Reproductive Freedom at a Catholic college
Submitted by blueinnc on Fri, 08/14/2009 - 11:19am
I am a long-time reader of BlueNC, and I just wanted to alert other NC progressives to a health insurance struggle in which I and other faculty members are engaged. To get an idea of what's been going on without my having to get too long-winded about it, please click on the link below:
http://www.gastongazette.com/news/college-36794-discriminated-eeoc.html
Let me add just a few points missing from the article. First, the College had provided contraceptive benefits in its employee health insurance for at least 26 years prior to the President yanking it. Second,the President and his minions have launched a smear campaign against us on rightwing Catholic blogs, particularly that of the Cardinal Newman Society. Any thoughts on the matter?
Strike back
They are free to have whatever policies they want, but the retaliation warrants extreme response. I hope you can find a good lawyer who will work on contingency for a multi-million dollar settlement.
Such arrogance from such assholes should not be tolerated.
Do good. Be nice. Have fun.
Contraceptives?
Thank goodness this isn't W's EEOC.
Besta é tu se você não viver nesse mundo
http://zabouti.tumblr.com
maternity coverage
The linked Gaston Gazette article surely did not correctly state the EEOC ruling. The article said that the EEOC found that denying oral contraceptives was sex discrimination because only women take oral contraceptives. This would be like saying that health insurance coverage of maternity care and childbirth is sex discrimination because only women birth children.
Pro-life for Catholics MEANS no contraception
Rereading Humanae Vitae at the request of a now-Catholic friend recently, I concluded and shared with others who read what I write that "pro-life" means from the moment of conception even prior to implantation. Thus, Catholics are "equally," according to the papal document, "EQUALLY" sinful if they allow legislation providing contraception, the morning after pill, or abortion of an 8 celled embryo. It is no wonder there was pressure to drop the health care coverage, since to provide it is a sin in Catholicism, since it aids in the taking of human life in Catholic thought.
I have been raising the alarm that "pro-life" from conception means that espouseers will work hard to revoke for the rest of us availability of contraception, devices and medications that prevent implantation, and the use in physicians' offices of medications to provide abortion before 62 days of pregnancy without surgery, something that should not require the existence of an abortion clinic to provide, in my mind. I am opposed to abortion, but I strongly believe in the need to have legal contraception and abortion in this country. I am old enough to remember when neither was available and what that will mean as these kinds of inroads continue to be made by "pro-lifers" interfering in the bodies of others.
women's healthcare would be in jeopardy
I agree with the need for legal abortion. If this is not provided, women will still seek abortions and they will die, as before, due to back street butchers or from attempting abortion methods at home. People think it was young women that died from illegal abortions, but instead the majority were actually women that were married, with several children, that died. Many did not tell their husband's out of fear. These husbands were then left as a single parent raising 5 or 6 children. It would take us backwards, backwards, backwards in women's health care. I am a daughter, I am a Mother, I have a daughter. This needs to be followed closely and all women should speak out.