In the response to my post on how liberals hate religious minorities, commenter Marcus Aurelius offers this specimen of the latest Dem talking points:
Yup. Giving people access to birth control is all about controlling them. That's how it works. Heaven forbid that people should have access to affordable birth control. The gov't isn't making you use it, it's just making sure that it's covered under your employer's health care plan. You don't have to be employed. Or even employed with a health care plan.
I emphasized the key words because they are essential to understand the way in which liberals are torturing both language and logic to make their case.
Let there be no mistake - this is not about access to birth control, it is about compelling religious minorities to pay for it under pain of law.
If you want birth control, there is nothing to stop you from getting it. Given that contractives are both cheap and easily obtainable, there is no logical reason to compel third parties to pay for it - unless you are trying to drive home a point.
Indeed, Planned Parenthood's core mission is supposedly to provide free birth control. What else do they do with the millions of dollars they recieve each and every year? (Answer: kill babies, but I digress.)
Note the language of the second sentence: "The gov't isn't making you use it, it's just making sure that it's covered under your employer's health care plan."
But it is making you pay for it, even though you may find it morally abhorrent. Using the exact same logic, the government could compel Jews and Muslims to purchase pork so long as they aren't made to eat it. And actually, the case for compulsory purchase of pork is better since hunger can kill you, wherease lack of sex won't (though millions of teenage men have sworn to the contrary).
Moreover, what if both employer and employee don't want this coverage? What compelling state interest is at stake by making Catholic Charities pay to provide The Pill to blue-haired ladies?
The argument that this is about access is therefore a false one. Every study undertaken in the last two decades has found that the number of people who want birth control and somehow can't get it is statistically meaningless. For those that somehow can't afford it (can't come up with $30 a month? Seriously?) there are numerous charities out there.
What this mandate is really about is power and control.
Also, while I too prefer the notion of simply refraining from making babies, it's really not an option for some people. It's bizarre to wrap one's mind around, but sometimes people have sex without enthusiastic consent, in order to gain something else. But hey, so long as it's not your problem, right?
You're right, it is not my problem. Nor is it an issue of national importance - certainly not one that requires federal government intervention.
The core issue at stake is the abuse of power. A government that can order people to purchase things against their will can also order their use. That is the supreme irony of the liberal argument.
(Edited for some typos)
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