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In Iowa, all insurance companies have been required to offer all policy holders contraception for over 10 years. Now it seems to be a federal issue. In Iowa, we have a LOT of insurance companies and the lobby for them is obviously strong. While Republicans and Catholics take turns spitting at liberals and crying foul from secular attacks on religion, I think the arm up the puppet is, as always, money. I applaud the President and the idea of available contraception for anyone covered, regardless of faith. However, insurance companies are likely the real impetus for his crusade. They stand to save millions in delivery costs, not to mention the care for babies that require immediate, long term ICU care. Just a small percentage of overall births can cost insurance companies millions. It greatly behooves insurance companies to reduce the number of children, born in to their subscribers ranks. Lets face it. Catholics love big families and the Pope likes it that way. This should be a good fight. Its huge money vs. huge money. Insurance companies can claim to be on the side of woman’s rights and secular society (while hiding behind the skirt of the government), while the church and the conservatives can wave the constitution and beat the drum of the so called separation clause.
Its a win win for the secular community in my eyes. The Catholics will help marginalize all Christians, in the eye’s of people a bit more modern than Rick Santorum. It was a short sighted fight that is doomed to fail. At the same time, it casts a strong light on the Republican party, all to willing to be proud to take 3 steps backward for the “family values” folks they think will shoot them to the White House.
A brilliant move by Obama. Let them flounder over this scrap of detail while Americans watch the economy. Jobs, jobs, jobs howl the Republicans, as they are quickly distracted by this small shiny object that will explode in their face. They want a smaller, less intrusive government, yet spend more time discussing what to do about a woman’s womb or where a man should put his seed, every erection cycle…oops.. election.
Republicans are blind to the fact that 7billion people and growing on Earth is not sustainable for our species. It is reckless to put them in charge of family planning (domestically or internationally) . Don’t 90% pulse American Catholics use birth control? It is not surprising the Catholic church is shrinking in the US. The Bishops are way off base on birth control. Their stance to deny contraceptive coverage from their employees of their clinics and hospitals is pure arrogance.
Republicans are blind to the fact that 7billion people and growing on Earth is not sustainable for our species. It is reckless to put them in charge of family planning (domestically or internationally) . Don’t 90% pulse American Catholics use birth control? It is not surprising the Catholic church is shrinking in the US. The Bishops are way off base on birth control. Their stance to deny contraceptive coverage from their employees of their clinics and hospitals is pure arrogance.
Republicans love an overpopulated world. More cheap labor and more consumers. You can’t be in the 1% without 99 other folks to play along with. More Catholic babies= more Catholics. Easy math. It’s easy to see their motivation.
Funny how any group with all male leaders, get to make decisions about female reproduction. They seem to hold women in such low regard, as to not be capable of a leadership role. Catholics will always drag their feet the hardest when confronted with any progressive values. I can’t comprehend how a woman could be so subservient as to be a Catholic. If Bishops could get pregnant, this would be a non issue.
Another powerful industry lobby, pill pushers. The pubs aren’t going to have any friends left, they’re pissing everybody off being pulled by religion and pushed by Obama. The real issue is what Obama joked about a while back, if he’s for something, they’re against it, even though they were for it before they were against it, even if it was their idea to begin with.
The real issue is what Obama joked about a while back, if he’s for something, they’re against it, even though they were for it before they were against it, even if it was their idea to begin with.
Bingo!
It’s not about right or wrong, good or bad, truth or lies. Being Republican is easy, just oppose anything the Democrats propose, and any excuse will do.
The official Catholic position is that use of contraceptives is “intrinsically evil.” Why is that?
Dude, they had this thing nailed in 419, no need for revision here. Please don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean nailed in the way you might think I think I might mean nailed. Can we change the subject?
Augustine wrote in 419, “I am supposing, then, although you are not lying [with your wife] for the sake of procreating offspring, you are not for the sake of lust obstructing their procreation by an evil prayer or an evil deed. Those who do this, although they are called husband and wife, are not; nor do they retain any reality of marriage, but with a respectable name cover a shame. Sometimes this lustful cruelty, or cruel lust, comes to this, that they even procure poisons of sterility [oral contraceptives]” (Marriage and Concupiscence 1:15:17).
... I think the arm up the puppet is, as always, money….
Yep, although I think the bishops are worried about embarrassment when the widespread use of contraceptives by their Catholic employees becomes obvious.
In another post, I injected the notion that religious freedom is for individuals, not for organizations, into the debate. It might be interesting to work the Constitutional argument on this, i.e., that the Constitution guarantees religious freedom to individuals, not to organizations. Failing to provide contraceptive coverage to employees might be considered a detriment to employees’ religious freedom.
The official Catholic position is that use of contraceptives is “intrinsically evil.” Why is that?
Dude, they had this thing nailed in 419, no need for revision here. Please don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean nailed in the way you might think I think I might mean nailed. Can we change the subject?
Augustine wrote in 419, “I am supposing, then, although you are not lying [with your wife] for the sake of procreating offspring, you are not for the sake of lust obstructing their procreation by an evil prayer or an evil deed. Those who do this, although they are called husband and wife, are not; nor do they retain any reality of marriage, but with a respectable name cover a shame. Sometimes this lustful cruelty, or cruel lust, comes to this, that they even procure poisons of sterility [oral contraceptives]” (Marriage and Concupiscence 1:15:17).
Two references to evil there. I noticed there are a total of 7 references to evil on that page. Enjoy.
Thanks, I didn’t have those references.
Augustine had a real problem with his uncontrollable horniness. All of Western civilization has been flavored by the legacy of that. To be sure, this wasn’t a uniquely Christian thing. The Greeks and Jews both had strains of culture that were uncomfortable with anything physical or material as well (eg, Hypatia of Alexandria, the Essenes).
But why is an act of sexual congress between married people that has no potential to generate a child per se “evil”? I just can’t seem to track this notion of evil.
