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Got it. I'm not sure that no one in Iowa or other affected states protested those state laws. And as far as I can see, the state mandates only apply to third party insurers; they don't apply to self-insured entities. Being state issues, I wouldn't expect them to have been in the news like a federal mandate is, especially considering the highly controversial manner in which the underlying law was passed. But the First Amendment restricts the United States Congress from acting in a manner that interferes with the free exercise of religion. It doesn't apply to the states. So while state mandates might violate their state constitutions, they don't violate the U.S. Constitution.

I mean they would be required to provide birth control through the insurance they are required to buy.

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The reason asking the insurance companies to "fund" free birth control is cost-effective (and doesn't force subsidies from groups who don't want the "coverage"), is because pregnancies are so much more expensive than prescriptions! They just *are*. On the contrary, the people who don't want birth control prescriptions are creating the additional expense for the insurance companies! Of course, if anyone were to suggest that these conscientious objectors were to pay a higher premium...

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Giving women free birth control doesn't mean they won't have babies. It only means they might not have babies right away. If providing birth control at no cost meant greater profits for them, don't you think the insurance companies would have figured that out and done it voluntarily? The very fact that it takes a law to force insurance companies to do that belies the claim. And on moral grounds, it wouldn't make any difference if the insurance companies did not charge "a premium" for providing birth control. Would you want to buy a cable TV package that included porn even if the cable company said it was part of the package and they weren't charging any more for its inclusion? I certainly wouldn't. Not only because I don't want porn in my home, but because I don't want to participate in its production and distribution. I don't want to have any part in that because I believe it is morally repugnant. That's just how some Christians feel about birth control.

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Of course these women are going to have children at some point - otherwise they'd be getting tubal ligations or something.

But providing care for women who use family-planning is going to be less expensive than for say, a Catholic family with perhaps as many as 6 - 8 children or more. No one is saying it should be legal to discriminate against them, BTW. So the insurance companies can only GAIN by providing something women are already willing to use. If a Catholic university is willing to hire non-Catholic women as doctors and professors, it should not be legal for them to discriminate against non-Catholic women in this way, because the men are going to get their Viagra. Don't forget that the churches are exempt - these are Catholics working at Catholic churches, and they theoretically won't need the birth control.

(But I think you'd be surprised by how many Catholic women actually use hormonal birth control. Many people believe a majority of them do.)

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Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine

Oh what a foretaste of glory divine!

What, no answer to the moral objection?
Wrong, because women who already want to use birth control are also willing to pay the little that it costs. And women who can't afford to pay for it can probably already get it for free. They certainly can where I live.

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And how is making women pay for birth control, while men don't have to pay for Viagra, going to be to the insurance companies' benefit? (Requiring Viagra coverage doesn't save insurance companies any money. The requirement is certainly not to their benefit, so covering this forces subsidies among groups who disagree with covering it!) If they are required to provide birth control coverage, even if for free, it is even better for insurance companies, because women are even more likely to use it if it's free (you surely knew that). This is in addition to the coverage reducing their exposure. It's win-win.

By the way, I have never asked this of you gentlemen, but I am wondering why I am the only female discussing this with you? And why men would have such strong views on this subject, when it is women who would get pregnant, bear the child, and potentially have their careers disrupted to accommodate a possibly unplanned pregnancy? Why would men be completely unswayed by the many, many women who INSIST on having hormonal birth control remain available for them to use?

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Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine

Oh what a foretaste of glory divine!

Viagra is supposed to treat sexual dysfunction; birth control has a very different purpose. And I don't know of anyone who objects to Viagra on moral or religious grounds. So you're comparing apples to oranges on both counts. And I suppose that wives also benefit from Viagra if their husbands need it, so it really isn't a prescription just for men and I see no reason in the argument that women are discriminated against by providing a treatment for sexual dysfunction but not providing birth control. Those are two very different things. But are insurance companies required to provide Viagra for men? Are there stupid laws requiring that too? The government should not be dictating any of this stuff!

I don't know why you're the only female participating in this discussion, Assured. The female moderators in the forum are Australians, so I don't suppose they have much interest in debating our laws. My strong views are about our Constitution and about laws that violate it. And I'm unswayed by women who want something for free because in this case giving them what they want violates the Constitution. I thought I had already made that clear.

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If I wanted to know why women weren't participating, I would ask women and not men. And certainly not "gentlemen". I'm not sure where you could pose such a question, since many of the women who aren't participating also aren't reading this discussion.

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I suspect that many, many women insist on having birth control available for them but do not insist on having it gratis. And of those who do insist on having it gratis, many of them choose not work for an institution that has moral objections to birth control.

The issue here is religious freedom, not whether birth control should be banned.

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2 highlights worth repeating:

Indeed!

If Viagra is gratis, so also should be female contraception. That's how it got started in the first place.

Where are the women in this discussion? Because MEN don't get pregnant...

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Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine

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I am not the one who made the original equivalency (although I would make a more convenient target, unfortunately - you are forgetting that this is not my argument, I am sure). That was the bipartisan analysis of the situation that led to the 28 states requiring contraception prescriptions for women in the first place - because men get their Viagra, and it was only "fair."

I think that if we were to think this through for a moment, we can see how this happened. Men typically get sexual dysfunction (because of prostate surgery or low hormones, typically) at an age when their wives are either going through or have completed menopause. So if having sex is a "right" regardless of the ability to bear children, then why wouldn't women have the right to have sex without having to bear a child? Prescriptions for female contraception are women's Viagra.

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Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine

Oh what a foretaste of glory divine!

If there are women who oppose the birth control mandate for the same reason that they oppose the Viagra mandate, please let us hear from you!

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Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine

Oh what a foretaste of glory divine!

Assured, wherever the idea that men or women have a "right" to have sex came from, it cannot be found in our Constitution and it certainly didn't come from God. That's just self-centered humanistic thinking. And the notion of a "right" to have sex without the natural consequence of procreation is only more so, if that's possible.

Just because others have made or accepted the argument that birth control for women is equivalent to Viagra for men doesn't make it so (and I'm not debating the point with them). One facilitates the possibility of sexual activity while the other prevents the birth of children (not necessarily their conception) as a result of sexual activity, and the only thing they have in common is that they are in some way related to sexual activity. What if some men who use Viagra (which, btw, I think is foolish) are incapable of fostering children with their wives? That doesn't mean their object is to not have children, as you've implied. Viagra does not prevent the birth of children and your argument that prescriptions for female contraception "are women's Viagra" simply ignores the factual difference in their purposes and effects.

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Just for the record, if there were a religious group that objected to the use of Viagra on religious and moral grounds, I would be opposed to requiring that group to provide Viagra to their employees as well.

While I don't think that Viagra is against God's law I will offer the opinion that including Viagra in the list of essential medical services is just plain silly.

I've got a revolutionary idea: liberty. Let people earn what they can. Let them keep most of what they earn. Let them allocate their money as they see fit, among legal goods and services.

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Not all those who wander are lost.