Whose Birth Control is it, Anyway?

So who is or is not going to pay for contraception under Obamacare? And this is a religious question?

The truth of the matter is that even though the United States has promised religious freedom from the very start, they have not done a very good job, historically, of delivering on this promise.

I am happy there are folks still fighting for religious freedom, even though their website is a year old and I think that most of what I peeked at is more oriented at public religious freedom. There is a clear designation between public and private religion. I have little use for public religion. Public religion consists of the well-orchestrated photographic opportunities of presidents and their families sitting in their pew at church. It consists of all of those who worship to be seen, whether they are showing off designer clothes or trying to grow professional practices by networking. I actually remember my Mother-of-Blessed-Memory telling me I had to partake in such things. These are practices that, if they are not hypocrisy themselves, surely invite hypocrisy. The private religion that stays inside your head is immune, or virtually immune, to hypocrisy. What you believe when you look yourself in the mirror is real, and more likely to remain so. For this reason I have little faith in institutional beliefs. I always have a little trouble accepting “all Catholics believe” or “all Jews believe,” because I know people who claim to be Catholic but believe in abortion. And me, I am more Jewish than most but think dietary laws were developed for hygiene and my religious beliefs are not located in my digestive system. Now, let’s take things just one step further.

A person would have to pay for his or her religious beliefs in a tangible, material manner — by paying for someone else’s beliefs for or against contraception. America can waste its legal minds and concentration, while perfectly viable adults die at war, deciding not just about whether contraception is right or wrong, but about who pays for who else’s contraception on some higher level.

These decisions should be individual. Contraception does not seem to be that hard to get. I mean, I have completely indigent patients who seem to be able to obtain it from those lovable folks, blessed may they be, at Planned Parenthood. As with any public religion that pays for stuff — most particularly, that “hyper-public” religion — the problem is not the reality, but the apparition of the reality. Hobby Lobby sounds like they don’t want it to “look” like they are paying for contraception. The pills themselves, and most other methods, have so many damned generics the actual cost is pretty negligible.

Why not give people some kind of discretionary control so they can pay for what they believe in. This would protect the religious freedom of those who believe in an amulet from Calvin the tree God to prevent pregnancy. This would be possible if America really protected religious freedom. But I am pretty sure America is not doing much of this.