Justin's Political Corner
Republican strategist Brad Blakeman on Friday said that President Barack Obama was complicit in encouraging criminal activity because he supported contraception for young women.
Last month, a federal judge ordered the Obama administration to make emergency contraception available to girls as young as 15 without a prescription. The Justice Department vowed to appealthe ruling, but the president on Thursday told reporters in Mexico that he was “comfortable” with giving girls access to the morning-after pill.
“This makes no sense at all,” Blakeman opined to Fox News host Martha MacCallum on Friday. “You have to be 18 years old to buy a pack of cigarettes. And the president is also encouraging criminal behavior because in most jurisdictions in America, engaging in sexual intercourse at 14, 15 years old is statutory rape. So the president is somehow saying, ‘If you engage in that activity — criminal behavior — that’s okay because the government is going to provide you the out for your bad decision making.’”
Left-leaning Fox News contributor Julie Roginsky, however, was more realistic, pointing out that “15 year olds and people who are older do have sex, and if they do have sex, isn’t the whole point here to prevent them from getting pregnant? And this is the best way to prevent conception. This is not an abortion pill.”
MacCallum argued that “some people would quibble with that definition.”
“This strips away the moral fabric of our country,” Blakeman agreed. “It’s the government basically being complicit in a criminal act, and also complicit in coming into the houses of America and telling the parents, ‘We’re going to bring up your children, we’re going to be able to provide better for your children than the decisions you may make at home.’”
“What’s the message, you know, when your 14, 15 years old, you say, ‘Well, the president says I should be able to have this’?” MacCallum pressed Roginsky.
“Statutory rape is if a 15 year old sleeps with a a 25 year old,” Roginsky replied. “I’m sorry to tell you, but it’s going on out there. You can bury your head in the sand, but people are having sex at the age of 15. You might not like it… Government is not condoning it, but if you don’t give them the tools to prevent abortion and pregnancy, they’ll have abortion and pregnancy.”
Judge permanently blocks North Dakota ban on medication for abortions (via Raw Story )
A North Dakota District Court judge has permanently blocked a state ban on the use of medications for first trimester abortions. According to the RH Reality Check blog, Judge Wickham Corwin announced Thursday that he will be issuing a ruling to block a two-year-old ban on medication abortions on grounds…
The number of lawsuits challenging the Obama administration’s contraception coverage mandate climbed to 60 last week, and legal experts on both sides of the issue are predicting that the Supreme Court will take up the issue within the year.
Thirty-two nonprofit organizations, including religious hospitals and schools, have challenged the rule. The mandate is part of the Affordable Care Act, and it requires third-party insurance companies to provide contraception coverage to the nonprofits’ employees if they decide not to do so. While many of the lawsuits are either failing in court or moving slowly because they fall under President Obama’s one-year grace period for nonprofits, the 28 for-profit companies that are suing the administration are seeing their cases move much more quickly.
The most prominent of those cases — Hobby Lobby v. Sebelius — took a significant step forward last week, when the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals granted Hobby Lobby’s request to expedite the case and hear it en banc (by all judges on the court). Kyle Duncan, the attorney representing the Christian-owned Hobby Lobby against the Department of Health and Human Services, said he expects one or more of these cases to catch the Supreme Court’s attention soon.
“The action of the court on Friday really raises the prominence of what was already a prominent case even higher,” Duncan told HuffPost in a phone interview. “I think there’s a very good chance the Supreme Court takes this up. You’ve got a nationwide mandate and many different plaintiffs all suing at the same time—presumably you’re going to have courts going in different directions, so you’ve got very good conditions for Supreme Court review.”
According to the rules of the Affordable Care Act, religiously affiliated nonprofit organizations, such as schools and hospitals, can opt out of paying for contraception coverage for their employees by instructing the third-party insurer to absorb the cost of the coverage and provide it directly to women. For-profit companies, such as Hobby Lobby, are not exempt from covering contraception and face large fines if they refuse to do so.
So far, 21 companies have petitioned for preliminary injunctions against the mandate so as to avoid the fines. Of those cases, 16 have been granted injunctions and five have been denied.
The Becket Fund is arguing in court that the religious exemption is too narrow because it excludes people like the Christian owners of Hobby Lobby, who morally object to contraception. Reproductive rights groups, including the National Women’s Law Center, contend that “religious freedom” should be interpreted to allow women to decide for themselves whether to take contraception, rather than to allow their employers to decide for them.
Duncan said he thinks the Christian-owned Hobby Lobby is a perfect example of the dilemma that for-profit companies across the country face now that the government is requiring them to include birth control coverage in their insurance plans. “We think Hobby Lobby is an excellent vehicle for all these issues,” he said. “It’s the largest, most prominent business to have sued, and it’s got a lot on the line.”
h/t: Huffington Post
Rep. Amash: “‘More sensible’ to ban abortions after three days and ‘certain’ birth control” (via Raw Story )
A libertarian-leaning Republican congressman from Michigan who has been billed as the “new Ron Paul” says that he would ban “abortion-causing” birth control and a woman’s right to choose abortion more than three days after conception. In an interview published on Monday, Rep. Justin Amash…
The North Dakota legislature has placed a “personhood” amendment on the ballot in 2014 so voters can decide whether to adopt the most sweeping abortion ban in the country, according to media reports.
The personhood measure, which cleared both houses of the legislature on Friday, would guarantee “the inalienable right to life of every human being at any stage of development must be recognized and protected.” Opponents say it would prohibit all abortion in the state and may also outlaw birth control.
“The North Dakota legislature has taken historic strides to protect every human being in the state, paving the way for human rights nationwide,” said Keith Mason, the president of Personhood USA, which supports the amendment.
Abortion rights groups swiftly criticized the move.
h/t: TPM LiveWire
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — A federal judge has struck down a Missouri health insurance law because it conflicts with a federal mandate for insurers to cover birth control at no additional cost to women.
U.S. District Judge Audrey Fleissig cited a provision in the U.S. Constitution declaring that federal laws take precedence over contradictory state laws.
Missouri’s Republican-led Legislature overrode the veto of Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon last September to enact a law that appeared to be the first in the nation to directly rebut the Obama administration’s contraception policy. The Missouri law required insurers to issue policies without contraception coverage if individuals or employers objected because of religious or moral beliefs.
h/t: Huffington Post
Oklahoma already prevents women from using their insurance plans to help cover abortion services, but Republicans aren’t stopping there. One state lawmaker wants to continue stripping insurance coverage for reproductive health services, advancing a measure that would allow employers to refuse to cover birth control for any reason — based solely on the fact that one of his constituents believes it “poisons women’s bodies.”
Under State Sen. Clark Jolley (R)’s measure, “no employer shall be required to provide or pay for any benefit or service related to abortion or contraception through the provision of health insurance to his or her employees.” According to the Tulsa World, Jolley’s inspiration for his bill came from one of his male constituents who is morally opposed to birth control, and wanted to find a small group insurance plan for himself and his family that didn’t include coverage for those services.
The bill has already cleared a Senate Health committee and now makes it way to Oklahoma’s full Senate. It is unlikely that either Jolley and Pedulla themselves rely on insurance coverage for hormonal contraceptive services — but if the measure becomes law, the two men could limit the health insurance options for the nearly two million women who live in Oklahoma.
Of course, contraception does not actually poison women. The FDA approved the first oral birth control pill in 1960, and that type of contraception is so safe that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends making it available without a prescription, as it is in most other countries around the world.
In reality, access to affordable birth control is a critical economic issue for women. When women have control over their reproductive choices, it allows them to achieve economic goalslike completing their education, becoming financially independent, or keeping a job. But birth control can carry high out-of-pocket costs, and over half of young women say they haven’t used their contraceptive method as directed because of cost prohibitions. Nonetheless, Republican lawmakers have repeatedly pushed measures to allow employers to drop coverage for birth control.
The Obama administration on Friday announced its proposal for a new rules on contraception coverage under the federal health care law.
In the announcement, the administration outlined a proposal still subject to final approval that would allow religious organizations that object to contraception to receive an “accommodation that provides their enrollees separate contraceptive coverage” at no additional cost, addressing an area of the new health care reform law that generated a firestorm last year.
The proposal can be viewed here.
h/t: TPM LiveWire
The Supreme Court has turned down a request to temporarily suspend the contentious provision in President Obama’s new health care law that requires all employers to provide health insurance coverage for contraceptives, NBC’s Pete Williams reports.
The two companies challenging the provision—Hobby Lobby Stores, an Oklahoma-based arts and crafts chain, and Mardel, a chain of Christian bookstores—are run by religious families who have strong anti-abortion views. The businesses filed their application last Friday, asking the Supreme Court for an immediate order to excuse them from having to provide free health insurance to their employees for emergency contraceptives. Hobby Lobby and Mardel say the mandate would cause “irreparable harm to their religious freedom and to their businesses.”
It’s good that these wingnuts lost.
Answer a few questions and find out which birth control method might be right for you.
A robocall financed by the Romney campaign falsely tells voters in Virginia that President Obama “forced Christian organizations” to offer insurance coverage that undermines their religious beliefs and is threatening “our religious freedom.” The Christian community is “supporting Romney,” the spot says:
Christians who are thinking about voting for Obama should remember what he said about people of faith: “They … cling to guns or religion.” And remember when Obama forced Christian organizations to provide insurance coverage that was contrary to their religious beliefs?
That’s the real Barack Obama. That’s the real threat to our religious freedom. Mitt Romney understands the importance of faith and family. That’s why so many leaders of the Christian community are supporting Romney.
They know we can’t underestimate the threat Barack Obama poses to our faith, our values, our freedom.
The call is misleading. While the Affordable Care Act requires insurers and employers to offer women’s health benefits — including contraception — houses of worship and religiously affiliated nonprofits are specifically excluded from the provision.
Romney’s campaign is clearly hoping to capture more women voters, and more voters who don’t skew conservative on reproductive rights. The new ad is an overt attempt to frame the candidate as a moderate on women’s issues, as the Romney campaign has been attempting to do for the past week. But it covers up at least five of Romney’s most extreme positions on these issues — ones that any voter casting their ballot this election season deserves to know:
1) Romney supported the Blunt amendment.The Blunt Amendment would allow employers to deny contraception to their female employees because of religious objections. That means any woman working for an employer who didn’t support contraception would be denied the right to have her birth control costs covered. When asked if he supported the amendment, Romney said, “Of course.”
2) Romney wants to defund Planned Parenthood. Seventy six percent of the patients who go to Planned Parenthood are seeking affordable contraception options. Low-income women, particularly, rely on the organization to get family planning options that might otherwise be out of their price range. Because the organization uses a sliding scale pay system (PDF), it allows the poorest women to get the most affordable care.
3) Romney would restore co-pays for birth control. By repealing the Affordable Care Act, Romney would get rid of the requirementthat insurance companies off women a variety of birth control options without a co-pay attached. That makes it harder for women to get contraception, especially the most effective kinds, which tend to have the highest up-front costs.
4) Romney supports a ‘personhood amendment.’ Romney once told reporters that be would “absolutely” support a state constitutional amendment defining a fertilized egg as a person. Had it passed, that law would have outlawed some forms of contraception — as well as all abortions and in vitro fertilization.
5) Romney promised to reinstate the “global gag rule.” Romney could cut off family planning services that the United States currently offers to women abroad by using an executive order to reinstate the “global gag rule,” denying funding for any international organization that discusses abortion or provides abortion referrals for their clients. In an op-ed, he promised to do just that.
During a heated debate in New London, CT, Republican Senate candidate Linda McMahon was confronted with her recent claim that Catholic-run hospitals should be allowed to deny emergency contraception to rape victims.
McMahon, who has been trying to convince her Democrat-heavy state that she is pro-choice, quickly reversed herself, claiming she was talking about a church being forced to administer the morning after pill, rather than a hospital:
MCMAHON: It was really an issue about a Catholic church being forced to offer those pills if the person came in in an emergency rape. That was my response to it. I absolutely think that we should avail women who come in with rape victims the opportunity to have those morning after pills or the treatment that they should get.
McMahon, however, says she would have voted for the Blunt Amendment, which would have allowed any employer to refuse any kind of health care on moral grounds.
