Oh, no…not for Catholics. Of course not. But, congratulations if you are someone who happens to be Amish! (Why are you reading this online anyway?)
In case you missed it, one of the absurdly stupid arguments coming from the Obama administration on the violation of religious freedom they’ve been finessing the past few weeks with Catholics and birth control, goes like this:
Jay Carney: “The issue here is giving employers the right to deny women -- to deny women -- access to preventive services, including contraception free of charge. So essentially, this bill or these bills would give any employer the right to deny the women who work for them contraceptive coverage. That's dangerous and it is wrong.”
To translate:
If you let Catholic related organizations offer insurance plans that don’t include the things they find morally repugnant, you are giving license to all businesses to limit access to the basic human right of birth control, and women’s health…and…and…other stuff…or something.
Sure, we just found out that this “right” existed approximately two weeks ago, and you could point out that the products that make up this “right” have only existed for a few decades of all of human existence. It’s the equivalent of calling high speed internet a “right”, which they also do.
But, lost in the back and forth over religious freedom is the fact that the Obama administration does believe in religious freedom. It just apparently prioritizes the religious freedom of the Amish, Mennonites, and Hutterites, above Catholics and others. Why? People forget, there is a religious conscience exemption built right into Obamacare. You can read about the details from Snopes here, as they discuss an email that went around claiming that Muslims would be exempt from Obamacare (most likely not true.) But, it appears that the Amish will be exempt—raising an interesting question that somebody should get the Obama administration to answer:
If religious conscience can get the Amish out of Obamacare completely, why can’t religious conscience get Catholics out of providing the pill?
*Update: It’s implied above, but maybe it’s important to point out more overtly: according to the argument made by the Obama administration, the Amish have their access to women’s health and preventative care limited by Obamacare. How dare they?