As the controversy over the birth control mandate rages on, liberal lawmakers on the Hill are arguing that when women don’t take contraceptives and get pregnant, it results in “lost productivity.”
According to Tom Minnery, editor of Citizen, Democratic Senators such as Jeanne Shaheen, Barbara Boxer and Patty Murray have all said that when companies fail to provide “preventive” coverage for birth control in their health insurance plans, it actually incurs higher costs because of “lost productivity.”
“Now just think about that for a moment,” Minnery writes. “How does a female employee lose ‘productivity’ when she doesn’t take birth control pills or potential abortion-inducing drugs? She puts herself in mortal danger of becoming — wait for it — a mother.”
In other words, even though mothers are producing more potential laborers for the economy, they’re accused of being unproductive.
This illogical thinking makes perfect sense to feminists because they also see children as a problem. Why? Because they must be covered by an employee’s health insurance.
“This thinking is rooted in the early feminism of the 1970s, when such quaint customs as bearing children and donning the mantle of motherhood was deemed to be the wrong course for women,” Minnery writes.
“That such a tired explanation is trotted out anew to explain the mandated coverage in health insurance plans is yet one more example of the philosophy which now guides the federal government.”
However, what’s new this time around is the vigorous opposition being mounted by religious leaders with Cardinal Timothy Dolan clearly in the lead.
“Not only did Dolan announce his opposition, he asked that all American bishops have parish priests read letters of protest at weekly Masses. Seldom have we seen such a muscular response to a government policy from the Catholic Church, and there are no signs that the protest will abate, unless the administration reverses itself (and at this writing that didn’t seem likely).”
Of course, abortion advocates are hoping this controversy will blow over since many Americans have no objection to the use of birth control.
” . . .(H)owever, they miss a central point of our Bill of Rights. Religious freedom is guaranteed to all — not just to religious institutions or those holding popular opinions about religious matters. No, the right to religious freedom is guaranteed to each individual’s conscience. That is the essence of the First Amendment, and it does not matter how many or how few adhere to the religious doctrine.”
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