Old white men in funny hats shouldn't be allowed to make decisions about all women's bodies.
At Pembroke College in Oxford, where I'm studying this year, a meeting of nearly 50 students passed a motion providing for women to be reimbursed for Plan B emergency contraception (EC) if they need to purchase it when the college nurse isn't available to give it out. This service is almost taken for granted at Oxford. There, women can anonymously, safely and easily receive EC simply by texting one of the college's welfare representatives, and if you're not a university student, the National Health Service covers EC for free.
Meanwhile in the New World - which isn't so new on this issue - reasonable Americans are being beaten down by an army of sexually repressed men who know nothing about birth control or women's bodies and probably even less about sex. The uber?conservative Catholic bishops are ignoring findings by the Guttmacher Institute, a non?partisan sexual health research organization, that 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women use birth control. The bishops, who used to lead their congregations to the political and social left, are now more actively asserting Catholic restrictions on all women's access to the care they need. Women's bodies have become political battlegrounds.
In his Feb. 11 column for the New York Times, cleverly titled "Pelvic Politics," Nick Kristof writes that birth control is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to keep a family afloat, especially in these dire economic times. Babies are expensive. (Guttmacher claims that 30 percent of American women 18?34 are unable to afford basic health services, and countless more are riskily putting off gynecological visits.) For many American women, birth control has become a luxury they can barely afford.
This should make the President's new rule requiring insurers to provide birth control in the employer?sponsored plans a welcomed change for women, their partners and their families, given that, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, married women are twice as likely to use contraception as unmarried women. Even though there are exceptions so broad that the Popemobile could drive through them - religious institutions are exempt - Catholic bishops have turned this into a 21st?century crusade against women under the guise of religious freedom. At issue is the very small number of women, many of whom are not Catholic, who work for religiously affiliated organizations, like hospitals and universities and who rely on preventative family planning care.
The Crusaders speciously argue that the new rule violates their freedom of speech and their First Amendment rights. Anyone who knows anything about the Constitution knows that this isn't true. The bishops are merely using their interpretation of the First Amendment to protect themselves from having to shame their female congregants, an overwhelming number of whom have already ignored the admonition against birth control. Furthermore, the rule does not require Catholics to take birth control. Just because a service is covered under an insurance plan does not mean that it is being promoted or that anyone must use it.
Rather, according to David Boies, famous for representing former Vice President Al Gore in Bush v. Gore (2000) and now the plaintiffs in the Prop. 8 trial, the issue is a simple one of labor and employment law. Requiring employers - religious or otherwise - to provide birth control in their insurance plans is really the same as requiring employers to abide by minimum wage and child labor laws.
The President's new decision to put the onus on insurance companies to fund birth control would enable women to get the services they need regardless of where they work, while at the same time allowing the Catholic Church to practice its archaic beliefs. But even this isn't enough to appease the out?of?touch bishops. The Archbishop of Washington likened putting the onus on insurance companies to a school being required to tell children where to find porn, which is only marginally better than the school being required to give porn out for free.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and defender of pedophilic priests, called the measure "un?American," and said that Americans are worried: "If this, what next?" Really? This shows just how out of touch the Catholic Church is. Americans are not worried about what would happen if the 98 percent of sexually active women who take birth control could get it without co?pay. They are worried about jobs, the economy, paying their bills and putting food on the table, all of which would be easier without paying for expensive birth control. The Catholic Church needs to join the 21st century. (A necessarily impossible challenge, I know.)
Freedom of religion is important and, evidently, some religious leaders are earnestly offended. But we cannot let a powerful few infringe on the rights of the many. In England, 26 Anglican bishops don their gaudy vestments, take their seats in the House of Lords and preach the moral conscience of the United Kingdom. They recognize, though, that fighting against birth control is a losing battle and have given up.
It's time for Catholic bishops in America to do the same and for the American people to stop taking advice about birth control from people who think that AIDS is a bad disease but that condoms are far worse.
