The Grand Old Party talks a lot about smaller government and personal liberty. Pardon me for thinking that they are full of it. People are up in arms about catholic institutions being forced to provide insurance coverage that includes contraception. I have an idea. If the catholics at these institutions don't desire them, don't twist their arm, but why not make it their choice if they wish to order them or not? No one is going to force birth control on anybody. Why not trust people to make their own decisions, even the catholics? What is the church really afraid of? Sounds like they might have an in house problem.
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In a similar vein Federal District Judge Sam Sparks was forced to uphold Texas law by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that will make it obligatory for doctors to describe sonograms to patients in the utmost gory detail before a woman is allowed to abort. The law, enacted in 2011, requires abortion providers to perform an ultrasound on pregnant women, show and describe the image to them, and play sounds of the fetal heartbeat. Though women can decline to view images or hear the heartbeat, they must listen to a description of the exam. Society demands that we scare the shit out of these women, make an example of them. Maybe we can put them in stocks or force them to wear a scarlet "A."
A coalition of medical providers sued state officials in June, arguing that the law made doctors a "mouthpiece" for the state's ideological message.
Sparks had previously ruled that the law violated physicians' free-speech rights and temporarily blocked the law, but a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit overturned the temporary ban in January. The judge was adamantly against the law but says his hands are tied. The finger wagging moral prigs are going to give the baby killers a good talking to. Because we all know that women are so casual about this procedure, undertaking it with all the emotional gravitas of a teeth cleaning. They need the state to make their lives even more miserable at this fragile time of their lives.
The way the narrative goes, at least according to the pro-lifers, is that unwary women are being seduced by the abortion mills, merchants of death who would kill and harvest their fledgling embryos. The woman's own wishes never enter into the equation of course, neither does her own reckoning of her maternal, emotional or financial ability to raise a child. It is all the fault of the evil doctors and the culture of death. Because we all know that women are not capable of thinking for themselves.
People are obviously incapable of making these and other important life decisions on their own. By all means we should let the government come in and make them for us.
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Mitt Romney has put his two cents in on the Komen/Planned Parenthood tussle. Mitt now wants to cut off all funding for Planned Parenthood. Popular wisdom is that candidates run to the extreme in the primary and towards the center in the general election. I think that Romney is making a big mistake taking sides on this one, and with his prior endorsement of personhood amendments, at least with the independents he will need if he is to beat Obama.
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More notes from the culture war - From Huffpo:
"Kansas lawmakers have been given six days to consider one of the most sweeping state anti-abortion bills to be introduced.
A Kansas House committee is scheduled to take up a bill Wednesday that would exempt doctors from malpractice suits if they withheld medical information to prevent an abortion. The measure would also take away tax credits for abortion providers, remove tax deductions for the purchase of abortion-related insurance coverage and require women to hear the fetal heartbeat. The bill includes several provisions, which passed in other states and now face federal lawsuits. The bill would also require women be told about potential breast cancer risks from abortions, even though medical experts discount such a connection.
Among the most contested provisions of the bill is the section that would exempt a doctor from a medical malpractice suit if a woman claims the physician withheld information about potential birth defects to prevent her from having an abortion. In addition, a woman would not be able to sue if she suffers health damage from a pregnancy as a result of information withheld from her to prevent an abortion. A wrongful death suit could still be filed, however, if the mother died.
The bill includes provisions similar to those found in other state laws now facing federal lawsuits, including Texas' requirement that the mother hear the fetal heartbeat, and Oklahoma's mandate that mothers be told about a potential risk of breast cancer with an abortion. It also would replicate Arizona's provision prohibiting tax deductions for abortion-related groups.
The breast cancer warning requirement has been the subject of much debate, since members of the medical community have disproved a link between abortions and an increased risk of breast cancer."
7 comments:
Please read this aloud in your best USSR Communist Party member accent.
Comrade, I am certain I misunderstood your post. You most certainly did not say something about "If...don't desire them, don't twist their arm, but why not make it their choice...."
Did you drink too much vodka, fall and bump your head and not remember that the Obamacare, (like in good old days in USSR), requirements are not only twisting the arms of a horrible religious based charitable organization, they are also entirely eliminating choice in the matter and are forcing upon La Iglesia Catolica that they act vicariously, through their insurance providers, as distributors of contraception.
Certainly the requirements of doctors being forced to do something so pro-life as a sonogram of fetus is in no way same as to the Party forcing a religion to act contrary to it's dogma. Nyet!
But aside from this monstrous blunder in the Party logic, you did step up to name calling to express your moral outrage at the hated conservatives and believers of religion. Did you practice say into the mirror "finger wagging moral prigs"? Bravo comrade!
But you do even get better! You jump to the aide of womans, pointing out that "woman's own wishes never enter into the equation." Brillant, except forget the part that some womans do not support abortion, do oppose contraception, and are faithful Catholics. But they will learn!
Comrade, you marched beautifully as you and your wise brothers in arms moved down the avenues to protest for the downtrodden and abused. And brings wisdom and light to those who did not understand that being forced to accept The Dear Leader's vision for America is not at all like being forced to consider saving life they have helped create before you have it aborted.
Hail to you and to our Dear Leader!
The women who are opposed to abortion and birth control can choose not to personally utilize them.
Majority of catholics support birth control coverage in health plans
http://www.freep.com/article/20120208/NEWS07/120208008/Survey-Majority-of-Catholics-support-including-birth-control-in-health-care-plans?odyssey=tab|mostpopular|text|FRONTPAGE
This is about personal liberty. The individual Catholic will follow their conscience. The government has no business dictating church policy in this matter.
Why don't they try to balance a budget! Get out of the wars! Get out of our personal lives!
JS
Institutions that receive federal funds need to follow certain rules as well. They shouldn't be able to discriminate or do a host of other things regardless of their religious beliefs. I find it interesting that non catholic employees at these institutions are not able to secure contraception through their health plans. Why pick on them?
I don't believe in wars, so I should be able to deduct their cost from my taxes.... Right??.....hello??...
... that's the first thing I thought of too, when I saw a politician on the television say that he thought this was the first time that the federal government forced a religious group to fund a program that went against their beliefs.
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