Rep. Darrell Issa Bars Minority Witness, a Woman, on Contraception

There’s a shock. A Republican man stacking the deck against women and birth control issues with an all-male list of witnesses.

I am OUTRAGED at the backwards thinking of the Republicans. They are living in their own bubble, determined to ignore facts, science and the freedom of individual conscience to determine their own needs.

This issue is not about freedom of religion. There is absolutely no violation involved. Employers must all be held to the same standards and religion is not a free pass to do what ever you want. Polygamy was outlawed despite being a tenet of a religious group, because if violated the laws of the country. This is the same thing – religious groups are trying to block women from BASIC healthcare because of a religious belief. They do not have the authority – legally or morally – to do this.

Actually, this is about religious freedom – the right of every person to make her own healthcare decisions, FREE from religious intervention.

Lizzie.. Right why would women be invited they no nothing of freedom of religion and conscience. No need to invite a female law student. Only men have knowedge of the law, religion & conscience but keep being condescending to people with a different point of view. Typical whatever you are.

This is the worst kind of reporting. The objection to the witness had nothing to do with her gender or race, but with the fact she was not a member of the clergy and was not on the witness list. The democrats merely produced her at the last minute to creat the IMPRESSION that the republicans were silencing women. Why is there no integrity in journalism any more?

Lizzie 10:49 am… ms b 11:06 am —— You two are just TOO funny!! —- You read a headline, assume lies are truths, draw your own conclusions… and totally miss the point!! —– Where are women being abused here.. or in the GOP complaint to this typical big-gov push by Democrats??? —- Did you ever ask yourself…. if Sebilious (an appointed person) has so much power to alter the lives of Americans… what will you do when another appointed individual starts really messing with the things YOU care about?? — Obamacare is an Abomination!!!!!!

@ A CYNIC: The misogynist GOP Party? Really?? Isn’t it the Democrat Party that totally turned it’s back on Hilary Clinton, an experienced, highly intelligent woman with actual experience in politics and working in the real world over a, for all intents and purposes, junior senator from Chicago who never ran so much as a lemonade stand for president? You know…. the guy that voted “present” on important issues so as to not leave a trail of responsibility and accountability? Pahleeeeeeze!

The GOP and certain members of religious organisations are trying to frame this as a question of separation of church and state, but the law in question does not force any church to advocate contraception, nor does it make any ruling on one religion over another. All it says is that companies, including religious companies that operate in the secular world, must provide for access of contraceptive drugs, and with the change, even that is not as far as it says the insurance companies must provide them if the organisation has moral objections to such. This is just another hot button issue that the GOP thinks they can use to make a certain section of the population get all fired up about because most people will only listen to the headlines and not really look into the details. I can’t count the number of e-mails i have received from friends and not so friends that are warning me about how the government is taking over religion.

The GOP has become the Taliban.

1) Can’t have women testify about contraception. Only old, white, religious, men.

2) Can’t have women testify about religious freedom (don’t worry your empty little heads, we know what’s best for you)

3)Can’t have women testify about the law (see # 2)

You gals just go back to the kitchen, we’ll decide what’s best.

MICHAEL it mandates the insurance co. to issue them free and who pays for the premium for the church employees??????? Obamas free money???? no’ you and me and all god fearing Americans

Smurfster | February 16, 2012, 12:43 pm post ——- Oh give me a freakin’ break! You think the Democrats are misogynist because they chose Obama over Clinton in 2008? LOL!!! Clearly you don’t understand what a misogynist is. Look at what the REPUBLICANS in Virginia are doing RIGHT NOW. The Republican legislature passed a bill, and the Republican governor is going to sign it, which REQUIRES a 100% medically UN-necessary vaginal penetration ultra sound be performed on EVERY female in the state who seeks a constitutionally-protected abortion. The Republican MEN in the Virginia legislature are FORCING every woman seeking an abortion to undergo this unnecessary and costly procedure before the state will ALLOW them to have an abortion. A Democrat introduced an amendment to the bill that would at least require written consent from the woman first. The Republicans shot down the amendment. No, the Republicans in this country prove every single day that they consider women to be second class citizens whose opinions and feelings mean absolutely nothing.

ROSANNE ——- You said “Our rights to personhood come from God, not MEN.” —— Exactly…. so lets expand that a bit… ALL RIGHTS come from God… the government does not have the right to supplant them!! — So you should agree with me that government has NO right to tell any business, or any insurance company, that they MUST cover certain products that should remain a private decision by adult men and women!! — Shouldn’t that be the right of women to decide… and have the right to pay for their own products with their own hard-earned money?!?!?

Let’s review… 1) Preventive mandate = higher insurance premiums… 2) Child coverage mandate = higher premiums… 3) Birth control mandate = higher premiums… Hmmmm…. so the people will complain to… (drum roll please)… the “greedy” insurance companies for raising rates!!! —– It seems like Obama can’t wait for “single-payer”… so he is trying to put the insurance companies out of business now!!!!!

Jim Rod: The organization still pays the premium except for the contraceptive coverage which gets spread over the rest of the insurance pool and is also offset by the savings from medical conditions that are prevented by contraceptives as well as unwanted births. Additionally, it would reduce the incidents of abortions so you should be happy.Again, it is not mandating that women have to accept the contraceptives, only that if they are needed or wanted, that they be covered.

The Loyal Opposition: Please show me the law called Obamacare. I have looked and I can not find one. I did find the affordable care act, but that doesn’t seem to be the government supplanting the insurance companies for the coverage of the people of the USA. Are you more happy with companies being in control of your health care that you can not even review or having the government regulating the industry so at least a FOIA can be filed to find out what is happening?

Again, this seems to be the usage of heated rhetoric to try to illicit a mindless response rather than any form of discourse.

That’s funny… you never hear the Republicans complain about “separation of Church and State” when the Christmas Tree or Easter Egg hunt go up on the White House lawn…

POSTED BY: REBECCA | FEBRUARY 16, 2012, 1:38 PM

Do you even know the part of the constitution being referred to?

GOP – the new American TALIBAN

So what, this article was written by the Obama campaign?

Is does not matter what we want. The constitution is clear. Has that stopped previous activist SCOTUS decisions from ignoring the constitution and the framers own meaning(s) as those framers expressed in their own words?

“Rep. Cummings accused Issa of creating “conspiracy hearing” and stacking the witness list by refusing to allow women”……Do Dem know how to listen? Issa said THE WOMAN could not speak because she was not a member of the clergy. He did not disallow all women.
Posted by: deanbob | February 16, 2012, 2:00 pm 2:00 pm ……and I suppose that he just could not find one single woman member of the clergy of ANY religion….there are NO female clergy? Really!

The issue is really quite simple. Are the people they are providing insurance for being provided insurance because they are members of the church? Then the organization is a religion and is entitled to religious freedoms. Are the people they are providing insurance for being provided insurance because they are employees? Then the organization is a business and subject to the same rules as any other business. Where does religious freedom stop and individual liberties begin? Should the CDC design bio-suits with dresses instead of pants to accommodate fundamentalist women who cannot wear pants? I’d love to see the design for the space suit NASA is going to design to meet those requirements. Should the Westboro Baptist Church be allowed to start a corporation and ask “Are you a faggot?” on their application? Should it be okay for the Watchtower Society to start a hospital that will refuse to give an infusion of blood, even if it means the victim will die? Yes, churches have “rights”. But businesses have responsibilities. If a church doesn’t want to be responsible to follow all the rules which apply to a business it’s as simple as getting out of business.

Those of you condemning the GOP or Issa over this as misogenist really have no idea what was going on here do you? You just read the headline and comment. Either that or you are intentionally trying to mislead others in order to get this stupid rule enacted. Incidently, in our work place which is exactly 50% women, NONE of the women support the administration on this issue.

So did Media Matters or the Democrats contact ABC “NEWS” and tell them what questions to ask or how to spin this story??? If they do this and you mindlessly repeat what you are told to say then why do we need you to pretend you actually do “investigative” reporting?? Are you content to be a “news reader” who just reads what others have decided is important ??? Are you the type a journalist who believes their job is to repeat what someone else presents as reality rather than researching the facts and drawing your own conclusion???

This is NOT a “women’s rights” issue… it is NOT a “contraception issue”… Bottom line…. It is an attempt by Democrats to SPREAD THE WEALTH!!! —- That is ALL this is… and of course the Dems hope to gain a few votes by taking money from some and giving it to others!!! — That is ALL this is!!!
Posted by: TheLoyalOpposition | February 16, 2012, 11:42 am 11:42 am …. Well Loyal I actually thought for a brief moment that you had a brain but I was wrong….”spreading the wealth” really? If you mean spreading the wealth of freedom FROM religion then I totally agree. This is really NOT about contraception although the GOP is adding it to the mix. It is really about the Constitution. We must not allow one particular religion to dictate what the rest of the country believes in or wants. If we allow ONE particular religion (Catholics) to dictate to us then we open the flood gates to other religions trying to do the same thing for themselves….here come the Burkas.

Seriously now…with all jocularity aside….do you really want ONE religion telling the entire country what we should do? I consider myself not a religious man but a spiritual man. I believe that religions have been created by man to control man. Think about it…when you defy a government you defy a human but when you defy a religion you defy “an all might being” how could smite you. Believe what your heart tells you but know that you have no right to force that belief onto an entire country.

Lay off the ‘quota queen’ comments. Not everything in life evenly stacks up by gender, race and ethnicity. Men have just as much a right to an opinion on contraception and religious freedom. Most of what I see in the REAL world is not evenly distributed. Usually people associate with thier own group and you don’t see this phony blended distribution. People are tribal. Get used to it.

are Democrats/Independents really this gullible???

POSTED BY: WHATHAPPENED08 | FEBRUARY 16, 2012, 3:26 PM

Just look at some of the responses for that answer. Or maybe they are the Woodrow Wilson answer squad?

WIND_569: “Those of you condemning the GOP or Issa over this as misogenist really have no idea what was going on here do you? You just read the headline and comment. Either that or you are intentionally trying to mislead others in order to get this stupid rule enacted. Incidently, in our work place which is exactly 50% women, NONE of the women support the administration on this issue.” – - – This policy WILL NOT FORCE ANYONE TO USE CONTRICEPTION if their consience is against using contraception. This policy is ONLY about giving ALL women with insurance the option of being able to afford to use contraception if her conscience allows it and her insurance provides the coverage. This policy is ONLY about giving women a choice. Either you don’t get it or you are the one intentionally trying to mislead others by distorting the issues here. How does the “supid rule” force you or any other person to go against his or her conscience? How does this “stupid rule” force anyone to go against their conscience specifically by using contraception that he or she does not want to use? If your/their insurance policy covers contraception, but you and the women in your workplace don’t want to use that contraception coverage in the healthcare policy, then don’t friggin use contraception! Conscience clear. Whether or not other women decide to use contraception becaue your/their insurance provides the coverage is none of your friggin business. NOBODY will have to use it if they don’t want to because their consience is against using it. And now with the compromise, religious organizations won’t even have to pay for that provision in their insurance because the policy would make insurance companies responsible to provide the coverage. Having ONLY men testify about an issue that ONLY effects women is sexist and misogynistic. If Issa was not a sexist and misogynistic pig about this issue he could have found plenty of women clergy and women theologians and women philosophy professors to testify on the specific NARROW agenda. It is that simple.

Can the GOP be any more stupid? They’re gonna lose for a very long time. It’s hard to change, especially when you been stuck in a rut. Funny thing is, they think they’re cool & want us to vote for them so we can all be in the rut/ditch with them . It’s time to say ‘No Thank You’ to their insanity & move on. Maybe voting will work this time….usually it’s the lobyist or the supreme court that dictate & make winner which is unconstitutional…’We the people…..”

WHATHAPPENED08: “Democrats can’t use the race card to distract from the facts they want to violate the Constitutionally protected religious freedom so now they are using sexism!!! WOW are Democrats/Independents really this gullible???” – - – Plsease provide a cogent explanation for how this policy violates anyone’s religious freedom. NOBODY whose religious beliefs forbid them from using contraception will have to use contraception if they don’t want to use it. And now religious organizations won’t even have to pay for their insurance policies to provide the coverage. So, how exactly does offering insurance – that includes a provision they don’t have to pay for because they oppose using the provision – violate anyone’s religious freedom? It is up to each individual employee to choose whether or not to use the coverage. Anyone who does not want to take advantage of the contraceptive coverage in their insurance will not have to use it. Conscience clear.

Now if The Democrats and their media counterparts can keep spinning this as a story about contraception rather than violating the Constitutionally protected religious freedom then maybe we can fool the people and they will vote for Obama again!!! I know Obama said he “wouldn’t want his daughters punished with a baby’ so is that how all Democrats think now???

“Of all religions, Christianity is without a doubt the one that should inspire tolerance most, although, up to now, the Christians have been the most intolerant of all men”

39.The United States is a nation of laws, badly written and randomly enforced.

CND FOX: “And if the ‘dinosaurs’ of the religious right don’t like it – let’s take it out of their hands and create a National Health Care Plan. That is the way it should be anyway.” – - – Actually, that is effectively what candidate Clinton and candidate Obama wanted to do originally. Candidate Clinton’s simple proposal was to make it legal for ALL AMERICANS to purchase the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program so they could purchase the FEHBP if they wanted and then make the premiums a tax credit. Candidate Obama wanted to create an identical parallel plan available for ALL AMERICANS to purchase if they want so the FEHBP could stay separate. That way we could have had access to a commercial policy that was available nationally to anyone who wanted it – i.e. universal healthcare through commercial insurance coverage without a government run national health plan. BUT Pelosi would not even allow committees to disucss either option for a long time. Once she finally allowed them to consider it and discuss it she still ignored the idea. That is largely why we really have Pelosicare and not Obamacare. The bill only has in it what Pelosi allowed.

Yes, let’s have national health care like Greece. Oh, yes, the Greeks are having to substantially cut their national health care because they are broke. Guess that has noting to do with us—-for the time being!

“Catholics” do NOT believe contraception is a sin, the Catholic CHURCH says it’s a sin. Over 90% of Catholic women admit to using BC at some point in their lives as do 97% of all women. Now I’ve ALWAYS despised Republicans and THEIR ideas about Government but NOW, well I think that they WILL sink with this latest stand AGAINST Women that goes along with this past year and all the “bills” that the Cons have worked on in Congress that are also against women’s rights. I find these MEN to be despicable in what they’re doing. This is really just this bunch of Republicans KNOWING they couldn’t STILL be complaining about much of what President Obama has done because MOST of it is showing success right now – so what do they do???? Oh yeah, they START a battle about Religion just to try to throw a wrench in the machine. I hope these people go DOWN IN FLAMES in November!!!! They deserve the beating they will get!

M | FEBRUARY 16, 2012, 4:25 PM….”These morons pass the Patriot Act and Defense Authorization Act and I’m supposed to be worried about women being allowed to get contraception could affect some kind of freedom of mine? Losers.”…….These morons simply renewed the Patriot Act. It was another Congress under Dubya that passed the first trampling of our 4th amendment rights.

THEFIRSTONE—if the Canadian health care system is so great then why did their Premier Danny Williams come to the UNITED STATES for his heart surgery??? WOW

interesting that the only country you pick is Greece as it paints a very nice picture for your dim witted GOP’ers who believe like you.

POSTED BY: THEFIRSTONE | FEBRUARY 16, 2012, 4:34 PM

Can’t challenge the fact? A good progressive response(aka attack in Alinski style) !

Exactly what Church would this force to use or pay for contraception? Any church that will be forced to pay the insurance that includes contraception.

So a bunch of old Catholic priests, who covered up pedophilia in their midst for 30 years, are qualified to testify on contraception, morals, conscience, and the law but the women were not.

These Republicons are very sick puppies.

I hope American women remember this come November.

@PERPLEXED: “Men have just as much a right to an opinion on contraception and religious freedom.”
Maybe men can’t help having opinions on women’s health care, but they are not entitled to act upon them. To do so anyway is an act of arrogance. A man cannot truly know the female experience no matter how “smart” he might be.

And nobody’s religion is being suppressed here. This has nothing to do with worship. If the Catholic god can forgive them for other “sins” (such as women speaking in church (Corinthians)), he can forgive them for providing comprehensive health care. It’s hypocritical to pick and choose which parts of the Bible still count. The Bible is not a tool for bullying.

This is NOT a religious freedom issue. It is NOT about the First Amendment. It has NOTHING to do with the Constitution. It is simply a ‘WEDGE ISSUE’ that the GOP utilizes to ‘fire up’ their base and allows (in this case) certain employers to ‘discriminate’ against their own employees.

OK just so the rules are clear? Due to how we value the Quakers and Buddhists freedom of religion in the future either they don’t have to pay taxes that go to war or we won’t go to war? Correct? Because their money has gone for wars for years and that’s completely against their religion.

Oh well! Seems it is back to the coathangers and cloistered monks with dark outfits. No MAN should have a say on the topic.

C’mon ABC we all know this was a faux stunt put on by the lefties trying to replay the page they used in the 90′s. At least they could have put up a credible person at the hearing instead of that whack job Norton. Lets report real issues facing America like the failures of this president with the CBO report today that real unemployment is at 15% or the second wave of foreclosures last month putting thousands of Americans on the streets or Obamas food police that traumatizing that 4 year old child making her eat the school lunch instead of what her mother prepared for her.

And the GOP via Issa (one more time) has stepped in it. I was a Republican for 35 years. I am now an Independent. Trying to decide how to vote (Congress & President) come November…Issa sealed the deal for me, it will not be any Republican.

Gotta smile at all of this. Not sure how the Republicans think this will help them capture the White House. It’s not just women they’re driving away…

What a bunch of right wing hooey! Some of these clowns are naive enough to believe that Issa meant it when he said it was about religious freedom when it really was about contraception. The fact that you fell for that so easily tells me how Pavlovian you people really are! Someone brings up the idea that a woman should be on the panel, Issa lies about the panels purpose in order to get his way, and you buy it without question! Bunch of robots! Obama 2012 ! By the way, I’ve already lived in the 1950′s once, I’d rather not do it again thank you.

Inquisito Haereticae Pravitatis, chaired by Inquisitor Issa, supported by a panel of obvious vermins.There physical appearance alone should be justification for family planning!!

Let individual women working for religious organizations decide for themselves whether or not they want to use their birth control benefits. Christianity is not about religion. It is about an individual’s personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Jesus got rid of ALL the rules and regulations just before he died on the cross and said, “It is finished”.

It is disappointing that there were no women clergy there in general, but this was NOT abt contraception. This is a manufactured outrage to provide cover for Obama mandating away the First Amendment. Women’s ability to obtain contraceptives are NOT a Constitutional right, but freedom of religion from intrusion by the gov’t IS. The DNC has done a great job of crafting a new stick to keep women in line. It used to be Roe v. Wade, and now it is this. What should be of concern is the sideways assault of the Constitution. Today it is the First Amendment. What will it be tomorrow?

So Issa blocked a woman from speaking on contraception.

Like a contraceptive stops an unwanted pregnancy.

So Issa is a freedom contraceptive.

interesting that the only country you pick is Greece as it paints a very nice picture for your dim witted GOP’ers who believe like you.

POSTED BY: THEFIRSTONE | FEBRUARY 16, 2012, 4:34 PM

Can’t challenge the fact? A good progressive response(aka attack in Alinski style) ! Posted by: deanbobd | February 16, 2012, 4:58 pm 4:58 pm…..”Alinski style”……typical conservative you hear this name without knowing anything about what you are talking about. Do you know that REPUBLICANS pay big bucks to be trained in his methods…..what does that tell you? As far as Greece goes they are in a mess but it has nothing to do with their health care system and everything to do with poor management and retirement with full pay at 50.

Politicians and priests…they live in a world of their own. I’ve just got involved with the local city council in my hometown. People are simply amazing. I could never be a politician. It’s not in my DNA. Posted by: newcountryman | February 16, 2012, 5:48 pm 5:48 pm….there is hope for you.

Ask Rep. Issa if he will require Catholic Priests to take salt peter to keep them from raping young men.

Issa’s letter isn’t fooling me. Just because he sends out a letter maintaining the committee is focused on religious freedom doesn’t make it so or doesn’t justify the absence of a woman’s voice. Come on! . In reality, the original mandate that got my Catholic Church and the right in a knot was modeled on existing rules in six states, exempted houses of worship and other religious nonprofits that primarily employ and serve people of faith, and offered employers a transitional period of one year to determine how best to comply with the rule. Conservatives are seeking a way to politically unite Republican voters around a social issue and portray the regulation as a big government intrusion into religious liberties. What Issa and boys should be really discussing is the real issue: how dare the government compel me to do something in such a way that it hampers my ability to force my Catholic beliefs on everyone else. Trust me, the Republicans will lose on this issue. Shame on Issa for shutting out the voice of women who, by the way, outnumber men by 4 million.

Why is anybody in this country still a Republican? Their message is so contradictory and bizarre these days….And now they want to define women’s rights? Nobody is buying it!!!

No wonder the GOP has to resort to redrawing districts, voter fraud and hate mongering- to win an election! They stand for nothing except they hate Obama.

If any woman votes for Romney or Santorum in 2012- check under their skirt…..It’s probably an insecure Republican male under there.

Plain and simple…..Issa is an idiot. Typical of the maile dominated trash politicians in DC.

ZTARBOD: “Part of this discussion is the claim that preventive care reduces health care costs, the basis of the contraception rule. This claim has not been substantiated by health care studies. The claim sells well with the general public but it has no basis in fact” – - – Someone is either increadibly ignorant or increadibly dishonest and is only playing a semantic game with the meaning of “reduces healthcare costs.” For DECADES I have been reading articles about study after study after study that have conclusively shown that for a group – you know, a group, as in more than one person, like, you know, the friggin population of a country – preventative medicine is less expensive in the long-run than corrective medicine. MUCH less expensive. Are there exceptions for some individuals in a large enough group? Sure. But those individual exceptions are exactly that, exceptions to the norm for the group. In short, it is an irrefutable fact that in the long-run preventative care is less expensive than corrective care for large groups because preventative care results in cost avoidance. Cost avoidance is equivalent to reducing health care costs.

After initially hearing about this story and watching the news coverage, I have come to the conclusion that the media and the political parties will take any issue and spin it. We have created a society that demands that the person who yells the loudest will be heard. I have been a moderate republican for most of my life. This is because I hold most closely with the ideology of the right than the left. I can not for the life of me figure out why the decision was made as to who the witnesses where and where not. I can understand the viewpoint that the law student was not allowed to be part of this panel but not why the two women-both from Catholic organizations that provide some form of healthcare-were not invitied to be part of the panel. There needs to be a discussion of this issue, but I do not agree that this panel had anything to do with contraception itself or the ability of woen to get contraception. I believe that the panel hearing was convened to talk about religios organizations being allowed to hold true to their religious beliefs and not be forced to accept the beliefs of others.

I am shaken to the core by what I am hearing. That republicans think they can strip away a womans
right to make choices about her body is because they have by passing these laws. The have changed the laws to adhere to there personal beliefs.. WE are letting them do it when we let them get elected to office. I think we are missing the point the likes of Issa and his ilk are taking our rights as American away . They are breaking or attemping to beak the unions so that none of us will have the RIGHT to collective bargaining. They have there own agenda and it is NOT what in the best interest of the average american , but what serves there own interest. Its suppose to be WE the people , not we the republicans. They do not represent me or my family or my neighbors . We need to send them a message and remind them that they are supposed to work for us. And they are doing a very bad job We should fire them. RECALL REPUBLICANS

Where are the GOP men who are fighting for MY religious freedom, and the fact no religion has the right to impose it’s beliefs on me by denying my access to free preventative care per the law? If a religion doesn’t want to pay for it or offer it, fine. The law says you don’t have to. It also says I get access. Get your religion out of my uterus, since that is a violation of my own personal religious freedom.

Rep. Issa is the gift from Republicans that keeps on giving. Nice political move Rep. Issa. Keep this anit-woman assault going for another couple months. Nice headlines for Republcans in an election year!!

The left is apoplectic when they think conservatives are intruding in the bedroom and when they think religion is overstepping in our schools and government. And yet, they are blind when government takes away a basic freedom protected in the Constitution and one of the reasons we are no longer a colony of England. Anyone see the irony here? Biased reporting again from ABC. What a surprise!

Maybe these men have a concealed carry permit for their vaginas. That must be what qualifies them to say anything at all about birth control.

This hearing could have equally applied to insurance coverage for male contraception. It is only because the current litigation only covered women’s contraception (no free condoms coming..) that this was now being reported as a women’s health issue. The witnesses were there to argue religious freedom, not the merits of contraception devices and the importance to women. Specifically, why should the government be allowed to force a religious organization to fund insurance that will provide service that is in violation of a fundamental tenant of the organization.

And lets not get bogged down with the specifics of this particular hearing. Look at the bigger picture. If this legislation is appropriate, regardless of religious implications, then can we expect government to introduce legislation that forces insurance companies to cover all dental procedures 100% without co-pay, since dental health is critical to overall health? Why this legislation yet allow cutbacks in coverage for mammograms? Ultimately debating how this hearing was handled is more smoke and mirrors designed to keep us from debating the bigger issue of more and more government intervention in how we run our lives.

It is nothing like a Jewish restaurant serving pork. It’s more like employees at a Jewish business buying pork with their meal allowances.

This is not an issue of religious freedom but an issue of women’s rights. Although I think we have much more important issues in this country to discuss other than who pays for what prescription drugs, I do think people should be talking about our rights as women to make our own health decisions and to do so with out judgement, hate and discrimination. Women put up with so much in this WORLD from sexual harassment to sexual assault and THAT is what we should be talking about. As a victim of sexual harassment, I feel strongly about this and am really saddened by this disconnect.