HHS doesn’t speak for me, or many women

By Helen Alvare
May 22, 2012

Excerpt:
More than a few women in my new e-mail community have taken note of some blatantly anti-woman aspects of the HHS proposal:

— First, while the mandate covers contraception, abortion-inducing drugs and surgical sterilization for women, it covers none for men. In other words, the government is facilitating only women’s ingesting chemicals (which the government’s own data indicate have some proven harmful side effects) and is placing the burden of pregnancy prevention entirely on women.

— Second, HHS is further suggesting that rather than allowing female employees of religious institutions to seek contraceptive coverage, a government-approved entity will simply provide it to them and all their female beneficiaries (minors included) “automatically” — and without any co-pay to tip off minors’ parents. This isn’t freedom. This is coercion, along with the undermining of parents’ duties and rights respecting their children.

— Third, if the entire rationale for the mandate is to end “unintended pregnancies,” and the government succeeds with this mandate, what would stop it from imposing abortion insurance on us all under the same rationale? This is particularly scary given that women generally oppose abortion more strongly than men, and suffer disproportionately from it.

Tens of thousands of thoughtful women are wondering why — at a time of national economic crises, and with contraception as cheap and widely available as it is — the government has chosen to pick a fight with the religious institutions employing and serving the most vulnerable people in the country, and is doing so under the banner of women’s rights. the rest