Denying women access to birth control makes absolutely no sense.
Leaving aside the issues of economics, personal ethics, women's rights, and other societal matters for those more qualified than I am to discuss (and to be honest, those issues have been discussed ad nauseum already), I am thinking of simply the logic, and my point of view on the matter as a Christian.
I was raised in the church to believe in a compassionate, loving God, who cares for all of his people.
Those who would deny access to birth control to women (in today's economy, refusing insurance coverage IS tantamount to denying access) would have us believe that their version of God works like this: It's okay to access competent medical care for everyone, except for women who might die if they get pregnant, and except for kids who will suffer incredibly if they are subjected to pregnancy and/or birth. Those groups, and those groups alone, are not permitted access to preventative medical care, because God would prefer that they suffer terribly.
We may use our amazing (God-granted) brains and technology to alleviate suffering for diabetes, epilepsy, cancer, ADHD, depression, bacterial infections, surgical interventions, tooth decay, and much much more.
But if a woman has a history of HELLP syndrome that indicates she stands a serious chance of dying in a future pregnancy (and the baby along with her); if the parents have a genetic legacy that will bestow a child with a horrible disease that will result in the painful death of a child shortly before or immediately after birth; or if any of a host of other situations exist that threaten the health or welfare of mother or potential child, our compassionate, caring God, for some reason, wants us to watch this woman and child suffer horribly and possibly die, even though we could have prevented this suffering in the first place, using the brains AND technology he gave us. Everyone, EXCEPT women and babies is permitted to benefit from medical care, but in this case, we make an exception, and feel how noble it is for them to suffer and needlessly die.
With adequate contraception, we can prevent babies who should not have gotten started in the first place from happening, and save the lives of these women. With the benefits of after-conception possibility contraception, we can end a potential pregnancy, sad and tragic as that may be, before the mother is in danger and the child must undergo unnecessary suffering. That sounds like caring and compassion to me, and much more like treating women and babies the same as everyone else.
Some women might be making different choices than I might personally make. I am okay in not judging them. I am not okay with saying, "I can have all the medical care I want. But you . . . you are a special class of human-- one that does not deserve protecting. I want your baby to suffer horribly, so that I can declaim about my compassion and spirituality, even though I don't even know you." To me, that makes no sense at all. It is, in a word, illogical. It is uncompassionate and uncaring. It is not my job to judge. This is not about me charging in to save some healthy baby from a woman I never met. It is about me not charging in to get between a woman I have never met and her doctor, by financially preventing her from making a necessary health care decision.
The God I believe in is compassionate toward everyone-- not everyone except women and children.
