A House Republican lawmaker likened the implementation of a new mandate that insurers offer coverage for contraceptive services to Pearl Harbor and the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks against the United States.
Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Kelly (R), an ardent opponent of abortion rights, said that today's date would live in infamy alongside those two other historic occasions. Wednesday marked the day on which a controversial new requirement by the Department of Health and Human Services, which requires health insurance companies to cover contraceptive services for women, goes into effect.
"I know in your mind you can think of times when America was attacked. One is December 7th, that's Pearl Harbor day. The other is September 11th, and that's the day of the terrorist attack," Kelly said at a press conference on Capitol Hill. "I want you to remember August the 1st, 2012, the attack on our religious freedom. That is a day that will live in infamy, along with those other dates."
Republicans cried foul when the Obama administration first announced the new rule, reasoning that it would force employers with a religious affiliation to act in a way that contradicts their beliefs. The outcry included criticism from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and President Obama subsequently announced a compromise in which employers wouldn't be forced to offer insurance plans that cover contraception, but insurance companies would be required to offer coverage to women who wish to purchase it.
Republicans rejected the compromise, and subsequently attempted several times to advance legislation to reverse the mandate. The imbroglio contributed to Democratic charges of a GOP-led "war on women."
"This is a right that every American should be outraged, outraged about what this administration and Secretary Sibelius has set forth here on August the 1st," New York Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle (R) said at the same press conference as Kelly. "And as Mike said, August the 1st is a day that we as American will look at as the largest assault on our First Amendment rights."
Source
Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Kelly (R), an ardent opponent of abortion rights, said that today's date would live in infamy alongside those two other historic occasions. Wednesday marked the day on which a controversial new requirement by the Department of Health and Human Services, which requires health insurance companies to cover contraceptive services for women, goes into effect.
"I know in your mind you can think of times when America was attacked. One is December 7th, that's Pearl Harbor day. The other is September 11th, and that's the day of the terrorist attack," Kelly said at a press conference on Capitol Hill. "I want you to remember August the 1st, 2012, the attack on our religious freedom. That is a day that will live in infamy, along with those other dates."
Republicans cried foul when the Obama administration first announced the new rule, reasoning that it would force employers with a religious affiliation to act in a way that contradicts their beliefs. The outcry included criticism from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and President Obama subsequently announced a compromise in which employers wouldn't be forced to offer insurance plans that cover contraception, but insurance companies would be required to offer coverage to women who wish to purchase it.
Republicans rejected the compromise, and subsequently attempted several times to advance legislation to reverse the mandate. The imbroglio contributed to Democratic charges of a GOP-led "war on women."
"This is a right that every American should be outraged, outraged about what this administration and Secretary Sibelius has set forth here on August the 1st," New York Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle (R) said at the same press conference as Kelly. "And as Mike said, August the 1st is a day that we as American will look at as the largest assault on our First Amendment rights."
Source
Is there some link in his thinking that I'm missing? How is this an affront to freedom again? What assault on the populace? What tragedy?
What exactly, is the assault on their rights, religious or first amendment? No one's forcing them to use the pill. No one's forcing them to skip church to fill prescriptions.
fuck the GOP, man. ( or don't, because we know how they feel about your rights).
That's seriously the only argument i've heard, and i don't get it any more than you do. I think maybe they want to say that the church is 'paying' for the birth control, but i don't think so, unless part of the insurance is paid for by the employer.
What none of those churches seem to realize is that human beings are just not disciplined enough to remain abstinent. You cannot realistically be against abortion yet also against birth control...
Edited at 2012-08-02 04:32 am (UTC)
Christian propaganda centercrisis pregnancy center.)They think that abortion is murder, that hormonal birth control causes abortions (yeah, I know), and therefore the abortion is like the Holocaust.
No, really. They actually think this, or at least they try to sell it to their base. I've had arguments with people who have legit compared it to the Holocaust, and this is what they believe. That's how they argue that this is similar to 9/11 or Pearl Harbor, because it's, to them, mass murder. It's the most maddening thing, because you can't do anything to dissuade them of their belief when they believe something that mind-bogglingly stupid and offensive.
Their god seems pretty swift at causing abortions too.
Why now though? I thought the religious orgs got an exemption. Isn't it telling someone what to do with their money? WHat's to stop the jehovahs from banning transfusions for all? I mean, really?
Don't know how its a first amendment right being stomped on. But their religious rights end where mine begin. Eh. I'm just gonna go get a bucket for the imminent head explosion and be done with it
Thank you! They seem to conveniently forget that point a lot, it seems. Or maybe it just doesn't occur to them.
They don't have to think we're all their brand of Christian, they just have to think those of us who aren't are simply misguided souls.
AND if contraceptives have been around for decades why are they still stinking over it when it was something like 98% have used contraceptives anyway?
Because now they sense an opening? They've been chipping away at abortion rights since Roe v. Wade, I guess it was inevitable that once they saw that they could kill abortion rights that they'd move on to birth control.
My understanding is, the Bible contains explicit truths and implied truths. Explicit truths are what the Bible flat-out says, such as 'thou shalt not kill' or 'love thy neighbors as thyself'. Implied truths are what can be deduced from explicit truths. Anything else is left for human beings to figure out.
There is neither explicit truths nor implied truths about contraception, which means...guess what?
Fuck yourself with a shovel. This isn't an ~attack~ on anybody's anything; it's an important step in guaranteeing women equal access to health care. I will happily have my birthday remembered for that; it's a damn sight better than that fucking Chick-Fil-A support thing (which I'm still pissed off about, btw).
Edited at 2012-08-01 10:54 pm (UTC)
Edited at 2012-08-01 09:08 pm (UTC)
I'm also sick of this insane hyperbole. It demeans real tragedies like the Holocaust, 9/11 and, yes, Pearl Harbor. Icing in the the idiocy: nobody is forcing anyone to use birth control.
Get over your crap people.
Aside from being ridiculous in general, this statement is a *huge* slap in the face to everyone who lost family in the true tragedies of Pearl Harbor and 9/11.
Jesus.
Editing to add: I just read this to my kid. That would be my 17yr old son with Asperger's Syndrome, incidentally. His response? "That's bullshit, mom! What's he thinking?!"
When a kid can see how wrong it is? It's really, really wrong.
Edited at 2012-08-01 09:31 pm (UTC)
You have a right to your religious freedoms, no one's trampling on that. If anything, YOU are trampling on women's rights to make their own reproductive choices. YOU are shoving your beliefs on people. And yes, women are people and we represent roughly 50% of the voters. Even if a percentage are women who believe what you're saying and will continue to vote for you... that's still a lot of women you'd be pissing off. You might want to think about that.
Well, I would hope, anyway.
I love the irony of the anti-abortionists making it so much harder for people to avoid pregnancy. Can't teach sex ed in school, can't get birth control, lack of sex info resources... and they wonder why low income people have a higher rate of unplanned pregnancies. And then (most of) those same anti-sex ed people are also the ones who are so against assisting the low income, who proliferate, in part, because of a lack of sex education, ugh! How can they not see this?!
Easier access to birthcontrol = Less abortions! So simple.
Well, for those of us who have a brain and common sense, and use both of them it is *g*
I live in Kentucky. Sex ed in health class consists of "don't have sex". I actually asked my son if that was it, was he kidding with me? And he said nope, that was it.
Needless to say, I've spent a lot of time talking with my son, and with his friends, answering questions about sex (and anything even remotely related to it). I've driven kids to the local health center to get condoms; I've bought them for my son.
I'm at a loss to understand why so many people are so scared of something that's very natural and very normal, but it's like some -- the anti-sex ed folks, etc. -- are scared to death of anything to do with sex.
You probably knew that, but I had to rant. Sorry.
Sorry, PA has to be my neighbor...
I'm sick of listening to men and specifically straight white men tell women what they may and may not do with their bodies.
Mr. Kelly, I understand that you disapprove of taking birth control and also of abortions. That's just fine. BECAUSE YOU WILL NEVER HAVE TO MAKE THOSE DECISIONS. YOU ASSHOLE.
When someone holds you down and forces a condom onto your dick while giving you a birth control injection THEN you can come crying to me about how it feels to have someone else make decisions about your own body. Then you can start crying about being oppressed.
Until then, sit the fuck down and STFU.
And now some jackhole is all over my cousin's facebook status, all "It's not like Chick-Fil-A bans gays from eating in their stores!" and I think I'm going back in, so.
Priceless.
I read what you said, but my brain went to "forces a condom on you, dickhead" Then thought it'd be ironic for a pro-life, religious fanatic to get asphyxia from a condom.
-Militant Vegans*/Pro-Life activists
*-Not all Vegans are like this, obvs.