Anti-health care congressman Kelly compares health care act to Pearl Harbor and 9-11

MoonHowler

The Huffington Post:

Criticizing President Barack Obama’s health care reform law on Wednesday, Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) likened the requirement that private insurance plans provide contraception coverage to two of the most devastating attacks on American soil.

“I know in your mind, you can think of the times America was attacked,” he said at a press conference on Capitol Hill. “One is Dec. 7, that’s Pearl Harbor Day. The other is Sept. 11, and that’s the day the terrorists attacked. I want you to remember Aug. 1, 2012, the attack on our religious freedom. That is a day that will live in infamy, along with those other dates.”

Wednesday marked the first day private insurers must include birth control coverage in their plans without charging a co-pay, per requirements in the Affordable Care Act.

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Council of Bishops reject latest contraceptive plan

MoonHowler

It appears that the very conservative  Council of Bishops has rejected the latest contraceptive plan issued by the White House.   Are we surprised?  I doubt if they will be satisfied.  I speculate that if all contraception were forbidden from insurance policies, they might crack a smile. 

Meanwhile, our post on this subject has been one of favorite brawl places.  In the interest of all sides being aired (and yes, it is killing me to be the least bit egalitarian on this topic), Mika and Joe had an interesting discussion going on Friday.  Cardinal  Wuerl, the Arch Bishop of Washington is their guest. 

 

The Cardinal seems to have an analogy for everything rather than dealing directly with an issue.  The fact that he compares contraception to pornography says it all.

Two concepts, health care as it pertains to women  and religion seem to be on a collision course. 

 

Fimian, Pharmacies and Birth Control

MoonHowler

For the past several days I have been seeing and hearing a Gerry Connolly campaign commercial that paints Candidate Keith Fimian as an extremist.  Most campaign ads are background noise to me so it went in one ear and out the other.  Besides, most campaign ads are full of hyperbole and exaggeration.  Then I perked up my ears.  The ad said that Fimian supported the rights of pharmacists to not dispense contraception.  Now THAT IS extremist. 

I have tried researching this allegation, without much luck.  I even went to the  Legatuswebsite.  Fimian is a member of Legatus, which is a Catholic organization, founded by Dominos Pizza Magnet Tom Monaghan for very wealthy Catholic business folks and their spouses.  I didn’t find out much there either.  Maybe it’s me.  However, I haven’t heard anything which disputes this claim.  This makes me nervous. 

There has been somewhat of an uproar the past several years about pharmacists with religious objections being forced to dispense contraception, in particular, the morning after pill.  NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia  has this to say:

In addition to lack of contraceptive equity, Virginia’s so-called “conscience clause” allows pharmacists to decide which prescriptions they will and will not provide. This means that a pharmacist could legally refuse to fill a doctor’s prescription for birth control or stock or distribute emergency contraception. Since when do pharmacists get to step inside the doctor-patient relationship and refuse to fill necessary prescriptions?

 

Conscience Clause?  Where did that come from?  Someone slipped that one by me.  The more I google, the more I unearth and the angrier I get.  This thread needs to be a work in progress.  First of all, anyone who has knowledge of Fimian’s position on allowing pharmacists to cherry pick what prescriptions they will fill, please let us know.  I don’t have a bone to pick with private pharmacies who post, in clear view on their door that they do not sell or dispense contraception.  However, other stores open to the public without disclaimers should really not be involved in type of exclusionary behavior.  I consider it equivalent to the Muslim cab driver who wouldn’t let bottles of liquor in his cab.  Find another job. 

Secondly, what kinds of legislation have been passed that allow ‘conscience clauses and require pharmacist counselling?  How offensive.  If one works for a pharmacy, the job is to fill prescriptions, not chime in with a moral opinion.  If that is an issue, go work for a private religious hospital or pharmacy. 

I would especially welcome and appreciate word from the Fimian campaign that this information is indeed false.  This is the year 2010, in the United States of America.  Griswald was decided 45 years ago. 

 

 

 

 

The Pill Turns 50

MoonHowler


What better tribute to mothers than a birthday party for The Pill. The Pill has probably been one of the top 5 inventions of the last century that has altered our society the most.

In Sunday’s Washington Post, columnist Elaine Tyler May celebrates The Pill:

Forget the single girl and the sexual revolution. The pill was not anti-mother; it was for mothers. And it changed motherhood more than it changed anything else. Its great accomplishment was not in preventing motherhood, but in making it better by allowing women to have children on their own terms.

A glance at history tells us that  up through the late 19th  century, nearly all women seemed to have endless children. My own grandfather was one of 9. These weren’t country people. Sure, they had rural roots but they weren’t having children to work the farm. They had children because they didn’t know how to not have children. Endless childbirth robbed women of their health and often their lives.  My own great grandmother was a victim. It’s impossible to take a cursory walk through a 19th century cemetery without noticing the number of untimely deaths of women in their child-bearing years. 

Women did a little better as they moved through the 20th century toward 1960, when the FDA approved the use of THE Pill for contraceptive purposes. Barrier methods of contraception as well as some chemical products improved a woman’s chanced of preventing unwanted pregnancy. However, it wasn’t until 1960 that The Pill really altered the way American couples married and had families.

The Pill wasn’t without great controversy. Even FDA approval was not easy to come by. There were moral and religious objections, social objections, and a fear that sexual behavior would somehow alter our sexual mores forever. Perhaps it did. However, there is something very liberating about being able to control one’s own reproduction.  It is almost frightening to realize the Griswald vs. Connecticut wasn’t decided until 1965, making contraception of any kind a right of privacy.  Griswold guaranteed that states could not prevent the use of contraception.  Griswold isn’t 50 yet. 

 

The Griswold Case 

The pill: Making motherhood better for 50 years

From the Washington Post: