Oh, no, sister Betty, you've opened another whole can of worms.
Where is the line-items for adoption services, free sonograms for pregnant women to view their pre-birth babies, for counseling about the dangers of abortion and breast cancer, abortion and depression?
Mind you, the government shouldn't be forcing these on anyone, either, but "women's services" are women's services. Goose/Gander and all that stuff. There truly is an imbalance there.
The bottom line with the new accomodation is that the church pays for a policy that still enables abortion and pre-abortion services. That is a violation of the 1st amendment.
An accomodation would be that the church can provide a perfectly satisfactory plan based on its beliefs.
Any additional coverage would be separately contracted by individuals on their own outside of that policy.
Indeed. And that "imbalance" speaks volumes about the entire point of the exercise: To inexorably discredit and efface the right to life of the pre-born as anything worthy of constitutional protection, in order to "liberate women" — for the "right" to abortion services is what is needed to make them "equal" to men. At least, that is the radical, "progressive" feminist view....
Evidently, radical feminists believe that Nature dealt women bad cards. Men can be as irresponsible with regard to their sexual behavior as they want to be, without having to pay much of a "price" (other than STDs or paternity suits). But when a woman is sexually irresponsible, there is a high degree of likelihood that she will conceive an actual child, and bear it in her womb for nine months; and then have to take care of it (with or without the help of its father) when it is born. The "level playing field" of male–female "equality" requires that this "injustice" RE: the "inequality" of responsibility as between the sexes for the unplanned-for child must be expunged. Which is readily achieved, through the "sacrament" of abortion....
[Of course, male–female bonding and the system of the natural human family has evolved to protect and nurture children as a shared responsibility of both mothers and fathers. But I gather any such old-fashioned notion as this is simply beneath the contempt of radical feminists....]
The radical feminist position utterly denies both Life and human nature. Nature intends human sexuality as the means of propagating new members of the human species. This is the "prime directive" of sex. [On this basis, I can only wonder what to call what gay folks do with each other: Since their acts can never produce progeny in principle, I strongly doubt that "sex" is the proper word for it.]
Of course, people have noticed that the sexual act is highly pleasurable in itself, quite apart from any intent to procreate. But on that score, can we not simply acknowledge that sexual intercourse is a "risky business?" And that when a person is engaged in risky business, they are the ones responsible for accepting the outcomes, even those not desired?
The only other alternative is to "socialize" the risks of irresponsible action by transferring their costs to policyholders and taxpayers. This can only guarantee more irresponsible actions by adults who ought to know better.
But it seems we can't have honest conversations about this subject anymore; the descriptive language — e.g., "women's health," "women's rights" — has been totally traduced by the political Left and (to me at least) is completely unintelligible. The language of public discourse these days is stuck in the mode of radical feminist progressivist ideological political correctness. As such, it has lost all contact with the actual reality in which people actually live and suffer....
I could go on; but I'll put a sock in it for now....
FWIW Thank you ever so much, dear brother in Christ, for your outstanding essay/post!