Dear Hobby Lobby Haters: Birth Control is Not Medicine

Opinion   |   Rebecca Taylor   |   Jul 22, 2014   |   2:50PM   |   Washington, DC

There is one argument against the Hobby Lobby decision that is driving me crazy maybe because it is going unchallenged on Facebook pages and comboxes all over.

It goes like this: if Hobby Lobby can deny health insurance coverage for birth control, then what will stop a company owned by other religious nut jobs from denying blood transfusions, chemotherapy, or inhalers for asthma?

hobbylobby31This one seems to make sense and I am sure many people do not see where it falls short. I am not expert on Constitutional Law or on health insurance in general but this seems pretty obvious to me.

Blood transfusions, chemotherapy, and inhalers are medicine. They are therapeutic in nature needed for those who are sick. These are exactly the kinds of things health insurance is supposed to pay for. Any employer religious or otherwise is going to have a very tough time having a legitimate claim for not including well-known therapeutic measures for their employees because these are actually “health care.”

Birth control is different. Of course there are cases where the pill is prescribed for medical reasons, but I speak only about birth control for the prevention of pregnancy. In this case birth control is not medicine nor is it therapeutic.

Birth control actually takes something that is normal, fertility, and makes it not work properly. Birth control is not even remotely in the same class as blood transfusions, chemotherapy or inhalers.

Click here to sign up for daily pro-life news alerts from LifeNews.com

Really birth control is something that allows people to engage in baby-making behavior without making babies. That is not medicine; it is a life style choice no different from condoms, other barrier methods or even permanent sterilizations. Employers are not required to cover life style choices like condoms in their policies because they are not something health insurance should cover.

I have not heard a single man shouting about how his employer is denying him access to his condoms. Why? Probably because when it comes to men’s reproductive systems we can still engage in calm and clear reasoning without hysterical hyperbole.

If a man wants to engage in baby-making behavior without making a baby we make him pay for it.

Ladies, we want equality do we not? Or is this really about getting more than “health care” and making someone else pay for it?