Supreme Court Rules Some Employers Don't Have to Cover Birth Control

[JohnR! 5,495]

I thought morning after pills are available over the counter to women over 18, no?

There is one way around it. Although insurance may not pay for them directly, anyone with an HSA/FSA health insurance plan can pay for these contraceptives with their health account funds. It is not ideal but it gives women an option not to be cornered by medieval values.

[Boiler 45,468]

That sort of kills that discussion.

But yes your Employer should have no control over your Healthcare, Employer involvement is illogical.

There is one way around it. Although insurance may not pay for them directly, anyone with an HSA/FSA health insurance plan can pay for these contraceptives with their health account funds. It is not ideal but it gives women an option not to be cornered by medieval values.

A quick google suggest $50 so should not be an Insurance issue.

[Teddy B 17,252]

It appears it's available for 17 years and older.

Morning After Pill Now Available Over The Counter

Submitted by TammyM Tue 01/18/2011

The morning after pill, which is commonly called “Plan B”, is now available over the counter to girls 17 years and older. If you are younger than 17 years old then you must still have a prescription to obtain the pill.

FDA Approves Over the Counter Pill

On March 23rd, the Federal court made a ruling to make the morning after pill available over the counter instead of a prescription medication. Currently, the judge feels and has requested an order for the morning after pill to be made available to all women regardless of age.

[Peikko 1,575]

OK fair enough, I thought it was still unavailable without prescription

This is interesting, typical Guardian OP ED but still interesting

Thirty-five years ago, cultural critic Ellen Willis wrote, "it is depressing to have to insist that sex is not an unnecessary, morally dubious self-indulgence but a basic human need, no less for women than for men".

If it was depressing in 1979, it looks downright miserable today.

Because let's be clear: While Monday's US supreme court ruling in favor of Hobby Lobby was officially about religious freedom, the real issue at stake is sex – namely, if women should be able to have it as freely as men.

The court ruled – in a 5-4 decision in which all the female justices dissented – that a closely-held company does not have to cover contraception under the Affordable Care Act. Hobby Lobby argued that, as a corporation, it has religious objections to certain forms of contraception that it believes are "abortifacients" (they are not). But the underlying values that drove this company to sue – and spurred a national debate – is the belief that women having pre-marital or non-procreative sex is wrong.

There is a reason that the first large-scale cultural reaction to the issue of insurance coverage for birth control was a female law student being called a "#######". Sandra Fluke's testimony to a congressional committee in favor of contraceptive coverage for a friend's serious medical condition set off an apoplectic frenzy of sexually-based attacks on her – and they weren't just limited to pundit Rush Limbaugh calling her a "#######" and "prostitute" on the air. (Even today, I still see tweets calling her a "#######".)

More than 30 years after women thought the right to birth control was fought and won, we are still having to justify why we'd like to have sex – and why that doesn't make us bad, immoral or disgusting people.

The true concerns of conservative "freedom-seekers" are made especially clear in the amicus briefs in support of Hobby Lobby – which sound more like abstinence-only education curricula than legal arguments.

One brief from the Beverly Lahaye Institute and Janice Crouse (who once gave a sex talk to college students called "False Promises, Searing Pain, Tragic Problems") insists that the court consider the "documented negative effects the widespread availability of contraceptives has on women's ability to enter into and maintain desired marital relationships". The American Freedom Center argued that birth control has "harmed women physically, emotionally, morally, and spiritually". And lawyer David Boyle wrote in his brief that contraceptives are not necessary, "since sexual relations are basically a voluntary activity. ... ex is only a human want (like bowling or stamp collecting), not an actual need".

Bowling or stamp collecting. The jokes write themselves.

Legal decisions about contraception have always been based, at least in part, on concerns about women's potential promiscuity. The supreme court decision in Eisenstadt v Baird that gave unmarried Americans the right to procure birth control – in, yes, 1972 – was sparked by the arrest of William Baird after he handed a condom to an unmarried woman at a lecture he was giving about birth control at Boston University. At the time, his action violated Massachusetts law on "crimes against chastity".

Decades later, we've seen the conservative obsession with women's sexual purity restrict access to Plan B and the HPV vaccine – and now it's interfering with women's access to health care, of which sexual health is certainly a part.

Dr Nancy L Stanwood, the chair of the board at Physicians for Reproductive Health, released a statement on Monday saying that "[c]ontraception is essential to women's health and well-being, a critical component of preventive care, and integral to the health of families."

The court put to rest the slippery slope concern many had, stating that the their decision "concerns only the contraceptive mandate" and not vaccinations or blood transfusions. But Louise Melling, the deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, noted in a call after the ruling that this exceptionalism only seems to apply when it comes to women and reproductive rights - or, as lawyer and writer Jill Filipovic tweeted, "Whew, really glad #SCOTUS made sure its #HobbyLobby decision wouldn't negatively impact men who need medical care some religions object to!".

And while SCOTUSblog reported that the decision will allow for the government to "provide alternative ways [for women] to obtain or access [contraception] coverage", several women's health leaders I heard from said that is far from certain.

No matter the legal rhetoric, the message about women and sex remains the same. It seems appropriate that that quote from Ellen Willis is from the essay "Abortion: Is a Woman a Person?" Because what's at stake in a decision like this – and in a debate like this – is women's basic humanity, of which sexuality is an integral part. Yes, contraception is about health and women often need birth control for medical reasons – but we also need it for sex, and that's just fine.

The supreme court wrote that this decision doesn't "provide a shield for employers who might cloak illegal discrimination as a religious practice". But what else can we call the targeting of contraception - and the targeting of women's health and lives?

[JohnR! 5,495]

There is also another possibility. If you purchase any of these you can submit a claim and the insurance company may reimburse you. Technically they would not be paying for the contraceptives themselves, so much as they would be reimbursing you for the expense. There is nothing the employer can do about it in that case.

[Boiler 45,468]

I have lost the plot, what is the issue again?

There is also another possibility. If you purchase any of these you can submit a claim and the insurance company may reimburse you. Technically they would not be paying for the contraceptives themselves, so much as they would be reimbursing you for the expense. There is nothing the employer can do about it in that case.

Who pays the Insurance Company?

[Peikko 1,575]

This thread is about a woman's right to have sex without repercussions as often as they choose to do so without being labelled a #######!

Edited July 1, 2014 by The Truth™

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

That sort of kills that discussion.

But yes your Employer should have no control over your Healthcare, Employer involvement is illogical.

A quick google suggest $50 so should not be an Insurance issue.

Exactly. My insurance does not pay for cialis. If I wanted it I would have to buy it. Is that unfair ? Not really why should someone else have to subsidize my sexual choices. If I needed it that is, which I don't.

Birth control is the same thing as someone that needs Viagra. you can pay for it or abstain. Simple

[JohnR! 5,495]

It appears it's available for 17 years and older.

15 in some states in the Bible Belt... Ain't that special?

[Teddy B 17,252]

I have lost the plot, what is the issue again?

Good bbq!

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

Good bbq!

You do a little bit of rednecking and you get all giddy.

[Teddy B 17,252]

You do a little bit of rednecking and you get all giddy.

I use gas, so it's only partial redneck.

[Boiler 45,468]

This thread is about a woman's right to have sex without repercussions as often as they choose to do so without being labelled a #######!

For that discription you would have to add with as many people as they want to.

[JohnR! 5,495]

Who pays the Insurance Company?

Those who owe them money, would be a safe guess.

Edited July 1, 2014 by JohnR!

[Peikko 1,575]

For that discription you would have to add with as many people as they want to.

Tell that to Rush Limbaugh and his ilk. He feels fit to call female lawyers who support birth control rights as sluts, regardless of his knowledge of their personal lives or preferences, which kinda highlights where the US is on this issue I don't believe all the rhetoric by any means, on either side, but I do think that a lot of what Hobby Lobby finds objectionable is nothing to do with whether or not women can use a pill to stop an egg from sticking to the vaginal wall and everything to do with them attempting to impose a certain view of sex and sexuality on the wider public.

Edited July 1, 2014 by The Truth™