1793- ACCESS DENIED?

As we close the week lets try and wrap up one of the major news stories.

This week the war raged over the Obama care mandate for religious institutions to provide free birth control to their employees.

Obviously the main objection to the rule came from the Catholic Church.

Those on the left [by the way- not all] tried to frame the debate around a woman’s right to have access to birth control.

The right said it was a freedom of religion- 1^st amendment argument.

Obama did an about face- to his surprise many of his own team were mad about what he did- and he supposedly ‘solved’ the problem by saying that the insurance companies must pay for it instead.

The Catholic Bishops conference in the U.S. - headed up by Archbishop Timothy Dolan [from N.Y. - soon to become a Cardinal] hesitated at first before they made a statement either accepting Obama’s compromise or rejecting it.

As of right now- they reject it.

Why?

Many Catholic institutions provide their own insurance- the so called compromise still has Catholics paying/providing for something that they believe is contrary to their faith.

I guess it would be good to cover why Catholics are against contraception.

Most Protestants [including me] have no problem with simple birth control practices.

We do have a problem with methods that basically abort the child after he/she is conceived.

But overall we are okay with the idea.

Catholics historically appeal to the very real mandate in scripture to ‘be fruitful and multiply’.

In Genesis chapters 1-2- you read how God created plants and animals and man- and they all have the ‘seed within themselves’ that is it is part of Gods purpose for things to reproduce.

Now- in the current debate those on the left have made some simple- and obvious contradictions.

They have argued that to give the conscience clause exception to the Catholics- that would be denying women ‘their right’ to health care.

They say it is an issue of access- that if you don’t do this women will not have proper access to the stuff.

Then at the same time they are saying ‘look- 99.9 % of all women use contraceptives’.

Okay- which one is it?

If just about every woman on the planet uses the stuff- then how can you argue that unless Catholic institutions offer it- then they are denying access?

Its seems pretty clear to me that most women that need it can get it.

Number 2- some political experts have said that the whole thing was planned- that the Democratic team was trying to change the debate from ‘a woman’s right to choose’ [abortion] to ‘those darn right wingers want to ban birth control’!

When I first heard this- I wasn’t too quick to jump on the bandwagon.

Dick Morris was the first to bring it up on Fox News.

But as the week progressed the idea grew legs.

It made it to the radio talk circuit and as of today many do think the whole thing was planned.

Why do I think there might be some truth to this?

Remember about a month ago when George Stephanopoulos hosted one of the debates.

He asked Romney a strange question- I mean even the audience booed.

He asked if a state has the right to ban birth control.

To be honest- the question seemed to catch everyone off guard.

Romney never fully answered it- but he did say that there is no one that he knows of that wants to do this- that there are no states pushing to ban birth control.

Then of course you had the present debate- which some on the left did indeed try to frame by saying ‘they want to rob you of your ‘right’ to birth control’.

Yea- I think Morris was right.

Now- if you can frame the argument- about anything- by convincing people that it’s ‘their right’.

Then sooner or later people will try to ‘access’ the right.

Let me give you an example.

A few years ago I caught a movie about some persons fight for Euthanasia [or as MSNBC says ‘youth in Asia’].

The show covered the struggle of some dying man and his fight for the ‘right to die’.

It was a true case that he fought all the way to the Supreme Court.

He finally won ‘hooray- no one can deny me this right- yippee!’

Then as the show concluded they admitted that as the year went by- the person kept getting worse- and you can imagine all his friends and fellow strugglers who fought with him to ‘win the right’.

Well- they kind of felt like ‘gee- when is he gonna pull the trigger’ after all- it’s his right.

The show ended by saying the disease progressed so fast that he didn’t have time to kill himself.

What?

I mean he grew rose over a year- there was plenty of time.

He realized that what happened in his case was he was surrounded by people- many good people- people who I’m sure meant well.

But his entire fight was something that he really did not want- something that in the end was no right at all- he got caught up in the political fight and when he won- like the dog who chased the car but didn’t know what to do with it when he caught it- yes this victim was not only a victim of his disease- but a victim of those who convinced him that this was his right.

As of today- women in this country have access to birth control.

It looks like the congress might actually pass a law that restricts Obama’s health law- that says the religious exemption clause must stand.

I’m glad that the issue rose up now- because it does give some time for the president and congress to do something.

But the fact is- according to those who advocate for no religious exemption- they themselves admit that 99.9% of all woman use the stuff.

This does not seem like a ‘no access’ issue to me.

www.corpuschristioutreachministries.blogspot.com

Note- Do me a favor, those who read/like the posts- re-post them on other sites as well as the site you read them on. Thanks- John