Religious Freedom and Contraception

News on the "contraceptive mandate" front in which secular employers seek the right to deny their employees coverage for things of which the employers disapprove. From NCR online:

Judge Terence Sheen of the DuPage County Circuit Court granted the order Tuesday to Christopher and Mary Anne Yep and their company, Triune Health Group Inc., saying Illinois' conscience laws take precedence over the state mandate that the health insurance they provide to their employees must cover abortion, sterilizations and contraceptives.

So, let's get this straight, so to speak. A woman who wants access to contraception is denied insurance coverage for it, if her employer is Roman Catholic.  He is forcing her to live as though she were Catholic regardless of her beliefs and free conscience.  It's no more his business if she uses/needs birth control than it is of a Jewish employer if she buys a ham sandwich.

 And don't go telling me that she can buy it for cheap--different formularies have drastically different effects on individual women, and the "cheapest" may be a medically bad fit.

 What if she needs it for a medical, rather than contraceptive reason? Is she supposed to ask his permission about her private life and health history? In Arizona last year, there was an actual effort to give employers just this right--and more:

Arizona legislators have advanced an unprecedented bill that would require women who wish to have their contraception covered by their health insurance plans to prove to their employers that they are taking it to treat medical conditions. The bill also makes it easier for Arizona employers to fire a woman for using birth control to prevent pregnancy despite the employer's moral objection.

Just think that through.... if my employer (in a non-religious business) can fire me for my faith disagreeing with him, how is that different than firing someone for being a Jew, or a Mormon....or a Catholic?

Meanwhile, there's this German example of the cost of protecting their "religious freedom"

Germans were further outraged by reports this week that two Roman Catholic hospitals in Cologne had refused to carry out a gynecological examination on a 25-year-old suspected rape victim. An emergency doctor who had helped the woman told the newspaper Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger that the hospitals cited ethical objections to advise women on unwanted pregnancies and on steps that can be taken to prevent them, like the morning-after pill. The Archdiocese of Cologne denied that the church refuses to treat rape victims. The hospitals blamed a “misunderstanding” and said the matter was under investigation.

Now, let's just consider that, shall we? Many people in the US have no access to medical care outside of the Roman Catholic hospital behemoth. Darn those women and their female bits!  If they are "legitimately raped", it's their cross to carry a child.  Oh, and  don't forget those pesky homosexuals.  Don't let a dying man's husband into a hospital room, if it offends the Roman Catholic faith.  I mean, if it's a problem, shouldn't he have had the car accident somewhere where there was a non-Catholic hospital?

This is what is driving the "nones" and the anger against religion.  This, exactly. I walked out of the Roman Catholic Church over 30 years ago and they have NO RIGHT to tell me what to do.

FREEDOM OF RELIGION IS NOT FREEDOM TO IMPOSE RELIGION.

(see previous posts on this subject here.)