Should Women Have To Get Boss’ OK To Go On Birth Control?

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Arguments over religious freedom have been with us for a very long time:

… we have in this case a very easy remedy, and that is to pray ourselves and I would think that it would be a welcome reminder to every American family that we can pray a good deal more at home, we can attend our churches with a good deal more fidelity, and we can make the true meaning of prayer much more important in the lives of all of our children. That power is very much open to us.

President John F. Kennedy, June 27, 1962

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John F. Kennedy was responding to a Supreme Court decision against teacher-led prayer in public schools.

For the audio version of this article CLICK HERE.

The court had said that schools, school officials, teachers, could not lead students in prayer. The principle was simple. Since school attendance is mandatory, you cannot subject the children of others to religious rituals of your own choosing.

A satiric magazine later carried a story about the travails of a school teacher who drank from a very low children’s water fountain and was arrested for accidentally praying in school.

The idea that the court had outlawed prayer in public schools, that God had been thrown out took hold quickly.

One popular rejoinder was recently repeated by Pastor Mike Glenn of the Brentwood Baptist Church in Tennessee.

Puhleeeeze. Show me the dude that threw God anywhere, would you? You know and I know, as long as there’s math tests, there’s gonna be prayer in school.

Mike Glenn, Brentwood Baptist Church, January 21, 2014

Still, the logic persists to this day. Unless you allow me to lead your children in my prayers, according to my beliefs, you are violating my freedom of religion.

A similar logic is in the courts today.

When President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, became law, one seemingly minor provision became a controversy. Employers would be required to provide health insurance to employees, and that would include birth control to those employees who wanted it.

Conservatives pushed an interesting idea. Employers whose corporate policies were based, even in part, on religion should not have to provide any sort of coverage that went against that religion. Providing birth control to employees was a violation of the religious freedom of the corporation. The legal argument is now being considered by the Supreme Court.

When the argument blew up into a full flood of controversy, I joined many progressives in a collective sort of visual wave – a nationwide rolling of the eyes. Conservatives could not be serious.

I called the roll of states that have long required that all employer provided insurance include birth control. The list included states with Republican governors, Democratic governors, conservative and liberal legislatures, poor states, well-to-do states, north, south, east, and west. The list of states went on and on.

A friend pointed out that the fact that individual states had violated the religious freedom of employers did not justify a similar violation by the federal government.

Actually, the the list of states was not as much an attack on the religious freedom argument itself as it was an attack on the hypocrisy of those making that argument. Why had the sheer number of states apparently abrogating corporate religious freedom not aroused the same crazed volume of conservative protest?

In fact we could look without success for the sad equivalent of the biblical weeping of a single voice crying in the wilderness during the generations prior to Obamacare. Nobody, no one at all, had regarded the requirement of a birth control provision in all legitimate insurance coverage to be anything but normal and reasonable.

It was entirely uncontroversial, right up until Barack Obama took office.

I confess I had long since grown cynical about conservative motivations. The school voucher movement, public finance for private schools, had once been the understandable province of active Catholics. The sudden interest of Jerry Falwell and his followers had coincided precisely with widespread desegregation of schools in the south. I did not see it as a coincidence.

I saw the birth control issue to be yet another attack on pretty much anything proposed by President Obama. Did Republicans really want to require women to get permission from their boss at work before filling a birth control prescription?

A member of my church gently called me on that. Republicans would never interfere with a woman’s right to purchase her own birth control with her own wages. There would be no asking permission from the boss.

Now, I need to ask my Brother-in-Christ about recent news.

There is one city in the United States in which Congress can directly overrule any municipal action. It is regarded as a sort of laboratory for testing laws before they they are introduced nationally. Republicans on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform were unanimous in telling Washington DC that any employer in that city can fire an employee for using her own paycheck to obtain birth control.

It is part of an employer’s religious freedom. Every Democrat on that committee voted against that concept of religious freedom to tell employees how to live. Every Republican voted for it.

So there you have it. Republicans have put forth an important principle, one for which they are unanimous, at least on that committee. It would be a violation of an employer’s religious freedom to allow workers to decide for themselves.

If you are a woman and you want to practice birth control, you may or may not consult with your husband, your friend, your mom, or other advisor. That’s up to you.

But one person is not optional.

Republicans insist: You must ask your boss for permission.

This article is a collaboration between MadMikesAmerica and FairandUnbalanced.com

About Post Author

Burr Deming

Burr is a husband, father, and computer programmer, who writes and records from St. Louis. On Sundays, he sings in a praise band at the local Methodist Church. On Saturdays, weather permitting, he mows the lawn under the supervision of his wife. He can be found at FairAndUNbalanced.com
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jess
8 years ago

Jesus, it gets worse. I’m finished reading your article and my friend emails me this link. If people think this is all about being kind to the wimmin folk they are sadly mistaken. Read it and weep like the babby jeebus is.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/05/03/1381655/-TX-Republican-Lawmaker-Wants-Pregnant-Women-To-Carry-Deceased-Fetuses-Full-Term

Reply to  jess
8 years ago

What the fuck??? What country do I live in?

Bill Formby
8 years ago

Well since corporate America is screwing everyone anyway I guess they would have a say in whether it is a productive f**k or not. Until we get some kind of sense back into American politics, which will not happens until the black guy is out of office, there will be no rational behavior anywhere. Of course, if Hillary whens it will be a whole new game because who knows whether the Republican and Tea Party trolls will accept her or will they become misogynists and fight her for four or eight years. Then again if someone like Ted Cruz wins us progressives would probably be well advised to bury ourselves for while because he will screw up at least the last one hundred years of progress.

jess
8 years ago

If and when my boss starts paying my mortgage or holding my hand while I shower, they can make decisions about how and when I plan out my family. This is all about getting us to the Handmaid’s Tale by the forced birthers among us. You know, it is only sluts that take birth control, cannot have women making their own decisions about their bodies we need the big strong GoOper menz for that. Will they be doing the same thing regarding vasectomies for males I wonder. Supposedly there will come a time, when men can go on slut pills, wanna bet how fast this law will be changed if that comes to pass. Here’s a Wiki summary for those of you who don’t know what I am talking about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Handmaid%27s_Tale

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