<p>Hanna, we’ve already talked about the Amish in this thread. To recap, Amish employEEs of Amish employers can apply for an exemption from payroll taxes. If they get the exemption, then their Amish employERS don’t have to pay the employer portion.</p>
<p>Amish employees of non-Amish employers still have to pay SS taxes. Amish employers of non-Amish employees still have to pay SS taxes.</p>
<p>I stand corrected re: Sweden’s abortion rate.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>They also often result in abortions. I am far more concerned with keeping the rate of abortion as low as humanly possible than I am with giving more women the “opportunity” to deal with unplanned pregnancies.</p>
<p>Quick question for the Catholics on the board: one of the Congresswomen said on tv this evening that Catholic hospitals allow physicians to perform vasectomies. But that can’t be true, can it?</p>
<p>Why wouldn’t it be true? Catholic colleges and Catholic hospitals are legally independent from the Catholic Church. Just as there are Catholic colleges that provide birth control to their students, I would assume there are Catholic hospitals that provide vasectomies.</p>
<p>Yes, Hayden. Catholic hospitals do allow doctors to perform vasectomies. I know someone who had one in a hospital that belongs to a Jesuit university.</p>
<p>And when I interviewed for a position in a very prominent Catholic university, their insurance covered vasectomies, but not contraceptives, BTW.</p>
<p>That makes no sense to me. How can you prohibit the use of condoms, but permit vasectomies?</p>
<p>
Sounds like a jimmy hat is not ok, but a “trimmy that” is ;)</p>
<p>“They also often result in abortions. I am far more concerned with keeping the rate of abortion as low as humanly possible than I am with giving more women the “opportunity” to deal with unplanned pregnancies.”</p>
<p>Not I. I have no interest whatsoever in keeping the rate of abortion as low as humanly possible. Not even close. I prefer that it be lower because it is an invasive medical procedure. That’s all. I have a much greater interest in keeping abortion safe, legal, and available to all women, whatever their religious persuasion.</p>
<p>
When I had my TL, it was done at a non-catholic hospital, not the one my doctor’s practice usually works out of. I assume that was because they can’t do them at their usual affiliation. I don’t know their policy with vasectomies.</p>
<p>Most of the talk in the last 500 posts has been regarding birth control pills, but at the other end of the childbearing spectrum, a lot of women get TL’s once they feel they are definitely done with childbearing. That these would not be covered by one’s medical insurance is equally troubling.</p>
<p>As it turns out, this whole contraception thing may have been a red herring. With the president backing down this week, you’d think the controvery would be over. But it seems to be heating up. One insane development: A new proposal would allow any employer, or any insurer, to refuse to cover ANY health care treatment otherwise required by law, simply on the basis of personal moral conviction. So for example, if your boss is a teetotaler, he could refuse to cover his employees for treatment for alcoholism. If a boss is homophobic, he could refuse to cover HIV treatments, or any care whatsoever for a gay employee’s child. The CEO of an insurance company could decide that premarital sex offends his conscience, and therefore his company could refuse to offer prenatal care to any of their subscribers, no matter where they work.</p>
<p>Or a CEO could decide he’s morally opposed to cancer treatment, hospital care for premature babies and kidney dialysis-- not because they’re expensive, no, no. Just because he’s morally opposed to that sort of thing.</p>
<p>“Why should you have the religious freedom not to have employees be able to obtain contraception from their Catholic employers, but Quakers don’t have the religious freedom not to pay for wars through their income taxes? I’m sure you’d agree that Quakers have a genuine religious belief in their pacifism. So, what distinguishes the two cases?”</p>
<p>Well, for one thing, the compelling government interest in each case. The need for national defense outweighs the Quaker’s need to avoid paying for war (though it doesn’t generally outweigh the Quaker’s need to avoid fighting in one). The government interest in forcing Catholic employers to provide free birth control to their employees is – well, nonexistent. OK, not nonexistent, but allowing mostly middle-class women to avoid paying for their own birth control because they would rather spend that money on other things, and because the administration seeks their political support, hardly passes the straight-face test. </p>
<p>A better comparison would be between forcing Quakers to finance war through income taxes, and forcing Catholics to finance contraception through income taxes. Which is, of course, already happening through, among other things, the federal funding provided to Planned Parenthood.</p>
<p>Yes, unintended pregnancies often result in abortions. But only about half the time. The other half are allowed to live. In this country, anyhow. Evidently, not in Sweden. And most are not placed for adoption.</p>
<p>Wait, “mostly middle class women” work for Catholic employers? Wages must have skyrocketed for hospital employees, then. </p>
<p>They’re not all surgeons, you know.</p>
<p>This has surely been asked earlier in this thread, but have to wonder… if there is going to be a panel to testify at the Capitol on Women’s health, why were there no women on this panel…</p>
<p>^^Sorry, can’t answer without getting political. Because it surely is.</p>
<p>Probably, mommusic. Strikes me as amazingly short-sighted.</p>
<p>Not just short-sighted, arrogant.</p>
<p>From bishops to senators, men making decisions about women’s reproductive health. What I don’t get is why we put up with it.</p>
<p>The comment made by a gray-haired gentleman on one of the talk shows yesterday implying that women should just put an aspirin between the knees left my blood boiling. Also speaks volumes about the attitude of too many. Guess there are some who just don’t get it! Contraception isn’t a joke–there’s too much at stake.</p>
<p>Certainly, most full-time employees of most Catholic organizations, such as hospital systems and universities, are not living at the poverty level. Especially if they are married to another employed person. No, they are not all surgeons and tenured professors, but they’re also not all scraping by on the minimum wage. My guess is that, if you asked them, they would describe themselves as “middle-class.”</p>