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Obamacare is already proving to be a nightmare.
Passed in March 2010, Obamacare — otherwise known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — has provisions that go into effect over the course of this decade. Some provisions went into effect in 2010 and this year, while others are set to be put in place as late as 2018.
A provision, which is planned to go into effect this year, requires most employers to offer employees insurance that covers contraceptives, including abortion-inducing drugs that the Food and Drug Administration has approved.
The provision is contentious because it also applies to religious institutions. Controversy has arisen because some religions, such as Catholicism, believe some or all contraceptives are wrong.
Some think Obamacare is unconstitutional. After all, for the first time in American history, the federal government is forcing every American to buy a product from private corporations.
But this new provision could take the horrors of Obamacare to a new level, as it forces religious institutions and employers to violate their consciences. This is why Catholic clergy, politicians and political pundits have vowed to “take this fight to the street.” Some Catholic priests have asked followers not to comply with the new provision, even if their actions could cause persecution or jailing.
Political pundits are calling on Americans of other religions to “stand with the Catholics.” But this is not a Catholic issue — the provision affects people of other faiths, as well as the non-religious.
Last week Richard Land, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said Christians should go to jail for protesting the provision, rather than complying with it.
Land, who TIME Magazine referred to as one of the 25 most influential evangelicals in America, asked pastors to preach from the pulpit about the provision’s calamity and dangerousness.
“Our responsibility is to stand and say, ‘We will not comply with this. We want the law changed, or else we’re going to write our letters from jail,’” Land said in a LifeSiteNews.com article titled “Southern Baptist leader: If Obama mandate isn’t changed, Christians will go to jail.”
Land’s comments come one week after Albert Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, warned some Christians might be imprisoned over the issue.
The reason some Christians are willing to face prison over the provision is because they are unwilling to subsidize abortions for employees.
A version of this article appeared in the Feb 22 issue of the Collegiate Times.
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One of the worst scenarios that could come out of this, is that Catholics (because they are recognized as being against contraception) get some form of waiver or exception, but nobody else. This would screw over the Christians and secular people you speak about who are also against it. Giving only Catholics an exception is not that far fetched, because when they signed Obamacare into law they gave the Amish an exception. So even if non-Amish have religious quarrels with aspects of Obamacare, tuff luck!!!
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When I said gave Amish an exception, I did not mean to this birth-control provision that is in the news. I meant that Congress and Obama gave the Amish an exception to Obamacare period, as in, the mandate to buy insurance does not apply to them. Just wanted to clarify that.
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Wow, what an outrage and intrusion into personal liberties. How do you feel about forcing a woman seeking an abortion from rape to have a phallic device (transvaginal ultrasound) inserted into her
against her will? Yeah, that could only occur in a police state...or Richmond. Its your mother, its your wife, its your sister, its your daughter...
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I fail to see how most people aren't already "subsidizing abortions for employees" when every health plan I've ever heard of covers birth control, including types that prevent implantation but not fertilization.
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So you think that birth control that prevents implantation = abortion?
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No, I'm saying people who think that are already paying for "abortions" and they should have had this debate a long time ago.
This is already a state-level requirement in many parts of the country.
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I like how this article assumes that most religious people are against health care and contraception. Please don't blindly assume that all Catholics don't support the use of contraceptives; a large number of us do.
And why do you feel it's necessary to further restrict a person's access to health care?
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nobody would be further restricted from contraceptive healthcare if this was or wasn't part of the affordable care act. for starters, condoms are dirt cheap, to act as though somebody doesn't use them because they can't afford them is laughable. other forms of health care still aren't that expensive nor are they necessary. finally, it's not "free" just because they say that health care companies must provide it for free. that's called a lie. health care companies have to pay for it someway and since their only source of income is the people to whom they are providing services then that means the people receiving the "free" health care are paying for the "free" healthcare through increased premiums. wouldn't you rather them not be "free" and pay less in healthcare premiums and decide how much of that difference you would save you want to spend towards contraception? you would be better off economically.
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Mr. Dunn has obviously never tried to look at this issue from anything but a man's perspective. It's been an extremely successful propaganda coup for the religious right to cast this as an issue of "religious liberty," when it is in fact a grab by religious employers to control the lives and health of the women they employ. The real issue here is the individual liberty of women to get access to widely used modern medicine without being subject to the religious whims of their bosses.
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Libs..... /smacks facepalm
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Indeed. Notice how the vast majority of the anti contraceptive/abortion proponents are men? Ugh.
It's a scary world if access to contraception and pills like Plan B aren't available. The thought is horrifying.
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again, what do any of you mean when you say access is not available? there will always be a market for birth control and a way to buy it in many forms. it's not a simple as the swoop of a pen stroke and poof begone there is no more contraception.
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And what if you can't afford the $30 co-pay on the pill, and your condom fails?
Plan B is a $50 pill. Much cheaper than an unwanted pregnancy from an outsider's perspective, but when you have to choose between eating that week or taking the chance on having a baby, many poor Americans are going to go with the food.
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please, this is such a small probability of occurance and and affects such a small percentage of the population that can't afford 50$ once a year for plan b. there's no reason to do this for the entire population when only a few people may ever need it. you do realize that you are the one that is paying for this not the consumer. this isn't some kind of outbreak of accidental pregnancies.
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I've done it myself as a college student, and got lucky. I bet it's a much larger percentage than you're thinking.
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I'm concerned that this is a college newspaper. Whether you agree or disagree with the current administrations healthcare policy, the use of inflammatory language with negative connotations, for instance, calling the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act "Obamacare", illustrates a concerning amount of bias.
Whether you are conservative or liberal, a college paper should care about creating an atmosphere for exchanging ideas that is not steeped in bias.
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This is a college paper, and 99% of us have no idea what the Patient Protection Act is. Who the heck refers to the healthcare bill as that? EVERYONE knows what Obamacare is. It's not negative, it's just using the lingo that all Americans use. I'm glad he called it Obamacare. Heh, out of all the complaints one could make..... People who comment online crack me up sometimes.
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