‘Mandated’ ‘Funding’ of ‘Abortion’ ‘Drugs’

In the midst of all the chaos in our government, Sam Shore pointed out some happy news last week regarding women’s health:

On August 1, 2011, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) adopted additional Guidelines for Women’s Preventive Services — including well-woman visits, support for breastfeeding equipment, contraception, and domestic violence screening — that will be covered without cost sharing in new health plans starting in August 2012. The guidelines were recommended by the independent Institute of Medicine (IOM) and based on scientific evidence.

That sounds incredible. It’s about damn time they did this, right?!

Unless you’re the Illinois Family Institute… in which case you read that paragraph and saw it as an attack on everything you value.

Here’s the headline for the email alert they sent out:

Sounds freaky. Like HHS is going to shove a knife and a baby in the hands of every American just to see what we’ll do!

Their alert is full of wisdom… as is tradition.

Why should every American be forced to subsidize the destruction of human life through abortifacients especially when there is a more effective and surer way to avoid unwanted pregnancies — abstinence? Why should Americans have to pay for sexual risk-taking or irresponsible behavior?

Yeah, women who are married or in a committed relationship but not ready to have a child just yet! Why don’t you just tell your hormones go back to church where they belong?

But surely, HHS has no response for the claim they’re subsidizing abortifacient drugs, right?

Women will have access to all Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and patient education and counseling. These recommendations do not include abortifacient drugs.

Oh.

Hmph.

IFI loses that round. But apparently they know that because they address that issue directly:

These abortifacient drugs act to break down the lining of the uterus so that it is either unreceptive to implantation by a fertilized ovum or unable to sustain an implanted embryo — killing a newly conceived human being.

In other words, these drugs stop a baby from ever… becoming a baby… so HHS must be supporting the killing of… um… HUMAN BEINGS!

(If anyone’s looking for a job, I hear IFI is looking for a fact checker. They must have fired the last one a while back.)

They’re misleading you about the “abortion” thing. But what about when they point out that every health insurance plan covers these pseudo-abortion-drugs?

This means that every health insurance plan will be required to cover “emergency contraceptives” or “morning-after pills” such as Plan B.

Surely, HHS has no response for this, either… right?:

** Group health plans sponsored by certain religious employers, and group health insurance coverage in connection with such plans, are exempt from the requirement to cover contraceptive services. A religious employer is one that: (1) has the inculcation of religious values as its purpose; (2) primarily employs persons who share its religious tenets; (3) primarily serves persons who share its religious tenets; and (4) is a non-profit organization under Internal Revenue Code section 6033(a)(1) and section 6033(a)(3)(A)(i) or (iii). 45 C.F.R. §147.130(a)(1)(iv)(B). See the Federal Register Notice: Group Health Plans and Health Insurance Issuers Relating to Coverage of Preventive Services under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PDF – 108 KB)

Oh.

So there’s a religious exemption… and every health insurance plan doesn’t have to cover the contraception services.

Whatchu got now, IFI?

Media reports claim that the Obama administration has incorporated an amendment to the new regulations that permit religious institutions that provide health insurance coverage to exempt themselves from the contraceptive mandate. But if you don’t happen to work for a religious institution, you have no individual conscience rights.

Ahh… so if you work for a public institution, your religious label doesn’t grant you special treatment. Shocking, that.

IFI must know they have no argument because they jump to their last resort: excessive and unnecessary use of quotation marks.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently announced a new and onerous mandate which will force all health insurance policies to pay for free contraception without co-pays or co-insurance, including every “birth control” drug or device approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Birth control? Please. Obviously, HHS is just handing out baby-stabbin’ knives to anyone who asks.

We all know this can’t be historic. It’s only never been done before. And “appropriate“?! Hardly. This only impacts women who voluntarily choose to use the contraception methods… and that’s just uncalled for.

…

The sad thing is that some of the very women who will need to take advantage of these contraceptive services are the daughters of IFI members — they’re among the ones who know the least about safe sex and the most likely to be at risk of an unplanned pregnancy. As much as I’d love to see IFI patriarchs pledge that their families will never take advantage of these HHS services (if that option applies to them), that’d only hurt the women who need the services the most. And, unlike IFI, I want to see women get the help they need in those situations.

PJB863

That post has been up a week. It’s the one IFI posted today that is more bothersome. Laurie Higgins is back with her “best” screed yet. This time she names names of H.S. kids! http://illinoisfamily.org/news/contentview.asp?c=35365
Judith Bandsma

Stephen Colbert said it best: “A woman’s health care decisions should be a private matter between her priest and her husband”.
Rev. Ouabache

I really wish this stuff still surprised me but it doesn’t anymore. I knew as soon as the HHS put out their report that every single “pro-family” organization would be against it and Rep. Steve King would say something stupid on the floor of Congress about it. The Religious Right is getting so predictable.
Pickle

I was training to be a pharmacy technician a few years back (but have since decided to do something else with my life) and one of the students in my class was a very religious person. She asked the instructor what should she do if she were put in a position to have fill prescriptions for birth control or morning after pills, etc… The instructor basically told her “find another line of work”. He was so awesome.
Not completely relevant to the conversation here, but the post reminded me of that story.
Pickle

I was training to be a pharmacy technician a few years back (but have since decided to do something else with my life) and one of the students in my class was a very religious person. She asked the instructor what should she do if she were put in a position to have fill prescriptions for birth control or morning after pills, etc… The instructor basically told her “find another line of work”. He was so awesome.
Not completely relevant to the conversation here, but the post reminded me of that story.
altarego

“more effective and surer way to avoid unwanted pregnancies…”Redundant statement is redundant. Jackasses.
Rich Wilson

It’s worth googling for some of Rigby’s other writing.
Anonymous

Oh yes, railing against “Gender Identity Disorder” is right at the top of their insidious agenda. Fortunately, the next version of the DSM will likely and rightly rename this as “Gender Dysphoria,” removing the dreaded and misunderstood “disorder” from the name. I’m ashamed to have been born in Illinois, thanks to these people.
Saraheconley

This post was delightful to read. The IFI is being so utterly ridiculous that it’s very amusing. I don’t think many people will take their spin on this seriously. Also, how great is it that those women’s health services will be covered? Thanks for improving my mood.
PJB863

rlrose328, don’t be ashamed. Illinois was the first state in the U.S. to abolish its sodomy law (which outlawed sex between members of the same gender). That was 50 years ago – years before any other state followed suit. It’s a fairly progressive state.
Rieux

These abortifacient drugs act to break down the lining of the uterus so that it is either unreceptive to implantation by a fertilized ovum or unable to sustain an implanted embryo — killing a newly conceived human being.

In other words, these drugs stop a baby from ever… becoming a baby….

Uh—you’re begging the question, Hemant. These folks very obviously believe that “a fertilized ovum,” and (a fortiori) “an implanted embryo” are the same thing as “a baby.” They’re just taking their “life begins at conception” premise seriously.

You and I and (I expect) most other folks here think it’s a stupid premise, but it’s obviously not a matter of “fact checking,” as you pretend. If life does in fact begin at conception, then the oral contraceptives at issue do kill people, regardless of whether the feds call the drugs’ function “abortifacient.”

C’mon. Call the IFI’s position stupid if you’d like (I sure think it is), but your response on this point seems to me disingenuous.

This flavor of right-wingers don’t attack contraception because they’re factually mistaken about it; they attack contraception because they’re ideologically opposed to it. That’s a big difference, and it seems to me that the latter is worse.
Anonymous

IFI are nuts. I will never forgive them for going after my high school health teacher for teaching the female anatomy in, you know, health class. /rant
Tom

Sometimes I wonder if it’s challenging to deliberately avoid facts. Is it like playing dodgeball, with your intellect ducking and weaving as red rubber balls of reality come flying at it? Or is it more like slalom skiing, zipping across a hill at breakneck speed as you struggle to keep your path through narrow, arbitrarily placed gates?
MikeTheInfidel

“If life does in fact begin at conception…”

Only a meaningless definition of life. Life has been one continuous biochemical process ever since the first living thing arose on this planet. This is hardly being disingenuous. These people think a fertilized ovum should have the same legal rights as an adult human being. They’re *nuts*.
Rich Wilson

This isn’t very related, but I thought it was funny. NPR has a story about how some Evangelicals are actually giving up the idea of a literal Adam and Eve. I know! http://www.npr.org/2011/08/09/138957812/evangelicals-question-the-existence-of-adam-and-eve

Anyway, the quote at the very end is awesome: “Mohler and others say if other Protestants want to accommodate science, fine. But they shouldn’t be surprised if their faith unravels.”

I had to check out Albert Mohler to make sure he was one of the Literalists. He is.
ff42

I’ll probably be crucified here but here goes:

1) Person A participates in an enjoyable activity that involves risk.
2) If risk occurs then it is morally justified to force Persons B,C,D… to pay to ‘fix’ person A.

Is the above a universal principle applied to all persons at all times (with any activity)?
A Thinker

You are ethically correct.
Parse

So if I break my arm while rock climbing, should my health insurance pay for that? After all, it would be forcing persons B, C, D… to pay to fix me, as you put it.
Anonymous

I agree. I am from Illinois (Chicago) and there has been little that I have been deeply ashamed about regarding my home state. However, I think if you cut the state in half, the north would be the progressive section and the south would be the conservative evangelicals. During the last governor election, the creationist/fundie/anti woman/anti gay/anti health care was so very close on winning the electing because of the south of the state. Now if he would have won, I would have been deeply ashamed.
A Thinker

You made a mistake in your analogy. In your case A, B, C, and D all agreed to pool the risk in the event you break your arm.
What this law does it require that people who *don’t* want to pool that kind of risk (and therefore get a lower rate) are not able to opt-out.
See also http://www.juliansanchez.com/2011/08/05/insuring-birth-control/
A Thinker

Another thing: breaking your arm is an unpredictable cost that you could insure against.
Birth control is a predictable cost that one should be purchasing.
Rich Wilson

What does predictability have to do with anything? People with diabetes are predicted to need insulin. What really puts this snit about birth control in perspective is the fact that nobody complains when Insurance companies cover Viagra http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkfmSQK_OO4
Semipermeable

I don’t fully understand the magical difference between a gamete and a zygote as far as humanity. Zygotes can even be flushed from the body without women even knowing about them.

Eggs, flour and sugar are not yet cake, nor are eggs, flour and sugar in the same bowl cake.

Even if you begin with the assumption that the zygote is a full person, one person cannot take another’s body without their permission. You cannot take another person’s blood, organs, bone marrow without their permission even if you will die without it, heck, you can’t even take a dead person’s organs without their prior permission or that of the family member.
ff42

My analogy didn’t mention whether or not A,B,C,D did the insurance thing or not, but your point (no opt out – i.e., no freedom of association) was what I was eventually getting to.
A Thinker

What does predictability have to do with anything?
HAAHAHHAHAA. I couldn’t stop laughing when I heard this.
Do you have any idea how insurance works?
The idea is to spread *risk* around such that while it may pay out for one person it doesn’t pay out for most people. I strongly suggest you take a basic course in economics.

“”is the fact that nobody complains when Insurance companies cover Viagra””
I have no problems with this OR with insurance companies covering birth control.
I have a problem with either of these being REQUIRED to be covered (and without a co-pay to boot).

Don’t forget that if the non-poor women want birth control they could pay for it. If the poor want birth control we should cover it through regular help-the-needy govt. programs.
A Thinker

I was talking to parse, not you.

You are correct: it is ethically wrong of the government to require everyone else to cover your costs unless you are very needy and it is a very basic need.
Rich Wilson

There are a lot of things that we as a society have decided to force people to do or not do. No doubt some portion of the taxes that any of us pay fund things we disagree with very strongly. I know, if you’re a Libertarian any tax is unethical. I sometimes wonder how you guys manage to make it through 4-way-stops.

Personally I’d much rather pay a very small portion of someone’s birth control than a very small portion of someone’s abortion.
Erp

Have those against full coverage for birth control, considered that the overall costs could be less in such a program given that fewer unintended pregnancies may well result; pregnancies are expensive (even abortion is more expensive than birth control and many people finding themselves unintentionally pregnant will choose to continue the pregnancy). Are they willing to pay more for a program just to ensure that birth control is not free?
PJB863

I did the drive from the KY border to near DeKalb once. It was amazing. Once you got to Bloomington, it was IL, otherwise, you may as well have been in MS. Prior to getting to Bloomington, there were food pantries. North of Bloomington, there were grocery stores. Southern IL is beautiful country, but it is squalidly poor.
A Thinker

“There are a lot of things that we as a society have decided to force
people to do or not do.”

Understood. This is not a good use of that as it just raises rates for everyone with negative benefit.

“No doubt some portion of the taxes that any of
us pay fund things we disagree with very strongly.”
Agreed but I fail to see how this is relevant. I support the right of non-poor women to purchase birth control. (Lets leave the poor to the side for now, as they don’t have health insurance)

“” I know, if you’re a
Libertarian any tax is unethical. “”
Straw man and you know it.
Taxes for the *public good* (such as roads, schools, etc) are a good thing. Taxes to support something that people *should* be purchasing on their own are bad.

“”I sometimes wonder how you guys
manage to make it through 4-way-stops.””
Straw man and you know it.

“”Personally I’d much rather
pay a very small portion of someone’s birth control than a very small
portion of someone’s abortion.””
So? Go ahead and pay for that small portion of someone’s birth control.
Keep in mind that the women is fully capable of purchasing this on her own. The government’s job is not to subsidize such things for the non-poor.

Now for the poor… they should be helped, and I’d even support giving her both control pills, but NOT via the *insurance company*.
Rich Wilson

“The idea is to spread *risk* around such that while it may pay out for one person it doesn’t pay out for most people.”
The idea behind insurance is for the insurance company to make a profit. I jest slightly, but it’s a lot more complicated than the idealistic spreading risk. Another real world example is vision insurance. I am required by my employer to have it. It doesn’t come directly out of my pocket, but since you know about economics, I’m sure you’ll understand that whether my employer pays for it on my behalf, or I’m required to pay for it out of my pocket makes little difference. It works out for me since I need glasses, and this way I get a new pair every two years whether I need it or not. It’s not so great for all my co-workers who are paying for my glasses.

I agree that somewhere between insulin and band-aids is an efficiency line. What I strongly suspect is that it’s a lot more cost effective to cover birth control than not to. But it’s hard to really know because enough people freak out about being *forced* to pay for someone else’s birth control. If this were a rational discussion, then we’d be talking about being forced to pay for almost half the world’s military, or every congressperson’s pet pork project, or capital punishment. But instead birth control has some kind of magic moral status that makes it completely unethical to *force* anyone to pay for it.
Rich Wilson

“Now for the poor… they should be helped, and I’d even support giving her both control pills, but NOT via the *insurance company*.”

Agreed. Universal health care. 🙂

“Taxes for the *public good* (such as roads, schools, etc) are a good thing. Taxes to support something that people *should* be purchasing on their own are bad.”

I think there’s a big overlap between *public good* and *should*. Schools could be considered a *should*. And parks and libraries could certainly be funded by a direct use charge.
A Thinker

Agreed. Universal health care. 🙂

In principle yes. In the current practice no. This is a debate hashed out so many times in so many places it is not worthwhile to repeat here.

I think there’s a big overlap between *public good* and *should*.
My definition of a public good (and this is an off-the-cuff remark at 3 in the morning) is one which should happen, but where the individual wouldn’t or couldn’t do it on their own.

Roads – No one person is capable (nor needs to) build them.
Schools – in principle fine, but the current schooling system actually hurts education.

Someone’s contraception – oh wait, that misses the mark
A Thinker

[ skipping some content because I’m too tired to reply right now ]
If this were a rational discussion, then we’d be talking about being
forced to pay for almost half the world’s military, or every
congressperson’s pet pork project, or capital punishment.

Agreed, but it would be off topic. This topic birth control

But instead
birth control has some kind of magic moral status that makes it
completely unethical to *force* anyone to pay for it.

Wrong. Birth control is just like everything else you mentioned – it just happened to be on topic
Parse

If that’s the case, then I’d like to lower my rates, by opting out of the risk-pool of the people who do Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. One of my co-workers does this, and he’s got a pile of horror stories about injuries received – both his own and those of other people. Or maybe I’d like to opt out of the risk-pool of those who smoke; why should I have to pay towards their lung cancer treatments? Or since I’m a guy, I’d like to opt out of the cervical cancer risk pool – there’s certainly no risk of me getting that. And since I don’t have diabetes, I’d like my health insurance to not cover insulin. The non-poor diabetics can budget for it, if they want it, and the very needy diabetics can be covered on regular ‘help-the-needy’ government programs. After all, it is a predictable cost that one should be purchasing.

In any case, you do have the right to free association, and to opt out. Become one of the forty to fifty million Americans without health insurance. That way, you won’t have to pay for anybody else’s birth control, or diabetes, or lung cancer, or any other disease that you don’t anticipate falling into the risk pool of. The choice is yours; you just need to be willing to accept the full set of consequences, both positive and negative.
Drew M.

I almost regret reading that tripe. If nothing else, for the outstanding example of quoting mining and lying by omission that people of Higgins’ ilk are so fond of.

She said this:

According to research, the kids who are most frequently bullied are
obese kids, and not one was included on the task force. In addition,
I’ve never heard a single expert advocate the celebration and
affirmation of obesity as a means to eradicating the bullying of obese
students.

And if you look back at her original quote of the Anti Bullying Act, it looks like she made a valid point:

Bullying on the basis of actual or perceived race, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, physical or mental disability, military status, sexual orientation, gender-related identity or expression….

I skimmed the actual text of the Act and saw that she left out a key portion (emphasis mine):

unfavorable discharge from military service, association with
a person or group with one or more of the aforementioned actual
or perceived characteristics, or any other distinguishing
characteristic…

I’m willing to bet that part right there covers fat kids.
Anonymous

It’s a lot cheaper for the health system to pay for contraceptives or even abortion than for a child. The return of investment (in saved money) is three or four-fold
Emily Joyce

If you’re trying this hard to be a victim, IFI, maybe…you’re not.
Rich Wilson

Is the topic the economics of insurance companies covering birth control, or the ethics of murdering zygotes?
Rich Wilson

Although you should factor in the benefit to the insurance company of having a new customer. Although new customers are usually planned for.
Anonymous

Sounds like your friend Laurie at IFI, who we all have gathered is the only employee at IFI, must have a bent so bad that she’s making up her own facts based on her own opinions.
seashell

Oral Contraceptives do not “kill” “people” even according to the RW definitions of kill and people – Oral contraceptives use hormones to prevent eggs from being released from the ovaries. Emergency contraception is like extra-strenght hormones to prevent any eggs from being released – but will fail if an egg has already been released. Abortificant like RU-486 does break down the lining of the uterus and will “kill” the ball of cells attached to it. But again, abortificants aren’t included.
A Thinker

If this is true let the insurance companies decide that.
A Thinker

If this is true let the insurance companies decide that.
A Thinker

My point was that you knew or should have known that my argument had nothing to do with your straw man that “…birth control has some kind of magic…” .
I expect these types of arguments on a religious forum. I do not expect them from people who claim to be rational.
Rieux

Even if you begin with the assumption that the zygote is a full person, one person cannot take another’s body without their permission. You cannot take another person’s blood, organs, bone marrow without their permission even if you will die without it

Of course “you” can do any of those things. They just constitute crimes and/or torts in most if not all legal jurisdictions.

Look, that’s a perfectly fair point about the uselessness of pretending that “life” (or, if MikeTheInfidel prefers, the particular life of an individual human being who therefore has legal and ethical standing) “begins at conception.” It’s not a flaw in the particular argument Hemant is criticizing here, though.
Rieux

So the assertion that the specific drugs at issue “act to break down the lining of the uterus so that it is either unreceptive to implantation by a fertilized ovum or unable to sustain an implanted embryo” is factually false?

If it is false, then fine—but that’s not the point Hemant is making. He (like me) took it as a given that the drugs in question had the listed effects on the uterine lining.

If they do, the right-wingers’ logic (based on their severely dubious premises about what’s a “person”; I’m not convinced there’s anything quite so questionable about their use of “kill” in this context) is sound. If they don’t, Hemant’s criticism is still beside the point.
Bobby

When you get down to the bottom of it, no living being has any greater worth than any other. Just because humans are more intelligent and seem to have greater worth than termites does not mean that the termite has less worth than the human. One must remember that we are a speck in this universe, and that we are all essentially unimportant and inconsequential. That being said, if one does ascribe to the belief, and I assure you, I do, that in all probability there is no god/gods, then you also ascribe to this belief. It is a bias towards one’s own species to think otherwise. So, if one believes that human life is sacred, for lack of a better word, than all other life is equally sacred. This being the case, one would have to support equal rights for the fertilized ovum as well, if life does in fact begin at conception. It is the only way to remain rational.
Gordon

Given that the Catholic Church seem to have removed the option to leave “officially” I’ve been thinking someone needs to set up a paypal widget somewhere that (a)funds abortions and (b) sends a confirmation message to the Vatican allowing the donor to receive their automatic excommunication.
Advocate of Freedom

I think you guys are missing the point entirely. This law mandates that all private health plans cover a particular category of drugs and procedures (ie contraceptives and sterilizations). For certain Americans it is not just that they can not use these drugs and undergo these procedures, but they also commit a moral transgression when they condone the use of such drugs and procedures. Paying for health insurance plans (or receiving health insurance as a benefit of employment) which cover these drugs and procedures is equivalent to condoning them. This mandate doesn’t allow any part of the private insurance market to offer a health insurance plan which does not cover contraceptives and sterilizations. The inability of a private citizen to opt out for religious reasons is the issue.

It doesn’t matter whether or not a religious persons beliefs are rational to you or not. What matters is that a government mandate is preventing these religious people from practicing their belief, because the new health care law makes every citizen buy insurance and now every insurance plan has to cover contraceptives and sterilizations and therefore when the individual pays for the health care premium he has participated in the use of contraceptives by helping to pay for someone else to use this immoral object. Thus the individual has been denied the freedom to follow the tenets of his faith.

Some tried to argue that the law allows for a religious exception. This is not true. The exception only applies to religious employers. Look at the definition provided for religious employers:
A religious employer is one that: (1) has the inculcation of religious values as its purpose; (2) primarily employs persons who share its religious tenets; (3) primarily serves persons who share its religious tenets; and (4) is a non-profit organization under Internal Revenue

This definition in and of itself is against the law because it is so discriminatory. That aside, this exemption only covers religious employers not religious citizens, all of whom are now forced to buy healthcare insurance. In a nutshell this mandate negates the first amendment of the United States Constitution, such that a US citizen has the right to practice his religious faith freely and without impediment.

The real problem with the author’s thinking, as well as those who agree with him is that you are allowing your strongly held beliefs to justify taking away the rights of others. When the law supports your belief system, it is a challenge to force yourself to think clearly enough to realize the slippery slope that you are advocating. Taking away the rights of others by force, forcing your will your belief system on them, removing free will from citizens in matters of religion, speech, press, and assembly are all examples of what totalitarian dictatorship do. Is this what you really want this country to become? You all need to be honest with yourselves and think clearly about what you are advocating. Read your Constitution. Read History. Otherwise, you risk losing your own freedom.
Judith Bandsma

I think you need to read your facts about the birth control pill. Rather than ‘breaking down the lining of the uterus so that it can’t support a fertilized ovum’, the birth control pill suppresses ovulation. No egg is produced to be fertilized so nothing is dying except the sperm that had a nice swim but couldn’t find shore.

Add that to the FACT that the diaphram birth control, a barrier method, still has to be fitted by a doctor and a prescription written for it to be obtained. Or are we now to understand that barrier methods are ‘abortifacients’?

When the religious stop lying about physical processes, maybe it would be easier to see any FACTUAL point they may have.

Oh yes, most employer supplied insurance, and private insurance, for that matter, DO allow you to opt out of different modalities and have for at least 25 years. Too old for child bearing? Not about to go IVF in order to have kids? You can say you don’t need maternity or reproductive benefits. We did…30 years ago (my husband’s company at the time was very progressive in that area) because I had had a tubal ligation 5 years before that. What we have now for him (I finally have Medicare, being ineligible for private insurance at a rate anyone less than Bill Gates could afford) is the very most basic of insurance with the options to purchase other benefits such as disability, catastrophic, cancer coverage, and yes, maternity and reproductive if we needed it.

So how about reading some facts for a change and not just accepting what comes out of the pulpit?