Thoughts on the HHS Contraceptive Mandate

It occurs to me that what's really wrong with the contraception-coverage mandate is not only that it's a clear intrusion of the state into the territory of the free exercise of religion in this country. What strikes me also is that first, the state is underwriting the definition of an elective medical option as an absolute healthcare requisite. It's coming down hard, at least, on the side of an existing definition which has not, until now, been required to be universal in practice.

This is a little like declaring rhinoplasty a basic and universal human right, the denial of which, to anyone, at any time, however conditionally, amounts to an injustice. A nose job may in fact be essential to a given person's sense of well-being for perfectly valid reasons;  still, the government's not forcing everyone's employer to pay for it, nor is the fact of having to come up with the cash yourself considered particularly an affront to your rights under the law.

Second, and more important, however, the state is underwriting the definition of pregnancy and childbirth as disease.  It's buying and selling a default position that like smallpox, pregnancy and childbirth are conditions which ought to be prevented, via what amounts to a government-sponsored campaign.We don't quite yet want to stamp out children in the same way that we wanted, in the last century, to stamp out smallpox, but we sure as hell want to put our official state signature to the position that to get landed with a child you didn't specifically ask for ought to feel like a scar. We want any institution which objects to this position to understand that it is inflicting a wound, and that there's no other possible way to think.