Health Care for Women

There is an ongoing conversation happening in America today involving various groups claiming a right to choose which health care options are available to the women who work for them. These are ostensibly religiously affliated groups that see changes in the process of delivering health care as an infringement on their conscience, and their choice to not participate in the acts of abortion and contraception as a means of controlling their family development. In fact, many don't see themselves as controlling their family's development at all.

The problem seems to be that these groups, now mostly intertwined with the United States Government through a series of grants and tax exemptions, are required to refrain from discriminating against certain types of care as a condition of their ability to conduct business. For some, were they to cease their activity with the United States Government they would lose their competetive advantage in their given market, possibly driving their business model into obsolescence.

This being the case, it's a tough choice to make and a tough sell to the American people, but opponents of the recent mandate* have landed on the narrative they wish to push onto the population with whatever media or individual outlet at their disposal:

Religious Liberty.

As it happens, the development of the conscience clause, the scope of religious liberty and the rights assigned therein (ianal) had a beginning in this country. And that beginning was Thomas Jefferson's "A Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom," featured in audio in a post on this blog entitled The power of talk.

Religious Freedom (Religious Liberty) was established in order to prevent individuals being tied to the church or minister that was preferred by their family at the time they were born. Jefferson wrote that act expressly for the purpose of loosing the restrictions in place at the time that bound a man to pay tithes and receive spiritual guidance from someone not of their choosing (as in made or compelled to). The inclusion of this principle in a debate that's basically about who pays premiums to whichever nation-spanning insurance company, and what doctors or services fall in their network of service, seems so far away from the tenets of Jefferson's work that one wonders if those claiming this narrative are even familiar with the origins and intentions of the documents they cite for their case(?).

Jefferson never once mentioned property taxes, business grants or disclosure requirements for churches in his formulations and ruminations on religious freedom.
All companies that choose to operate in cooperation with the United States Government (in some cases gaining competetive advantage in their chosen market) must provide access to services for women in their offerrings for medical coverage. Not to do so would be discriminatory in that it would serve to drive women away from working in these groups, or leave them with only the option of paying for additional health care needs outside the policy offered by their employer. In either case, it's unfair and unjust treatment of women, which would serve to once again subjugate them with additional financial burdens and stresses, which have no "male equivolent" in the nation's standard of living.

99% of women in America use birth control. 90% of preventative care for all woman comes from Planned Parenthood. 69% of all Americans support Planned Parenthood. The question of the validity of the service has been answered for over 40 years.

This strategy of asserting male dominance, both in the household and in the society, will do nothing to affect the concrete and empirical knowledge women have about how to make their lives better, more stable and more secure. If anything, it will only serve to hinder our development as a nation in an increasingly competetive world of markets and countries.

For regardless of whether or not you believe that you can or should plan or control the development of your family, the development of this great nation is far too important to not have deep, rich and intrinsic planning and internal controls. Otherwise we risk leaving ourselves at the mercy of those who will and do plan and account for the resources and demands of this planet.

Continuing to stand on our laurels as a nation; reliving winning in the past, will only make it that much harder a transition for us if we fail at winning in the future!




*in many cases the health care mandate is simply a codification of existing practices and principles