Today on Capitol Hill, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform assembled a panel to discuss the birth control mandate in President Obama's Affordable Care Act. The panel consisted of eight male anti-choice, anti-contraception religious leaders and one female anti-choice witness. None had health credentials.
The right wants to allow a boss or a corporation to claim “religious” or “conscience” reasons to roll back equal rights. As a native Alabamian, I am hearing some thundering hooves over some bridges at Selma. Religion and “conscience” and employers' and property owners’ rights were justifications for discriminating against black people in this country from the founding of the republic until the Civil Rights Act was passed. Now they are coming for you.
Catholics for Choice has been hearing a lot from Catholics who are indeed upset. An excerpt from just one of the letters we've received: "I will start paying more attention to the bishops’ position on birth control on the day a Catholic bishop becomes pregnant. Until then I’ll stand with the 97 percent of Catholic women who use or have used birth control."
For the past two years, the Etter Health Center at Shippensburg University, a small-town Pennsylvania school, has provided access to a vending machine that dispenses Plan B One-Step® (among other health products) to students at a cost of $25. While politicians and political elites continue to get their knickers in a twist over contraception, it is heartening to see some public health experts who just get it.
