Letter: Birth-control $$ and religion
President Barack Obama, accompanied by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announces the revamp of his contraception policy requiring religious institutions to fully pay for birth control, Friday, Feb. 10, 2012, in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) Credit: AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais
I am a registered Democrat, a 50-year-old woman, and a Christian in the Catholic tradition. I can find no excuse for the Obama administration's attempt to strong-arm religious institutions into providing contraception. There is absolutely no distinction between churches paying for these services directly or forcing them to include it in their insurance contracts. Such a violation sets a frightening precedent. Will church-related agencies be required to include abortions or assisted suicide should they become more acceptable?
We do not require the same type of contraceptive education in Catholic schools that we do in public schools. I resent the political smoke-and-mirrors attempt to persuade the public into thinking that without this one aspect of the provision, women will be oppressed and the poor will be thrown under the bus.
Related to this is the absurdity of referring to reproductive issues as women's issues. These are moral issues. Feminists, of which I consider myself one, have not evolved enough to raise the moral expectations we have of men regarding sexuality and pregnancy.
Eileen Duffy Doyle, Manhasset
Regarding your headline, "Looking for logic in birth-control issue" [Letters, Feb. 22], like all the rest of the mainstream media, Newsday marches in liberal pro-Barack Obama lockstep, trying to reframe this as a birth-control issue instead of what it really is: an assault by the Obama administration on religious freedom.
The Catholic Church and other religious organizations that agree with the church are not trying to force their religious beliefs on others. They only want to stop the Obama administration from forcing them to violate those beliefs.
Nancy Buonora, Islandia
