I find it rather amusing that when there is some sort of public discussion about birth control all the Catholics come out of the woodwork and complain saying it is a grave sin, yet a vast majority of Catholic women use some form of birth control. If you don’t believe that you have your head in the sand! Where are all these good Catholic kids??

Yep, Obama Cares as evidenced by the compromise today.  No bake sales for health care - hooray!  TGIF and we have jobs.

Nobody has the RIGHT to other people’s money just because they want it.  Yes, woman should be allowed access to contraception.  Anyone that wants to deny this to a woman is wrong.  But it is also wrong to force people to pay for something they are against.  What’s crazy is that Obamacare has people arguing that if we don’t want to pay for someone else’s birth control pills with our own money that we are somehow “denying” them access to contraception.  We’re not buying it, and we’re not going to buy it for you, get a job.

This is indeed about appropriate access to healthcare for women, not a perceived war on religion.  Don’t use birth control if you wish, but don’t deny other women that opportunity in the workplace.  28 states already have rules in place regarding this, and years ago many GOP leaders were calling for this fairness, including Olympia Snowe.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marjorie-clifton/birth-control-catholic-church_b_1258868.html

Lucy, not everyone can afford to have 18 kids (and counting).  When you have one or two and can’t afford any more, its called RESPONSIBILITY, and you need access to birth control (or should married couple who don’t want any more children just avoid sex?).  If a woman wants to get her tubes tied, she should have that right.  Why does the church hate women so much that they want to control their bodies and turn them into perfect broodmares instead?  Why can’t a woman take the pill?  If catholic men can get viagra through their insurance, then women can protect themselves and get the pill! 

If you really want to push the issue, the catholic church forbids divorce.  Should they disallow healthcare for all catholics who have gone through divorce?  Where does it end?

That seems all well and good, Lucy.  But for a few things.  The drafted rules did not require that ALL people must pay for sterilization, contraception, etc.  It said that certain companies (those that hire a wide variety of religions) must provide a HC plan that covers these procedures (just as 90% of these Catholic affiliated organizations ALREADY DO).

Please be aware that the concept you are espousing (I should be able to do anything I wish as an owner of a corporation based on my own religious beliefs and morals) was EXACTLY the argument many business owners tried to make in exercising their perceived right to discriminate against blacks in their hiring practices.  Luckily, this “right” was found to have some limitations.

So a balance must be struck here.  It does harm to (particularly poor) women to force them to buy their own contraceptives or pay for their own tubal ligation surgery when they wish to stop having more children.  If you hire people from multiple religions or backgrounds, since when do you have the right to impose your own version of religious belifs on them? 

There IS a religon exclusion to the rules already in place for things like churches and other religiously exclusive employment workplaces.  This is a different thing. 

Furthermore, if you extend the exclusion to simply those entities who have religous “affiliations” why stop there?  What happens when a single employer starts denying HC coverage to “infidels” as a group based upon religious beliefs?  Under your philosophy and sense of outrage, why should that owner not be allowed to exercise this under the First Amendment?  Would you defend him as adamantly?