Contraception is hardly a controversial subject, unless you bring select tenets of certain religions into the equation.
As almost all of us surely know by now, President Barack Obama has mandated that most American employers include free birth control services in health insurance packages for their employees. Undoubtedly, this was done as a means of reaching out to the pro-reproductive rights community, which has been less than flattered with the president’s record as of late.
While the lion’s share of public and private sector entities impacted by Obama’s mandate seem fine with its impositions, there are a few notable exceptions, and they are speaking up loudly. Chief amongst these is the Roman Catholic Church. In addition to being our country’s single largest organized religion, it runs a multitude of hospitals and educational institutions from coast to coast. According to recent polling data, virtually all Catholics use contraception themselves, but church teaching nonetheless forbids it for purely theological reasons.
Now the Church hierarchy wants the federal government to make a special exception for Catholic institutions; to shield them from the same standards that apply to everyone else. There are a few other religions pursuing similar courses of action, but the Catholic Church is by far the most aggressive and influential. The president has not yet budged in face of this criticism, which grows increasingly severe by the day. I personally hope that he opts against creating exclusive privileges for select groups simply because they have the ability to utilize a unique bully pulpit.
No sane man or woman can argue that the religious twist to this quagmire should be ignored. For fundamentalist Catholics, using birth control is a terrible sin of sorts, and no one has the right to force them to do something against their own will. However, this is the beautiful thing about life in a free country; as a consumer, you can pick and choose what you want and do not want. If hardline Catholics, or members of any other religious denomination for that matter, do not like contraceptives, then they should avoid them. Case closed.