The Obama administration’s refusal to grant religiously
affiliated institutions a waiver from Obamacare provisions
requiring that they provide employees with health insurance
covering contraception, the “morning after” pill, and sterilization
procedures is an unconstitutional assault on one of this nation’s
most precious liberties.
But the debate over freedom of religion masks another
critically important implication of the final rule approved by
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen `Sebelius.
That issue is found in the language used by defenders of
the indefensible rule. From White House Press Secretary Jay Carney:
“We are committed… to ensuring that women have access to
contraception without paying any extra costs, no matter where they
work.” Politico quotes a Democratic operative who says
that it is extreme to “limit access to birth control because you
work at a diocese-run nursing home.” And Senator Barbara (“Don’t
call me Ma’am”) Boxer trying, as usual, to sound threatening: “We
support the right of women in this country to have access to birth
control through their insurance policies, and anybody who stands in
the way is going to have to deal with us and our
friends.”
Three separate far-left voices, one word repeated three
times: “Access”
These radical social engineers don’t actually mean
“access,” which, according to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary,
means “freedom or ability to obtain or make use of something.”
After all, nobody believes that birth control pills, which Planned
Parenthood says are available for “about $15-$50 each month,” would
somehow be out of reach of many American women if not for a
government insurance mandate. At least two types of birth control
pills are available at
Target pharmacies for $9 for a 28-day supply. Now that’s
access.
No, they don’t mean access to birth control. They
mean free birth control, as in paid for by taxpayers other
than the person whose sex life requires such protection.
This is not about access at all. It’s about the left-wing
trying to ingrain government so deeply in support of birth control
and related reproductive health issues that conservatives, or
simply those who oppose the state’s involvement in such personal
parts of our lives, will never be able to extricate these drugs and
services from the tendrils of federal funding. If you thought the
outcry against the Komen Foundation for thinking about cutting out
grants to Planned Parenthood was severe, imagine what you’d hear
about “women-hating” Republicans if Congress ever tries to allow
citizens and employers the option to choose health insurance
policies that don’t cover (or require a co-pay to cover) birth
control, once people have come to see those pills as
free.
Heaven forbid, if you’ll pardon the pun, Americans from
having such freedom. After all, we’re clearly too stupid and too
busy clinging to our bibles and guns to make a rational decision
about something which the average woman has access to for
$200 a year.
The left’s trying to impose their morality on the nation
through the force of government is as antithetical to our nation’s
Founding Principles as anything a libertarian or liberal would
oppose in conservative Republican’s social policy prescriptions.
Those who find Republicans’ social issues positions unpalatable,
who cry “theocracy!” at a politician’s mention of faith, must
awaken to the fact that the Obama administration’s actions
regarding mandatory birth control coverage differs only in degree,
but not of kind, from exactly the sort of sectarian tyranny that
led to this nation’s creation.
This goes far beyond abortion, birth control, or
Americans’ sex lives. Put aside for a moment that we’re talking
about a religiously-tinged issue here, and focus on the left’s use
of the word “access.”
Progressives have always been masters at redefining words.
Due to them a “progressive” tax code means one that punishes
success and throttles economic growth. For them, “justice” means
stealing from someone who earned something and giving it to someone
who didn’t. Thanks to them “balance” means ever-expanding
government, “extreme” means having religious convictions,
“diversity” means everyone except heterosexual Caucasians, and
“voter suppression” means having to show a photo ID at the
ballot.
When “access” is redefined to mean “paid for by
taxpayers,” when something that is not provided at no cost is
redefined as inaccessible, we have reached a dangerous tipping
point in our century-long march toward being an “Entitlement
Society” in which people expect government to provide everything
for everyone for free. Or at least everyone outside the “one
percent” or whatever group the government at the time decides to
bleed in order to buy the votes of the demanding, entitled
majority.
This is not just a financial issue. It’s not just that
“free” birth control or “free” anything else actually costs
somebody something. It’s not just that calling it “free” will
inevitably lead to higher health insurance costs or larger
government budget deficits.
It is also a fundamental moral issue for our nation, a
nation that more than any in the history of the human race was
founded on a principle of self-reliance by all those capable of
it.
It may be “just” birth control pills or “just” $10 or $20
a month. It may even be that most health insurance policies already
cover birth control, and that many states require such. That is all
irrelevant. The Obama/Sebelius rule, by redefining “access” to mean
“paid for by others,” is — in addition to being an
unconstitutional assault on religious liberty and federal intrusion
into our personal lives — a cannon aimed at the very soul of our
nation.
Mr. Kaminsky is a pro-choice Jewish
libertarian.
