The Christian university Wheaton College is one of many religious organizations to file suit against the federal government over the policy requiring their insurance companies to provide contraception coverage outside their group policies. But it turns out that Wheaton was already providing what they are objecting to have to provide:
Wheaton College, an evangelical liberal arts school in Illinois, asked a Washington, D.C. federal court on Wednesday for an emergency injunction against the Obama administration’s contraception coverage mandate because the rule forces the school to cover emergency contraception, which it believes causes abortions, or pay immediate fines.
But Wheaton’s health plan already covered emergency contraception when the mandate was announced, a spokesperson for its legal team told The Huffington Post, and tried to scramble to get rid of that coverage in order to qualify for the one-year reprieve President Barack Obama put in place for religious institutions that have moral objections to contraception.
Wheaton says they didn’t know it was covered under their group policy, but it seems to me they should support the new policy because it means they can stop covering it on their group policy but their faculty and students will still have the coverage directly from the insurance companies.
12 comments
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busterggi
August 13, 2012 at 12:16 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Its hypocrisy to stop doing something you’ve done for years just because someone else decides they want you to do it.
More hypocrisy for Jesus.
Modusoperandi
August 13, 2012 at 12:44 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Religious Liberty is the right to not pay to cover other peoples’ ladyparts and to prevent a third party from covering them.
kacyellis
August 13, 2012 at 1:39 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“…a spokesperson for its legal team told The Huffington Post, and tried to scramble to get rid of that coverage in order to qualify for the one-year reprieve President Barack Obama put in place for religious institutions that have moral objections to contraception.”
I’m reminded of “newspeak” in George Orwell’s 1984, trying to change history by covering up documentation.
John Hinkle
August 13, 2012 at 1:41 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Boy, the only way I can compute that is as infantile, unless Weaton really actually did mistakenly offer that contraception. I’m going with infantile.
Zeno
August 13, 2012 at 5:02 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Ditto for the hypocritical Catholic bishops in California and New York who were cooperating with state mandates and then suddenly got their knickers in a bind when it became a federal mandate. “Oh, no! Now it’s immoral!” Mendacious scum.
Crudely Wrott
August 13, 2012 at 11:27 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Left hand, I’d like to introduce you to right hand. I’ll leave you now and suggest that you have a palm to palm talk with one another.
heddle
August 14, 2012 at 3:25 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
busterggi says:
I completely disagree. (Plus you chose the wrong words. You should replace decides they want with is demanding with authority. Without reference to this specific case, my inner-libertarian can certainly appreciate the possibility of strongly rejecting being told I must do A when in fact I already happily do A voluntarily. I go the gym everyday. I would consider it an outrage if a law was passed requiring me to go to the gym every day.
Ichthyic
August 14, 2012 at 4:06 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I completely disagree
that’s because you ARE a hypocrite.
no surprise there.
heddle
August 14, 2012 at 7:08 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Ichthyic #8
Holy crap man. Regardless of your contributions (asssuming they exist) elsewhere, around me you are just a garden-variety troll. An utter embarassment. Other people from pharyngula can engage with me (like KG) but you do nothing except troll. What a loser you are.
=8)-DX
August 14, 2012 at 7:57 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The thing I find odd here is this odd American notion that health insurance (whoever pays for it) is any one else’s business than the person insured, their doctor and the insurance company. But then we have Universal Healthcare over here.
Chiroptera
August 14, 2012 at 8:48 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
=8)-DX, #10:
Yeah, it’s part of that odd American notion of Freedom of Religion, where a religious employer gets to have a say in an employee’s health insurance, even the parts that the employer isn’t paying for directly.
Modusoperandi
August 14, 2012 at 7:38 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Chiroptera and “even when that employee isn’t even the same religion as the employer”.
“Religious liberty” only applies after you rise up high enough to step on the guy below you. Employers get rights. Employees get privileges.