Alaska Democrat Sen. Mark Begich has an editorial on the Hobby Lobby decision in today’s Juneau Empire.
You won’t be surprised that Begich precisely apes the Democrats’ dishonest talking points on the case completely. His editorial is entirely devoid of any originality or independence from the Obama orthodoxy.
Talking point #1: Gender renders the court’s decision illegitimate.
In late June, a narrow majority of five male justices issued an opinion in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. and Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Burwell, in which for-profit companies challenged the guarantee that women receive health insurance coverage of birth control of her choice without cost-sharing.
The Democrats’ consistent slamming of the SCOTUS majority is sexist and anti-male.
Talking point #2: Letting some Americans who own closely-held corporations set their own insurance policies somehow constitutes putting government into your healthcare.
As Alaskans, we don’t want the government intruding into our lives and telling us how to make personal decisions. Bosses should not be able to dictate family planning and birth control options for Alaska women.
The kindest response to that is that it is total BS. Obamacare is one, gigantic and permanent government intrusion into Americans’ personal healthcare decisions, which includes millions of ways that government intrudes on personal healthcare decisions. Begich voted for all of that and continues to support it. The abortifacient mandate was created under Obamacare. The above talking point is dishonesty from end to end.
Talking point #3: Choosing not to fund 4 of 20 kinds of contraception somehow constitutes “discrimination.”
That is why I recently cosponsored the Protect Women’s Health from Corporate Interference Act, also known as the Not My Boss’ Business Act. The bill makes it illegal for any company to deny its workers specific health benefits, including birth control, required to be covered by federal law.
This makes it clear that bosses cannot discriminate against their female workers, ensuring equal treatment under the law. This bill was recently blocked from moving forward on the Senate floor, but I remain undeterred in my efforts to ensure women have the right to choose the birth control and reproductive care options that are best for them.
It simply is not “discrimination” in any way, shape or form. The mandate can be seen as discrimination against Americans who oppose abortion. But a company choosing not to pay for a particular kind of controversial abortifacient drug is not discrimination.
The real reason Begich supports that bill, which has no chance of passing, is because the Democrat base is fired up by it as a wedge issue. The Democrats, including Begich, are using bedrock religious and property rights as a wedge issue for the mid-terms. That’s how little the Democrats as a party consider those fundamental rights. They put those rights up for grabs for the sake of trying to hold onto the Senate.
Begich also supports a bill that would discriminate against religious people who own businesses, and object to abortifacient drugs.
In an effort to make sure women are informed about their employer’s stand on this issue, I am the lead co-sponsor of The Preventive Care Coverage Notification Act. It ensures that current employees and job applicants at for-profit corporations are informed in advance if the corporation intends to deny birth control coverage.
Again, even Hobby Lobby is not “denying birth control coverage.” It objects to paying for four abortifacient drugs. It does cover 16 types of contraception.
The rest of Begich’s piece just rehashes the Democrats’ other talking points against the Hobby Lobby decision.
The Obamacare bill would not have passed if the abortifacient mandate had been included when it was up for consideration. The Obama administration wrote it into regulations after passage. It’s a regulation that can be unwritten at any time. But it’s clear that the mandate’s purpose all along was to generate a phony “war on women” when anyone objected to the mandate, and it’s clear now that it’s a phony issue built to stir up the hard left, anti-religious Democrat base and its ill-informed hangers on.
And dishonest Washington partisans like Mark Begich.
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