Florida’s war on women: State passes massive anti-choice bill to shut down access to abortion and contraception

Even though a law almost exactly like it is still being reviewed in the Supreme Court, the state of Florida just passed a massive anti-choice bill that, under the guise of supporting women’s health, is aimed at cutting off as many women as possible from abortion, contraception, and STI prevention and treatment services. Most of the bill is modeled after the one in Texas, the one the court is currently reviewing, which uses medically unnecessary red tape to regulate abortion clinics out of existence.

Federal Appeals Court Rules Against Obamacare Contraceptive Mandate

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that President Barack Obama's health care law unjustly burdens religiously affiliated employers by forcing them to help provide insurance coverage for certain contraceptives, even though they can opt out of directly paying for it.

The ruling by a three-judge 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in St. Louis upheld lower court decisions that sided with plaintiffs who included three Christian colleges in Missouri, Michigan and Iowa.

It's the Pill or Nil for Many Health Care Plans

For nearly a decade after the birth control pill made its debut, it remained illegal in Canada. The sexual revolution was in full swing south of the border by the time contraception was dropped from the Criminal Code, and women in this country could plan their pregnancies without breaking the law.

Today, there is a dizzying list of options: The Pill. The Patch. IUDs. Diaphragms. Condoms. An injection. The vaginal ring. Contraceptive implants. Your womb, your choice, right? Not quite.

Republicans' Curious Ideas About Contraception

Trying to follow the logic of certain Republican lawmakers in Congress can make one feel a bit like Alice on a visit to Wonderland. I am hardly the first to suggest the general comparison, but it strikes me as particularly appropriate when it comes to their opposition to making contraception easily available and affordable.

The GOP politicians can be, to use the phrase of Lewis Carroll, author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, "entirely bonkers" on the birth control issue. And their arguments get "curiouser and curiouser," leaving an ordinary observer feeling much as Alice did in the first chapter, "falling down a very deep well."

Cost Of Birth Control Higher In Some Low-Income Neighborhoods Than In Wealthy Ones

Prescription contraceptives cost more in some low-income neighborhoods than in wealthier ones, according to a small study that analyzed prescription price data from Florida.

Though the findings are preliminary, the University of Tennessee physicians who led the study said it may have implications for low-income women hoping to prevent pregnancy.

"We saw several contraceptive options that are more expensive in lower income areas, and that expense may limit access," researcher Dr. Nikki Zite, an OBGYN at The University of Tennessee Medical Center, told The Huffington Post. The findings were released Monday at the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' annual clinical meeting in New Orleans.

Texas Obamacare Bill Would Give Tax Breaks To Companies That Don't Cover Contraception

Texas may consider rewarding companies for violating a key Obamacare provision.

State Rep. Jonathan Stickland (R) introduced a bill in the Texas House of Representatives on Thursday that would give tax breaks to companies that don't cover emergency contraception such as the morning-after pill, the Austin American-Statesman reports. Under Obamacare, company health insurance plans are required to fully cover employees' contraception costs, and companies must pay a federal fine if they do not.

A War on Nuns?

The fight over contraception and health-care reform was portrayed as various kinds of wars—on women, on religion, between the G.O.P. and Obama—but it also included a skirmish in a longer fight within Catholicism, with the Vatican and bishops on one side and American nuns on the other. On Wednesday, the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, which for a few years has been conducting an inquiry into the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the main association of American nuns—provoked, it said, by its discernment of “radical feminist themes” in the L.C.W.R.’s work—released a Doctrinal Assessment that found the L.C.W.R.’s state to be “grave and a matter of serious concern.” The nuns in question, according to the Vatican, “perpetuate a distorted ecclesiological vision, and have scant regard for the role of the Magisterium as the guarantor of the authentic interpretation of the Church’s Faith.” An archbishop and two bishops were being urgently dispatched to show them the error of their ways.

Ron Johnson Offers Women Contraception Advice: Google ‘What If I Can't Afford Birth Control?'

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) weighed into the controversy surrounding President Barack Obama's birth control mandate this weekend, dismissing the concerns of women who cannot afford contraception.

"My wife actually went online here in Wisconsin and typed in, 'what if I can’t afford birth control,'" the freshman Tea Party senator told ThinkProgress. "Came up, bam. If you can’t afford it, you can get birth control in this country.”

(Video above via ThinkProgress)

Johnson has been a vocal opponent of Obama's birth control mandate, which requires nearly all employers to provide insurance which covers the cost of contraception to employees.

ThinkProgress asked Johnson to clarify his comments regarding birth control. “You can get it," Johnson insisted. "Go online, type it in. It’s easy to get.”

Catholic Bishops: Birth Control Is 'Ubiquitous And Inexpensive'

WASHINGTON -- As part of their intensely focused effort to repeal the Obama administration's new contraception coverage policy, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops released a manifesto of sorts on Wednesday, in which they assert that birth control is "ubiquitous and inexpensive."

"We wish to clarify what this debate is -- and is not -- about," the bishops said in the statement. "This is not about access to contraception, which is ubiquitous and inexpensive, even when it is not provided by the Church's hand and with the Church's funds."

What the debate is about, according to the statement, is the "unjust and illegal" mandate that "would force virtually all private health plans nationwide to provide coverage of sterilization and contraception -- including abortifacient drugs."

The bishops' statement is somewhat misleading. The new federal rule does not cover any drug that causes an abortion. It does cover emergency contraception, which prevents pregnancy.

Arizona Birth Control Bill Penalizes Women For Using Contraception For Non-Medical Reasons

Arizona legislators have advanced an unprecedented bill that would require women who wish to have their contraception covered by their health insurance plans to prove to their employers that they are taking it to treat medical conditions. The bill also makes it easier for Arizona employers to fire a woman for using birth control to prevent pregnancy despite the employer's moral objection.

Under current law, health plans in Arizona that cover other prescription medications must also cover contraception. House Bill 2625, which the state House of Representatives passed earlier this month and the Senate Judiciary Committee endorsed on Monday, repeals that law and allows any employer to refuse to cover contraception that will be used "for contraceptive, abortifacient, abortion or sterilization purposes." If a woman wants the cost of her contraception covered, she has to "submit a claim" to her employer providing evidence of a medical condition, such as endometriosis or polycystic ovarian syndrome, that can be treated with birth control.

Moreover, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, the law would give Arizona employers the green light to fire a woman upon finding out that she took birth control for the purpose of preventing pregnancy.

Women Fight Back as Virginia, Georgia Curb Reproductive Rights: "When We’re Screwed, We Multiply"

hereOn International Women’s Day, we speak with Loretta Ross of the SisterSong Reproductive Justice Collective about the latest wave of legislative attacks on reproductive rights. Virginia has enacted a controversial law forcing women seeking abortions to have an ultrasound. Lawmakers in Georgia and New Hampshire, meanwhile, have advanced new curbs on abortion and contraception coverage. Georgia lawmakers are also considering a bill that would ban abortion after 20 weeks based on the highly contested notion that fetuses can feel pain at that stage. "In Georgia we got tossed back to the 19th century," Ross says. "Republican legislators really didn’t want to hear from women, they didn’t want to pay attention, and presumed that they could tell us what to do with our bodies again."

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Abstinence-Only Sex Education Bill In Utah Prohibits Teaching Contraception

A bill requiring sex education classes to teach an abstinence-only curriculum moved closer to becoming a law in Utah Wednesday.

The state House passed HB 363 in a 45-28 vote following extensive debate. The bill -- which now goes on to the state Senate -- would lift the current requirement that all public schools must teach sex ed in grades 8 through 12. If the bill passes, districts would decide whether to offer sex ed classes that teach an abstinence-only curriculum, or not offer the course at all. Republican state Rep. Bill Wright sponsored the proposal.

"We've been culturally watered down to think we have to teach about sex, about having sex and how to get away with it, which is intellectually dishonest," Wright said, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. "Why don't we just be honest with them upfront that sex outside marriage is devastating?"

The version of the bill that passed through the state House Wednesday would prohibit any instruction in contraception, though teachers would be allowed to answer student questions about safe sex.

That provision is a departure from current law, which prohibits the advocacy of contraception and sexual activity outside of marriage. It also tightens the already-conservative regulations that sex ed curricula emphasize abstinence before marriage and fidelity after marriage and "personal skills that encourage individual choice of abstinence and fidelity."

"Where Are the Women?": Lawmakers Walk Out on Contraception Rule Hearing After Female Witness Barred

In a dramatic scene on Capitol Hill, several Democrats walked out of a congressional hearing on the Obama administration’s rule that would require health insurance plans, including those provided by Catholic-affiliated hospitals and universities, to offer free contraceptives for health-related issues and birth control. The lawmakers took action after the committee chair blocked testimony from a female witness who supports the mandate. We’re joined by D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, who walked out of the hearing, and the witness who was barred from testifying, Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke. Georgetown is a Catholic university whose health plan does not cover contraception.

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The GOP Plan to Give Your Boss "Moral" Control Over Your Health Insurance

In their latest move in the battle over contraception coverage, top Republicans in Congress are going for broke:

They're now pushing a bill that would allow employers and insurance companies to pick and choose which health benefits to provide based simply on executives' personal moral beliefs. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the top GOPer in the Senate, has already endorsed the proposal, and it could come to a vote this week. The measure would make the religious exemptions to President Barack Obama's health care bill so large they'd swallow it whole.

"This is about gutting the Affordable Care Act and the protections it was meant to establish," says Leila Abolfazli, a lawyer focusing at the National Women's Law Center who focuses on health and reproductive rights.

Obama's Affordable Care Act requires all health care plans to offer certain services and benefits, including birth control. Last week, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) offered a "conscience amendment," to the law, pitching it as a way to allay religious employers' qualms about providing birth control to their employees.

Contraception Row Could Rebound in Obama’s Favor

Having failed to take adequate precautions, President Obama and Kathleen Sebelius, his secretary of Health and Human Services, were looking a bit sheepish on Friday lunchtime when they walked into the White House media-briefing room and administered a morning-after pill to quiet the controversy over a government edict requiring all employers, including ones with religious affiliations (though not churches and the like), to provide women with free birth control as part of their health-care plans.“No religious employers will have to pay for or provide contraceptive services, but people who work there will have access to free contraception,” the President said in outlining a compromise that he said “works for everyone.”

Under his new plan, in the case of religious institutions the onus on providing birth control will be shifted from employers to health insurers, who would be prohibited from charging co-payments or otherwise restricting the supply. This “shouldn’t be a wedge issue,” the President went on. “I certainly never saw it that way.” That is clear. If the White House’s political antennae had been sharper, it could have got together with the Department of Health and Human Services a month ago, before the announcement of the new rule. Quite possibly, this silly row might never have erupted. Still, I doubt the President will suffer much lasting political damage from it. Indeed, it could well rebound in his favor. Women are a much bigger voting group than Catholics. And even among ordinary Catholics, as opposed to the gilded church hierarchy, contraception just isn’t a very big deal.

To be sure, the Administration goofed in its handling of this issue. If it had tabled what looks like an eminently reasonable way to balance women’s rights with religious freedom, it would have passed the issue back to Roman Catholic bishops, a group whose moral and political authority has never been weaker, forcing them to oppose it. In issuing the new rules without adequate prep work, the Administration presented the bishops, led by New York Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, with an opportunity to pose as the victims of an all-encroaching government. Then, as dawn follows night, the Republicans piled on, creating alarm in the White House political shop.