President Barack Obama’s plan for birth control has turned into an issue with extensive concerns. This policy would require that employers provide health insurance plans that cover the cost of birth control pills to their female employees. This plan would also include females who work at religiously-based organizations.
The push for this proposed plan has divided the Church. Some Christians do not follow the teachings of the church when it comes to birth control, while others believe that using contraceptives is wrong.
This issue has grabbed enough attention that even the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have come out denouncing this proposal as a moral concern.
This birth control mandate is not just troublesome from a religious stand point, it is also important to realize the economic consequences. The insurance company BlueCross BlueShield Association announced that the possible cost to cover contraceptives would be approximately $2.8 billion. This cost could possibly be covered by the consumers themselves in the form of higher insurance premiums.
Another problem that could arise is gender discrimination when getting hired for jobs. Employers would have to take into account that it would cost them more money to hire women. This would happen because employers become responsible for providing women with contraceptive coverage.
This mandate not only violates freedom of religion but could also raise the price of insurance premiums and may cause discrimination against women in the work place. This mandate has the power to create more problems than it is meant to solve and, therefore, should not be forced upon anyone who does not desire it.
