The Prevention First Act...better titled "The-government-is-going-to-make-sure-everyone-else-pays-for-your-lack-of-self-control" Act. On second thought, that's a bit of a doozy, so I'll stick to its formal name for this blog entry.
This bill (S. 21, H.R. 398) has been introduced and referred to a committee in both houses of Congress.
The Senate version (which has a great deal more detail than the version in the House) states that because so many women have abortions, the government should make sure it provides abortions for women. It also indicates that because so many people use contraception to plan and/or avoid pregnancies, the government should provide contraception in government insurance. Because the government isn’t in everyone else’s business enough, the government is going to tell private health providers that they need to provide contraception to their customers. In addition, the government will have the right to take money away from hospitals if they refuse to administer emergency contraception (um, excuse me, whatever happened to freedom of religion???). Finally, because parents aren’t responsible enough, the government is going to pay to have contraception and abortion information plastered everywhere they can think of, so that young people “know their options.”
Where in the world did Sen. Henry Reid and Rep. Joseph Crowley get off thinking that my tax money should be spent fixing everyone else’s self control issues? Hello, there’s this little pregnancy prevention called abstinence, if you really don’t want to have kids. Why should the rest of the country spend their hard earned money making sure that everyone has access to/information on contraception?
If people want to have sex, FINE. If they want to be “protected,” FINE. I disagree with their methods, but maybe it’s none of my business. However, I should not have to pay my money so that they can enjoy their sex and not have to “deal with the consequences.” And if I do, then I sure as heck have every right to tell women what to do with their bodies.
Voice your opinions and send a clear message to Congress that they need to STOP supporting bills like the Prevention First Act! Sign the petition today!
In addition, write to your congressmen! GoodSearch them and email them. Tell them that you don’t support the Prevention First Act, the Freedom of Choice Act, and similar bills that oppose life and force you to spend your tax dollars on other people’s self-control issues. Remind them that it is their duty to adhere to your desires because you are the constituency. It’s easy as 1-2-3!
The Senate version (which has a great deal more detail than the version in the House) states that because so many women have abortions, the government should make sure it provides abortions for women.
As written, the S21 does no such thing. The only references to abortion in the Bill concern reducing the number of abortions, and specifying that the forms of emergency contraception that hospitals must provide if they wish to continue receiving Federal funding must "not cause an abortion."
[The Senate Bill] also indicates that because so many people use contraception to plan and/or avoid pregnancies, the government should provide contraception in government insurance.
Here again, you either haven't read the actual text of the Senate proposal, or you've interpreted it to mean what you want it to mean as opposed to its actual intended meaning. The section you're referring to here, SEC. 2708(a), says that "A group health plan, and a health insurance issuer providing health insurance coverage in connection with a group health plan, may not exclude or restrict benefits for prescription contraceptive drugs or devices." Clearly, the intent here is to stop sexual discrimination perpetuated by insurance companies who engage in such blatantly sexist practices as covering prescriptions for Erectile Dysfunction, but not contraceptives. SEC. 2708(b) goes on to prohibit insurance companies from practices which are intended "deny to an individual eligibility, or continued eligibility, to enroll or to renew coverage under the terms of the plan because of the individual's or enrollee's use or potential use" of contraceptives, as well as other practices insurance companies might use to decrease the frequency of use of contraceptives among their insureds.
In addition, the government will have the right to take money away from hospitals if they refuse to administer emergency contraception (um, excuse me, whatever happened to freedom of religion???).
Once again, you have not correctly interpreted the language of the Senate proposal. SEC. 402(a) says that "Federal funds may not be provided to a hospital" unless they provide women "with medically and factually accurate and unbiased written and oral information about emergency contraception and offers emergency contraception to the woman... and promptly provides such contraception to her on her request" (SEC. 402(b)) Withholding funding is not the same as "taking money away." Private, religious hospitals are therefore free to do as they please when it comes to providing or withholding emergency contraception, although they may well disqualify themselves from Federal funding if they choose to withhold it, but that is their choice to make. And please note that SEC. 402 concerns "victims of sexual assault," and is not referring to any Jane Doe who might appear at a hospital and demand emergency contraception.
Finally, because parents aren’t responsible enough, the government is going to pay to have contraception and abortion information plastered everywhere they can think of, so that young people “know their options.”
I don't understand why you have a problem with the government providing health information to its citizens. Would you have the Federal government disband the entire Department of Health and Human Services? Or do you simply believe that information relating to sexual health ought not be disseminated because of old-fashioned cultural taboos and/or your own personal bias? Some parents, victims themselves of pernicious abstinence-only education, might not posses the knowledge to provide accurate information about sex to their children.
There’s this little pregnancy prevention called abstinence, if you really don’t want to have kids. Why should the rest of the country spend their hard earned money making sure that everyone has access to/information on contraception?
While abstinence is certainly the only form of birth control that is 100% effective, that fact overlooks the reality that humans are sexual beings. For instance, should I not be able to enjoy sex with my husband simply because we're responsible enough to realize that the time is not yet right for children? (That's a rhetorical question, by the way, and if you really feel that sex is only for procreation you cannot possibly live in the same world that I inhabit.)
The fact of the matter is that people are going to have sex. After puberty, sex is hard-wired into our brains just like eating, sleeping, and defecating. To pretend otherwise is to turn a blind eye to reality, which is never good when considering public policy. The potential positive effects of sex education that includes messages about abstinence and provides young people with information about contraception for the prevention of pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, and other sexually transmitted diseases far outweigh any prudish sensibilities that might be offended by the dissemination of such information.
If people want to have sex, FINE. If they want to be “protected,” FINE. I disagree with their methods, but maybe it’s none of my business. However, I should not have to pay my money so that they can enjoy their sex and not have to “deal with the consequences.” And if I do, then I sure as heck have every right to tell women what to do with their bodies.
If you don't want your tax dollars spent on improving the quality of life of your fellow citizens you're living in the wrong country. And your presumption that you have the "right to tell women what to do with their bodies" simply because your tax dollars helped educate them about their contraceptive options evidences little more than your arrogance and misogyny.
/jkh
As written, the S21 does no such thing. The only references to abortion in the Bill concern reducing the number of abortions, and specifying that the forms of emergency contraception that hospitals must provide if they wish to continue receiving Federal funding must "not cause an abortion."
A large percentile of women have abortions because their contraceptives failed. How many more women have had their children aborted by contraceptives without realizing it? In addition, providing more women with the mindset that they can do whatever they want as long as their "protected" and then they can get an abortion if their contraception fails will NOT lower abortion.
Clearly, the intent here is to stop sexual discrimination perpetuated by insurance companies who engage in such blatantly sexist practices as covering prescriptions for Erectile Dysfunction, but not contraceptives.
What business is it of the GOVERNMENT to mandate things for private insurance companies?
Withholding funding is not the same as "taking money away." .... And please note that SEC. 402 concerns "victims of sexual assault," and is not referring to any Jane Doe who might appear at a hospital and demand emergency contraception.
OK, one, it still targets places such as Catholic hospitals who cannot morally provide contraception to women. In addition, contraception is not always the answer and there should be the option of every hospital to provide contraception just like it should be the option of every doctor to recommend or discourage contraception. In addition, Sec. 402 also includes "any woman who presents at the hospital whom hospital personnel have reason to believe is a victim of sexual assault." Whom they have reason to believe? That adds quite a few people...
I don't understand why you have a problem with the government providing health information to its citizens.
This goes beyond "health information." This is the government telling children how to think. I think the parent should have the right to teach their child how to think without the government in their face telling the child something else.
While abstinence is certainly the only form of birth control that is 100% effective, that fact overlooks the reality that humans are sexual beings.
And you are overlooking the reality that there's this thing called "self control" that more people should practice. It'd be loads safer and cheaper.
For instance, should I not be able to enjoy sex with my husband simply because we're responsible enough to realize that the time is not yet right for children?
Of course not. That's where NFP comes in.
After puberty, sex is hard-wired into our brains just like eating, sleeping, and defecating.
So because we enjoy sex, that means that we can throw self-control out the window and indulge in our desires whenever we want because like it? We can't be better than simple animals and display some self control?
If you don't want your tax dollars spent on improving the quality of life of your fellow citizens you're living in the wrong country. And your presumption that you have the "right to tell women what to do with their bodies" simply because your tax dollars helped educate them about their contraceptive options evidences little more than your arrogance and misogyny.
I don't want my tax dollars spent on promoting the mindset that people can do whatever they want and not face the consequences, because everyone else will take care of it. In addition PFA would do more than simply "educate" women about contraception. It provides contraception, forces insurance companies to provide contraception, demands that hospitals provide contraception, etc. And I do not want MY tax money spent on providing contraception, because contraception is nothing more than a way to ignore self control and I do not want to be a part of turning America into an animalistic country with an "all-about-me" attitude and no self control. BECAUSE I care.
In addition, this bill pushes government into multiple aspects of society. The government needs to get OUT of our business. Not MORE into it.
RESPECT LIFE
SMILE EVERY DAY
"It is poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."
~Mother Teresa
Where to start, where to start...
Might as well start here:
I was on government insurance for 21 years and almost 2 months. Not medicaid... Tricare, the insurance for military members and their families. And guess what? It provided contraception, in the form of the pill. I didn't have to pay a dime for my pills when I took them. So, the idea that this bill is a novel way for the government to provide contraception is false in the first place.
Secondly, despite what you think, birth control is not only used for birth control. I took them because I had really irregular periods, not because I was having sex. Several people I know have taken them because they had horrible periods, complete with heavy bleeding and killer cramps, or in an effort to clear up bad acne. There are also some medications that can cause HUGE birth defects, and to prevent these, these women have to take birth control. You may not agree with it, but there often is a medical reason for women to take the pill (or the shot, or whatever).
You do know that EC is given to people who aren't on birth control who have been raped, right? And it won't do anything if the person is already pregnant. So, why should I be forced to go without just because I only have a Catholic hospital in my vicinity (which is a reality around me... I'm lucky to have a mostly public hospital closest to me, but people further into the mountains only have access to Catholic hospitals)? It should not be up to the hospital to decide what treatment a person should get. It should be the choice of the patient and his or her doctor. That's it. Now, obviously, if the hospital is not equipped to do a certain procedure, they can decide not to do that treatment, but something as easy as a medication should not be an issue.
Not everyone is obese, so why is obesity information so prevalent? Not everyone gets the flu, so why is information about the flu so prevalent? I mean, why do we need the CDC at all... who cares if a few dozen people are getting sick and dying from salmonella...
Pregnancy is a serious health condition, and can be life threatening. It is not something that should be taken lightly. Yes, it usually ends well, with some massive bleeding, lots of torn tissue, and a healthy baby at the end. But, some women bleed out and die due to childbirth (which is why I, as a phlebotomist, always draw a tube of blood for the blood bank when a woman comes into the hospital for delivery). Some women have their blood pressure skyrocket, putting their lives at risk. There are any number of complications that can arise with pregnancy, and it's a risky medical condition. It's completely understandable that some women don't want to deal with those complications. Some women do want children at some point, though, which makes surgery kinda pointless. Thus, other contraceptives are beneficial to these women.
Yes, pregnancy can be prevented (99.99% of the time) by abstinence. But, what's the point in being in a relationship (such as, I don't know, marriage) if you don't have sex every so often? It is a way for people to express their love and tenderness for each other. It has any number of health benefits, most notably stress relief. It's not exactly feasible for women to abstain all the time, and some women have short enough cycles that that's a reality.
Your money is ultimately going to be used to support contraception, unless you live in a bubble. If you have insurance, that's going to be used to pay for at least part of a contraceptive prescription at some point. Moreso if this bill goes through, of course. Companies support certain politicians that may or may not support contraception. It's all a big circle. But, your reasoning doesn't follow through. Your money is used to pay teachers' salaries; that doesn't mean you get to tell the teachers what they can and cannot teach; people much more powerful than you get to decide that.
~C
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Wow...there are just so many little gems in this one, I hardly know where to being. I guess I'll just cherry-pick the best ones and respond as I go...
The Senate version (which has a great deal more detail than the version in the House) states that because so many women have abortions, the government should make sure it provides abortions for women.
First off, I would like to direct our readers to a slighly more objective summary of this bill, provided by (non-partisan) Library of Congress...
Prevention First Act of 2009
Because the government isn’t in everyone else’s business enough, the government is going to tell private health providers that they need to provide contraception to their customers.
I'm still reading the full text of the bill, but an initial review of its contents would seem to suggest that the only "private" institutions that are affected by this bill would be entities that accept public funds in the form of grants and tax exemptions. The moral of the story, of course, is that when you line up for a drink at the public teats, you get the milk that that they give you.
In addition, the government will have the right to take money away from hospitals if they refuse to administer emergency contraception (um, excuse me, whatever happened to freedom of religion???).
Factually incorrect. This bill would previent public funds from flowing to institutions that refuse to respect the conditions set forth in the bill. This bill doesn't "take away" any money from anyone. As for the freedom of religion, argument, religious groups do not have the right to appropriate public funds to finance their private religious agendas. The First Amendment forbids religious establishements. The General Welfare Clause of the Constituion clearly gives the Congress the right to make decisions about what is or is not in the best interests of public health, at least insofar as it applies to funding programs that promote better healthcare for its citizens. Religious groups that do not agree with those decisions DO have a right to act otherwise (in most cases), but they do NOT have the right to ask the public to PAY for their religious contrarianism.
Hello, there’s this little pregnancy prevention called abstinence, if you really don’t want to have kids.
The counter-point to this statement is the simple fact that abstinence-only programs don't work.
There comes a point when you have give up on bad ideas. It would be nice if just telling kids not to "do it" actually worked. But it doesn't, and it is franly foolish to suggest that we should continue to pump money into programs that don't work.
However, I should not have to pay my money so that they can enjoy their sex and not have to “deal with the consequences.” And if I do, then I sure as heck have every right to tell women what to do with their bodies.
Sorry, but you're wrong. The Constitution clearly empowers the Congress to appropriate funds to be used to promote the General Welfare of U.S. citizens...
The Federal Appeals and Supreme Courts have consistently held that the General Welfare Clause permits the Congress to legislate on matters of public health and to tax citizens to fund programs that support that goal. There are literally too many cases to list them all, but some good examples are South Dakota v. Dole (1987), Massachusetts v. Mellon (1923) and Montgomery County v. Califano (1978).
Why should the rest of the country spend their hard earned money making sure that everyone has access to/information on contraception?
A better question would be why so many abstinence-only education programs have been found to be providing false and misleading information about the subject of contraception.
How many more women have had their children aborted by contraceptives without realizing it?
Zero. Contraceptives are designed to prevent the onset of pregancy. An abortion can only occur after pregnacy begins. By the defintion applied by virtually all major medical sources and the great majority of legal statutes, "pregnancy" does not occur until a fertilized egg implants itself into the uterine wall of the mother. You are probably referring to "the morning after pill," which the courts have already ruled does not qualify as an "abortion" since it does not work after implantation has ocurred.
In addition, providing more women with the mindset that they can do whatever they want as long as their "protected" and then they can get an abortion if their contraception fails will NOT lower abortion.
Now, that just doesn't make ANY sense, at all. Fewer unplanned and unwanted pregnancies means fewer abortions. Its really is a no-brainer.
I don't want my tax dollars spent on promoting the mindset that people can do whatever they want and not face the consequences, because everyone else will take care of it.
Please explain how requiring medical professionals to provide "medically accurate" information that includes the "health benefits and failure rates relating to the use of such contraceptive" equates to telling people that they don't have to face consequences. A better question would probably to ask you why you are so afraid of the truth? Are you beliefs so out-of-touch with reality that people who are presented with factually accurate information are unlikely to agree with you?
In addition, this bill pushes government into multiple aspects of society. The government needs to get OUT of our business. Not MORE into it.
I detect a bit of hypocrisy, here. I don't recall you being outraged when our government began to exercise its power to withold funds from groups that DID provide accurate information about abortions. I think rather that you argument that this is a matter of limited government is completely disingenuous.
The bottom line, as it often is in discussions of this sort, is that the inability to deal honestly with the contents of this kind of legislative package is one of the main reasons why the pro-life crowd gets so little respect for their opinions. If you have to LIE to people in order to get them to agree with you, then there's something wrong with your point-of-view. Period.
TTFN,
Blackout
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A question of love.
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