It is difficult not to sound full of righteous indignation when addressing conservatives’ fevered obsession with contraception. Birth control had been settled political ground for decades; now a nasty strain of political misogyny masquerading as religious freedom has reopened the subject.
Legislation such as the defeated Blunt Amendment and Arizona’s House Bill 2625 would allow employers to refuse insurance coverage for birth control medication on religious grounds. The Arizona bill would further allow employers to require women to certify their use of contraceptive medication to be for non-contraceptive purposes or be fired. This should go without saying, but what business is this of employers? It is utterly offensive to give a boss the right to pass some arcane moral judgment on female employees.
Rush Limbaugh called Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke a “slut” and “prostitute” for attempting to testify before Congress in favor of requiring insurance coverage of contraceptive medication. Fluke, who was not allowed to testify, publicly talked of a fellow student who took contraceptives for polycystic ovary syndrome and was denied coverage. Limbaugh made the recklessly false characterization that Fluke actually went before the committee and “essentially says that she [Fluke] must be paid to have sex.”
These egregious assaults on women’s access to contraceptives raise the question of the true motive behind the assaults. When you bully and coerce in legislation and in the public square, you forfeit the right to call your motives religious freedom.
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