Friday, February 10, 2012

On the current Great American Birth Control Insurance Flap involving the Obama Administration and Cathloic Bishops and other religious officials and conservative opportunists--- Eddie James "This is so strange to me. Why do religious employers get to opt out of providing birth control. I know they are against birth control, but it's not their right to control their employees. I'm personally against abortion in most cases, but I have no problems providing health benefits that cover abortion. It's not up to me to to decide for others what they think is right or wrong for them. Conservative religious groups in this country have a problem with "free will". God designed us to have the "free will" to make our own choices and that may involve making the wrong choices at times, but you don't see God jumping in to stop people from making those choices. Sometimes you have to learn from mistakes. The constant drive to stop people from doing things that a certain group finds morally wrong, but causes no major harm to society, is truly crazy. Religious people should be an example for others and not just be the people who are against everything but their own views." http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2012/02/source-obama-to-change-birth-control-rule/1

38 comments:

  1. Sounds awfully complicated Doug. I really don`t understand the American Health Insurance system.
    Would this be religious orders of all denominations e.g. the Mormons?

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  2. I have a different perspective on this... and keep in mind I use Depo, so not against birth control, and feel that three kids is all we can afford (and barely)!!!

    But choosing to work for a religous company or organization and going against their foundation and beliefs is a lot like working for NAACP (or whatever) and hating black people?!?!?! Why on earth, other than to break them apart and cause harm would a person do such a thing...

    Which is a lot like those that are currently breaking apart the foundation of this country.... no wonder we have so many problems, less people seem to have common sense

    And I get your point about telling others how to live... I am in California where we had a ton of laws pass telling us all how to raise our kids (starting this last January)... yet they don't cut me a monthly check to raise my kids for me! So, it isn't for a lack of understanding, but I also don't force others to do things my way, they eitther like me or they can leave me, not going to change. Still trying to save and figure a way to move out of this state... and news covered how local business being forced to pay up is why college fees went down??? GL finding a job when they get out because that'll drive even more out of the state

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  3. San FranPsycho runs our state... and I live in Dis-Califunction

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  4. I find it odd that employers have anything to do with birth control in the first place but I suppose that is part of your weirdly (un)funded health system. This is probably a good example of why countries should have publicly-funded health systems rather than private insurance calling the shots but I would take issue with the idea that a company which chooses to run itself in what is supposed to be a secular country (ie religion supposedly staying out of politics) deciding to opt out of anything they don't happen to like much. Religious nutters have no right to tell other people else how to live.

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  5. You're right, Jeff. I've been trying to parse this mess in my head for the last week in the papers and the news shows. I honestly can't figure what people are so upset about? Women getting birth control pills? Didn't we have this argument decades ago in most Western nations?


    And it's all indicative of the public/private morass in the health care system citizens in the USA go through. I'm not sure about the Mormon Church on this one.

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  6. I guess I'm thinking of a female nurse or radiologist or doctor at a Catholic hospital such as one we have up here, Beverly. If she chooses to use birth control pills, does that effect her work? I'm guesing not.

    Plenty of non-Catholics might work at a Catholic University like Loyola-Marymount in LA or St. Mary's down in the Bay Area. It's think it's reasonable these women might want a health care option in their insurance that goes against the Church of Rome and not be anti-Catholic.


    No one is forcing anyone to use birth control pills---just to be able to have access to them. Since a large majority of Catholic women use "the pill' already, I'm not sure what the hullabuloo was about in the first place.

    And I don't think women who identify themselves as Catholic or not actually hate the church--they just may not follow all dictates of Rome or some American diocese, which is not hate but a conscientious objection. But i see your point. If one is adamently anti-something, it would be hypocritical to work for an institution supported by that something. I just don't think that's the case.

    You raise a lot of other big issues that are more important to me that we as citizens should be concerned with. Thanks.

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  7. California has a lot of political clashes, as you know all too well Beverly.

    There's North, South, Inland Empire, Urban, Rural, L.A., Frisco, et al.

    I think the state exists for the amusment of all the other states. ;-)

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  8. Well, suffice to say I think you're right that no one--"nutter" or not--has a right to tell someone else how to live their private lives at all. And apart from directing the reasonable behavior of, say, an employer by an employee on a job, the less we get into telling others what to do, the better.

    .Our employee-based whealth care system here I gather came out of the Second World War, when wages were frozen and those people who weren't in the service werr offered health care in the big defense plants like the Kaiser Shipyards on the West Coast (one of which my dad worked as a teenager on the weekends) and Lockheed Aircraft and others. Health care was a way to keep employees in one place and with one company in a labor-short market.

    This carried over into the next couple decades with the prosperity generated by America having a major industrial and service based economy. Now companies are shedding health care or passing the costs unto the workers as fast as they can since the health care sector has grown faster than inflation and all.

    Hence the need for the Affordable Care Act. And the opposition of it by the rich and the hard-right people for whom all taxation not spent on war-making is theft.

    Thanks Iri Ani.

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  9. It is not actually about contraception only. It is about the freedom of religion, and the separation of church and state. actually way more complex than birth control.

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  10. Really it's all about women-hating.

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  11. This statement is so true... but very sad.

    This is a terrific post, Doug. Many people have apparently conveniently forgotten that one of the major tenets on which this country was founded was the separation of Church and State.

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  12. I think it's more about money then women-hating. AND people minding things that are none of their business.

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  13. I'd be offended on California's behalf if it weren't true. At least for a while, Sarah Palin made Alaska the butt of more jokes, although no one really branded the whole state on the basis of one person.

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  14. I understand it could be seen as a church/state issue, Tess, but it seems to be more of way to bang the drum for winning Catholic "values voters" for the next election in a few key states. The state is not telling anybody to take "the pill" if they don't want it.


    The times when bishops or pastors or rabbis or should be able to tell adult women if they can or can't have the access to birth control based on where they work should be over.

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  15. For decorum purposes, we at "doug's Site" prefer the term "misogyny", Iri Ani. ;-)

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  16. So true. Money is always an issue in matters like this, Christy.

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  17. Having lived in California for 25 years, I don't say that with any trace of malice, Christy. I really love California.

    Well, maybe not the LA Dodgers ;-)

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  18. Tess, with all due respect~~and agreement with other speculations~~this is rock bottom truth and consequences.

    The fanatical Tea Party, the self righteous uncompromising GOP, have been whittling and whistling away our Constitution. I'm reminded of a post from some time ago. It may be apropos or not, but I'll try to find it. There was something about "the Land of the Free" as I remember.

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  19. The right wing nuts have to have something to bitch about and get after Obama for...I wonder if their wives take or have taken birth control pills during their child bearing years? I wonder what they would say if someone told them they couldnt have them because of their religion? Its all stupid talk and trying to suppress women's rights on what we want to do with our bodies!!!!!

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  20. I try and stay out of conversations about politic or religion. This one contains both.

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  21. The odd thing is as i understand is that 20-odd states already have such laws.

    What Obama proposed yesterday has been the law in Hawaii, for example.

    Alas, this is an election year, and the GOP demagogues like Newt Gingrich is going to portray this as some kind of attack on the Catholic Church. They need a non-economic wedge issue against Obama. It's "Whatever Works".

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  22. Crabbyman, I wish I had the restraint to not put what I feel about things...like politics! ...LOL But my fingers wont let me...lol

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  23. In my opinion, politics and religion are so much a part of our lives, all tangIed up with everything else, I can't imagine ignoring them~~

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  24. So true, and thats why I have to tell it like it is from my perspective. Everytime I hear those jerks on the right spin lies about our President, and what they will do when they get into office, it makes me soooo angry I cant help myself. If one of them does get in, it will be back to the Bush era all over again and more downslides to the ordinary folks and the poor will get even poorer and the rich richer.

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  25. I was just thinking, that I can't admire restraint about issues that affect our lives, our right to freedom.

    And how about this, how about the MEN who WANT their wives, partners, girl friends to be on birth control?

    I'll bet there are as many of them, as there are women. I've never seen this addressed. This occurred to me because of getting involved in Doug's blog.

    I wish more people had been involved in voting when the miscreants, the anti-American politicians crawled out from under the rocks and introduced the most shocking legislation I've ever seen. Passive people are allowing this country to go to hell.

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  26. Well you know, everyone was mad at Obama and blamed him for everything that Bush did before him, and so they voted against him in 2010, and now we have those cretons in our congress who will say and do anything they can to try to get him out, but it isnt working...he will be our next president again.

    And its true, they never say anything about the men wanting their wives or significant other to take those pills, but whats worse, they are trying to control us women and tell us what we can and cant do with our bodies....why dont they attack the men for using viagra or condoms? Not that I think there is anything wrong with what a man does to pump himself up or stop pregnancy, but there is never any flack about a MAN!

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  27. You make a good point, Sigurd. I can't believe we have a political figure like Santorum in 2012 who questions the idea of birth control. That's a zany position. 98 percent of adult women have used birth control I've read. This is part of this reactionary zaniness--this notion of "you can't be too far, far right in the GOP primaries".

    But I respect people who would rather not debate the issue in a forum like Multiply. There are people I know who are well-informed and active in other ways, but for them going on the boards on the Internet isn't something they are comfortable with. That doesn't mean they aren't going in other areas to make their feelings and their moral and ethical strengths count.

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  28. Yes, there is this let's-go-back-to-1959 mentality our there, Marty. I'm not sure why this is, but I think there are people for whom the idea of birth-control or any private reproductive choice supported by government is still anathema.

    At this point in the campaign, and its still early, Obama and moderate and progressive forces seem to be more than the match for these zealots.

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  29. I guess this new age of medicine is just too much for some on the right to handle...lol. They would rather go back into the dark ages where people died from simple to cure diseases. The miracles of all kind of meds now is a hard pill for them to swallow so lets all go down that path where a woman was just a thing to be bartered with instead of cherished for the life she brings forth into this world....if she so chooses.

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  30. No, seriously, I don't think they expect such draconian measures to stick, Marty.

    Unless certain candidates are, in fact, crazy. :-)

    What they do expect is to appeal to certain staunch Catholic and protestant fundamentalist elements in these caucuses and primaries in the red states and then shift ever so more moderately in the general election. They are counting on most people right now not paying much attention to the elections in other words.

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  31. I think they are all "crazy" Doug, And you know the problem with the Republicans, none of them know what the hell they are talking about. They dont like Obama so they will invent stuff up just to try and smear him in some way or another. I put up a blog on that Freize dude about the asparin between the knees and some stupid person came on and started spouting about how the obamacare was concocted in a dark room and crap like that...wish they would get their facts straight before they leave a comment on how they hate our president.

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  32. Marty, did you know that there are actually people who don't know Obama's name, but hate him anyway? "Mob mentality" again.

    I'd be interested in knowing if insurance covers vasectomies, and I think Viagra would require a prescription, I'm not sure.

    I'm going to check how many members of Multiply there are, so I won't feel I'm blowing in the wind.

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  33. You nailed it exactly.
    The only reason why most of this utter reactionary nonsense even momentarily passes the 'laugh test' is because they are pandering to the ultra-wings in the hopes no one will remember once they get past the GOP primaries.

    Alas, I suspect the landscape has changed under them:
    We now have blogs, youtube videos and lots of "gotcha" websites archiving these ugly remarks and they'll be reminded of it come September.

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  34. So true, they think of him as not of this race and not like one of them. To them he is "that muslim". But its the poor ignorant ones that are the most vocal, the ones that Obama is trying to help. And what really gets me is they dont think the government should help anyone...even thou so many are on SS or medicare or some sort of fed program!!!! Like all those signs "keep your hands off my SS" dont they know that the government is the one providing it for them?

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  35. ... or food stamps
    or school lunch programs
    or housing assistance
    or HUD loans
    or FHA mortgages
    or ...

    It would be nice if there was a way to just cut them off for a week or two from the very assistance they bitch about so they'd realize it's THEM who those programs are helping, the sorry lot.....

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  36. Yes Chuck, all those programs for the poor in this country to help them out in any way, but they bitch and gripe about it constantly. Are they just stupid or what? I cant figure it out!!!!!

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  37. Sounds like the same rhetoric they used against Clinton's health care plan. The fact is Obama gave the Congress a lot of leeway for input into the new system and many years for it to slowly come into effect. People can carp about it but the whole process was painstakingly out in the open.

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