CALENDAR OF SCHEDULED EVENTS (I didn't kow quite where to place this, so here it is. Ed.)
Contraception coverage under “Obamacare” in danger Under the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, insurers were required to provide coverage for contraceptive care. In early August, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) accepted recommendations from the Institute of Medicine to require that health insurance plans cover contraception, with no co-payments or deductibles. NOW was dismayed that HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius included a so-called 'conscience' clause -- as if an institution could have a conscience -- permitting certain religious employers like churches to exclude birth control from their employees' health insurance. July 10: tabling at Gay Pride in the Plaza August 13: tabling at Day with Creative Women, Mission Plaza August 27: Celebrate Women's Equality Day with a potluck, call 805.544.4331 for information October 10: Gala Celebration 100 Years of Women Voting in CA, Dallidet Adobe
Now, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) are lobbying the administration to expand that religious exemption to allow a broad range of religiously affiliated organizations, such as colleges and hospitals, to take contraception coverage away from women who rely on them for health insurance. This proposed provision violates individual women's rights to privacy and religious freedom, and denies women the equal protection of the laws. Far from being expanded, as the bishops demand, the clause should be removed entirely from the HHS regulation. NOW calls on the president to remove the exemption altogether.
Most worrisome is the self- satisfied comment of Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who, after meeting privately with Obama last week, is reported to have "found the president of the United States to be very open to the sensitivities of the Catholic community." But the fact is that the archbishop's notion of the Catholic community's "sensitivities" is wildly out of step with most Catholic women. In this country, according to the Guttmacher Institute, about 99 percent of sexually-experienced people have used birth control, including Catholic women at 98 percent. A recent Hart Research Survey indicated that, "Americans, including Catholic Americans, resoundingly support the women's preventative coverage benefit. 71 percent of voters, including 77 percent of Catholic women voters, in fact, support the requirement that health plans cover contraception at no-cost."
Even if this inconvenient truth were otherwise, the USCCB has no business trying to force its extremist ideology on the women of the United States. Birth control is not only universally used in this country, it is a fundamental and constitutionally-protected right that no one -- neither religious zealots nor politicians nor government agencies -- may legitimately infringe.
Regrettably, HHS regulations already include a sweeping refusal clause allowing a broad swath of religious organizations to withhold coverage for needed contraception from their women employees. This clause should be eliminated, not expanded. It endangers the health and well- being of many women and their families, especially those with low to moderate incomes. For millions of women, contraception is crucial to family planning, allowing fewer unplanned pregnancies by letting women decide if and when they want to start a family and to appropriately space pregnancies. Yet this important health benefit could be lost for more than a million women and their families.
Moreover, there is nothing in the HHS regulations requiring organizations to dispense birth control, or an individual to take it. The regulations merely require employers to provide insurance coverage for contraception with no co-payment, just as they do a host of other preventive measures like mammograms, cervical cancer screenings and the like.
The thousands of women who work for Catholic and other religious and quasi-religious institutions, no less than other women, deserve access to affordable health insurance coverage of birth control. The administration should not override the sound medical advice from the Institute of Medicine about the reproductive health care needs of millions of women at the behest of religious extremists -- and let's be clear: When it comes to women's reproductive health care needs, the USCCB is out of touch and out of bounds.
The National Organization for Women urges the Administration to prioritize women's issues and to reject any and all refusal clauses and to approve final regulations that unconditionally support the full range of reproductive health care services for the women of this nation.