Imagine picking up your morning newspaper and seeing this among the headlines: A proposed new law in Arizona would give employers the power to require women being prescribed birth control pills provide proof that they’re using it for non-sexual reasons. If that didn’t begin your day with a coffee-spew moment, I don’t know what would. Yes, Virginia, the Arizona Legislature is entertaining a bill that would allow employers to deny their employees coverage for birth control…and claim religious objections as the reason.
So…if you’re a woman and your employer disapproves of your sex life, you could be denied birth control coverage. Even worse, it’s not inconceivable that a woman could be fired.
It’s all about freedom, (Lasko) said, echoing everyone who thinks there’s nothing ironic about claiming that a country that’s “free” allows people’s bosses to dictate what medical care is available to them through insurance. First amendment. The constitution. Rights of religious people to practice the treasured tenets of their faiths, the tenets that dictate that religious people get to tell everyone who is not of faith how they’re supposed to live, and the freedom to have that faith enforced by law.
Even more crazy-making is the rationale put forward by H.B. 2625’s auther, Majority Whip Debbie Lesko (R-Glendale), who’s all about defeating Communism…or something. She insists the the bill is necesary because…wait for it….
[W]e live in America; we don’t live in the Soviet Union.
More astonishing than the invasive nature of this bill (How’s that “small government” thing working out for you?) is that it was authored by a woman. WTF?? Talk about self-loathing and being a willing participant in your own subjugation.
I don’t know; maybe it’s something in the water in Arizona, but these people are nuts.
