Catholic owned HMO, resulting in all the clinic doctors becoming employees of catholic owned health care service. As employees, the doctors lost their ability to practice medicine and to perform those services. The Catholic HMO clearly didn’t want to lose the money those services brought in. Had the HMO been truly concerned with taking a stand on birth control services, it would have allowed the gynecologists and urologists to take those services off site. It was a financial decision to keep those services within the hospital… Even though they billed it under a different name.)</p>
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<p>Thank you!</p>
<p>Am I seeing a problem that doesn’t exist? I guess that depends on whether or not you believe the women that the family planning clinic I am on the board for are telling the truth or not. They find it difficult to access affordable birth control. They find it difficult to take a day off of work to take two buses across town to our clinic, the only clinic of its kind in nine counties.</p>
<p>Those of you who’ve had such fun imagining how dumb or lazy a woman must be who cannot access and afford birth control might want to step off the high horses and try walking a mile in someone elses shoes. </p>
<p>Let them eat cake, indeed.</p>
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<p>Right on. I left the church long ago yet it wants to continue to intrude on my private life. Unbelievable.</p>
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<p>One in four women taking bcp are taking them for something other than birth control. One in four. It’s not for you, or me, or the Pope to decide to whom and why bcp are prescribed. </p>
<p>Pregnancy may not be a disease but it’s a much greater health risk for a woman than not becoming pregnant or an abortion. It’s also not always wanted and I’m pro-anything that will reduce the number of abortions.</p>