Before I start I would like to get something off my chest:
I am a woman.
I am a liberal.
And I am a Christian.
But I do not write this letter to quibble with Freeland Oliverio's religious views or argue about church doctrine. I write this letter to address the fundamental logical flaws in his argument in his editorial.
Mr. Oliverio seems to be under the misconception that Obama's executive order would require religious institutions to pay for women's birth control out of their own pockets.
This is false. The compromise that was later proposed after the outcry against the initial plan is that the insurance companies of religious institutions are to pay for women's birth control. To put it simply, religious institutions are not being required to pay for women's birth control. At all.
And Mr. Oliverio complains that his religious views are under attack at the suggestion of religious institutions paying for the medical care of the women under their employment. But quite frankly, I and any other pro-life Christian should be outraged that the religious authorities that say they are defending them are violating their religious views.
Because quite frankly, it is the most un-pro-life stance a person can possibly take to single out 50 percent of the population and say they do not have the right to a healthy life. Because that is what denying women access to birth control does; it denies them the right to health and the right to life.
Perhaps Mr. Oliverio is under the misconception that birth control is like Viagra (a medication currently covered under most health insurance plans, I might add): a woman takes it every time she wants to have sex and all it does is help her have better sex. This is false.
Truthfully, denying women access to this health care is like denying men the right to have prostate exams and testicular care. The reason why most women, even lesbians, take hormonal birth control is because it has medical benefits far beyond merely controlling births. Hormonal birth control is taken to prevent cervical cancer, to regulate the menstrual cycle to prevent unbearable pain, vomiting, anemia and migraines, among other health benefits.
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And the truth of the matter is, birth control makes pregnancies safer and healthier, because if a woman's menstrual cycle is healthy, if the woman herself is healthy, that makes pregnancy, the labor and the infant healthy when a woman chooses to become pregnant.
This reduces the number of stillborn infants; this makes babies healthier and better able to survive and reduces the number of abortions. It is not enough to protest abortions to be pro-life, one must also protect the lives that now live outside the womb, lives with names, family, lovers, friends, memories, emotions and an impact on the society they live in.
The conservative opinion also seems to be of the misconception that sex and pregnancy is a woman's problem, they forget the sex tango requires two dancers, and that is why women don't protest the fact that insurance companies pay for prostate, colon and testicular care in men.
Mr. Oliverio says he is defending the Christian faith, just not the Christian faith of the 98 percent of Christian women who use or have used birth control. Mr. Oliverio says the word feminist like it's a bad thing, but the truth is a feminist is an individual who is crazy enough to believe women are equal to men, that we have the same right to life as any other life.
So I'll make it as simple as possible for the conservative misogynist base: a man's religious opinions have no bearing on women's health.
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