Fight for religious freedom: Your Say
Some private businesses owners are asking for an exemption from the Affordable Care Act's contraception mandate because it violates their religious beliefs. Comments from Facebook are edited for clarity and grammar:
People against providing insurance coverage for contraception to employees seem to believe that if you run a business, you should be allowed to force your religious beliefs on your workers. That sounds wrong to me.
— William Travis
The government is the one forcing its beliefs on individuals to violate their conscience. Owners aren't forcing their beliefs on anyone; they just don't want to pay for something that violates their beliefs. Thankfully, the Constitution was built to protect them from that very thing.
— Matt McElheny
The alternative is for the owner not to offer health care insurance, start laying off employees or make almost everyone part-time. There are ways around the mandate, and none of them is pretty.
— Richard Fink
Another alternative is for the owner to offer contraception coverage and consider it like a tax that goes to support an activity you may oppose, such as the Iraq War.
— Doug Larson
A business should be free to decide what benefits to offer employees. An employee is free to find an employer who provides benefits that suits her needs. Both should be free of government coercion.
— Karen Berman
Letter to the editor:
I was disappointed to read your editorial arguing that businesses should be required to pay for health care insurance that includes contraception and the "morning after pill" despite religious beliefs ("Contraception mandate applies to business: Our view").
Human life begins at conception, and for USA TODAY's editorial to argue that it is no big deal that I, as a businessman, should have to pay for a pill that could help end an unborn baby's life, is ludicrous.
The purpose of any kind of insurance is to help us pay for those items that would cause us financial distress if they would occur; for example the loss of a house in a fire, or major surgery, or a trip to the emergency room. Contraception doesn't fit the definition of what insurance ought to cover.
Joe Connors; Monroe, Mich.