Pete Marovich/Getty Images
Speaker John Boehner discussing birth control on Capitol Hill last week.
The birth control mandate has been blowing up our Facebook and Twitter feeds, and comment sections on the blog.
The White House is reevaluating its health care policy that requires all employers to provide workers with coverage to birth control pills. Religious groups and many Republicans have been complaining that it violates their religious beliefs.
We've discussed it at length for the past two nights on the show, now we want to turn the tables on viewers. Our lovely intern Petra Vujaskovic compiled a round-up of your thoughts on the controversial topic...
- "Birth control pills are often prescribed for reasons other than avoiding pregnancy. Sometimes women need this medication for very serious medical conditions. This is where the Catholic church has absolutely no business determining what kind of medical care a woman should have. The decision to use birth control pills is, like any other medical decision, between a woman and her healthcare provider. It is none of the Church's business why birth control pills might be prescribed by a doctor."
— JT Harkness, Last Word Blog
- "I thought this was over long time ago. MEN should mind their Viagra, stay out of WOMEN'S health."
— @23YearNavyVet, Twitter
- "The WH should not "handle" birth control......it's a private matter and the government has no business being involved."
— Caddy Wompass, Facebook
- "If people want birth control they can go somewhere besides a Catholic organization. There are other groups that opt out of things out of conscience. If a non-Catholic works for them they should know that working for them what their policies are." —Leonardo Lopez, Facebook
- "I would not repeal it simply because most people working in Catholic hospitals are not Catholic, therefore, should be able to have their birth control fall under their insurance. If a Catholic doesn't like it, don't take it."
— Susan Davidson, Facebook
- "Don't you just love the way the Catholic church picks and chooses what issues that it's outraged about? They are up in arms about providing coverage for birth control, yet don't mind hiding and protecting pedophiles."
— Soothe, Last Word Blog
- "I think old men need to get out of the birth control debate."
— Vermicious Knid, Facebook - "I'm so tired of hearing attacks on women's reproductive rights. When am I going to hear men's reproductive rights being attacked on a regular basis. I'm just sayin...we are in the 21 century and entering a time of asking for fairness (if not more awareness). It's time everything is on the table."
— Cherie Seymore, Last Word Blog
- "Ridiculous....are there really that many people living in the Dark Ages?!"
— Susan Buley Crawford, Facebook
- "The big picture is if the Church does not want to be forced to do anything that is against their beliefs, then why would they block something someone else believes in? I mean I get it, they don't want to offer BC, but what if they employ someone that wants it, is that not looking over, denying them their rights? You can't have it both ways!"
— Sheila Favored Pearce, Facebook
- "Why doesn't someone poll women?"
— Pat Tomasso, Facebook
Should religious schools and hospitals be exempt from the law that requires birth control to be included in employees' health care coverage? Take our Last Word poll now.
Leave a Comment:
Lawrence, thank you for getting right to the heart of the issue—and the solution. A single-payer system would cut through all the craziness and eliminate any issues of conscience on the part of the faith-based employers. Medicare for All, as drafted in HR676, is the answer, and in my opinion it should still be enacted into law in place of the "Affordable Care Act."
Ditto your comment. Lawrence, I would not have thought of that until you mentioned it. It is true, the Catholic Church is all over the world, and they cannot tell whether anyone is using birth control or not because in other countries, health care is between the doctor and patient. And I bet that when a woman confesses to use birth control she probably be given so many Hail Mary and so may other prayers, and all will be forgiven. I went to Catholic School and Catholic University, and I remember that birth control was not spoken of. I think those who want to use abstinence, no one is stopping them.
Excellent debate.
I am so glad to see that Mr. O'Donnell got his sanity back. That's the kind of show I want to watch.
Also, I liked that Mr. O'Donnell mentioned that other countries have better health care systems. Yeah, "exceptionalism" isn't necessarily a good thing.
One way for the left to get ahead of this issue is to quit referring to "women's health" and call it "family decision-making."
I have said it many times, as well. We are still having fallout and you and a few others point out the true fact and one I brought up before: Employers would be relieved of the burden to negotiate health care, employees might even get higher wages and employers would not have to compete with other countries that HAVE universal Health care.
As I've also stated lately: There is no attack on freedom of religion!
Too bad we are beyond that original debate.
Imagine, if you will, a Jehovah's Witness-run hospital.
And then imagine that hospital refusing to cover blood transfusions and related costs for their (non-Jehovah's Witness) employees.
Would anyone be defending the hospital's "religious liberty"? Or would we insist they cover the procedures in their medical insurance packages?
(It's amazing how rational we can be when we stop talking about lady parts.)
That is something else I thought. Many religions have some rather strange ideas. Would it be OK for a religious business to deny their unmarried employees treatment for venereal diseases because it is a sin to have sex out of wedlock? How about denying treatment for HIV/AIDS because they believe homosexuality is a sin and only gay people get it?
Even better - a Christian Science hospital.
All medical care is prohibited and all illnesses are considered to be an act of god and medical intervention is a tool of the devil, so sick people just need to die if their spiritual faith is not sufficient to heal them.
My dear brother nearly died from poison oak because of this nonsense.
Homework - describe how to provide health insurance for that mess.
I have never heard so much BS on MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell show tonight, again the left sided media only reports a tilted view of the problem. This has nothing to do with anything except a run on taking down the U. S. Constitution and trashing or freedoms, the Government should stay out of the Church and out of our lives. Obamas's liberal left is making a run before the election, so people of this great country stand up and stand firm for your freedoms !!
What part of the constitution you are talking about. Read it again. When it comes to worship the constitution is specific. But the Catholic Church is an EMPLOYER. As an employer they can not discriminate against an employee in benefits because that person uses birth control. No one is making Catholics do anything. Is it correct for you that an employer is allowed to discriminate against women who use birth control. That does not even have spiritual backing.
Good point afrommi! This is less about an infringement on religious freedom than repairing an infringement on individual freedom. Even most Catholics think their religion's ban on birth control is medieval nonsense.
Hello Mark Reno Hart,
It is good to meet you.
Are you suggesting it is OK for Catholic hospitals and universities to force their religious beliefs onto non-Catholic employees by withholding coverage for contraception medications for Hebrew doctors and professors?
Really?
I don't see that religious freedom listed in the constitution.
In fact, this is a non-problem.
University presidents and hospital administrators already have policies in 16 states that satisfy the federal requirements without violating religious beliefs of the institution. Those policies will just be expanded to cover all states and territories.
FREE WILL. The catholic church teaches that God gives us free will. I can choose to go to church or to not. I can choose to believe or not. The catholic church has no right to take away a choice for all the women who work in institutions that employ people other than catholics. THE CHURCH needs to stay away from making decisions about my body. Not even God gives them that right.
Absolutely. The First Amendment requires it!
The RC Church has a centuries-old tradition of invoking the power of the secular arm when its religious moral suasion is not powerful enough to achieve the Church's desired result.
What's happening here is that the Church is endeavoring to get the federal government to push female employees into following the Church's teachings, by applying financial pressure on the employee to the tune of about $600 per year.
The Church is trying to use the federal government as a coercive tool, where the Church's moral teachings are—at least in its own perception—inadequate.
The Church's "religious freedom" does not extend to using the secular arm to impose its beliefs on its employees—not even those employees who are members of the Church.
I liked the David Boies segment. The idea that this is somehow part of an Obama attack on religion, and religious freedom, is pure BS. These facilities aren't acting as religious institutions but as businesses. In many cases, most of their employees aren't even from the same religion, and even those employees who are, don't necessarily believe as their religion dictates. To me, this is a case where individual rights should trump religious rights.
Me too. Someone I read earlier (a doctor, I think) mentioned the same thing. It seems as though lately, we are prioritizing institutions over individuals. I appreciate the fact that Boies also brought up (as I have today) sigh… it's an election year, so we gotta bear in mind, we are going to see the victimhood in everything, and on steroids.
I expect Boehner to start crying about religion being attacked.
I do wish we could go back and go for universal health care and we would not have the suit over mandating people buy it. Just excise tax, no more employer "issues" and be done with it. My medical insurance rate skyrocketed again and it has to do with the insurance "industry" and Rx drug "industry" making profit.
I assume the employers are passing along their costs to consumers, but it is really strange that a computer company would need to negotiate the medical benefits, distracting them from their business every year to find the best insurance deal.
Oh, and it also has to do with passing the costs for those that do not buy insurance or pay onto those that do buy it or pay, either individually or a group.
This would all be moot if we had universal health care or Medicare for all.
The US government is not going to force the Catholic Church to purchase birth control pills for nuns and viagra for priests. There is an exemption for religious taboo associated with houses of worship.
Schools, universities, hospitals, and nursing homes are a different mater entirely.
Hebrew doctors cannot be forced to observe Vatican Canonical Law that form the basis for withholding contraception coverage simply because they work at a Catholic hospital.
Exemptions prohibit enforcement of prohibited health care activities for actual religious workers involved with worship activities in churches, temples, mosques and so on.
However, schools, university, and health care workers that are not actually involved in day-to-day religious worship have the right to full health coverage. The employer is not allowed to force their religious beliefs onto workers that have different religious beliefs.
This maintains the ban on birth control for catholic nuns while providing same for jewish professors teaching at university.
The other issue is if Catholic hospitals that would like to participate in government health care funding programs. If so, then the institution must provide contraception and pregnancy termination. If they don't want to do that, then they don't have to take the government money.
Nobody is going to force Catholic institutions to accept government money they do not want.
I don't see a problem.
The whole issue is pure make believe.
I can still be a good Catholic while managing employees at a hospital and not bully other people into sharing my beliefs by withholding coverage for valid medical needs.
Santorum just said a fertilized egg is a person with full human rights guaranteed under the constitution.
That means every miscarriage must be prosecuted.
The doctor and mother must be charged with a felony and imprisoned for manslaughter after every still birth or premature birth that might have been caused by the mother walking across a parking lot on a hot day.
Really?
That is exactly how US law is written if unborn embryos are people.
A fetus that cannot survive has as much rights than a living person, which requires the doctor and mother to be incarcerated if the fetus fails to survive.
That is bug-nuts crazy.
When will personhood begin for women?
As a sufferer of endometriosis and ovarian cysts -- and I do mean sufferer -- I cannot believe the media isn't covering the myriad health problems that require hormone treatment with birth control. This "debate" isn't about just a woman's right to choose pregnancy or prevention -- it is about women's health, physical and mental. In hundreds of thousands of cases, birth control treatment is the ONLY alternative to major surgery, including hysterectomies. To deny women coverage of medication of this kind is discrimination and a deep violation of women's rights everywhere. It's not always about precious babies, folks. It's about the also precious adult lives of women who need care and deserve humane standards of coverage and assistance in living a life free from chronic, debilitating pelvic pain.
True.
Approximately 100% of women will have reproductive issues during their life that are not related to child bearing.
The whole right-to-life debate is doing the equivalent of trowing BS down the water well we are all forced to drink out of.
Many Catholic hospitals already provide insurance that includes birth control. IMO, it's a none issue that the GOP is trying to work up into a big issue. If this was not an election year, any resistance would have been muted. The GOP wants to exaggerate and make this election about extremes.. Santorum wants no contraception available to anyone and the GOP is acting like the Dems are trying to force birth control pills down Catholic throats.. not reasonable nor factual...just providing the option of prevention (and treatment since BC pills do control several types of malaise) to women. The Dems should be applauded for that.
Considering as the Crazy Conservatives have tried to turn the fact that Obama held a Halloween party with Johnny Depp (who probably showed up for free just to have a chance to party at the White House) into a political attack against him, why would they want to wait for an election year to try to turn something against him?
They attack the president for everything he does or doesn't do. They are mindless and incessant in their attacks, and they attack because they themselves are morally and intellectually bankrupt. They oppose their own economic or social policies the instant Obama supports them. They aren't a party FOR anything, they are only against - they are simply the Party of Hate.
This is what the Drudge Reports and Fox News and Rush Limbaughs forming the whole "intellectual" core of Conservatism has done - turned them into the Crazy Conservatives that consider thought and knowledge and reason to be negative traits, while rewarding only simple Pavlovian responses. You can see it in the way people like Sarah Palin talk - she doesn't make a reasoned argument, she simply says a word, and starts trying to associate it with "good" words like "Freedom Ronald Reagan Grizzly Mom Apple Pie Liberty", or else starts saying the "words that make Crazy Conservatives go GRRRRRR!" in order to instill Pavlovian conditioning so that "Health Care" equates in their mind to "Death Panel".
Hate is the sum total of their platform - they simply hate others for being something other than themselves, and you can see this in why Ginrich has been able to get any traction at all - all they want is hate. They don't care how unreasonable or how hypocritical, they want hate. They want torture, they want 30-year-olds with no health insurance to die, they want to shoot immigrants from a helicopter, they want to bomb abortion clinics, they want to outlaw any religion but their own, they just want to hate.
Mr lawrence, just because a women in the Catholic church chooses to use a controseptive does not make her right, and the the teachings of the church wrong. The teachings come from God himself handed down thru scripture and oral traditions over 2000 years. The Catholic church that you like to keep beating up on, is not a bunch of men setting around smoking cigars making up laws at a whim. We the people of the Catholic faith are the church. Yes in all religions we have free will to choose to do what is right by God or turn away and do what is wrong. Those 98% of women you say are useing controceptives will answer to God. But it doesn't mean because a a few do something that is agianst Gods law, we should change the law. Alot of people are murdering others should we change that commanment too? No we need to continue to pray that they will see what they are doing is wrong and ask God for forgiveness. It is the Catholics responcibilty to bring as many lost souls to find Jesus Christ.
That's nice.
But the First Amendment prohibits the government from aiding and abetting them in that perceived task by selectively denying coverage specifically to employees of RCC-affiliated institutions.
The Church's attempt to have the law/regulations applied unequally, so as to force its beliefs upon its employees—not to be confused with parishioners—violates the establishment clause.
The real issue here is not contraception; it's affordable health care. Employer-based health care becomes a deal between employers and health insurance companies. The goal becomes making health coverage affordable to employers. The number of plan designs offered by major insurers here (BCBS, HPHC, Tufts) boggles the mind. In the end, employers choose plans that pass costs on to employees via deductibles and co-insurance. Employees are left picking up the tab. I live in MA. Nice job, Mitt.
I believe someone should be making the point that the people who are now rabidly defending religious freedom routinely condemn Islam and talk about the dangers of Sharia law. Either religious law is superior to civil law or it isn't. You can't have it both way.
I agree with Terry, and wish to point out that the "freedom" being defended is the freedom of the employer to impose its religious beliefs upon its employees—hardly a virtuous cause.
They either don't see the conflict or most likely, they wish to violate the first amendment by rationalizing that the establishment of their religion/religious views TRUMP the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, that there shall be no religious test for presidential candidates.
The worst part is they use the first amendment to defend their position of "victimhood", while they attempt to establish their religious beliefs upon others.
This comes down to a battle of my rights are more important than your rights.
Great segment with David Boies! GET THAT CLIP POSTED ASAP! THAT NEEDS TO GO VIRAL.
This is a non-issue. The rule is not telling all people who are employed by these institutions that they must take birth control. The health care contraceptive rule is not banning any part of what the religion teaches. If an individual person decides to use contraceptives that is her/his decision. The GOP claim that this "imposes" on "religious institutions and is unconstitutional" is false because the Constitution covers individual rights, not "institutions".
And by the way, 98% of Catholic women use birth control and do not feel they are sinning.....this in part is due to the church's own muddied thinking on the matter.....the "rhythm" method is less reliable than other methods but the intent is the same.....
the catholic church should be more concerned about the priests sexually abusing little boys, and stay out of consenting adults lives and bedrooms...but, the catholic church has never been and still is not women friendly. this has nothing to do with religious freedom, it has everything to do with basic health care for women. men should have absolutely no say in what a woman does or does not do to her body.
I thought most catholic women take some kind of birth control anyway. I bet it's a bunch old catholic bishop's raising sand over nothing and making a polictical issue out of nothing. This is business and it has nothing to do with religion. The catholic bishops need to quick raising a fuss about womens rights and finish cleaning out their closet of priest and bishops who are still sexually molesting boys. Oh well, maybe I shouldn't have said that.
Christopher Hitchens is right. Religion poisons everything. With a world population of 6 billion we could do with a lot more birth control. I live in Mexico and I see what this senseless Catholic policy does to the poor. When you see a woman begging on the street with two or three ankle biters in tow, one just has to shake his head. Ridiculous, cruel, pitiful, absurd, reckless, mortifying, senseless and yes poisonous.
Lawrence was right to the point -- that our country's unique system of linking employers and insurance is at the core here. He was also right to insist at certain points in the show that the issue is NOT birth control. It is a government telling a faith community how to express that faith.
It is not birth control, but look at the large number of comments here, and Lawrence's guests, too, who just keep coming back to patriarchal religion and pills. It would be worderful for him to get some guests who would discuss religious expression rights. I know that Boies was a good stroke in that direction. More, please, because no one, not even erudite Boies corners the topic fully. Sincerely, I do think that this mandate is NOT the same as labor laws.
Who determines the difference between an exempt church and a Catholic church owned institution that hires people? Is Catholic faith expression narrowed to Sunday morning and care for the poor on Tuesday is not religious expression?
Lawrence, keep up your good work, but don't flinch from steering this to USA ineptitude on heath care and to the religious rights of a faith expression.
Isn't this exactly what freedom of religion means? You can't push yours on me and if you are a religious organization, you follow the laws of the nation you are in. Period! The individuals that choose to follow the "no contraception" rule are free to do so but have no business telling anyone else that they have to as well. Contraception, like abortion, is a choice that belongs with the individual, not the religious right. They need to get the hell out of peoples' bedrooms.
On the topic of religious and individual rights-
This argument cannot be about whether or not faith has a place in the public square, it does. No, the argument is about what that looks like, whether faith is expressed in ways that lift and liberate or whether it is a cudgel to beat down the disfavored, a fence with which to bar the despised.
- Leonard Pitts
I am an advocate for individual rights and freethinking. The US constitution allows its citizens to love God in their own personal way without imposing their views on others on how they should love and worship God and women and their loved ones to make their own personal choices about family planning. For citizens to be who they are without persecution. In the US, we currently are now protected against tyranny from both government and religion. As it should be. This is the American way in the US.
Be mindful of the very same voices that are insisting on their religious rights, are fighting to limit the individual rights of others to marry who they love, publicly be who they are, do family planning in the way they choose.
All companies independent of ownership, should to treat their employees consistent with the law.
Kevans
You nailed it.
The religious freedoms expressed in the First Amendment do not reside only with the religious institutions, but within each of us, and in our own conscience.
The abuse of the First Amendment with the conflation of a primacy of institutional religious freedom with the denial of the same freedoms guaranteed to all of us is the constitutional issue.
About 500 years ago there was a Reformation in Christianity, separating our conscience and communication with our God (whomever he or she may be) from a controlling theocratic monopoly of interlocutors. Hundreds of thousands died, and thousands came to this country to freely pursue their conscience in their own way.
About 300 years ago there was an Enlightenment, which professed the efficacy and independence of the individual, eschewing dogma and celebrating reason and science.
Our Bill of Rights was designed to protect the individual from the tyranny of the majority, the tyranny of the state, and attempt to remove coercion to our conscience and our person.
The current challenge is where the question meets our muddled healthcare system, where the control of the "product" is "granted" and is called a "benefit" by our employer. For most of us, our healthcare is a part of our compensation package, earned though our sweat and energy. It should be our choice as to the coverage we partake of, not the choice of our employer or of the insurance industry.
We are trapped in a web of our own creation, where employers control of our health insurance policies, religious institutions hold us hostage with their dogmatic objections, insurance companies drive for profit diminishes our care and drives up our costs, and with a divided government that cannot solve the problem.
If the health policy resided with the individual, an employer (or church) would have nothing to say about what was offered in the policy; If there was the ability to create insurance pools to spread the risks, and a single payer system to eliminate the profit motive; If we could truly choose to exercise our conscience while maintaining our health in a cost effective manner.
Healthcare is a right, not a "benefit". Universal coverage single payer healthcare, is the answer.
My conscience, body, health, religion and happiness are MINE.
Steve
I have an idea about this. This might have been a purposful act by the Obama team to make this an issue and help Santorum undermine Romney.
By taking this stand Obama only really upsets a few people who would have never voted for him anyway, he energizes a big chunk of his base and he turns the base of the Republican Party to support someone who will never be able to get elected.
I have watched Obama make one cut throat move after another, and all to good effect. He just might be sending Seal Team 6 in yet again.
I am sick and tired of hearing about this as a "mandate" being "forced on churches" that "forces them to provide birth control". On UP this Sunday, the token Christian Conservative came out even saying it was like mandating that kosher delis serve pork, and that this was somehow an abridgement of religious liberties.
Bull.
This is simple - religious freedom applies to what YOU believe, and what YOU can do to YOURSELF. You do NOT have the "religious freedom" to take away other people's freedom. It's that simple.
Although nobody wants to admit it, there are reasonable limits to our freedoms, and many of them revolve around the simple concept that you just don't have the right or freedom to take away other people's rights or freedoms. That means no slavery, no kidnapping, no rape, no discrimination, and no forcing other people to follow your own religious beliefs when they don't share that belief.
What this rule ACTUALLY does is it prevents the religious institutions from STOPPING women from getting the health care coverage they would have been able to get, anyway. The churches are claiming as their "right" the ability to DENY health care THROUGH ANOTHER COMPANY, not that they can refuse to give it out - no church is going to be required to give out birth control under this policy. If churches get what they want, and their employees pay for birth control out of pocket, then, by paying their salaries, the churches are STILL paying for birth control by the same number of degrees of separation, anyway. This is just a sham game where the anti-women's health crusaders in this country are trying to tart up the notion that they are simply trying to punish poor women for having the need to access health care.
Ask these so-called religious freedom advocates on the right how many of them are the same people who advocate "religious freedom" when people try to ban any permits for any more mosques to be built in America.
Better yet, ask them what they would do if a hospital that was owned by a MUSLIM organization took federal funding, and was the only hospital in the region that could save their life in an emergency, which declared that, because of its religious beliefs, they would refuse to treat anyone who wouldn't pay at least lip service in praying to Allah. If you didn't like that, that's OK, you can just choose not to get treated there, and die in the street.
Where's their "religious liberty" talk when it applies to any religion other than Christianity? People are letting "Religious Liberty" become sham term that really means "Psuedo-Christian Conservative Theocracy" because they never stand up for the rights of any group other than the Christian Conservatives (and it fills my mouth with bitterness to even refer to Conservatives as being anything even remotely like a Christian when they take every chance they can to spit in the face of Jesus's teachings), even in the face of discriminating against other types of Christians.
Mr. O'Donnell, I will be deeply disappointed in you, and Rachel and the rest of the MSNBC crew if you do not start talking about this issue the way that it really is. This is a baseless claim being made by simply rewording the reality of the situation for the maximum possible spin completely regardless of the truth by crazy conservative con artists the way that they always do, and you are dropping the ball on exposing their lies the way that I have come to expect.
Lawrence was spot on about the single payer and the need to send the health insurance industry into the dust bin of history along with the buggy whip manufacturers. I have the sneaking suspicion that this whole thing is a tempest in a tea pot. The Catholic bishops are hardly a credible force in either the Country or the Church for that matter. The letter read in our diocese encouraged the faithful to lead the fight - an admission in itself of the lack of authority. At the same time, the Obama administration showed a glaring lack of sensitivity as well as a lack of explanation. Come on Big O get with it we didn't need this fight
My entire reproductive life was spent as an RN in a Catholic hospital, the only employer of type in my city. We were never provided any contraceptive coverage. It was a constant and expensive irritant where I felt my employer was attempting to control my private life and dictate morality to me. I STRONGLY support the Administration on this one and hope my daughters enjoy a greater freedom from religion on the job than I.
Anyone can access all the birth control they want even if they don't have a job...I believe this Administration is ALL about over-stepping boundaries every chance they get just because they think they can. No one is preventing anyone to access to birth control. Go to your Dr. and any drug store in the country...it's there. If you can't afford it drop in to your local Planned Parenthood and they will hook you up at no cost. THIS IS about the religious freedom issue and I believe bigger than what it seems....I think this is the pre-cover for eventually protecting Muslim extremists and Sharia law in this country where the Administration will claim that they cannot interfere in their anti-constitutaional-terrorist activities under the protection of religious freedom. Just wait...it is only a matter of time before we hear this. The Father of Lies is behind this whole discussion and Obama is only a pawn.
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