I am so excited I am beside myself. I'm a long-time reproductive health advocate looking at politicians around the country lining up to make it harder for a woman to get birth control, to defund Planned Parenthood, and to set up demeaning and obstructive roadblocks for women seeking abortions. And yet I am positively giddy. Why?
I am giddy because I can see that change is a coming. Those who would turn back the clock to the days of the aspirin-between-the-knees method of birth control have gone too far. And women across the country have had enough.
Today, the Senate rejected the notion that your boss can decide that you shouldn't have health insurance for cancer screenings, or make you pay out of your pocket for your daughter's vaccinations. But how did such an extreme proposal like the Blunt amendment make its way to the Senate in the first place?
Two words: birth control. In 2012, almost 50 years after the Supreme Court first protected the right to contraception, and although virtually all women, of every religious background, use birth control at some point in their lives, some in Congress are leaving no stone unturned in an effort to roll back access to contraception.
By Sarah Lipton-Lubet, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Dena Sher, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 6:17pm
Yesterday's House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing on the new HHS rule that requires insurance plans to include birth control with no co-pay (except for those held by churches or religiously affiliated nonprofits like universities) has causedquite a stir. A few observations:
One thing is clear as the bickering on contraception continues — the Obama administration is standing up for women's rights in a big way. Unfortunately, that story has been overshadowed by an attempt to redefine the meaning of religious liberty in our country.
This great contraception debate has kept me up at night contemplating my own rights. Did I trade in my ability to make decisions about my own life when I enrolled at a Catholic law school? That was certainly not my intent. I took no oath, made no promises, and signed no document that said my attendance comes with a commitment to the tenets of Catholicism.
In the past several weeks, as a nation, we’ve been hit by an endless barrage of commentary on the new rule requiring insurance companies to cover contraception with no co-pay. Who would have thought that in 2012, contraception — something 98 percent of women use at some point in their lives — could set off such a firestorm?
Last week, the Obama administration offered a solution that we hope calms the embers.
Laura Murphy of our Washington Legislative Office appeared to discuss the Obama administration’s plan to retain a proposed rule that ensures new insurance plans cover contraception.
Earlier this week, Michael Gerson’s disregard for the health of women and their families appeared once again on the pages of the Washington Post.
The affront? The administration’s announcement that all new health insurance plans — except those held by churches and other houses of worship — will need to include coverage for birth control because it’s essential preventive health care for women.
