Texas Joins Lawsuit to Challenge Contraceptive Rule
Texas has joined six other states and a handful of Catholic organizations in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a new health care rule approved by the federal government that would require all employers to include coverage for contraceptives in employees' health care benefits.
“Obamacare’s latest mandate tramples the First Amendment’s freedom of religion and compels people of faith to act contrary to their convictions,” Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said in a news release. “The very first amendment to our Constitution was intended to protect against this sort of government intrusion into our religious convictions.”
Gov. Rick ...
Comments (33)
Jen James via Texas Tribune on Facebook
what a dumbass
Emily McCann via Texas Tribune on Facebook
What Jen said.
Ausawm Debbie via Texas Tribune on Facebook
can TX stop spending money on frivolous lawsuits, how about putting that money into the education system that TX Republican felt they needed to cut !
Carolyn Moon via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Frivolous Lawsuit Abbott will sue anything that moves.
Randall Spradley via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Ditto.
Tom Erickson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
So lawsuits are only frivolous when they involve tort reform?
John Z Cavazos via Texas Tribune on Facebook
By treating everyone the same, how can they be infringing or promoting any religion here?? So dumb, so dumb
Bradford Wilson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Freedom of Religion is an individual liberty. Considering 92% of women have used some form of contraceptive, I'm pretty sure that includes those that work at Catholic affiliated hospitals.
Blaze Wynndham via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Maybe the Catholics should just get out of the healthcare business and just tend to their churches.
cal morton
This is such BS, TOTALLY politically motivated, nothing to do with the first amendment... and a further embarrassment to our state and they the Texans they are supposed to be representing. OUT!
Sean Riley via Texas Tribune on Facebook
@Blaze Wynndham: Or...or...or maybe the President should stop playing politics with what should be NOBODY'S business.
And by "nobody", I mean the individual who wants to keep having sex should pay for their own contraceptives out of their OWN pockets, and let the Catholic hospitals take care of the ACTUAL SICK!
Karen Bice via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Fortunately, Texas women still have the right to vote and most of us understand the importance of women's healthcare, especially contraception.
Lee Dunkelberg via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Sounds to me like ED meds should be inextricably linked to birth control medications.
Oh, and Abbott's an ass, no less than that but quite possibly more.
Sunny Conditt Williams via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Anyone who thinks that the Catholic hospitals are not in to make a buck needs to sign in to any of the Setons around, they want your insurance AND the percentage right there. No room for nothing....so if you have an emergency and don't have the cash, you're SOL.....even if you are or aren't a catholic. Never go back there, never, never, never.....
Ed Caffrey via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Gee Sean, could you be any more of a cave man?
Jennifer White via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Some people seem to forget that women have rights to religious freedom and the only trampling is by certain employers trampling their female employees' religious liberties by imposing their own.
Ryan Yanaway via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Hey Sean, it's also about medical conditions, FYI.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlRC0nsjtKQ&feature=g-u-u&context=G2e0eaeaFUAAAAAAAAAA
jpt51
Texas Taxpayers to Abbott: Quit spending money (we don't have) on frivolous lawsuits meant to help you in a future election! It will come back to haunt you.
Audrey Fisher via Texas Tribune on Facebook
In other words: ABBOTT hates women and M/F sex. He also hopes that none of us can read, let alone have affordable healthcare insurance. So while the GOP drone on about terrible budget, how much will they waste on this lawsuit? What if we demanded end to "male drugs" for limpy and demanded that men have Vasectomies and always wear condoms.
Karen Hawkins via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Freedom of religion should be at the individual level. I don't believe the intent was ever to impose religion over the rights of an indivdual person. If freedom of religion gives institutions the right to trample on individual rights, it's time for some freedom from religion instead.
Bryan Goodson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Glad to see the GOP of Texas is keeping with their tradition of being the party of old, rich, white, judgmental males.
Ed Caffrey via Texas Tribune on Facebook
This idea that contraception availability is impinging on religious freedom is a load of hogwash being perpetrated by religious leaders (most of whom are not supposed to have sex) wanting power and those pandering politicians who want to help them. No one is mandating the use of contraceptives, just that they be available within insurance plans for those that want them. Mandating use would impinge on liberty, mandating availability impinges on NOTHING!
Russell Stone via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Churches don't have the right to decide your relationship with your insurance company and what they provide you. If one does not want birth control then don't take birth control. Just my take.
Tim Tukaram Spotswood via Texas Tribune on Facebook
They already have a waiver for the church employees. But if they want to get in the world of business they have to be treated like any other business. that would be seperation of church and state. We can't have the churches making laws.
Celt Glen via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Ah Texas, how fondly I remember why I left.
Stanley Moore via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Pandering to the ill informed. What a dope.
Heidi Zeigler via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Does not.
Cynthia Tannehill Faulk Ryland via Texas Tribune on Facebook
He lies.
Lee Crites
Wow, you just gotta love all the hatefulness here...
What amazes me is how anti-choice the "pro-choice" people become when the potential of the choice is not THEIR "choice!" It just proves that the "pro-choice" movement has never been about "choice."
Organizations should have the freedom to choose their own benefits. The employees have a choice of who to work for, and selecting the ones with the benefits they want is their freedom. That is in a perfect work, where "choice" is truly a freedom we honor and cheris. But the "pro-choice" folks cannot stand it when someone makes a choice that is not in line with them, so they want the government to force that choice on everyone -- which is decidedly ANTI-choice.
You can't have it both ways. You cannot demand choice, while at the same time refusing to allow others to have a choice, simply because what they choose is not in line with your philosophies.
As a died-in-the-wool libertarian, I believe firmly in the freedom of choice -- truly being free to choose, for yourself, without government intervention, and without worry that someone will stomp on you because they didn't like your choice. As a reasonable and sentient being, I recognize the incontrovertible link between choice and accountability.
Hence I understand that you cannot go about hating on folks because they demand freedom of choice, and fight a government that seems hell-bent on taking those freedoms away, and then turn around and pretend to be "pro-choice."
Anya Khan
It is horrifying how hateful the comments here are. Please get out of the democratic party! You people are not part of the problem, you are the problem, Obscenities, lies, you should be ashamed.
Carolyn Price via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I'm a Catholic and I don't beleive the Catholic Church should be required to pay for contraception for employees within the Church's religious functions. BUT when the Catholic Church (or any religious group) enters into the provision of paid-for medical services, legal services or any other area that is a part of commerce - and not religion - I think they need to abide by the laws that affect all other groups competing in that marketplace. They once called this the separation of church and state . . . I hate it that the Republicans are using the doctrine of the Catholic Church to further their own political agenda. Greg Abbott has a tradition of using the law for his own political ends. This is just one more example and will continue until we vote him and his cronies out of office.
Sean Riley via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Who is imposing their will on whom? Obama is demanding that Catholic hospitals provide something that they deem to be immoral, and to do so for free. Your desire to get contraceptives for free does not imply a duty for someone else to give you contraceptives for free.
And all the swipes that the liberals can muster on this thread will not change that plain and objective truth.
Just like a bunch of liberals here to expect everybody else to give them stuff rather than for them to take personal responsibility for their own lives. If you want birth control, why not take care of it yourselves.
And like I said before, let the Catholic hospitals take care of the ACTUAL SICK.
Caitlin Gilchrist via Texas Tribune on Facebook
@Sean: Contraceptives can cost a woman hundreds - if not thousands - of dollars a year. Providing contraception with no copay is not only more economically sound (paying for a pack of pills vs. paying for a child), it promotes healthy families and allows *all* women the ability to plan out their families. And considering that 58% of women on birth control use it for medical - not contraceptive - purposes, it *is* treating the "actual sick."