People have rights, religious beliefs do not
‘Why do groups like this want to control women?’
THE law is being changed in the US so your employer can exclude cover for contraception on your health insurance as part of your employment package — on moral grounds — based on their personal religious beliefs.
Can we think about that for a moment? Your boss, because he’s a devout Christian or indeed Muslim or any other religion that doesn’t approve of women being sexually active, can now exclude your access to contraception — so you can presumably either pay for it yourself or do without it.
And bear in mind the outrageous cost of accessing healthcare in the States if you aren’t covered under health insurance. To pay to see a doctor to have the pill prescribed will cost you several hundred dollars. If you wanted something like an IUD or a coil fitted for longer term protection, it might run into thousands.
This is Trump pandering to his base on the Christian right which, for some reason, is extremely antiwomen taking responsible steps to avoid an unplanned pregnancy. However, this same group is generally OK with people having semi-automatic assault weapons lying around the house and with voting for a man who has boasted about how he can brazenly grope a woman’s crotch without her being able to do anything about it because he’s so powerful. Family values are not what they once were.
This group is also vehemently anti-abortion. So it doesn’t want women to be able to access contraception to prevent pregnancy but if they end up pregnant, they must then have the child whether they want it or not. Although many of these same people object to health care being provided for pregnant women too. They say they’re really trying to promote abstinence from extra-marital sex but because that ship has largely sailed today, they are, in effect, trying to control women’s behaviour and punish them should they fail to toe their personal moralistic line.
The question that must be asked is why? Why do groups like this want to control women? Is it because they passionately believe that society unravels when consenting adults have sex that doesn’t result in a baby? Do they think that people sleeping with each other is worse than people shooting each other? And if they are actually genuinely moralistic types, committed to a Christian ideal, how could they ever have voted for Trump in the first place?
I think a society that controls women and their bodies has basically come up with an easy way of controlling half the population in one fell swoop. The ones in the unaffected male half of the population that don’t object to this control — because many men do — do so because it aligns with their own prejudices about women, plus they get the benefits of being in the dominant group. And this is all able to happen because a moral framework exists in society that backs it up and allows it to — religion.
In other words, we can treat women this way because it’s what God wants. And amazingly every brand of religion — despite being territorially opposed to each other in other ways — agrees that women are second-class members of the congregation who should be treated as unequal to men. The secular laws of humans are far more compassionate and fair to women and indeed everyone else than any laws designed by God.
Bringing it back to the issue of whether or not your boss should be able to exclude your access to contraception, there are two important issues. One, you have a right to confidentiality around your health care. Your boss shouldn’t know for what you do or don’t attend a physician — be you a man or a woman — so what’s included or excluded is none of their business. And two, people are entitled to their beliefs and religious freedoms — but they should only be able to apply their moral standards to their own behaviour, not to other people’s.
Women’s rights are human rights. Erode them and all people are made a little worse off. And it is people who have inalienable rights; belief systems — religious or otherwise — actually have no rights at all.