Ann Romney: Housewife extraordinaire....

[lilpixieofterror]

Which leads to the next question: Why stop there?

If the issue is whether or not an employer should be forced to provide insurance coverage for services which violate their religious/moral beliefs, then isn't it shortsighted of us to limit this to the one facet which happens to have the public eye at the moment -- contraception?

Wouldn't it be better to look at the bigger picture regarding the policy?

Of course, I tend to be all about letting people have their religious freedoms as so long as these religious freedoms do not cause harm to others.

[lilpixieofterror]

It's heavily annotated, footnoted, and referenced. If you want to know where the numbers come from, go look! I use Guttmacher because i can check their numbers, and when i check them, they check out.

And I was checking it quote, quite interesting but some of their figures come from the mid 90's or are 'best guesses'.

You're not reading the table correctly, either. Public policy is based on typical use, not perfect use. Abstinence methods have a first year failure rate of over one-in-four, which is frankly abysmal, and worse than any other widely used method of contraception. It's the premise of the standard joke, "What do you call a woman on the rhythm method?"

"Mom."

According to the chart, it was 1 in 4, in typical use, but in perfect use, it was more effective then condoms alone were. Sounds like much of the problem is simply human ignorance. IE women not understanding their natural cycle and men not understanding how their own body works and thus they think they are 'safe', but they are not. With condoms I would venture to guess the problem is not getting the right ones and just picking one off the shelf at random without understanding what they are getting or how to use them. The issue seems to be primarily ignorance and lack of education. I've also read there has been studies that other methods maybe linked to other problems with both men and women.

Now condoms are useful for avoiding STDs if you're sleeping around, but they're relatively ineffective at preventing pregnancy. The pill is quite effective, and fairly cheap if you're a student, or otherwise qualified for the Planned Parenthood sliding scales. (Contrary to what you might have heard, the plurality of Planned Parenthood's work is providing contraception, that is, preventing unintended pregnancies, those responsible for the vast majority of abortions, and hence preventing those abortions.)

And I bet 10 to 1 that the problems with the condom is improper usage.

Attachment 75314

Why do they need abortion services at all?

If you're interested in preventing pregnancy with a high degree of assurance with minimal bother, the only method that comes close to what you'd heard about condoms, i.e. .1 percent, is modern generation (not copper) IUDs.

Thanks, but even the best scales seem to be always saying there is a risk.

[rogue06]

To argue that Rush Limbaugh, a man honored on the House floor in 2001, presented with an honorary membership to the Republican caucus in 1994, consistently labeled the "de facto head of the Republican party" and very clearly a huge political influence in the conservative bloc as unassociated with any of the candidates doesn't pass muster. Each of the recently remaining candidates, Ron Paul excepted, visited Limbaugh to win over his approval. Santorum, visiting Limbaugh's home town last month said, "It’s good to be in the hometown of Rush Limbaugh, which some people see as a trip to Mecca.”

Compare Rosen, whose name was unfamiliar to almost everybody two weeks ago, to Limbaugh, whose popularity or notoriety is nearly as big as his own ego.

Since the White House can dissassociate themselves from Rosen by saying she doesn't currently work for Obama though she is on the DNC payroll (or was at least before her remarks) and apparently was also an adviser to the president during the Obamacare debates (or so the Miami Herald has reported) then I guess it's only fair to note that Limbaugh doesn't (and never has) worked for any of the Republican candidates and unlike Rosen, has never been paid a dime by the RNC or been a White House adviser.

Limbaugh is primarily an entertainer no matter how you slice it. The "de facto head of the Republican party" is something Limbaugh himself has said in order to stroke his own ego though it is usually something repeated by liberals in the media or Democrats (most recently David Axelrod on CNN less than a month ago) who desperately want it to be true. That he has influence is undeniable but that doesn't make him the leader of the Republican party by a long shot.

And while he is definitely associated with the Republicans it isn't the same as being employed by them as is the case of Rosen and the Democrats. That makes for a much closer connection than merely being a supporter since Rosen can actually be tied to the top of the Democrat Party visiting the White House over four times as often as Gen. David Petraeus now the head of the CIA (and nearly three times as often as his predecessor, Leon Panetta who is now the Defense Secretary).

It was a one-off statement; the defense is a separate matter.

Really? In that case I guess you could say that what Limbaugh said was a "one-off statement" and the rest was an elaboration upon it.

Rosen's statement was a one-off statement; she buckled to defense and apology sooner than Limbaugh but there is no serious equation between Rush's three-day attack and a single remark by Rosen.

She "buckled" because she was almost immediately attacked by Democrats like Axelrod since her remarks effectively blew the story that Republicans were waging a war on women way off track. Damage control was immediately in order if they were going to be able to maintain this line.

Interestingly in contrast I don't recall any Republicans getting upset about Limbaugh's apology saying that he was thrown under the bus by the Republican leadership like some Democrats did about Rosen.

Oh, let's not play the apology game when it comes to Limbaugh. His apology lacked any modicum of sincerity, as evidenced by the apology itself and his behavior in the shows afterward. And I'd expect a much more contrite apology for attacking a woman as a "slut," regardless of whether one uses the concrete word or not, than attacking a woman by saying that "she's never worked a day in her life" as a stay-at-home mother. The two offenses are not in any way equatable.

It seems that you have as much difficulty with his or anyone else's disagreeing with the idea that contraception should be paid for by the taxpayers as you do with the things Limbaugh called Fluke. If they don't roll over and agree to fork out the cash then they're just as bad.

And I indicated doubt about Limbaugh's sincerity yet at least he didn't call the controversy his comments raised "phony" and "faux" while issuing the apology as Rosen (I erroneously said Fluke in an earlier post) did.

He didn't offer the typical non-apology heard far too frequently from politicians from both sides which essentially blames the victim for being offended.

And Limbaugh's remarks, as bad as they were, were directed very specifically toward Fluke (While many women use contraceptives most aren't spending anywhere near $3000 for them as Fluke claims she did and it was that claim that brought on Limbaugh's inappropriate comments). Rosen, OTOH, smeared all women who are stay-at-home mothers as never having worked a day in their lives and, perhaps even more insulting, unqualified to comment on "what women really care about."

Again, the irony here is that Romney gets attacked for deciding to stay home and raise the kids whereas Sarah Palin got attacked for not staying at home with the kids.

[Jedidiah]

As I understand it, Sandra Fluke didn't want 'free contraceptives,' rather, she wanted her insurance to cover it.

That would not be free?

Ansgar Seraph pointed out that the most effective forms of contraceptives are expensive. I don't understand how you could have read all his posts in this thread and not made that connection.

That still does not answer my question. How do you get from free (or what ever iteration you choose) contraceptives to "significantly harmed by the high cost of effective health care?"

[Jedidiah]

It's all a bit of poisoning the well though isn't it? I mean, just because she's wealthy and probably had the help of domestics doesn't mean that she is wrong about her opinion on what women are concerned about. One statement that I heard that I did feel was fair though, was this, "Mrs. Romney made the choice to stay home and raise her kids, whatever that looked like. And she should not be judged because of that and probably she should be praised for it. However, it is nice to have the choice, isn't it?" The point being that most of us just don't have the luxury of such a choice.

I do remember many of the same things being said by the GOP pundits about the Kerry's when Kerry was running back in the day. Especially about his wife. There were also comments made, and still being made, about the Obama's (whose net worth while still formidable is dwarfed by the likes of Kerry and Romney.) And of course it went the other way when Dems were talking about Palin. I guess it all depends on whose bull is getting gored, as usual.

The lesson? We should all just mind our own business where such things are concerned. If a candidate says something wrong point it out, but leave the hypocritical pretense that we hold candidates and their families to some universal standard out of it.

Come on. We all know that driving a truck for 30 years would make for a better economics adviser than raising children. We also know that being rich makes you stupid.

[Ansgar Seraph]

Since the White House can dissassociate themselves from Rosen by saying she doesn't currently work for Obama though she is on the DNC payroll (or was at least before her remarks) and apparently was also an adviser to the president during the Obamacare debates (or so the Miami Herald has reported) then I guess it's only fair to note that Limbaugh doesn't (and never has) worked for any of the Republican candidates and unlike Rosen, has never been paid a dime by the RNC or been a White House adviser.

Limbaugh is primarily an entertainer no matter how you slice it. The "de facto head of the Republican party" is something Limbaugh himself has said in order to stroke his own ego though it is usually something repeated by liberals in the media or Democrats (most recently David Axelrod on CNN less than a month ago) who desperately want it to be true. That he has influence is undeniable but that doesn't make him the leader of the Republican party by a long shot.

And while he is definitely associated with the Republicans it isn't the same as being employed by them as is the case of Rosen and the Democrats. That makes for a much closer connection than merely being a supporter since Rosen can actually be tied to the top of the Democrat Party visiting the White House over four times as often as Gen. David Petraeus now the head of the CIA (and nearly three times as often as his predecessor, Leon Panetta who is now the Defense Secretary).

I think you can ask yourself two questions to help make sense of this: how familiar was the average person with the name Hillary Rosen before last week? How familiar was the average person with the name Rush Limbaugh for the last decade? It's seriously implausible to me that there is any legitimacy to downplaying Limbaugh's voice among Republicans whilst amplifying Rosen's among Democrats. It's an exercise in silliness, in my opinion.

Really? In that case I guess you could say that what Limbaugh said was a "one-off statement" and the rest was an elaboration upon it.

Oh, I do hate it when folks trim out a good part of my thought and respond to a single bit!

And no, you really couldn't. If you go back and read the transcripts, Rush had quite a few angles of attack regarding Ms. Fluke and went at her aggressively from Wednesday, Feb. 29 to Friday, March 2. Whereas Rosen made a single statement and later defended that statement, Limbaugh spent three 3-hour radio shows peppering attacks against Sandra Fluke. There is no equivalency to be had here, Rogue, and it's boring having to parse through such simple material.

She "buckled" because she was almost immediately attacked by Democrats like Axelrod since her remarks effectively blew the story that Republicans were waging a war on women way off track. Damage control was immediately in order if they were going to be able to maintain this line.

Interestingly in contrast I don't recall any Republicans getting upset about Limbaugh's apology saying that he was thrown under the bus by the Republican leadership like some Democrats did about Rosen.

Again, I implore you to remember the the scope of the respective statements. Are you prepared to argue that demeaning someone for being unfit to give economic advice because she "never working a day in her life" is on anywhere near the same level as calling a woman a slut and a prostitute because she wants her insurance to cover contraceptive services?

I submit that the two attacks are clearly on two vastly different levels and I don't think that it's particularly serious to equate them.

It seems that you have as much difficulty with his or anyone else's disagreeing with the idea that contraception should be paid for by the taxpayers as you do with the things Limbaugh called Fluke. If they don't roll over and agree to fork out the cash then they're just as bad.

Well, I'd like you to back that allegation up, Rogue. Show me a place where I've treated anyone on this board who has disagreed with me regarding contraception with the same utter contempt I have toward Limbaugh. I think, contrary to your assertion, I've been incredibly reasonable and civil with people who have expressed contrary opinions, even when I feel that they are being silly.

And I indicated doubt about Limbaugh's sincerity yet at least he didn't call the controversy his comments raised "phony" and "faux" while issuing the apology as Rosen (I erroneously said Fluke in an earlier post) did.

He didn't offer the typical non-apology heard far too frequently from politicians from both sides which essentially blames the victim for being offended.

Oh, no; he did do that. He blamed the angry calls to his advertisers as phony, he criticized the debacle as fake outrage, he gave the usual "demonize the liberals" talks that are characteristic of him. He laid low for about two days after his apology before he was back up to speed, painting the past week as ginned-up attacks on the "lovable little fuzzball." An excerpt from March 2:

The Rush Limbaugh Show, March 2

Yeah, I know. Snerdley, I told you, "This is gonna be bigger than the phony soldiers," and he didn't think it was. I said, "Oh, it's gonna be ten times bigger. This is gonna be ten times bigger than the phony soldiers, ten times bigger than the Michael J. Fox thing, 'cause the Democrats are desperate." The Democrats are desperate, and I don’t know why they want people... Well, I do know why they want people to fear me. This is all they've got, is to go out and try to discredit their critics, to impugn and discredit the people who disagree with them. Because there's no way, if we actually sat down and had a debate about this proposition, anybody on the left can win this. Not in a sane world where there is common sense.

© source where applicable

And Limbaugh's remarks, as bad as they were, were directed very specifically toward Fluke (While many women use contraceptives most aren't spending anywhere near $3000 for them as Fluke claims she did and it was that claim that brought on Limbaugh's inappropriate comments). Rosen, OTOH, smeared all women who are stay-at-home mothers as never having worked a day in their lives and, perhaps even more insulting, unqualified to comment on "what women really care about."

Come on, Rogue! Where did Rosen generalize her attack against Ann Romney? From what I have read, she never made any sort of move to generalize her statement past Romney. Conversely, Limbaugh's attacks weren't specific to Fluke; she was the figurehead but he spent plenty of effort generalizing the supposed behavior:

Ibid.

And thus, a new welfare entitlement must be created so that society will pay for it. You know, somebody asked me, "Why are you so insulting?" Me? Can anybody understand that a whole lot of us are insulted by this? Here we are, we're minding our business one day. We're bothering nobody. We can't anyway! We can't inspect your kids' lunch box. We can't raise your taxes. We can't send your kids off to war. We can't make you buy a certain kind of car. We can't do anything. And all of a sudden we're told that people who want to have sex without consequence, sex with no responsibility, and we have pay for it! We're told we have to pay for it -- and if we object, that somehow we're Neanderthal. Just out of nowhere this comes up.

Now, that, to me, is insulting.

It's no different than if somebody that I don't know knocked on my door and said, "You know what? I'm outta money. I can't afford birth control pills and I'm supposed to have sex with three guys tonight."

"Well, why are you coming to me?"

"Well, because you've got the money."

"Well, have you ever thought maybe you shouldn't? If you can't afford it, you can't do it."

Where is it written that all of a sudden, if you want something and don't have the money for it, somebody else has to pay for it. I think the whole notion of being insulted here is misplaced. There are a lot of us insulted by this whole idea that is growing throughout the Obama administration, that the people who make this country work are somehow not doing their fair share. Not paying their fair share. We've gotta be punished even more. And here's the latest example of it.

© source where applicable

Limbaugh was very keen on generalizing this behavior to more people than just Ms. Fluke.

Again, the irony here is that Romney gets attacked for deciding to stay home and raise the kids whereas Sarah Palin got attacked for not staying at home with the kids.

I agree with you that both attacks are wildly inappropriate but now you're going from finding equivalence between Limbaugh and Rosen to introducing Palin. I don't see what she has to do with the comparison you are defending.

—Sam

[Nathan Poe]

Of course, I tend to be all about letting people have their religious freedoms as so long as these religious freedoms do not cause harm to others.

Which is the crux of the contraception issue -- does it cause harm to others? Some say yes, some say no...

But the issue here is the legal compromise, not what you or I are about. And the compromise, as I currently understand it, and correct me if I'm wrong (not that I have to tell you ;) ) is that an employer can refuse to provide insurance to their employees for any medical procedure which violates his/her personal religious beliefs.

That sound accurate?

[Nathan Poe]

That would not be free?

It's not free if you're paying for your insurance -- and even if your insurance is through your employment, it's still being deducted from your paycheck.

[lao tzu]

It seems that you have as much difficulty with his or anyone else's disagreeing with the idea that contraception should be paid for by the taxpayers as you do with the things Limbaugh called Fluke. If they don't roll over and agree to fork out the cash then they're just as bad.

Great argument, apart from the sign error, which kind of crucifies your partisan spin on it. Childbirth and its complications are far more expensive than contraception. As you were saying then, why should anyone other than a Catholic have to pay for the Catholic church's religious practices? They've got billions to pay off the victims of their priests, surely they don't need our help covering the extra expense of denying contraceptive services.

And you really should watch Fluke's testimony before making any more excuses for Rush. It's patently obvious he never did. His presentation of her testimony, even aside from the shock jock excesses into "slut" and "prostitute," was crafted from whole cloth. There was no connection between his comments and her testimony. Rush, as we all know, cast her testimony as revolving around her own personal sexual behavior, and who should pay for it.

In fact, this has nothing to do with taxpayers. Fluke spoke of insurance coverage paid for by the students, unsubsidized by any organization or government, as is true for all of these quasi-religious organizations. Georgetown's participation ended with choosing the insurance company and its coverage. Well, that and interrogating female students on their need for contraception, in the process either delaying or arbitrarily blocking access to students being treated for diseases ranging from endometriosis to polycystic ovary syndrome, too often with severe consequences. These were the cases covered in Fluke's testimony. This was the substance of her remarks.

Don't forget how she came to be there. The forum was set up to compensate for the absence of any spokesperson for women's health before the full committee, in a discussion on a health care bill. The Republican majority denied a request for two speakers for the opposition, insisting on only one, and then proceeded to reject that one, reject the appeal, and then deny any use of house resources to record the proceedings. You've intimated a conspiracy to minimize Ann Romney, led by Obama? Here's the real thing, a conspiracy to silence and vilify Sandra Fluke, led by Republican leadership, carried out by Issa, and joined by Rush. This is what a war on women looks like, and it's not pretty.

Fluke was representing 99 percent of all women in the US in lobbying for contraceptive coverage as part of women's health insurance.

"Oops."

As ever, Jesse

[lilpixieofterror]

Which is the crux of the contraception issue -- does it cause harm to others? Some say yes, some say no...

But the issue here is the legal compromise, not what you or I are about. And the compromise, as I currently understand it, and correct me if I'm wrong (not that I have to tell you ;) ) is that an employer can refuse to provide insurance to their employees for any medical procedure which violates his/her personal religious beliefs.

That sound accurate?

Not sure, I'm a federal employee and don't really have these issues. However; having sex is always something you can not do and there is several birth control options out there. It is not like an issue that affects the treatment of a disease or condition that is not normal. Pregnancy is quite a number condition.

[Ansgar Seraph]

But if it is all about protection, what is the most important one there is?

Protection from what? The push to get contraceptive services included in insurance policies isn't about protection from STDs; rather, it's about protection from unwanted pregnancy.

I know I've heard about a dozen and they all have different risk. I personally wouldn't want some of this stuff just by hearing the possible things that can go wrong kind of makes me nervous right there.

And this is a good argument against those who claim that women can pick up generic birth control pills for $4 a month. It's not that easy and many drugs are contraindicated for a good number of people. Often enough, women aren't able to benefit from cheap generic drugs and then the cost of birth control really goes through the roof without insurance.

It's still a surgery and it still carries risk.

I'll concede here, since the analogy carries more risk than a transvaginal ultrasound but my point remains, I think. I could easily construe another analogy without the first's faults: if a smoker came into a hospital for an elective surgery, would it be acceptable to force her to undergo an MRI of the lungs?

And the question is rather or not easy access to contraceptives are preventative medicine or not. What are they preventing in terms of disease? The only one that really prevents any disease is a condom and I know they are not that expensive if you want the fancy stuff or that hard to come by if you want free ones. In the strictest sense of the word, pregnancy is the natural cycle that results from sex and I know many religious groups tend to believe that as being one of the reasons contraceptives are wrong. They prevent this natural cycle, I kind of think they are wrong since medicine in general could vaguely be connected that way, but I don't see their views as seriously hurting people and it isn't as though most of them are trying to force others to agree with them. I know where I live the Catholic hospitals will not allow their hospital to be used for any contraceptive service in a non-life saving measure, that is their right, but it is not as though I could go down the street to the non-religious affiliated hospital and have it done. I do not think forcing them to provide this service is right and when there are other places to go, it makes it even more wrong.

Yes, contraceptives are preventative medicine. Such medical care is not about preventing a specific disease or set of diseases before they begin but rather creating individual and community wellness through accessible activity and care. Vitamins are preventative medicine, as is exercise. If one wanted to be pedantic, she could note that birth control reduces maternal and infant morbidity, childhood health problems and infant mortality. But I'd rather everyone was on the same page that preventive medicine is about wellness, not disease.

Regarding the Catholic hospitals not forcing their moral praxis on others, I would argue that this is exactly what they are doing to their employees. If you want to work at a Catholic hospital, you should not be asked to forego affordable access to contraceptive care. The hospital itself can choose to not provide such care but the insurance company need not abide by their clients' moral prohibition if it causes damage to the employees.

Unless they are willing to increase their over head cost to have their services 100% separate in all aspects, the skepticism seems to be rather warranted. Besides, what good medical service do abortions provide? In most cases, it is the taking of a life, not the saving of a life.

It may be a justified intuition but I'd say that it's a long way from being warranted. You would have to show that actual cost-sharing is taking place, not merely that some equipment was being used by for both abortion services and "main" use. In other words, you'd have to show that the equipment would not have been purchased otherwise. But this is purely conjectural, at the moment. I would be interested to learn the results of your research if you choose to investigate it.

I read the links you gave me and I do not see it that strongly there. You need a sample of a man and a women, with the same career, the same degree (from the same school cause I'm sure you know not all degrees are cut the same), the same experience level, the same company, same living area etc to really be able to prove this and you would need several samples. This kind of specific data is hard to get cause I can only think of a hand full of cases where this would really work.

I do apologize; I had thought that I included a link to the actual report but, looking back, I see that I forgot to link that bit. Here is the report; wage inequality begins to be discussed on pg. 61. It goes for quite some time so you should find something of use in the studies that are referenced.

Any road, we don't need exactly identical data with only the variable of gender in order to determine whether or not wage discrimination still exists; that's bordering on the perfectionism fallacy, I think. If you have a consensus among separate studies indicating that wage discrimination is still a statistically significant problem, it becomes implausible to believe otherwise without equally detailed studies showing the opposite conclusion.

You have over 3,000 post and have been here years, so yes you do.

Wow . . . I'd say that this means I've arrived but Jorge never puts me on any of his lists anymore!

—Sam

[Nathan Poe]

Not sure, I'm a federal employee and don't really have these issues.

Not yet -- hopefully not ever.

However; having sex is always something you can not do and there is several birth control options out there. It is not like an issue that affects the treatment of a disease or condition that is not normal. Pregnancy is quite a number condition.

But again, that's not what the law says -- the issue is focused on the religious/moral beliefs of your employer -- you're just lucky that the feds wouldn't dare hold themselves to the same standard they hold the rest of us peons to.

[Ansgar Seraph]

That would not be free?

Generally, not. What Fluke and others were calling for was that their insurance policies cover contracteptive services so that 100% of the cost is not on the individual. Insurance will often pick up the cost for some drugs (co-pay sometimes required) but for the more expensive or on-patent drugs, insurance will only cover a certain percentage.

That still does not answer my question. How do you get from free (or what ever iteration you choose) contraceptives to "significantly harmed by the high cost of effective health care?"

The concept of free contraceptive services was a conflation by O'Reilly; he conflated Fluke's testimony with the Obama administration's compromise with RCC institutions. Fluke wasn't asking for free contraceptives. The administration compromised by requiring insurance companies to provide contraception services for free because charging for them would be charging the client (the RCC institution) for contraceptive services. The government knows, from studies and real-world experience with its own programs, that insurance companies will actually save money by providing such care for free so it's a solution that negatively affects no one.

In short, O'Reilly's rhetorical questions were canards.

—Sam

[Darth Executor]

Great argument, apart from the sign error, which kind of crucifies your partisan spin on it. Childbirth and its complications are far more expensive than contraception. As you were saying then, why should anyone other than a Catholic have to pay for the Catholic church's religious practices?

The Catholic Church doesn't have to pay anything because it (and any other employee) does not owe them any insurance in the first place. Liberals OTOH do, since you all proclaim your love for the "downtrotten" from the rooftops, so here's a much better idea: public option, raise taxes for all liberals making a certain amount (40k/year per person sounds reasonable, with further deductions for emergency expenses) to 90-99% depending on income to pay for it. Warren Buffet, John Kerry and every other hypocritical liberal piece of crap sitting on mountains of money while demanding everybody else pay for their ideals can be nudged by the state to follow the right path with some supporting help from your wallet. Problem solved.

[lilpixieofterror]

Protection from what? The push to get contraceptive services included in insurance policies isn't about protection from STDs; rather, it's about protection from unwanted pregnancy.

Pregnancy is a natural results of sex. You can do things to make it harder to get pregnant, but unless you are willing to go though some sort of operation to basically rip part of your insides out or you happen to have a rare condition that prevents it. There will always be a chance. No way to really avoid it.

And this is a good argument against those who claim that women can pick up generic birth control pills for $4 a month. It's not that easy and many drugs are contraindicated for a good number of people. Often enough, women aren't able to benefit from cheap generic drugs and then the cost of birth control really goes through the roof without insurance.

And what are those cost? I have seen this, but I have seen zero numbers that say this and from the numbers I can find from my favorite taoist link. 9 out of 10 company insurance plans, cover the pill, all federal employees are covered, and millions can get it from groups like family planning. I do not think it is as big of an issue as it is being made out to be. It seems most insured people are covered.

I'll concede here, since the analogy carries more risk than a transvaginal ultrasound but my point remains, I think. I could easily construe another analogy without the first's faults: if a smoker came into a hospital for an elective surgery, would it be acceptable to force her to undergo an MRI of the lungs?

Smoking is extremely stupid and dangerous and I doubt nobody knows the risk that goes with smoking plus you're just endangering yourself. An abortion is about killing an unborn child and ending the life of another. I think abortion is a little more serious since it's about somebody making a conscious choice to end the life of another person.

Yes, contraceptives are preventative medicine. Such medical care is not about preventing a specific disease or set of diseases before they begin but rather creating individual and community wellness through accessible activity and care. Vitamins are preventative medicine, as is exercise. If one wanted to be pedantic, she could note that birth control reduces maternal and infant morbidity, childhood health problems and infant mortality. But I'd rather everyone was on the same page that preventive medicine is about wellness, not disease.

You do not have to have sex and sexual intercourse leads to pregnancy, it's the natural course of human development so I really do not see how it could be classified as preventative medicine since the body is suppose to do that. Vitamins and exercise are a requirement for human life and if you do not get that, you die or get very sick. A totally different level. Finally, with the modern day systems we have in place, it should be very rare to have these problems anymore. Bottom line is that nobody has to have sex to live, you need vitamins and exercise to live, but it doesn't mean that my insurance plan needs to buy my daily vitamin's nor do they need to pay for a gym membership.

Regarding the Catholic hospitals not forcing their moral praxis on others, I would argue that this is exactly what they are doing to their employees. If you want to work at a Catholic hospital, you should not be asked to forego affordable access to contraceptive care. The hospital itself can choose to not provide such care but the insurance company need not abide by their clients' moral prohibition if it causes damage to the employees.

Like I said, nobody has to have sex, it is a choice I make and I know. I have been married for closer to two years now. We make the choice, we know what can happen, it is the biological function of sexual intercourse.

It may be a justified intuition but I'd say that it's a long way from being warranted. You would have to show that actual cost-sharing is taking place, not merely that some equipment was being used by for both abortion services and "main" use. In other words, you'd have to show that the equipment would not have been purchased otherwise. But this is purely conjectural, at the moment. I would be interested to learn the results of your research if you choose to investigate it.

I see no reason to assume that Planned Parenthood is not going to use the same support functions for all its services because to provide a 100% separate support system raises over all over head cost and isn't productive. I wouldn't do that unless I specifically wanted it as a selling point to point out that X service is 100% separate from Y service. Since I do not see them making advertisements about that fact, is there any sort of reason to assume otherwise?

I do apologize; I had thought that I included a link to the actual report but, looking back, I see that I forgot to link that bit. Here is the report; wage inequality begins to be discussed on pg. 61. It goes for quite some time so you should find something of use in the studies that are referenced.

Not a problem, but I want to sleep soon so I'll have to check later.

Any road, we don't need exactly identical data with only the variable of gender in order to determine whether or not wage discrimination still exists; that's bordering on the perfectionism fallacy, I think. If you have a consensus among separate studies indicating that wage discrimination is still a statistically significant problem, it becomes implausible to believe otherwise without equally detailed studies showing the opposite conclusion.

Sure you need quite accurate understands because we are all different and hold different experience levels, degrees, etc. One of the best plastic surgeons in the world is going to make far more then Jody that just started her practice up. I also know not all degrees are made the same and I know experience levels across the board are huge. There needs to be a lot of data to prove that X company is being gender bias. Might be one of the reasons neither the federal nor state governments have made much moves to catch this. They believe they do not have a powerful enough case yet because if they did, would they move in for the kill? If I was Obama and I wanted to gain some women votes, I would try to hang some companies out to dry that I thought my attorney general could hang out to dry and with much of the media focus looking at the opinion of women, it would be a pretty powerful chip come November.

Wow . . . I'd say that this means I've arrived but Jorge never puts me on any of his lists anymore!

Getting on Jorge's list is easy, just call him out and point out his scientific errors.