"It was good news that the Obama administration withstood pressure from Roman Catholic bishops and social conservatives to deny contraceptive coverage for millions of American women who work for religiously affiliated employers. Kathleen Sebelius, the Health and Human Services secretary, rejected broad exemptions from a new rule requiring all health plans to cover birth control, without a deductible or co-payment.
The requirement, announced last August, contains an exemption for employees of churches and other houses of worship. But it properly covers employees of hospitals, universities, charitable groups and other entities that are associated with religious organizations but serve the general public and employ people of different faiths. The final version of the rule gives certain nonprofit employers an extra year to comply. The administration’s commitment to affordable birth control is welcome at a moment when women’s access to reproductive health care, including contraceptives, cancer screenings and abortion services, is under assault in the courts, state legislatures and Congress, as well as on the Republican campaign trail.
Earlier this month, for example, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit lifted a preliminary injunction barring enforcement of a new Texas law requiring doctors to show women seeking an abortion a fetal sonogram. It forces doctors to describe the image and play the sound of the fetal heartbeat, despite a woman’s wishes or a doctor’s ethical objections.
This outrageous intrusion into the doctor-patient relationship tramples on the First Amendment rights of physicians and their patients. The opinion, written by the court’s chief judge, Edith Jones, a vocal opponent of abortion rights, brushes aside the free-speech violation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/30/opinion/birth-control-and-reproductive-rights.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
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