COMMENTARY | The Associated Press reports that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius denied the request from religious institutions to be exempt from the mandate requiring health care coverage of birth control. President Barack Obama announced the decision at a crucial time in his presidency, with the elections coming up, and it is just another blow to the Constitution under the new health care overhaul.
Under the new health care law, all insurance companies will be required to cover birth control and other preventative care for free, which means there will be no copay for birth control pills. Basically, the exemption denial means that any religious affiliation, such as a church-affiliated school, has to carry health care coverage on employees that cover birth control in the plan, which will make it free to women.
This is unconstitutional because of the fact that there is supposed to be separation between the church and state, and this is a total violation of that separation. Religious organizations are now going to be required to select health care plans that cover birth control in any form. As a non-religious woman, I even am angry that the government has chosen to ignore the separation of church and state, and it is a pure violation of our rights.
The biggest issue about this is that more employees will drop health care coverage, and pay a fine, because paying for birth control is a moral and ethical issue. I am not religious at all and do not have a problem with contraception, but forcing an organization to buy insurance that covers birth control is just plain wrong. If the church or religious organization in question does not believe in birth control, then it is the right of that organization to not buy into an insurance plan that covers birth control.
The argument is that it will make birth control and other preventative care more available for women, but women do not need health care coverage to get such care. There are free clinics all over the country and various Planned Parenthood centers, which will provide women with free birth control. This denial for religious organizations is pure hypocrisy, because the government does not want religion to interfere, but will interfere with religion at any cost. A church has the right to deny offering birth control the same way a woman has the right to deny using birth control.