I don't care how they dress this up in flowery - "we're the real victim" language - this isn't about the "freedom of religion", it's about the freedom to treat women as chattle.
Via TPM http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/...
“Let me say very clearly what this lawsuit is not about: it is not about preventing women from having access to contraception, nor even about preventing the Government from providing such services,” John Jenkins, the university’s president, said in a statement. “We do not seek to impose our religious beliefs on others; we simply ask that the Government not impose its values on the University when those values conflict with our religious teachings.”
Yeah, uh huh.
In the very text of the suit this issue goes right off the rails by the second sentence.
This lawsuit is about one of America’s most cherished freedoms: the freedom to practice one’s religion without government interference. It is not about whether people have aright to abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception. Those services are, and will continue to be, freely available in the United States, and nothing prevents the Government itself from making them more widely available. But the right to such services does not authorize the Government to force the University of Notre Dame (“Notre Dame”) to violate its ownconscience by making it provide, pay for, and/or facilitate those services to others, contrary to its sincerely held religious beliefs.
Notre Dame is supposed to be a "School" right? Has someone failed to teach them that there is No. Such. Thing. As. A. (Preventive) ABORTION DRUG?
Even the Catholic Journal says that.
Plan B, the nation’s most widely used emergency contraceptive, works only as a contraceptive and does not cause abortions, according to an article in the January-February issue of Health Progress, the official journal of the Catholic Health Association.
Continued...
Theologian Lisa Sowle Cahill of Boston College said if Plan B never causes abortions, then Catholic hospitals should have no moral problem providing it as an emergency contraceptive to a rape victim.
...
The difference between the Catholic definition of abortion (any destruction of a fertilized human egg) and the American Medical Association’s definition (any destruction of an embryo following its implantation -- typically about seven days after fertilization) is a major subtext in the debate over whether Plan B is only contraceptive or also possibly abortifacient in some cases.
Barr Pharmaceuticals, manufacturer of Plan B, follows the medical association’s definition in describing the drug as strictly contraceptive and suggests that one effect could be to prevent implantation of a fertilized egg, a conclusion challenged by several scientific studies.
Even though Plan B isn't "abortifacient" according to Science, even Catholic Scientists, they still seem to continue to claim to have a "moral problem" with it as Notre Dame states in their lawsuit.
Under current federal law described below (the “U.S. Government Mandate”), Notre Dame must provide, or facilitate the provision of, abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization,and contraceptive services to its employees in violation of the centuries’ old teachings of the Catholic Church. Ignoring broader religious exemptions from other federal laws, the Government has crafted a narrow, discretionary exemption to this U.S. Government Mandate for “religious employers.” Group health plans are eligible for the exemption only if they are “established or maintained by religious employers,” and only if the “religious employer” can convince the Government that it satisfies four criteria.
As has been stated many times, there is an exemption for actual churches. There is also an exemption for
employers and schools like Notre Dame, but apparently that isn't good enough for them. Being asked to behave like
every other employer or school in the nation is just too much, even when their employees aren't all Catholic, and their students
aren't all Catholic. It's not good enough that they don't have to provide a drug that doesn't cause abortions. It's not good enough that the Administration has given them an "out" and they don't have to provide it or pay for it, and because the Admin asks the insurance companies to provide preventive coverage free of charge they
Object.
Don't you know those "Dirty Little Sluts" need to PAY??!
From the text of the suit.
The Government has not shown any compelling need to force Notre Dame to provide, pay for, and/or facilitate access to these objectionable services, or for requiring Notre Dame to submit to an intrusive governmental examination of its religious missions.
The Government also has not shown that the U.S. Government Mandate is narrowly tailored to advancing its interest in increased access to these services, since these services are already widely available and nothing prevents the Government from making them even more widely available by providing or paying for them directly through a duly-enacted law. The Government, therefore, cannot justify its decision to force Notre Dame to provide, pay for,and/or facilitate access to these services in violation of its sincerely held religious beliefs
"Nothing prevents the Government even more widely available by providing or paying for them directly through a duly-enacted law."
Actually something does prevent this, Federal funding of any "abortifacient" drugs or sterilization would be in direct violation of the Hyde Amendment, not to mention HR.3, if what this suit keeps repeatedly claiming were true.
TITLE I--PROHIBITING FEDERALLY-FUNDED ABORTIONS AND PROVIDING FOR CONSCIENCE PROTECTIONS
Sec. 101. Prohibiting taxpayer funded abortions and providing for conscience protections.
So exactly what the H.E. Double-Hockey Sticks are they talking about?
The actual churches are exempted so this isn't about "Religious Freedom". Even at Sandra Flukes University, Georgetown, Contraceptive coverage for their Employees is provided. It's just not provided for the STUDENTS. The Rule that HHS is considering implementing is less invasive than what 28 States already require.
I'm not sure even they fully know, but it does seem like they are intent on exhibiting their "Freedom" by blocking and punishing women and girls for trying to gain access to contraceptive care - even when they need it as medicine to prevent Ovarian Cysts and Cancer as was the case when Sandra Fluke testified before congress.
When you let university administrators or employers dictate over women and doctors whose medical needs are legitimate and whose are not, a women's health takes a back seat to a bureaucracy focused on policing her body. In 65% of the cases at our school our female students were interrogated by insurance representatives and university medical staff about why they needed this prescription and whether they were lying about their symptoms.
...
For my friend, and 20% of the women at our school, she never got the insurance company to cover her prescription, despite verification of her illness from her doctor. Her claim was denied repeatedly on the assumption that she really wanted birth control to prevent pregnancy. She's Gay, so clearly polycystic ovarian syndrome was a much more urgent concern. After months of paying over $100 out of pocket she just couldn't afford it anymore and she had to stop taking it.
(One Night) She called me and said "It was so painful, it felt like I'd been shot". She was rushed to the emergency room. Without her taking the medication a massive cyst, the size of a tennis ball, had grown on her ovary. She had to have surgery to remove her ovary as a result.
Her friend is now sufferring from early onset Menopause as a result of having her ovary removed, even though the condition she suffered from was
Preventable. That's what
preventive health care does - PREVENT sickness. For telling this story Sandra was repeated called a "Slut" and a "Whore" for days. Some people still haven't stopped.
Control.
That's what this is about. This suit is complaining that it's unfair and onerous for Notre Dame to be asked to justify their claim that they should exempt from this rule, yet at the same time schools of this type demand that their students Justify their Need for medicine that has been prescribed by their Doctor.
Yeah, this is about "Freedom", but not Religious Freedom.
One last thing, you know what actually is "abortifacient"? The Rythym Method.
Some proponents of the pro-life movement argue against morning after pills, IUDs, and contraceptive pills on grounds of a concern for causing embryonic death. What has gone unnoticed, however, is that the pro-life line of argumentation can be extended to the rhythm method of contraception as well. Given certain plausible empirical assumptions, the rhythm method may well be responsible for a much higher number of embryonic deaths than some other contraceptive techniques.
We know that even conscientious rhythm method users get pregnant. Conception may occur due to intercourse during the tail ends of the fertile period and the conceived ovum may turn out to be viable. Rhythm method users try to avoid pregnancy by aiming at the period in which conception is less likely to occur and in which viability is lower. So their success rate is due not only to the fact that they manage to avoid conception, but also to the fact that conceived ova have reduced survival chances. Just like in the earlier case of pill usage, we do not know in what percentage of cases the success of the rhythm method is due to the strictly contraceptive workings of the technique and in what percentage of cases it is due to the reduced survival chances for the conceived ovum.
So this means that Notre Dame and other Catholic institutions are objecting to letting their employees and students have free "abortifacient" drugs that would possibly not allow fertilized ovum to attach to the uterine wall - even though Scientist say Plan B doesn't do that - but the preferred contraception method recommended by the church,
actually DOES do that.
How do you like those apples?
Vyan
3:35 PM PT: Let me say one thing about "Rights" which I don't usually bother to say since it should be a given. You can't have a "Right to Life" if you don't have a Right to Living Free of Preventable Disease and Sickness. Life without a Right to Health Care is only a Right to sufferring, and sometimes Death.