Rant: Birth Control & Insurance

So usually I don't get into this sort of thing in my blog, but I'm just all steamed up about the issue of requiring birth control from religious institutions. If you're rolling your eyes and going, "Oh brother," keep reading. I might actually surprise you with the twist this blog will take.

I used to be a hard-core Catholic. Having been one, I tend to get really bothered when I hear things like "people should stop forcing their religion on others by pushing for anti-abortion laws. Separation of Church and State." Those comments always upset me because those individuals fail to realize that for the anti-abortion crowd, the goal is not to oppress woman (as I have often heard said), the goal is to defend life against murder. Just because you don't believe it's murder, doesn't mean it's acceptable for someone who thinks it is to sit by in silence. It isn't. From their moral perspective, that would be terrible.

Given my stance on that issue, you might think that I would fully support the Catholic Bishops in fighting the legislation that demands that they provide coverage for birth control through their insurance policies. Well, I don't. Not even a little. Here's why:

1. Institutions do not have rights. Our government does not exist to protect or defend institutions (or corporations for that matter). Our government exists to defend people. Individuals. Since this law doesn't force anyone to use birth control against their will, it isn't limiting anyone's access to their own moral religious decision making.
2. You can't tell me that individuals who will now get contraception covered by their health insurance would not have gotten access to it in another way before, so I don't think not paying for it is doing anything to prevent the use of contraception. Some might argue that they are opposed to financially supporting birth control on a moral level. I have little pity for them on that since the money is taken out from the institution before it reaches them, so again, no individual is paying for this. The entity is paying, and it is neither moral or immoral. If you're questioning me on this, read St. Francis de Sales Catholic Controversy. He really understands how the Church is composed of indviduals who have their own morality, but who do not dictate the morality of the Church as a whole.
3. I bet there are Catholic and other religious institutions out there that already provide birth control through their insurance and have for years simply because it might have been a part of a standard policy and they didn't choose to have it removed. I wonder how many institutions this legislation actually changes anything for.

I do have one area of ambiguity on this issue though. Some forms of birth control are seen as abortifacients because of the way they work to prevent pregnancy. That's crossing the line into the murder debate for the group of people concerned in this case, and I do tend to think they shouldn't have to put money towards murder, but it's still gray area, especially because I'm not 100% convinced of the existence of so-called abortifacients, and I believe they are pretty rare.

So in general, I support the requirement for religious institutions to provide coverage of birth control to employees. Those employees have rights. The institutions do not.