Mormons<\/a> came in and objected to that. It is exactly the same situation.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\nExcept that that\u2019s not how insurance works. No one is requiring Wieland to hand his daughters birth control, or to keep a stock of birth control on the kitchen table for easy access. What the law says is simply this: health insurance companies must cover birth control with no deductible or copay. That\u2019s it. Yes, Wieland has his daughters\u2019 on his health insurance plan. His wife is on it too, so she, too, has access to birth control as well. It\u2019s about ensuring that insurance companies cover women\u2019s healthcare, period.<\/p>\n
Look, health insurance companies cover blood transfusions. I suspect they\u2019re required to by law, too. Could a Jehovah\u2019s Witness parent object, because his adult son might get a blood transfusion should he ever be in need of one? Applying Wieland\u2019s logic leads to a mess. I mean by his logic, parents\u00a0should be able to pick and choose through their children\u2019s health insurance and pick and choose which things their\u00a0children can\u00a0have covered, provided they can make a religious justification and completely irregardless of their adult children\u2019s religious beliefs.<\/p>\n
Now of course, the fact that Wieland\u2019s daughters can<\/em> get birth control on their parents\u2019 plan doesn\u2019t mean they have to<\/em>\u00a0get birth control.\u00a0And if they share their parents beliefs on the subject, they won\u2019t. But Wieland is concerned that they might not share his beliefs.<\/p>\nOne of the judges pointed out that parents might have more control over their kids than employers, and that parents could just say to their kids, \u201cWe expect you do abide by our religious tenets.\u201d Belz replied, \u201cWell, we all have high hopes for our kids, that is true. We all expect and want them to obey us, they don\u2019t always \u2026\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
These girls are 18 and 19. They\u2019re not children, they\u2019re adults.<\/p>\n
There are two ways to look at this. We could say that Wieland is trying to prevent his adult daughters from having access to affordable birth control, and we would be correct. But Wieland\u2019s legal claim is slightly different. Wieland says that paying for his daughters birth control would violate his religious beliefs. In other words, he says this is about his<\/em> beliefs and his<\/em> conscience, not about whether or not his daughters are using birth control. But again, this isn\u2019t how insurance works<\/em>. It wasn\u2019t in the Hobby Lobby case, and it isn\u2019t here. Unfortunately, Hobby Lobby won its case, suggesting that the Supreme Court thinks this is<\/em> the way insurance works.<\/p>\nNow, Wieland could simply drop his daughters from his plan, and maybe we should be grateful for them that he\u2019s not going that route. Wieland is arguing that his religion requires him to provide healthcare for his daughters. The problem is that he\u2019s using this argument to prove that the law requiring birth control coverage violates his religious beliefs.<\/p>\n
The Wielands have argued in their brief that providing health coverage to their daughters \u2013 which, thanks to the same Affordable Care Act, they can do until their children turn 26 \u2013 is also part of their religious beliefs. \u201cThe Plaintiffs cannot terminate their daughters\u2019 health insurance coverage without violating their religious duty to provide for the health and well being of their children,\u201d they wrote in one brief.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I think it\u2019s awesome that Wieland believes he should continue to pay for his daughters\u2019 health and well being through providing them with healthcare. It would be even more awesome if that belief extended to all of women\u2019s health care.\u00a0The problem is Wieland\u2019s view of birth control. You would think that a parent in his shoes might want his daughters to abstain from premarital sex, but also want them to have access to birth control should\u00a0they decide to have sex anyway (after all, a parent cannot prevent an adult daughter from having sex). But no.<\/p>\n
Christians who oppose sex before marriage tend to feel that access to birth control increases the likelihood that young people will have sex. This is probably not all that true for young people who are already taught that sex before marriage is sinful. After all, if you belief something is sinful and may send you to hell, whether or not you are protected against STDs or pregnancy is the less important worry. Christians who oppose sex before marriage also tend to believe\u00a0that having unprotected sex is less sinful than having protected sex. This is\u00a0because using birth control shows that the sex is premeditated. You can see this last point illustrated in this short video clip:<\/p>\n
![\"paul-wieland-e1376936057558\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/166\/2014\/09\/paul-wieland-e1376936057558.jpg\")
<\/a>One Missouri lawmaker has taken the fight against birth control coverage to a new and very personal place: His own daughters, two of whom are adults.<\/p>\n